Saturday 1st February, 2025

The JVP-led NPP government finds itself in an unenviable position. Its learning curve is disconcertingly steep. Sri Lankans are always in a hurry; patience cannot be considered one of their virtues, and they expect quick results regardless of the manner in which they are delivered. The government is now drawing heavy flak from rice consumers and paddy farmers alike. It is under pressure to make rice available at lower prices while ensuring that the rice growers get higher prices for their paddy. Rice and Sri Lankan politics are inseparably linked, and the incumbent government is facing the onerous task of reconciling the interests of rice consumers with those of the farming community.

The NPP is in the current predicament because it raised the expectations of both rice consumers and paddy farmers exponentially to win elections. It promised to solve issues such as rice shortages and neutralise the millers’ Mafia with a single stroke of the presidential pen. One may recall that it demanded at least Rs. 150 per kilo of paddy while it was in the opposition, fighting for farmers’ rights; it went so far as to organise protests with farmers in loincloth parading the streets of Colombo. Now, it has had to delay the announcement of a minimum purchase price for paddy.

Rice growers are demanding Rs. 140 or more per kilo of their paddy, and even if the government sets the certified purchase price of a particular variety of paddy at Rs. 120, the price of rice produced therefrom is likely to increase above Rs. 280 per kilo, according to agricultural experts. Farmers will be happy in such an eventuality, but the government will have to face the political consequence of an increase in the prices of rice. If the government continues to ignore the farmers’ demand for higher prices for their produce and allows paddy to be purchased at the current prices which are said to be below Rs. 100 in most cases, farmers will rise against it. Farmers’ associations have already warned of public protests.

The government has claimed that it is in the process of calculating the paddy production costs and after completing that task, it will announce a certified price for paddy. Irate farmers have taken exception to this claim, condemning it as a ruse to enable some wealthy millers to purchase paddy at unconscionably low prices.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has had the official residences of the former Presidents valued and their imputed rentals calculated in double quick time, but his government expects the farmers to believe its claim that it has not been able to carry out a simple task like calculating the cost of producing a kilo of paddy! It should have been able to do cost calculations before the commencement of the ongoing harvesting period. Some government politicians are under fire for having said that farmers tend to inflate the costs of their produce. This claim cannot be dismissed as baseless. Farmers want their interests served even at the expense of consumers. The costs of producing paddy must be scientifically calculated. The government must do so fast.

The Opposition is fishing in troubled waters the way the JVP/NPP did in the past. It is urging the government to do the impossible—bringing down rice prices while increasing paddy prices. This, one would say, is unfair, but that is the way the cookie crumbles in Sri Lankan politics, where expediency takes precedence of principles.

Paddy farmers keep on reminding the government that they voted for it and therefore it is duty-bound to look after their interests. True, they backed the NPP overwhelmingly in the last two elections, but so did millions of rice consumers. The government therefore has to heed the consumers’ concerns as well and grant them relief.

Rice produced from the freshly harvested paddy purchased by millers at low prices is entering the market, but the rice prices remain high. Thus, rice millers continue to make huge profits at the expense of both consumers and farmers. The government must take action to rectify this situation urgently.

More than 35% of the Maha paddy harvest has already been gathered, according to media reports, and the government must commence purchasing paddy without further delay and build a buffer stock so that it will be able to make effective market interventions to prevent the exploitation of rice consumers while ensuring a fair price for paddy cultivators. Farmers’ associations are alleging that the government has allowed big-time millers to exploit paddy cultivators. Will the NPP care to prove its critics wrong by taking urgent action to safeguard the interests of rice consumers and paddy farmers?

Friday 31st January, 2025

India has vehemently protested against an incident of accidental shooting where several Indian fishermen sustained injuries in a confrontation with the Sri Lanka Navy, which conducted an operation to seize an illegal fishing craft operating in Sri Lankan waters, on Tuesday morning. The External Affairs Ministry of India summoned the Acting Sri Lankan High Commissioner and registered its strong protest. It is reported to have said, inter alia: “The use of force is not acceptable under any circumstances whatsoever. Existing understandings between the two governments in this regard must be strictly observed.” Is it that India expects the Sri Lanka Navy to look on while Indian fishermen are carrying out illegal operations in an aggressive manner?

Indian fishers are known for their aggressive manoeuvres, which claimed the life of a Sri Lankan sailor last year during an operation to seize a poaching Indian vessel. Sri Lanka must do everything in its power to stop the movement of foreign vessels in its waters without permission. Defence Secretary Air Vice Marshal (retd.) Sampath Thuyacontha has said Sri Lanka will not abandon naval operations to search vessels entering its waters to prevent illegal activities. Addressing a media briefing in the wake of India’s reaction to Tuesday’s incident, he explained why Sri Lanka had to do so. One cannot but agree with him that everything possible must be done to prevent human trafficking/ smuggling, illegal fishing, drug smuggling and gun running in Sri Lankan waters. His argument is very cogent, and Sri Lanka’s right to protect its territorial waters cannot be questioned. In fact, all countries must guard their waters, leaving nothing to chance. That is what Navies are there for.

The Sri Lanka Navy must be allowed to employ methods it deems necessary in dealing with situations where lawbreakers obstruct it and/or its personnel are in danger. The Indian Navy must be free to act similarly if Sri Lankan fishers engage in illegal activities in Indian waters, resist arrest and resort to violence. Poachers, both Indian and Sri Lankan, must be told in no uncertain terms that they carry out their illegal operations at their own risk, and will have to face the consequences of their actions. It is unbecoming of democratic governments to defend lawbreakers engaged in organised illegal operations at sea or on land.

Curiously, India protests when foreign research vessels operate legally in Sri Lanka’s territorial waters, but it wants its rogue fishing craft given the freedom to carry out illegal operations in Sri Lankan waters, not only causing economic and environmental losses but also adversely impacting the livelihoods of Sri Lankan fisherfolk.

There is more to the issue of poaching than the plunder of Sri Lanka’s maritime resources. Tamil Nadu politicians are using it to undermine Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and perpetuate friction between New Delhi and Colombo. When Dr. Rajitha Senaratne was the Minister of Fisheries, he revealed that the Tamil Nadu politicians who owned trawlers rented them to fishermen on the strict condition that they use those vessels for illegal fishing in Sri Lankan waters. So, India should look beyond the short-term political implications of poaching at issue and take cognisance of the strategic factors that drive it.

Poaching in Sri Lankan waters has become an intractable issue largely because of India’s support for the Tamil Nadu poachers, and its use of regional power dynamics to pressure Colombo to adopt a diplomatic solution favourable to the Indian fishers engaged in illegal fishing. This is akin to a victim of prolonged abuse being asked to stop resisting, negotiate and cooperate with the abuser so that the crime will have a veneer of legitimacy.

Thursday 30th January, 2025

It has almost become a pattern in Sri Lanka that regime changes are followed by scandals, which undermine public trust in the new governments. The UNP-led Yahapalana administration, which came to power in January 2015, promising good governance, facilitated a Treasury bond scam within a few weeks of its formation and benefited therefrom. The UNP, which had been struggling to pay water and electricity bills at its headquarters, Sirikotha, while it was out of power, came into a fortune and outspent its rivals in the run-up to the parliamentary polls that followed! No sooner had the SLPP formed a government in 2020 than it committed a sugar tax fraud, which enabled some of its financiers, especially the main sponsor of Viyathmaga (an association of self-proclaimed intellectuals backing the SLPP) to make huge profits to the tune of billions of rupees by importing sugar with a nominal special commodity levy thereon. They and their political bosses laughed all the way to the bank.

People voted overwhelmingly for a system change last year only to be disappointed. The JVP-NPP government stands accused of having secured the release of as many as 323 red-flagged freight containers without Customs inspection from the Colombo Port. The Customs Trade Union Alliance has expressed shock at the green-channelling of those containers that required mandatory Customs inspection.

The Opposition says those containers, released allegedly at the behest of an influential minister, were imported by an NPP financier. The government has said it takes full responsibility for the release of the containers. First of all, it must disclose what those boxes contained. Did they carry weapons, narcotics, clinical waste or automobiles? How would the self-righteous JVP leaders have reacted if so many containers had been released via the green channel while they were in the opposition? They would have taken to the streets, demanding the resignation of the Minister of Ports and Shipping or the entire government.

The Colombo Port has become a major entry point for narcotics, and therefore the government must reveal who ordered the release of the aforesaid containers without inspection, as we argued in a previous editorial comment. In 2013, more than 131 kilos of heroin were found in a shipping container which a coordinating secretary to the then Prime Minister D. M. Jayaratne sought to have cleared on a priority basis by sending a letter to the Customs to that effect. In July 2017, a consignment of cocaine weighing 218 kilos was detected in a container carrying sugar, at the Ratmalana Economic Centre. There have been many other instances where Customs checks yielded huge amounts of dangerous drugs concealed in freight containers. Besides, a private company had to ship back 263 containers filled with hospital waste listed as used mattresses, carpets and rugs; they had been imported from the UK in 2017 and 2019. During the UNP-led UNF government (2001-2004), some LTTE leaders were allowed to go abroad via the BIA without any checks for ‘peace talks’, and they were also allowed to bring in huge bags full of undeclared goods sans Customs inspection when they returned. It is believed that they brought warlike equipment. The UNP and SJB politicians who are now crying blue murder about the release of the aforesaid red-flagged containers were in the UNF government, which advanced its political agenda at the expense of national security in the early 2000s. However, that does not mean they should not crank up pressure on the NPP government to disclose who ordered the release of the containers at issue and what they carried. In fact, that is all the more reason why they must amp up their efforts to get to the bottom of the container controversy; they ought to atone for their past sins.

The need for a high-level probe into the green-channelling of the red-flagged containers cannot be overemphasised. It is hoped that the Opposition, civil society organisations, trade unions and the media will join forces to frustrate the government’s efforts to sweep the issue under the rug.

It is being argued in some quarters that there are sufficient grounds for a no-faith motion against the minister who ordered the release of the containers in question. The NPP has a two-thirds parliamentary majority and can easily torpedo a no-confidence motion, but one may recall that the SLPP government also abused its parliamentary majority to defeat a no-confidence motion against the then Minister Keheliya Rambukwella over the procurement of fake immunoglobulin, but it could not save him; it only dug its own political grave.