Thursday 20th February, 2025

Yesterday’s shooting incident inside a court at Hulftsdorp, Colombo, must have sent a chill down the spine of every law-abiding citizen. A gunman, disguised as a lawyer, shot a suspect named Sanjeewa Kumara alias Ganemulla Sanjeewa, despite a heavy police presence at the court complex. What the underworld attack inside a heavily guarded court and the ease with which it was carried out signify is the growing vulnerability of the public vis-a-vis the rise of the underworld. Hardly a day passes without underworld attacks being reported.

Yesterday’s courtroom killing was however not unprecedented. An underworld figure called Dhammika Amerasinghe was killed inside the Colombo Magistrate’s court in January 2004. The assassin posed as a law student. An upright judge also died at the hands of an underworld hitman in November 2004. High Court Judge Sarath Ambepitya and his police bodyguard were gunned down in front of his residence in Colombo 07. The underworld proved its ability to strike at will again in February 2017, when a gang attacked a prison bus in Kalutara, killing five inmates and two prison officers.

The JVP-led NPP came to power, vowing to neutralise the netherworld of crime and narcotics in less than two ‘lunar months’. But that pledge has gone unfulfilled. A staccato burst of queries from a group of hectoring reporters on the courtroom shooting left Deputy Minister of Public Security Sunil Watagala almost speechless at Hulftsdorp yesterday. Cabinet Spokesman and Minister Nalinda Jayatissa told Parliament that the government would do everything in its power to neutralise criminal gangs. It is everyone’s fervent wish that the government will succeed in its endeavour.

It was reported yesterday that a police constable who fled the country in 2023 after aiding and abetting an abortive underworld bid to raid the CID headquarters and extract a drug baron, known as Harakkata, had been arrested in India. The suspect tried to poison a group of police personnel. The police have revealed that the gang that sought to spring Harakkata free had even hired several serving commandos. Such is the power of the underworld, which is awash with arms and money. It is against this backdrop that threat assessments and VIP security under the incumbent administration should be viewed.

Former Public Security Minister Tiran Alles continues to have STF protection in view of underworld threats to his life, according to media reports, but security provided to former President and Commander-in-Chief, Mahinda Rajapaksa, under whose watch the LTTE’s military wing was defeated has been reduced drastically.

It is doubtful whether all LTTE combatants who surrendered or were captured underwent proper rehabilitation before being released. Not all LTTE military wing members were killed or captured. On 15 May 2022, The Hindu reported that the Indian intelligence agencies had ‘warned of erstwhile cadre of the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam regrouping to launch attacks in Sri Lanka, as the country is embroiled in a deep economic and political crisis’. In December 2024, the Indian media reported that the government of India had submitted before a Delhi High Court tribunal that ‘even after its military defeat in May 2009 in Sri Lanka, the LTTE has not abandoned the concept of ‘Eelam’ and has been clandestinely working towards the cause … and the remaining LTTE leaders or cadres have also initiated efforts to regroup the scattered activists and resurrect the outfit locally and internationally’. The tribunal declared that it was of the opinion that ‘there is sufficient and cogent material on record for declaring the LTTE an unlawful association. Hence the need for former Sri Lankan Presidents and military commanders who were instrumental in defeating the LTTE to be protected by elite forces.

Meanwhile, the UK is reported to have warned that the possibility of terror attacks in Sri Lanka cannot be ruled out. Foreign travel advisories may pertain to popular tourist destinations in Sri Lanka, but the focus of a strategy to meet such threats must be on the entire country.

The rise of the underworld is not a recent phenomenon. It has happened over the years under successive governments. The NPP made the mistake of underestimating the power of organised criminal groups and pledging to wipe them out in about two months. Some of the former military and police officers in its ranks may have misled the NPP into believing that eliminating organised crime would be a walk in the park. Understanding a problem properly is half the battle in solving it.

One can only hope that the government will stop believing in its own rhetoric, make a thorough study of the complex issues related to public security and defence and redouble its efforts to make the country safe for one and all. It would be a mistake for the government to play politics with VIP security, as its predecessors did.

Wednesday 19th February, 2025

Several MPs, representing both sides of the House, were at their oratorical best, defending media freedom and people’s franchise, during Monday’s parliamentary debate on the Local Government Elections (Special Provisions) Bill, which was passed. The government members lashed out at their Opposition counterparts for having postponed elections, and not to be outdone, the latter tore into the former. Prominent among the debaters were SLPP MP Namal Rajapaksa and NPP MP and Leader of the House Bimal Ratnayake. Namal shed copious tears for the media, which, he said, was facing threats. Bimal accused the Opposition, especially the SLPP, of having postponed elections for political reasons.

A cursory look at the history of the self-proclaimed defenders of the media and democracy reveals glaring contradictions between their words and actions. What moral right does the SLPP have to flay others for threatening the media? The Rajapaksa rule was a nightmare for journalists; it earned notoriety for heinous crimes against the media, including arson attacks on newspaper presses and television stations and the assassination of Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrematunge. A large number of journalists had to flee the country to escape death. The SLPP has no concern for the people’s franchise. It postponed the local government (LG) elections in 2022, and the following year, it helped the then President Ranil Wickremesinghe make the LG polls disappear.

The JVP seems to think all Sri Lankans have drunk from the Lethe. It has an ugly history of unleashing barbaric violence in a bid to scuttle elections. In the late 1980s, its spree of violence left dozens of voters dead, and enabled the then UNP government to make the most of the extremely low voter turnouts in elections and retain power by stuffing ballot boxes. In 2017, the JVP had no qualms about helping the UNP-led Yahapalana government postpone the Provincial Council (PC) polls by securing the passage of the controversial PC Elections (Amendment) Bill, which contained a large number of committee-stage amendments that made the proposed law materially different from the one that had been gazetted and examined by the Supreme Court. The SLPP leaders who were in the Joint Opposition during the Yahapalana government, the SLFP, the ITAK, the SLMC and all other parties represented in Parliament unflinchingly supported that Christmas Tree Bill and helped postpone the PC elections. Now, all of them are demanding that the PC polls be held!

The JVP, whose leaders launch into tirades against former President Wickremesinghe at the drop of a hat, backed him to the hilt during the Yahapalana government. They even helped him retain the premiership when President Maithripala Sirisena tried to sack him in 2018!

The SJB leaders who pontificate to others about the virtues of democracy were in the Yahapalana government, which put off the PC polls indefinitely. They will not be able to live down that black mark.

It behoves voters to assert themselves and give governments with steamroller majorities sobering knocks in the form of midterm electoral shocks to prevent the latter from succumbing to autocratic tendencies that absolute power usually breeds. Old habits die hard. A group of JVP/NPP activists resorted to strongarm tactics to disrupt a farmers’ meeting organised by the Frontline Socialist Party in Angunakolapelessa last week. A JVP activist visited a political rival and issued a veiled threat by warning the latter about the consequences of circulating anti-government posts via social media. A deputy minister tried to enter a meditation centre in Gampaha, with a group of his supporters, claiming that he had received complaints about the place. Such matters must be left to the police and the judiciary. Are we witnessing the signs of the NPP carrying out its promise to devolve judicial powers to the villages and the ruling party politicians beginning to emulate Mervyn Silva, who took the law into his own hands with impunity during the Rajapaksa rule?

It may be that there’s a sucker born every minute in this country, but not all Sri Lankans are suckers. Let the hypocrites of all political hues posing as great democrats be urged to remember that non-voters in last year’s general election numbered more than 5.3 million. There is a groundswell of anti-politics, which they must not lose sight of if they are to avert a situation where they might have to head for the hills, the way the Rajapaksas did in 2022—absit omen!

Tuesday 18th February, 2025

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, in his capacity as the Minister of Finance, Economic Stabilisation and National Policies, yesterday presented his government’s maiden budget in Parliament. He said the goal of Budget 2025 was to fulfil the aspirations of the people who had voted the NPP into power, hoping for sustainable growth and development.

The NPP government’s efforts to present an election-oriented budget have partially succeeded and borne mixed results. However painful the IMF bailout conditions may be, they have made the new administration remain focused on the need to achieve economic recovery and act with some restraint, ensuring that, inter alia, its revenue will amount to at least 15% of GDP, and the primary account will have a surplus. The Economic Transformation Act (ETA) has also become a kind of straitjacket on the government. With the local government polls approaching, what the NPP administration would have done to garner favour with the public, if not for the IMF programme and the ETA constraints, is anybody’s guess. President Dissanayake has said his government intends to amend the ETA. If it is planning to lower the bar for itself, such politically-motivated action will entail adverse economic consequences.

There is no gainsaying that workers deserve better salaries. However, one wonders whether the NPP government, just like its predecessors, is labouring under the misconception that it can grant relief to the public by increasing the state sector salaries. In the late 1980s, the JVP coined a pithy slogan—kolombata kiri, gamata kekiri (‘milk for Colombo and melon for the village’)—to highlight the glaring urban bias in the allocation of state resources. Today, it looks like a case of kiri for state employees and kekiri for their private sector counterparts, who have to bear the burden of maintaining the ever-burgeoning public sector by paying high taxes. President Dissanayake lamented in Parliament that the state employees’ real income had decreased. The same holds true for the non-state workers, and other members of the public as well, but they have been left fending for themselves.

Among the budget highlights flaunted by the government is what it calls the highest-ever fund allocations for the health and education sectors. The government has undertaken to allocate Rs. 604 billion for health. The cost of social welfare (Aswesuma) will be Rs. 232.5 billion. Capital expenditure will amount to 4% of GDP. Such spending will benefit the public, but much more needs to be done to mitigate the economic hardships they are facing.

Bridging a 6.7% budget deficit will be a gargantuan task. President Dissanayake is hopeful that a 5% economic growth will be attainable in 2025. He says growth will be facilitated by a strong export sector, where the government expects the exports of goods and services to reach an all-time high of close to USD 19 billion in the current year; this growth in non-debt creating inflows along with robust economic growth and a primary account surplus of 2.3 percent of GDP will ensure that Sri Lanka will be well placed to make debt service payments from 2028 onwards.

President Dissanayake has said he expects the relaxation of restrictions on vehicle imports to deliver a bulk of the country’s revenue gains for 2025. It is fervently hoped that he is not being as optimistic as the proverbial poor man who ordered oysters for dinner hoping to settle the bill with pearls he expected to find on his plate. Some economic analysts have argued that there is the possibility of extremely high taxes, which are sure to drive automobile prices up, causing a drop in the sales of imported vehicles and preventing the government from achieving its revenue targets. How does the NPP administration propose to handle such an eventuality?