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My dear Mahinda Aiya,
Ayubowan, vanakkam and asalamu alaikkum as we see the degeneration or disintegration of a nation which now seems to be only a mute and toothless relic, of what was once a vibrant mouthpiece for democratic and human rights.
After much debate and dissension,the United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner Louise Arbour made an eventful and important four-day visit to Sri Lanka last week. What she saw and what she said at the end of the visit had all the signs of a showdown with the international community with strictures, if not sanctions, likely in the coming weeks or months. The widely respected Ms. Arbour had wide-ranging discussions with a multitude of parties, including the TNA and civic action groups in Jaffna and also with parties like the JVP and the JHU which opposed her visit and any UN role in field-monitoring the human rights crisis here.
Ms. Arbour at a news conference insisted that UN field monitors need to be present in Sri Lanka along with the setting up of a Sri Lankan office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. But the government also took a tough, if not dangerous stand with Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe telling the same news conference the government was not even prepared to discuss those two issues.
Earlier UN human rights officials Allan Rock and Sir John Holmes, after visits to Sri Lanka had issued hard-hitting reports saying the situation here was serious and calling for direct UN monitoring. But government , including Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake and chief whipper Jeyaraj Fernandopulle hit back at the UN officials, damning them as devils or terrorists in the pay of the LTTE. The government allegations were bluntly and totally rejected by the international community and the United Nations, with Secretary General Ban Ki Moon himself defending the officials strongly and rejecting the government charges as baseless or unfair. Eventually the government was virtually forced to allow the visit by Ms. Arbour, though she was not allowed to go to areas still controlled by the LTTE.
After the Arbour visit and with the strong comments made by her about the failure of the government to curb human rights abuses, Sri Lanka now faces the wrath of the international court and community, with the LTTE warning that a bloody full-scale war lies ahead.
Meanwhile the catastrophe of a crisis within crisis, conflict within conflict, contradiction within contradiction and divisions within divisions continues. Parliament was the scene of most of these conflicts, though parliament is one of those once hallowed institutions, which as mentioned earlier are just mute and toothless relics of a great past. Instead we have an all-powerful executive run largely by a family corporation with a sign board proclaiming ‘I am the state’ while elsewhere we often hear the proclamation ‘I am the law’.
In parliament, last week, the powerful presidential advisor Basil Rajapaksa (known to be a key figure behind the throne) made his first major speech in the house and one of the factors he disclosed was a fearful reminder of some disturbing trends in the country. He disclosed that emergency regulations had been used to set up a state company which would have a full monopoly over multi million dollar arms purchases for what maybe a full-scale war ahead. That means private sector arms dealers who are known to have made hundreds of millions of dollars over the past three decades, are now out of business and this booming business will now go to the state company headed by the powerful defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.
Another disturbing and dangerous trend was the warning given by another of the new super czars – Lakshman Hulugalle, director general of the Media Centre for National Security. In the aftermath of proclamations from the MCNS, journalists are asking whether it is a media centre or more so a modaya centre. Mr. Hulugalle once convicted by a court of law on criminal charges relating to some timber , wielded the axe at all when he warned that journalists or others who criticized the security forces would be considered or branded as traitors. While MPs are covered by the parliamentary privileges act and are not likely to take the Hulugalle doctrine seriously, journalists have no such cover and could only take their case to the court of the people.
In the Sunday Times last week, the political editor reminded Mr. Hulugalle of recent world history where journalists had played a key role in highlighting and exposing military abuses especially in the United States, with such journalists being eventually hailed as national heroes and not traitors as the Hulugalles presume.
The National Congress opposition in parliament pulled out a surprise package when it introduced a motion of no confidence against Minister Milinda Moragoda and asked for a debate this month, with Mr. Moragoda also seemingly agreeably to it though government leaders appeared to be less keen. The opposition strategy on this Moragoda motion is apparently to force a showdown before the Budget.
The motion against Mr. Moragoda highlights the case where the Central Bank allegedly intervened with billions of rupees to save the Moragoda family company, Mercantile Credit Ltd. The parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises, COPE, has also made some serious charges against Mr. Morogoda regarding multi million rupee deals relating to the privatization of the Sri Lanka insurance Corporation and Lanka Marine Services.
The case against Mr. Moragoda is such that the JVP might have no option but to support the no confidence motion. In that case the motion against Mr. Moragoda is likely to be passed and it will be a clear sign to the government on what might befall the Budget next month.
But as in so many other matters the Moragoda motion is also in a muddle and a mess with UNP MP Mohamed (cement) Maharoof, known to be a close Moragoda friend, leading a counter offensive from within the party.
So we go on, from muddle within muddle and mess within mess though the writing is clearly on the wall – if pride goes before a fall then the pride of pseudo patriotism precedes a catastrophe.
Yours sincerely
Koththamalli
Daily Mirror
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