foot and mouth disease

My usual route into Colombo for my weekly sales and deliveries results in my passing the parliament road that circumvents the National Assembly that is housed in a man made island in the middle of Diyawanna Oya. Owing to the budget debates now going on, the road is closed to my vehicle which comes under the category of a heavy goods vehicle. This means that I have to double back and get into more traffic, which delays my journey more than I would like.

I was commenting today, that parliamentarians on both sides, if one reads what is being said in the press, are in a jostling match amongst each other with very little regard to the needs, concerns and aspirations of the electors who put them there. It is either a slanging match on who can shout the loudest. Those who are actually doing much of the talking are full of themselves and not much else. It is like 'Nero is talking to the gods about all the good he is doing while Rome burns' kind of situation.

The comedy is further exacerbated because the police who are busy on all the approach roads, act as if each convoy that comes brings the president, as they are not told who the vip is on their way in. As there are over 100 ministers, the police give the same servile treatment to all and the Johnny come lately who is on his way to parliament is chaffed at the royal treatment meted out at the expense of the exasperated and long suffering motorist.

What is said and expounded on the floor of the house matters to no one, as what is said is meaningless, listened to by hardly anyone and reported only if the level of comedy rises to new highs. The results of the votes bear no relation to what is said in there.

I liken it to a foot and mouth disease that our lawmakers have, who are oblivious to the plight of the people they represent. Parliament consists just of yes men obeying their leaders with few who have the guts to come clean and talk sense. There is hardly anyone without dirt sticking to them. Even the muddied paddy farmer being visually cleaner than them.

The public are apathetic to protest or are in fear of protesting at these antics, for being incorrectly branded by the most corrupt as being unpatriotic. This is something to be concerned about.

Does no one see this drama for what it is and do something about it? or are we forever to be consigned to the scrap heap of history? We will be branded as a spineless populace with no backbone that allowed our lawmakers to ride roughshod over this land, and permanently disfigure its core.Lets not at all worry what others think of us, and only care about what they have done to the people living here, and the pathetic example they have shown.

This sums up parliamentary democracy Sri Lanka style. Keep the foot in the mouth and we will really be OK.

the karuna dilemma for the British

The beautiful Sri Lankan chameleons are no match for the political chameleons running the country. See below what they are up to.

I was thinking of putting my two cents into the current Karuna debate going on and people have different views on this subject.

Karuna, the one time leader of his faction which broke away from the LTTE, assisted the Sri Lankan forces overtly and covertly to evict the LTTE from the East.Please don't forget that he was one of the most ruthless commanders of the LTTE and personally oversaw the slaughter in COLD BLOOD of over 600 Sinhala policemen a fact that is not disputed by even the LTTE(they were actually persuaded to surrender on some reasonable grounds and then herded and shot like animals) in the Eastern Province as just one of the major acts of gruesome violence inflicted on defenceless people.

His family had fled to the UK and I am assuming have been granted some kind of asylum.He lately fell out with his people in the East allegedly for embezzling funds that had been entrusted to him. Anyway his friends in the JHU (the party of the Buddhist monks who have formed strange bedfellows) helped him to obtain a Diplomatic passport under the name of Dushmantha Gunewardene. The real person of this name is someone in the Environment ministry now under the JHU, who was supposed to go to the UK on an environmental conference.

Anyway even his picture on the passport did not have his moustache but was a photo of him. However as the JHU are in Government is it therefore not unreasonable to assume that the foreign ministry in Colombo collaborated in this deception and got the necessary visa for him to travel to the UK. He was granted entry into the UK. In typical Sri Lankan fashion they did not think beyond their noses and failed to get him to return his passport upon him landing in the UK, so no one could point the finger at the government for issuing him with this false document.I am sure Karuna would have had no objection in returning the passport as his primary aim had now been fulfilled. He was liviing with his family in Kensington when he was arrested and the diplomatic passport discovered in his possession.

Again there is no apology from the Sri Lankan government which has not uttered a word on how Karuna obtained this document.I don't know what is going on through the diplomatic channels and if the British government has issued a complaint and said that now even diplomatic passports will not have the same priviledges granted before as SL governement have clearly violated all diplomatic etiquette and protocol in this fashion acting in a cavalier manner to get rid of a problem.

The foreign secretary of Sri Lanka, Kohona, who must have been instrumental in giving him this passport, has said publicly that the true application of the law should be applied in this case, thereby passing the buck to the British government to deal with this problem.

The international community have been at the SL government to take Karuna to task on Child soldiers and a myrriad of other crimes, and SL conveniently let him go to the UK who now have him to prosecute legally as the SL government failed to do.

SL have sent the problem to the UK and they now have two choices, one to send him back to SL and the other to hold him in the UK and prosecute him from there. Whatever they do they will have a problem. If they send him back Karuna would claim they are abusing his human rights, by seperating him from his family and sending him to a certain death or injustice. If he is prosecuted in the UK, the jurisdiction under which he is prosecuted could be questioned, and his status and mode of arrival could let him free pending a resolution. Whatever course of action is taken the British have the problem while the SL government is loving the fact that those who most loudly shouted that they wanted Karuna prosecuted have him in British custody for them to do as they please.

So now once SL captures Prabhakaran and dont want to be implicated in what happens to him, they will send him with a diplomatic passport with the name of Percy Rajapakse going for a conference on leadership in the international arena for those look international exposure from developing nations.

What will the British do with him when they catch him with the passport which says his occupation is the President of the nation!!

That is the Sri Lankan conundrum today.Jokers in every sense of the word, and they like the slippery characters they are slide their way out of the problem and hand it to someone else to wallow in the mud.

scandalous

The United States, a country that prides itself on being the foremost democracy and the defender of the free world, has scandalous skeletons.

Among them are: the state of the Health care system where 50 million Americans out of a population of 300 million have no health coverage. Included in the 50 million are 10 million kids. Then there are over 20 million people living in the country illegally, some of who were born there. No one has the political guts to address the issue.

Elections have no campaign finance reform whereby the wealthy can effectively buy votes, by influencing public opinion with their money. The blowout in the sub prime lending market will eventually affect millions whose houses will be worth a lot less than what they paid for them due to lending practices that were not regulated.

Iraq war strategy is a shambles and is only a drain on resources and a sure way to incite hatred overseas of all things American. The level of pollution of vehicles and businesses is not reduced. Homeland security is targeting certain minorities, who rightly feel it is a police state for them.
These scandals don't affect the majority of Americans, so there is no great rush to solve them. Its the poor 20% of the country that suffer.

In Sri Lanka, a potential paradise on the other hand, a country grappling with crippling fuel prices, a war that is costing lives and money,an economy with prices spiralling out of control, corruption that has reached all levels of society, a crime wave that is made worse by the inability of the police to apprehend and judiciary to timely prosecute and convict, and politicians who are distrusted by all, the poor 80% of the population of 20 million, suffers the consequences directly. Nothing positive is being done for them.

Which is more scandalous?

extremism amongst the diaspora

I have lived my adult life in the UK and the US, until my return in December 2004. There are large communities of Sri Lankans there, as well as of course in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Most of the people have settled in those countries and are unlikely to settle back in Sri Lanka, with the majority having taken the nationality of their adopted land.

A high proportion of these people, some who were born in those host countries, have views that are more extreme than the people in the Island. I refer to the ethnic conflict. This is very unhelpful in reaching a consensus, and a solution that will satisfy the majority of the people in Sri Lanka.

The people in Sri Lanka want peace, and are willing to compromise. Those outside the country, on the Tamil side, fund the terrorism, and on the Sinhala side, rabidly oppose any solution that is remotely acceptable to the Tamil minority. The problem for the country is more from outside than from within. The overseas Tamils willingly or unwillingly have financed the conflict, which has killed more Tamils, thereby defeating the aim and the defence secretary is a member of the diaspora, who appears to favor a military solution.

It is a shame that the developed countries which fund and fuel much of the extremism, take a back seat in the solution, when they have a direct responsibility. They can make a difference, but are unwilling to get involved. The conflict is a Sri Lankan one that can be solved internally. External pressure for a solution is required, rather than cutting of aid, at a time when military aid is sent to terrorists via the diaspora.

The influence of the diaspora is under appreciated and rarely addressed as they are the ones fighting a proxy war, and the actual fighters are mere pawns who are disposable.

two party democracies

In Sri Lanka, despite the inroads made by the JVP and other minor parties from time to time, the country's parliamentary and presidential democracy is essentially a two party system. The PR system has permitted parties on the fringes to get into the mainstream and also to make pronouncements in public that far exceed their underlying following.

Therefore only the UNP or the SLFP will be in power, with little to no chance of other parties becoming larger than these two. It is inevitable that in a system of proportional representation, minor parties can have a balance of power that is far in excess of their share of the vote. This is a reality everywhere. Germany is a classic example of this in action in the developed countries.

In my village, I would hazard a guess to say that 70% of the electorate will not change their voting pattern no matter what happens and belong to the two major parties. They are party loyalists, who are known to everyone in the village. They vote the same way no matter who is contesting. The rest is the floating vote on whom the outcome of the election hangs.

We may pontificate on the future of this party or that, but subject to the PR issues addressed above, there is little they can do to upset the status-quo. An astute politician should therefore take aim at this floating vote and appeal to them. It is therefore important to know who these people are. Usually the first time voter falls into this bracket. Hence the absurd proposition of promising jobs that don't exist to these people, totally hoodwinking them with false promises. Our education system does not equip the youth to think or reason, so they believe what they are told and vote accordingly.

The sophistication of the party and politician to impress and extract this floating vote determines the winner. ( I am of course assuming that each elector is not given a Rs1000/- and instructed who to vote for- that's called buying the vote as happens frequently)

the truth as an electoral liability

There is a saying that "we hear what we want to hear" that goes for seeing, reading and believing among others.

Often politicians are torn between what is correct and determining if that makes you unpopular. Various logical reasoning is done by individuals. I will do or say anything to get elected, so when I am in power I will do what is right! Telling the audience the truth will not get me elected. Therefore election promises are just that with never an intention of them ever being implemented.

It does not matter where one is, east or west rich or poor, in elections this is a universal reality. How can we get electors to make hard choices knowing they are inevitable, in preference to making statements that are untrue so the choice is easy for the elector. If this premise is taken to its ultimate conclusion, then the liar becomes President and the person telling the truth becomes a has been. Its a cruel world where lies are rewarded. In life people have now accepted this as a universal mantra.

It is worth taking a stab at telling the truth. Its the way it is conveyed to the audience that is important, so it becomes believable. That's the secret. One must know the potential audience to tailor the point to their level of understanding.

democracy and governance

It appears that there are very few democracies that are truly representative of the population that they purport to represent. The party in government appears to be elected by fewer than half of those who voted in the election, not counting those who don't vote.

Additionally, during the course of the tenure the popularity levels go up and down depending on various factors. We cannot therefore say that the system is representative, but that it is the best we can achieve bearing in mind the ground realities.

Those in power must realize that the represent not just those who voted them in but also those who voted against them. This reality is almost absent from democracies in developing countries which lead to decisions that retard economic growth and also the well being of the nation.

In Sri Lanka it is almost expected that all the party supporters of the winning party are rewarded with sinecures, as the payback for their support. This creates antagonism amongst a great majority of people. It is common that this also occurs in western countries but not at every level of local government. When the gramaseveka system is also politicized then there is no hope for impartial governance at that level.

It would be so much better for good governance that all these politicised levels are peeled of and are restricted only to a few positions. It is most destructive to see 100,000 or more jobs changing hands as a result of a changing government, where the learning curve of those already in those jobs are done away with and a new set of people appointed. Of course the earlier lot also try to financially benefit from their positions and therefore the incoming party seek to exchange that benefit creating a cycle that hinders the proper operation of government.

One has only to look at many of the privatisations to see how much more efficient things have become. Instead of privatising, I believe like in the case of telecoms, more competition is allowed. What then happens is that if the state institution does not become efficient they squeezed and best practices are the result. The telecommunication sector and the banks are a case in point here where this level of competition has benefit ted the consumer.