Editorial
Villains as heroes
Monday 8th March, 2021
Pro-democracy protesters in Myanmar have dug their heels in. Demonstrating remarkable resilience in the face of the military junta, they have urged the US to intervene to save their country from the clutches of the power-hungry Generals. Why they are making such desperate appeals is understandable; any port in a storm! But they would find themselves in a far bigger crisis if the US ever decided to make an intervention. The plight of the people of Libya, who enlisted US backing to get rid of their eccentric dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, serves as an example.
Human rights violations are a global phenomenon, which needs to be addressed. But the UN institution created for that purpose is ineffectual thanks to the servility of its officials and some meddlesome global powers. Today, the UNHRC has become a cat’s paw used by the western states to promote neocolonialism. Swayed by the geo-political interests of strategic alliances, it has become a playground for the world powers.
China sought to make light of the recent military coup in Myanmar by initially calling it a Cabinet reshuffle, of all things. Military takeovers in Pakistan did not matter to the US, at all, while Washington could use Islamabad to advance its geo-strategic agenda vis-à-vis India, which was not in the good books of Uncle Sam at the time. The US did not welcome the ouster of Shah’s repressive regime, in Iran, and backed evil military dictatorships to the hilt in several countries it considered its allies, Chile under General Pinochet being a case in point. Now, Washington is weeping buckets for the people of Myanmar! Had the Burmese Generals been pro-American, Washington would have had no qualms about defending them, and the human rights groups dependent on western funding would have chosen to ignore the coup.
The UK has taken upon itself the task of protecting human rights across the globe despite being one of the worst human rights violators in the world. One may recall that Britain expelled more than 10,000 people of the Chagos Islands between 1967 and 1973 for the US to build the Diego Garcia military base; it has refused to comply with a UN ruling that the displaced people’s right to return be respected. Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth has gone on record as saying that the jurisdiction of the ICC will be invoked against Britian’s crimes against humanity. There is irrefutable evidence that Tony Blair, as the British PM, together with US President George W. Bush, carried out an illegal war in Iraq, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths. The Chilcot Report, too, has revealed that military action against Iraq was not justified, but no case has been filed against Blair or anyone else for war crimes in Iraq. The British Parliament has introduced an indemnity law to protect its military personnel against war crimes probes. Senior LTTE leader, Adele Balasingham, who brainwashed thousands of LTTE child combatants, turned them into human bombs, and thereby committed war crimes, is living comfortably in London; the UK pretends that she does not exist while insisting that war crimes must not go unpunished! Some British politicians are dependent LTTE activists for votes and funds to win elections. Thanks to diplomatic cables disclosed by Wikileaks, the world is aware that it was due to domestic political calculations and compulsions that, in 2009, the then British Foreign Secretary David Miliband remained intensely focused on Sri Lanka’s war and even rushed here in a bid to save Prabhakaran.
UNHRC chiefs have also compromised their credibility by being servile to the western bloc. A few years ago, the then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay succumbed to US pressure and withdrew a statement she had issued condemning human rights abuses in Bahrain, which is a close ally of the UK and the US. Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, who once described missing UAE Princess Latifa as a ‘troubled young woman’ has now admitted that she was ‘horribly tricked’ by the victim’s family. Isn’t it possible that Robinson was tricked into issuing a strongly-worded statement on Sri Lanka as well? Incumbent UNHRC chief, Michelle Bachelet, has manifestly failed to act independently and impartially; she has prepared what can be described as a political report on Sri Lanka and blotted her copybook further in the process.
Perhaps, the only thing the Trump administration got right was its assessment of the UNHRC, which it called a cesspool of political bias. But, having pulled the US out of the cesspit, Washington continued to make other nations wallow in it, and the Biden government has plunged head first into it.
The UNHRC in the clutches of the worst human rights violators in the world, masquerading as champions of democracy, has faced a fate similar to that of Sri Lanka’s Police Narcotic Bureau, which has been infiltrated by criminals to further their interests. It looks as if human rights had to be protected against the UNHRC.
Editorial
Ensure safety of COPF Chairman
Saturday 8th June, 2024
It was with shock and dismay that we received the news about death threats to COPF (Committee on Public Finance) Chairman Dr. Harsha de Silva over the ongoing parliamentary probe into the on-arrival visa scam. Dr. de Silva yesterday told Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, in Parliament, that he was facing death threats and intimidation, and it was incumbent upon Parliament to ensure his safety. He stopped short of naming names, but revealed that some ruling party MPs were among those who had ganged up against him. The Speaker only said there had been no complaint, and he would look into the matter.
The SLPP-UNP government has been doing everything in its power to have all parliamentary committees under its thumb. The COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises), which once helped restore public faith in the legislature by exposing state sector corruption, has now become a mere appendage of the incumbent regime, thanks to the appointment of SLPP MP Rohitha Abeygunawardena as its Chairman. The SLPP-UNP combine also tried to oust COPF Chairman Dr. de Silva, but in vain. However, it knows more than one way to shoe a horse.
The COPF, under Dr. de Silva’s chairmanship, has been a thorn in the side of the government, which is struggling to cover up numerous corrupt deals. Dr. de Silva yesterday told Parliament that he found it extremely difficult to function as the COPF head due to severe resource constraints his committee was facing; he himself had to pay the salaries of some of his staff members besides burning the midnight oil.
The sheer workload he had to cope with as the COPF chief had taken its toll on his health, he said, informing the Speaker that he was at the end of his tether, and at times thought of resigning from the COPF. This is exactly what the government wants him to do; resource squeezes and threats are aimed at making him quit.
On 26 May, Dr. de Silva revealed, in an ‘X’ post, that the COPF had uncovered some vital information about the visa scam and it would reveal everything after its final meeting on the issue; the COPF was committed to exposing the truth behind the controversial tender, he added. In an editorial comment on 27 May, we warned him.
While thanking him for his bold stand, we pointed out that by making such a statement, he had thrown caution to the wind, and become a marked target, with the government making an all-out effort to delay the COPF investigation lest the truth should come out much to the detriment of its interests in this election year. Unfortunately, what was feared has come about; Dr. de Silva is complaining of death threats and government moves to strangulate the COPF financially to derail its investigations.
Dr. de Silva’s predicament exemplifies the fate that befalls the few good men and women in Parliament. It is hoped that all those who seek an end to the state sector corruption will rally behind Dr. de Silva, and bring pressure to bear on the government to ensure his safety. Let Dr. de Silva be urged to reveal the names of those who have issued threats, veiled or otherwise, to him and are trying to scuttle the COPF probes.
Editorial
Dead man walking!
Friday 7th June, 2024
The SLPP-UNP government is going hell for leather to make bad laws as if there were no tomorrow. It is abusing its parliamentary majority, which has been retained with the help of some crossovers, for that purpose. The Opposition, the media and trade unions are up in arms, and understandably so. The incumbent regime is a dead man walking; it is so desperate that it is capable of anything. Hence the need for it to be restrained.
The Electricity (Amendment) Bill (EAB) plunged Parliament into turmoil yesterday, but the government secured its passage. The Supreme Court (SC) determined the entire EAB inconsistent with the Constitution and recommended changes thereto. After unveiling the Bill, sometime ago, Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera hailed it as an excellent piece of legislation aimed at straightening up the power sector to serve the public interest better.
The SC determination left him with egg on his face. He reminded us of the proverbial curate who, while eating a stale egg, assured his host, a Bishop, that parts of it were excellent. Wijesekera’s egg, as it were, made Parliament stink yesterday, but he sought to please his masters by praising it as a silver bullet.
EAB should have been discarded and a new one drafted in consultation with all stakeholders. But the government is apparently driven by an ulterior motive; its aim is not to serve Sri Lanka’s interests but to look after those of some moneybags.
It is not uncommon for Bills to contain some flaws, which are rectified either before or during the committee stage. But there is something terribly wrong with draft Bills that are full of sections inconsistent with the Constitution. The drafters of EAB have demonstrated their sheer ignorance of the supreme law, and that they are not equal to the task of drafting Bills. If they had read the Constitution at least perfunctorily, they would not have drafted such a bad law.
Ignorant and incompetent, they do not deserve to be paid with public funds and must be sent back to law school. They must be summoned before Parliament and questioned on their serious lapses, which have caused public faith in the national legislature to diminish.
Curiously, the MPs who demand that judges, doctors, Central Bankers, and other public officials be summoned before Parliament have taken badly drafted Bills for granted. The power sector trade unions yesterday alleged that EAB was of Indian origin and geared towards furthering the interests of Adani Group at the expense of Sri Lanka.
Most critics of EAB are agreeable in principle to the need for power sector reforms; the Ceylon Electricity Board should be given a radical shake-up, and transformed into a modern organisation capable of providing a better service at a lower cost. They only asked the government to tread cautiously, consulting all stakeholders and taking action to ensure that the country’s interests prevailed over everything else. But the government was in a mighty hurry to steamroller the Bill through Parliament, making the Opposition ask whether it was doing so at the behest of some external forces involved in controversial power generation deals here.
What is passed by the current Parliament can be either amended or abolished by a future parliament in a constitutionally prescribed manner. But that does not mean that a government is free to pass bad laws, making the country enter into long-term agreements with powerful nations and their investors. It looks as if the SLPP-UNP regime did not care two hoots about the consequences of its actions.
Editorial
Modi Magic on the wane
Thursday 6th June, 2024
The outcome of India’s parliamentary election (2024) has led to a ‘perspective ambiguity’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi lost no time in declaring victory for the BJP-led NDA alliance, which secured 293 seats in the 543-member Parliament, but he must be a worried man. The BJP is short of 32 seats to form a government under its own steam; it has lost 63 seats or about 20% of its parliamentary strength. It had 303 seats in the previous Parliament, and that number has dropped to 240.
Modi has become the second Indian Prime Minister to win a third term. The first PM to do so was Jawaharlal Nehru. But Nehru won an outright majority in Parliament in 1962; Modi has had to depend on smaller parties in his alliance to retain his hold on power. Modi must be reeling from a sharp drop in his victory margin in his own constituency, Varanasi; it has decreased to 152,000 from 480,000 in 2019 whereas Modi’s bete noire, Rahul Gandhi, won Raebareli by a staggering 390,000 votes.
Modi, who reigned supreme with 303 seats in the previous Parliament, is now dependent on parties such as Nitish Kumar’s JD-U and Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP to form a government. He has had to lead an alliance of strange bedfellows. Both Kumar and Naidu were bitter critics of Modi. Kumar helped form the oppositional alliance, the INDIA bloc, before switching his allegiance to PM Modi. Naidu also closed ranks with the BJP in the run-up to the election. These politicians have been described as extremely ambitious and highly unpredictable, and whether Modi will be able to manage them and consolidate his grip on the NDA alliance remains to be seen. They will demand plum ministerial posts in return for their support. The TDP is said to be eyeing Transport and Health portfolios! That is the name of the game in coalition politics, where it is not uncommon for the tail to wag the dog, so to speak. These two political leaders are however not the only problem Modi will have to contend with. The next five years will feel like an eternity for PM Modi.
Nothing would have been more shocking for the BJP than its defeat in Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad constituency, where the Ram Mandir has been built. Modi may have thought he would be able to win the Lok Sabha election hands down after the consecration of that temple, which became a centrepiece of the BJP’s election campaign. The BJP lost that seat to the Samajwadi Party! Modi must be disappointed that the Ram Mandir hype failed to trigger a massive wave of support for his party. This particular defeat signifies a massive setback for the BJP’s ethno-religious agenda.
Modi’s divisive election campaign failed to yield the desired result. The BJP’s failure to secure an outright majority could be attributed to a host of factors, some of them being the suppression of the Opposition, the arrogance of power, chronic unemployment, and the rising cost of living. The BJP also did not care to reimage itself in a positive light to attract the youth.
Modi will hereafter see the Congress-led INDIA bloc with 223 seats, in his rearview mirror. The Congress (99 seats) and its allies have eaten into the BJP support base considerably, but they have a long way to go before being able to capture power.
The bumpy ride ahead for the BJP-led coalition government to be formed may improve the INDIA bloc’s chances of bettering their electoral performance and turning the tables on the BJP and its allies in time to come. Modi will have a lot to worry about in his third term.