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LEGAL WATCH
A short history of freedom of speech in Sri Lanka

by Nayana
It is said that the first casualty in war is the truth. In Sri Lanka, where internal political battles are conducted with almost the same intensity as warfare, truth has similarly suffered on more than one occasion.

One of the most persistently uttered inaccuracies of recent times is the assertion that freedom of speech and/or the media was the creation of the People’s Alliance government in 1994.

To take events in their historical sequence, this country enjoyed an unbroken tradition of freedom of speech including media freedom from Independence until the early 1970s. Some sections of the press were branded as elitist but its freedom was unfettered save by the recognized legal principles relating to defamation, contempt of Court and Parliament, and incitement to crime.

The only attempt at curtailment during that period was the introduction of a Bill to take over Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited (ANCL or "Lake House") by the Government of Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1964 which was defeated due to defections from her own party.

The "United Left Front" Government elected in 1970 launched an all-out assault on the free press. In 1973, by a Special Act of Parliament, seventy-five per cent of the shares of ANCL, were vested in the Government, ostensibly for the purpose of redistribution among the public. The Times Group was taken over under the Business Acquisition Act and eventually ceased publication, while the only other major newspaper publisher, the "Davasa" Group was forcibly shut down.

Taken together with the State monopoly on radio broadcasting and the absence of television, this meant a complete State monopoly on mainstream media. A Press Council Law which, amongst other provisions, has the effect of punishing journalists for publishing information leaked to them by government sources, helped to keep what was left of the press under control.

Meanwhile the suppression of civil rights in general gave birth to the Civil Rights Movement - the first time in its post independence history that Sri Lankan society had felt the need for such an organization.

Despite the United National Party’s criticism of the Press Council Law and the takeover of ANCL while in opposition, the party was content to let these measures stand after it came to power in 1977, subject only to the payment of compensation to the dispossessed ANCL shareholders. This served to consolidate the impression that "Lake House" was the legitimate official organ of the party in government, when in fact the ANCL (Special Provisions) Law of 1973 had envisaged the sale of the company’s shares to the general public.

Nevertheless the 1980s saw the revival of many of the major newspapers which had ceased publication during the previous decade, as well as the founding of others such as the Upali Group. While there are allegations that covert pressures were exerted on some of these publications to toe the line whenever they were in danger of seriously embarrassing the Government, it must also be admitted that the mainstream press at that time exerted a significant degree of self censorship, especially on the violence in the North in which the role of State forces at that time was distinctly inglorious.

In addition, television was introduced for the first time. While it was swiftly taken under Government control, its state of the art technology at least enabled world events to be brought to Sri Lankan audiences with a hitherto unparalleled vividness in a period which saw the famous "people power" revolutions of the Philippines and Eastern Europe.

The Presidential and Parliamentary Elections Acts of 1981 contained provisions to ensure that at least during election campaigns opposition candidates would be guaranteed a minimum period of air time on the State-run electronic media.

As demonstrated by the series of unsuccessful "Saturday Review" cases, the directly enforceable fundamental rights chapter of the 1978 Constitution was initially slow to furnish results in this area, with the Supreme Court generally inclined to place heavy reliance on the State’s opinion as to whether any particular publication constituted a threat to national security. Suppression of the fringe press by Emergency Regulation was thus a feature of the 1980s.

Nevertheless, once the constitutional provision was in place it only needed a new generation of judges with a different mindset to effect a revolutionary change in the boundaries of acceptable free speech.

However things had to get worse before they got better and the tide of political violence that engulfed the country from all sides in the late 1980s marked the nadir of free speech. The deaths, within the space of about a year, of Rajani Tiranagama, Thevis Guruge and Richard De Zoysa - each undoubtedly killed by a different set of people - demonstrated that murder had become the ultimate weapon of censorship and that State and non-State forces alike were willing to use the gun to enforce political and intellectual conformity.

The l990s saw an awakening, and perhaps the defining moment was when Richard De Zoysa’s mother Dr. Manorani Saravanamuttu publicly named her son’s alleged killers and Moratuwa Magistrate Rohini Walgama ordered warrant to be issued on SSP Ronnie Gunasinghe, all of which received wide publicity in the independent media.

The forces of violence eventually preyed upon each other. The Government’s brutal but effective suppression of the secretive "JVP/DJV" movement ended the fear psychosis that had operated through the anonymous note and the hidden hand with the T-56. Thereafter the breakaway of the Lalith Athulathmudali / Gamini Dissanayake section of the UNP to form the DUNF ended the fear psychosis engineered by the Premadasa regime and gave new inspiration to middle class dissent.

The Sinhala tabloid press flourished during this period with papers such as "Raavaya" and "Yukthiya" exposing alleged scandals involving many high-ranking personalities of that period. When the Mayoress of Nuwara Eliya wrongfully seized 450 copies of the "Yukthiya" sent to the town for distribution in 1991, the Supreme Court Bench comprising Justices Fernando, Dheeraratne and Wadugodapitiya awarded its editor and proprietor a sum of Rs. l00,000 in damages, indicating that a violation of the right to freedom of speech is one that "darkens the climate of freedom in which the peaceful clash of ideas and the exchange of information must take place in a democratic society".

In July 1992, when opposition parties organized a "Jana Gosha" or noise protest, the Police intervened with violence and Dayasena Amaratunga, an SLFP member of the Horana Pradeshiya Sabha, suffered an assault on his person and his drum. Delivering judgment in the fundamental rights case filed by Amaratunga, the Bench comprising Justices Fernando, Dheeraratne and Ramanathan awarded him Rs. 50.000 in damages and stated that the right to support or to criticize governments and political parties, policies and programmes is fundamental to the democratic way of life, and the freedom of speech and expression is one which cannot be denied without violating those fundamental principles of liberty and justice which lie at the base of all civil and political institutions".

In 1992 the Police also broke up a meeting of the "Ratawesi Peramuna’ held at a temple premises and arrested the participants whose chief speaker, Champika Ranawaka, had been fiercely critical of President Premadasa. The Police alleged that the group was conspiring to overthrow the Government. Among the extracts of the speech which were relied on by the Police was the following (as translated into English and recorded in the judgment):

"If this autocratic system of administration continues, before another twenty years our country will be completely destroyed. The system which has enabled Premadasa to rule autocratically must be abolished. We must make immediate preparations to topple the Government."

Delivering judgment in June 1994 after a consolidated hearing of fundamental rights cases filed by 16 petitioners, the Bench comprising Justices Amerasinghe, Goonewardene and Wijetunga held that even inciting the public to topple the government was not unlawful as long as the speakers were not inciting their listeners to use unlawful means to do so.

Quoting American judgments which had observed that "the language of the political arena, like the language used in labour disputes, is often vituperative, abusive and inexact" the Court affirmed that Article 14(1)(a) of the Constitution is based on the "profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide open".

The early l990s also saw the licensing of privately owned television and radio stations. Though initially required to confine their programmes to "educational, musical, sports and entertainment with a family content", by 1993 licences had been amended to include "local and foreign news". During the 1994 Presidential election campaign, two private television stations broadcast lengthy exclusive interviews with the then presidential candidate Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga.

Thus the fight to restore the freedom of speech which was badly battered if not lost in the 1970s and 1980s was won before, not after, the national elections of 1994.

Presidential election and aftermath

by Tisaranee Gunasekara
"And who’s to say where The harvest shall stop"
Gathering Leaves - Robert Frost

The Presidential election is over. Christmas has come and gone. We are in the year 2000. And Ranil Wickremesinghe, defeated, discredited but undaunted is displaying a Sirima Bandaranaikist tendency to cling to the Party leadership, come what may.

During the festive season the outcome of the Presidential election formed a favourite topic of conversation. Many theories were advanced concerning the causes of the UNP’s defeat. And the general consensus was that Ranil Wickremesinghe lost primarily because of his ‘mouth’.

When this was told to me the first time, I objected. I said there were far more important reasons for the defeat, particularly Ranil’s stand on the LTTE. ‘Yes and No’, I was told: ‘we all knew Chandrika had some kind of understanding with the LTTE in 1994 but she was rather discreet about it; therefore when Gamini Dissanayake was killed by the Tigers during the election campaign it didn’t go against her; Ranil was different; he made no bones about the fact that he had an understanding with the LTTE and that Prabhakaran was on his side; so when the bomb went off fingers could be pointed at him credibly’. ‘And’ came the conclusion ‘it was because of what he said and the intemperate way in which he said it’!

Deed or word, it is clear that Ranil Wickremesinghe suffered his ignominious defeat because he antagonised the majority of the Sinhala people with his manifestly pro-LTTE stand. In fact one of the most significant lessons of this Presidential election is that no candidate can win in the first round (i.e. get more than 50% of the valid vote) if she is unable to win over a majority of the majority community. An obvious truth, it would seem, but nevertheless a truth most of our politicians forgot. Until the electorate reminded them in no uncertain terms.

Ranil Wickremesinghe did succeed in getting a majority of the Tamil votes, but that was not enough. Because by going the extra mile to woo the Tamil voters via the LTTE, he antagonised a majority of the majority community. For example his average vote in the districts out side of the North and East is less than his average vote in the whole country. In 12 out of the 15 districts with a Sinhala population above the national average, Ranil Wickremesinghe’s vote was less than his national average. And in none of the districts outside of North and East did he manage to exceed the 50% mark. And of the 17 districts outside of the North and East Ranil Wickramasinghe managed to win only two - N’Eliya and Badulla - which also happened to be the two districts with the lowest level of Sinhala population (next to the N/E).

Going by the opinion polls, the significance accorded to the Ethnic problem/war by the voters increased considerably in the last one to two weeks before the Presidential election. It is difficult to say how this would have affected the final electoral outcome if the Town Hall bomb did not go off. Perhaps a war weary electorate bombarded by a veritable barrage of ‘peace at all costs’ propaganda on all sides would have decided to give negotiations with the LTTE one more chance, however reluctantly. Ranil Wickremesinghe certainly thought so, which was why he pushed his ‘appeasement line’ relentlessly throughout the election campaign.

The twin bombs in Town Hall and Ja-ela reminded the electorate of something they understood better than their political leaders - the essential nature of the LTTE. If Ranil Wickremesinghe changed tracks fast enough (he still had a couple of days to do so) and condemned the LTTE for the attack, thereby putting some distance between himself and the Tigers, he could have fared better than he did - perhaps to the point of pushing Chandrika to Round II. He did not. Maybe he thought the electorate was too apathetic, too jaded to care; maybe he was worried about losing the minority vote at the last moment; maybe he had ventured far too deep into the Tigers’ den to pull back. The result was that once again he succeeded in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory - as he did at the Local Government and Provincial Council polls.

The lesson is not that one must concentrate on the majority community alone. Far form it. It is that one must not pander to the whims of any one community (majority or minority) to the exclusion of others. In other words what is needed is a balanced approach which takes into consideration the needs, aspirations and fears of all communities. Ranil Wickremesinghe didn’t and he paid the price for it.

1994 August and 1999 December

At the Presidential Election the UNP under Ranil Wickremesinghe performed worse than it did at the Parliamentary election of 1994, at the tail end of 17 years of turbulent rule.

At the 1994 Parliamentary election the UNP under the leadership of D. B. Wijetunga obtained 44.04% of the total vote. After 5 years of Ranil Wickremesinghe’s leadership, the UNP vote decreased to 42.72% .

There’s worse to come. The UNP’s average vote (% vote) in 16 out of 17 districts (out side of the North and East) decreased between 1994 August and 1999 December. Far more significantly, in 15 out of 17 districts (outside of the North and East) the number of votes obtained by the UNP declined between 1994 August and 1999 December (See Table I and Chart I). In these 15 districts the UNP polled 119,839 votes less than it did in August 1994. What this conclusively prove is that the UNP has been unable to maintain its base vote in these 15 districts, let alone attracting new votes or floating votes.

Ranil Wickremesinghe’s performance at the Presidential election cannot be compared favourably with the performance of the UNP at the Provincial Council elections earlier this year either - because in 8 out of 17 districts the average UNP vote actually declined (Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara, Galle, Matara, Moneragaala, Kurunegala and Ratnapura districts).

The causes are manifold. I will just mention two. During the five years under his leadership Ranil Wickremesinghe has weakened the Party considerably through his ill formulated and designed attempts to reorganise the UNP. The ‘Parshada’ system turned the Party’s hitherto superb organisation into a complete mess; and as Ranil Wickremesinghe himself admitted, in some electorates there were no organisers even at the time of the Presidential election, while in others there were several. A simultaneous attempt was made during this period to de-peoplise the UNP, best symbolised by Ranil Wickramasinghe’s steadfast refusal to give promises to the masses. In his ‘Pact with the People’ he refused to give Janasaviya to the people - thereby missing a very good opportunity to win over a significant segment of the populace living below and just above the poverty line. (Instead during the campaign he offered gold bracelets and chains to ‘nangila’ and ‘mallila’. Obviously this sudden and wholesale generosity did not impress the electorate and particularly the first time voters). Having thus debilitated the Party politically and organisationally, he had no choice but to depend on the LTTE to bridge the gap. The rest is history.

The outcome of the election should however not be mistaken for a resurgence of Sinhala chauvinism. The electorate is not what it was in 1956; the people are not what they were in 1983. Apart from the MEP all the other Sinhala supremacist organisations refused to take a clear stand against Ranil Wickremesinghe’s blatantly pro-LTTE line. Their particular call to the Sinhala people was to cancel the vote. This campaign was led by one of the self appointed saviours of the Sinhala race Rev. Gangodawila Soma. He was ably assisted by the National Movement Against Terrorism (NMAT) and Sinhala Veera Vidahana (SVV). Interestingly enough it was the TNL owned by the Wickremesinghe family which provided the maximum amount of coverage for Rev. Soma’s ‘Cancel the Vote’ campaign - just as it was the TNL which gave so much publicity to Rev. Soma’s anti ethnic/religious minority (but never anti-LTTE) propaganda, in the recent past. Rev. Soma also put out a series of leaflets just before the election exhorting the voter to cancel his/her vote and sounding a clarion call against a number of evils which are destroying the Sinhala nation. The list which included everything from birth control to religious conversions had one significant omission - the LTTE.

The Sri Lankan electorate once again displayed its intelligence and maturity by voting in large numbers and refusing to cancel their votes. In fact the % of spoilt votes at this election is significantly lower than the % of rejected votes at the Provincial Council elections; indeed it is one of the lowest since the new electoral system was introduced in 1978. As someone told me, the biggest loser of the election was not Ranil Wickremesinghe but Rev. Soma!

Which way forward

So where do we go from here? At the Parliamentary elections the UNP is likely to fare even worse than it did at the Presidential election, if the party is still led by Ranil Wickremesinghe. Only a change in the leadership (as Sirisena Cooray said ‘anyone but Ranil Wickremesinghe’) can reinvigorate the Party in the short term. This is particularly so since Ranil Wickremesinghe is refusing to learn the lesson the electorate taught him on Dec 21st Undaunted he is still saying the same old things about the LTTE, about negotiations and about the interim council. Maybe he’s hoping that the LTTE will hit the Sri Lankan Forces hard in the North/East, thereby causing a change in the public mood, in favour of negotiations. Instead he (and the Party, as long as he remains at the helm) will once again be at the receiving end of public anger against his openly collaborationist line.

Ranil Wickremesinghe has been tarred irredeemably with the LTTE brush and today he’s like a mill ‘stone round the UNP, dragging the Party into political abyss. UNP’s electoral fortunes will revive only if the Party gets rid of him, and fast.

The question is what if it does not? What if the UNP allows Ranil Wickremesinghe to drag the Party into political oblivion? Which means that the PA will get a carte blanche to do as it pleases on any and all issues from the Package to the economy. President Chandrika is relatively better than the UNP on the LTTE issue and only on that issue. If the PA is able to go ahead with its political package and its economic package, the medium and long term consequences to the country will be only marginally less disastrous than the consequences of Ranil’s pro-LTTE line. Only a strong showing by the UNP at the Parliamentary election can prevent this outcome.

If the UNP faces the Parliamentary election under the leadership of Ranil Wickremesinghe, not only will the Party lose, its base will shrink even further. Therefore the number of UNPers elected to Parliament will go down drastically. Which means the economy will continue its downward trend and the social problems will continue to increase. Because the PA government has displayed its total inability to guide and manage the economy and there are no reasons to think it will do any better in the future. After all the only government undertaking to celebrate the dawn of the new millennium (apart from musical shows) was the unfurling of the longest ‘peace’ flag in the world on the Galle Face Green on December 31st!

When one remembers that already in 1993 President Premadasa had made plans to complete a number of new development projects in time for the new millennium, one understands how bankrupt the PA is when it comes to matters development. Therefore in order to prevent a steady worsening of the state of the economy it is necessary to ensure an adequate performance by the UNP at the upcoming Parliamentary election. For this the removal of Ranil Wickremesinghe from the Party leadership is a sine qua non. If this does not happen soon enough (i.e. in time for the Parliamentary election) the continuous defeat and the eventual liquidation of the Party may become unavoidable. And the ultimate beneficiary of such a process would be none other than the extremist forces in the South in general and the JVP in particular.

Sunday Island Politics
President’s speech makes waves

by Deshavimala
The state-controlled electronic media had repeated announcements from last Sunday till Monday evening about an Address to the Nation by President Chandrika Kumaratunga. The people awaited this address of the President as they were anxious to see her on the TV screen on her return from London after taking treatment for her injured eye. Above all they thought the President would disclose her plans for the next six years. The business community and others thought the President would unfold her plans on economic, social, agricultural and industrial sectors as a budget has to be presented in April with the interim supplementary estimate approved last November ending this March. Though it was announced to be an address to the nation it turned out to be an interview in reality. Janadasa Peiris, Director, Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and journalist Lucien Rajakarunanayake, an ardent supporter of the President played the role of moderators. However, these two moderators did not have any significant role to play as President Kumaratunga held the floor for over three hours in an aggressive mood. What these two moderators did was to help the President was to remind her of the names of the two media men who were at the receiving end during her attack. They were ‘Ravaya’ editor Victor Ivan and ‘Sunday Leader’ editor, Lasantha Wickremetunga.

At the outset, the President said she was speaking in a different manner. Saying this she turned aggressive. Other than attacking the private media she confined her speech to tell the people of her childhood and what policies and ideologies she believed in. Taking on the private media and its journalists, President Kumaratunga first dealt with Victor Ivan. She attacked him in a manner to show that she hardly knew him. At one point she said, ’This man Ivan.... What is his name?’ Lucien Rajakarunanayake seated in front of the President replied," Madam, Victor Ivan’.

Lucien while in the Free Media Movement had worked closely with Victor Ivan and Sunanda Deshapriya all of whom played a major role in bringing Chandrika Kumaratunga and her People’s Alliance to power. Victor Ivan during the 1994 elections worked closely with the President and the PA and his weekly paper ’Ravaya’ was the main organ responsible for helping the president and the PA to power. The UNP was at the receiving end from Victor Ivan’s paper and Sunanda Deshapriya’s tabloid ’Yukthiya’.

Be that as it may, after five years in office, the government of President Kumaratunga and she herself took umbrage with the ‘Ravaya’ of Victor Ivan. Today it is labelled as a rag sheet which is backing the green leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. Five years ago it backed Chandrika Kumaratunga, but Ranil Wickremesinghe then did not react in the manner that the President was reacting today. Instead he chose to ignore the tabloid.

Victor Ivan in 1994 not only supported Kumaratunga through his newspaper but also addressed her meetings. Today, the President appears to have forgotten the full name of this man who backed her to the hilt five years ago. The President who is covered by immunity under Article 35 of the Constitution uses that privilege to launch a scathing attack on the private media, Victor Ivan and Lasantha Wickremetunga. While she labelled Victor Ivan as a ‘Baka Pandithaya’, Lasantha was called a ’Satha’ (animal). During the address she described herself as a devout Buddhist who had compassion for mankind. She also reiterated many times that she never spoke the untruth.

Taking on the ‘Sunday Leader’ editor, she described Lasantha as a man who started journalism as a cub reporter in the ‘Divaina’. This statement of the President is far from truth. Wickremetunga started his journalistic career as a trainee sub-editor in the now defunct ’Sun’ newspaper way back in 1981. He did not do reporting then. During the 1982 presidential election, Wickremetunga was asked by his then editor, Rex de Silva (now in Brunei) to cover the SLFP campaign of Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike. This gave Wickremetunga the opportunity to move closely with the Bandaranaike family. When Wickremetunga was covering the SLFP campaign in 1982, there was already a split in the SLFP with Anura Bandaranaike and Maithripala Senanayake working against the leadership. Maithripala even addressed meetings in support of President J. R. Jayewardene, who was the presidential candidate of the UNP.

President Kumaratunga during her address alleged that Lasantha Wickremetunga as private secretary to Mrs. Bandaranaike passed information to newspapers and the UNP in 1989. Wickremetunga who spoke to this columnist on Friday denied this charge and said that Chandrika Kumaratunga was not even in the country at that time and added that Mrs. Kumaratunga returned only in 1991. By then he had resigned that post and was practising as a junior to senior counsel Ranjith Abeysuriya.

Wickremetunga said that he was SLFP organiser for Colombo North and when he resigned Mrs. Bandaranaike had requested him to recommend a successor and it was he who recommended Javed Yoosuf, former Ambassador to Saudi and a current member of the Human Rights Committee in Sri Lanka. Wickremetunga said the President in her scathing attack on him tried to imply that he was an uneducated man.To counter this charge. He said that he had studied at the Fletcher School for Law and Diplomacy in Boston and has been a srantec under the International Visitor Programme of the US State Department for investigative journalism. He said that when the UNP government of J. R. Jayewardene connected him with a ‘Naxalite’ charge and questioned him for eight hours in 1982, he almost lost his job at the ‘Sun’. He had later resigned when the former Editor of ‘The Island’, Vijitha Yapa, had offered him a job on ‘The Island’ in December that year.

When Wickremetunga was being attacked by President Kumaratunga during her speech, moderator Lucien Rajakarunanayake who is also a columnist of Wickremetunga’s paper ‘Sunday Leader’ maintained a story’ silence. Karunanayake writes weekly columns to the ’Sunday Leader’ supporting President Kumaratunga and the PA. Wickremetunga told this columnist that he was shocked at Lucien’s silence. Having taken on Victor Ivan and Wickremetunga, the President chose to take the private owned print and electronic media institutions and claimed that UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe had connections with those newspapers. She charged that all these institutions worked for Wickremesinghe during the presidential election to ensure her defeat. ’The wisdom of our people chose me’, she said with a smile.

UNP’s Dr. Rajitha Senaratne, once a close friend of President Kumaratunga, used the time given by the UNP during the emergency debate on Thursday to reply President Kumaratunga’s allegations against journalists and the media. He recalled the days how Chandrika and Victor Ivan were close pals and asked how such a friend could forget the name of the other. He said that Chandrika and Victor Ivan worked hand in hand in 1994 to defeat the UNP and added that Chandrika was an ungrateful person to attack and cast aspersions on a friend who helped her to come power.

Dr. Jayalath Jayewardene of the UNP who was accused by President Kumaratunga of having secret links with LTTE’s Lawrence Thilakar and conveying Tiger messages to the UNP leader and attempted to reply those charges in Parliament on Thursday but was constantly disturbed by UNP rebel and PA Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama. This conduct of Amunugama led the chair to suspend sittings on four occasions during the first sitting of parliament in the new millennium. Amunugama charged Jayewardene of treason for alleged links with the LTTE and claimed that the UNP MP had violated his oath as a member of parliament. Amunugama later told the chair that he would move a substantive motion later to expel Jayewardene from the House on charges of treason.

Ranil’s response

UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe who listened to President Kumaratunga’s Address to the Nation on Monday, called a press conference at the Opposition Leader’s office on Thursday to make his observations on the President’s address. He said that he expected the President to outline her policies regarding the economy, defence, agriculture and other spheres but her speech had nothing of that. ’She spoke to her supporters and not to the people of this nation’, Wickremesinghe claimed. The UNP leader who noted that Mrs. Kumaratunga was very aggressive that day said that the Head of the State should exercise more restrain in using words and there had to be a limit even for aggression. Wickremesinghe was of the view that Kumaratunga targeted his party, the media, Tamils, personnel from the armed forces and added that the President tried to rouse communalism by saying that the army officer named ’Bohoran’ was responsible for the recent Wanni debacle.

Wickremesinghe denied charges that his parliamentarian Jayalath Jaywardene acted as a mediator to bring messages from LTTE’s Thilagar. ’Thilagar has had no connections with me or my party directly or indirectly’, Wickremesinghe asserted. President Kumaratunga was visibly angry during her speech claiming that the Tamils voted for Ranil under LTTE pressure.

Wickremesinghe pointed out that the North-East Tamils always voted for a candidate who had a plan to resolve their problems and pointed out that the very Tamils who voted UNP earlier voted for her in 1994 but rejected her in 1999 because she had no plans for their problems.

Following the Dr. Liam Fox agreement, President Kumaratunga vouched that any attempt to resolve the ethnic problem would be dealt under the agreement keeping the opposition informed. During her speech she disclosed that she made two attempts last year through the Commonwealth Secretary General and the Norwegian government.

Wickremesinghe sees this as a violation of the Liam Fox agreement as the opposition had been kept in the dark during these two moves.

Wickremesinghe was asked whether he would have been the beneficiary if the LTTE had succeeded in the bomb attempt on the President. He replied that the government media was spreading a fabricated story to that effect but the truth was that he would have been the loser as the election would have been declared null and void under Article 30(1) 3a of the constitution. He explained that if it so happened parliament would elect a president to cover the interim period and that president would come from the PA and not from his party. Wickremesinghe said that the President threw challenges to his party at a time when the nation faced a challenge with an ongoing war.

He said that his party will not give into or accept her challenges but would certainly help her if she put forward a positive plan to end the war. The UNP leader denied Kumaratunga’s charges that President Premadasa and Ossie Abeygunesekere conspired to kill her and also rejected charges that the UNP was behind the killing of her father S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike. He denied the charge that the UNP was behind the assassination of Vijaya Kumaratunga.

Wickremesinghe took a tough stand against the charges made against the private media and journalists and claimed that certain ministers have already warned some journalists to leave the country if they wanted to live further. He said his party will not allow Kumaratunga to suppress the free media and he would take the struggle to the streets if that happened. The UNP leader pointed out that Victor Ivan was always a friend of the PA and Chandrika and not of the UNP. He quipped that great friends have fallen apart and Chandrika was trying to accuse the UNP for that tragedy.

Diplomats meeting

UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe scheduled a meeting with the members of the diplomatic community on Tuesday at his Cambridge Terrace office to brief them on the irregularities and corrupt activity during the voting at the presidential election. Twenty two members of the DPL community were present at that meeting. The UNP team comprised Ranil Wickremesinghe, UNP Chairman Karu Jayasuriya, Ronnie de Mel, Mahinda Samarasinghe, Daya Pelpola and Milinda Moragoda.

The US Ambassador, Acting High Commissioner for India, UK High Commissioner, and representatives from Germany, France, Switzerland, Holland, Nepal, South Korea, Egypt, Canada, Norway, Sweden and Australia were among those present. Wickremesinghe opened the session wishing the diplomats a happy new year and said the recently concluded election was the most corrupt in the history of Sri Lanka. He said the postal votes had been tampered with for the first time and cited Colombo North and Colombo Central, the UNP strongholds, where the party won but was defeated in the postal votes. He said the envelopes carrying the postal votes had not been sealed and it was sufficient proof to say they had been tampered with.

The diplomats sought clarification as to how rigging had been carried out and the UNP leader explained that Samurdhi Niyamakas have been involved in political work of the government to cast bogus votes for the PA candidate. He said that ballot papers without the watermark had been printed and showed three such ballot papers which had the same serial number (88734) to them. The diplomats expressed shock when Wickremesinghe proved his point with documents. He explained as to how the ballot boxes had been tampered with in many parts of the country when they were being transported to the counting centres. The UNP leader said that if not for the rigging he was sure that neither of the two leading candidates would have got over 50 per cent in the first count taking the trend of voting at that election.

He dismissed claims that a sympathy vote swung towards Kumaratunga after the bomb blast at Town Hall, stating that there wasn’t sufficient time for such a build-up. Speaking about foreign election monitors, Wickremesinghe pointed out that at least there should be two hundred such monitors if elections are to be monitored properly and added that the number brought by the government was far below the required number.

He proposed that the majority of election monitors to monitor elections here should be brought from the West, United States and Australia and recommended that the services of the Carter Centre should be used during elections.

Wickremesinghe stated that the inclusion of Lord Desai from India among the monitors was a late decision of the government. Desai is reported to have been a lecturer of President Kumaratunga during her days at the Sorbonne University in France. Therefore, the UNP leader said he could not accept Desai’s statement that the poll was by and large free and fair.

The other members of the monitoring committee presented separate reports and the government had not publicised those recommendations about the conduct of the poll. He said he would urge the government to publicise those reports in the name of democracy. Desai who arrived in the country as the Head of the Monitoring Team is still reported to be in the country. He is expected to address a meeting of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka tomorrow, authoritative sources said. Political analysts say that Desai is a friend of the Kumaratunga government and was now holidaying here to meet his friends in the business and financial circles.

General Elections

While parliamentarians and political circles were busy discussing a rumour that parliament is to be dissolved early to hold elections in March, the national enemy Velupillai Prabakaran struck in Colombo. A woman suicide bomber who was hanging about Flower Road was detected by the alert security men at the Prime Minister’s office on Wednesday morning. When she was called for a body check she exploded herself which resulted in fourteen others losing their lives. An hour later a lone gunman shot dead the controversial Tamil political figure, Kumar Ponnambalam, at Wellawatte.

While all this happened in the city, the UNP rebels were trying to bring in more UNP MPs into their fold. They approached some UNP members who wanted a guarantee of their membership in parliament and told the rebels that the powers of party general secretaries should be pruned in a way that they could not recommend their expulsions in the event of a crossover.

Rebel leader Sarath Amunugama said he would look into the matter and try to move certain amendments to that effect soon in parliament.

Minority Tamil political party men who were approached by the rebel group in this regard were opposed to that suggestion. Amunugama, in consultation with some ministers, prepared an urgent bill to that effect and it was learnt that this bill had been given to the Speaker late Thursday evening. Acting Minister of Justice Dilan Perera is reported to have handed over the bill to the Speaker.

On Thursday, parliamentarians from both sides were heard talking in the corridors of the first floor about an early prorogation of parliament and a referendum to extend the present life of the parliament by a further two years. UNP MPs were heard saying they would favour such a resolution as they were not prepared to face polls under intimidation and violence that has now become the order of the day. A number of PA MPs are not in favour of a referendum to extend the life of parliament as the people would say that Kumaratunga was repeating what Jayewardene did during the UNP regime.

During the cabinet meeting on Wednesday at Temple Trees the issues of an early election and a referendum was discussed as outside the agenda. That was the first cabinet meeting that was held after Chandrika was sworn in for second time as President. The President hurriedly met the service chiefs minutes before the cabinet meeting as the explosion took place at Flower Road early that morning.

Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle who was hospitalised at Nawaloka, telephoned the President to say about the explosion but the President was aware of it by then. Having met the Service Chiefs she telephoned her mother, the Prime Minister. At the commencement of the cabinet meeting Gen. Ratwatte told his colleagues about the explosion. Ministers present were very critical about the role of a senior officer in the defence ministry claiming that he was acting in a lethargic manner.

Several ministers told the president that an early general election should be called as the current trend in the country was favourable to the government after her victory. They said that it was difficult to get the support of many in the UNP to form a two third majority in the House and therefore, the government should go ahead for an early general election.

The President pointed out that the security situation in the country was not conducive to think of an early election as there were threats to the lives of many in the government and in the opposition.

After the cabinet meeting, the President urged SLMC leader to stay back. She discussed his mode of transport during this month and warned him to exercise more caution in moving about. She asked him how he came. ’Madam, as usual I use my official vehicle’, he replied. The president then told her security to drop Ashraff in one of her bullet proof cars with escort from the PSD. Minister Ashraff who enjoyed the ride in a bullet-proof presidential car came to parliament in his official car Thursday minus the presidential security.

Taking into consideration the security situation in the city and the twelve hour curfew to arrest suspicious Tiger cadres, it is unlikely that the PA would now go for an early general election. Political analysts say that parliament is likely to be prorogued for a month for the government to decide on the next step. However, the next session of Parliament has been fixed for January 18 to discuss some routine bills which are not politically important.

Russia — end of Yeltsin’s rule

by Dr. Stanley Kalpage
As the last hours of the old millennium ticked away, Boris Yeltsin surprised his countrymen and the world by announcing his resignation with immediate effect. He also announced that he had appointed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting president and that a presidential election would be held on 26 March 2000, three months ahead of schedule.

Yeltsin told a bewildered Russian nation: "I am resigning ahead of time. I have realised that I have to do so. Russia must enter the next millennium with new politicians, with new personalities and with new smart and energetic people."

Yeltsin’s deal with his successor

One of Putin’s first official acts as acting president, was the signing of a 7-pages long decree which apparently held the key to the sudden but smooth transfer of power. Besides granting Boris Yeltsin and his family an array of benefits and privileges, the decree gave Yeltsin immunity from criminal investigation and protected his houses, cars, papers and belongings from search and seizure.

The decree described in precise detail how much of a salary the former president will get in the initial months after his resignation (75 percent of his salary of about 10,000 rubles, or $40,000), how much money he will have available to spend on staff, his access to government air and train terminals and other perks associated with the top Kremlin job.

But the immunity clause, limited to only the president himself and not to his family and aides, hinted at the kinds of concerns that Yeltsin had as he prepared secretly to leave office, his administration has been scarred by reports of widespread corruption.

Because Yeltsin was the first democratically elected president in Russia, there were no precedents for such guarantees, Yeltsin, who moved into the Kremlin after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, gave its previous occupant Mikhail S. Gorbachev, a generous package of benefits and privileges and a rent-free office building when he left office on 31 December, 1991.

The Yeltsin years

During the past decade, Yeltsin has dominated the Russian political stage like an erratic lumbering bear. He emerged from periodic bouts of poor health, purported drinking and lethargy, with surprise moves calculated to confound his opponents and dazzle his political allies. Yeltsin has been in an out of the hospital since 1996, when he underwent heart surgery after his re-election to a second term.

A master of drama and of the political moment, Yeltsin was among the first senior Soviet leaders to turn against Communist rule and to quit the Communist Party. Expelled from the Soviet leadership by Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin fought back to become the first elected leader of the Russian Federation and to preside over the dissolution of the Soviet Union. His resistance to an attempted Communist coup from atop an armored vehicle became one of the icons of the fall of Communism.

Yeltsin worked systematically to introduce democratic norms to a former communist state. He shares major credit for the fact that Russians today have opportunities to speak out, to travel abroad, to publish and to practise their religion, in ways that were outlawed under the Communists.

In the 1996 presidential elections, Yeltsin won in the second round over Communist leader Gennadi A. Zyuganov and after winning over General Lebed to his side. He fought resolutely to ward off a failed impeachment drive in May 1999. More recently he was engaged in a four-month campaign run from the Kremlin to put a Yeltsin stamp of approval on Russia’s next president.

Yeltsin had more than his share of troubles during his last summer in office. His chances of controlling his succession looked weak. Beset by a wave of international scandals - including reports that members of his family had accepted kickbacks from a Swiss construction company — the Kremlin was losing the initiative to a powerful new political alliance, which united behind former Prime Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov and Moscow Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov.

Yeltsin also walked onto the world stage, where he has lobbied, harangued and bullied Western leaders as they learned to cope with Russia’s new and turbulent democracy.

Yeltsin’s blustering, sometimes peculiar political style has often led his opponents to count him out. But each time, he has proved them wrong.

Corruption and crime

As critics have often noted, Yeltsin proved better at grand gestures and political intrigues than in governing the country. His rule was marked by rising poverty, corruption and a slow erosion of the meaning of such concepts as democracy and a free market economy.

During his stewardship, Russia’s economy has seen the rise of a group of well-connected businessmen — known as the ‘oligarchs’ — who have grown fabulously rich through the sell-off of state-owned oil fields, factories and other property. Again, although the Russian media are now free, they are heavily controlled by business interests — including some closely linked to the Kremlin — that have used their television stations and newspapers to doctor the news and promote their political clans.

In an uncharacteristic personal aside in the course of his resignation address, Yeltsin apologized for his failures. "I want to apologize for our unfulfilled dreams," he said. "What we thought was easy has proved painfully difficult. I would like to apologize for having failed to justify the hopes of the people who believed that we would be able to make a leap from the gloomy and stagnant totalitarian past to a bright, prosperous and civilized future at just one go."

The Chechen war

However, before long, the tide once again turned in his favour. Days after Islamic rebels from the breakaway region of Chechnya staged an armed invasion of neighbouring Dagestan, Yeltsin seized the moment to pick his sixth prime minister and heir apparent, Vladimir Putin, who was then a member of the Kremlin administration and head of Russia’s domestic intelligence service.

That move, followed by a full-scale war against the Chechen rebels, now moving into its fourth month, dramatically altered Russia’s political landscape. In August, putin was a political nonentity, with no party, no popular support and the backing of a deeply distrusted president.

Four months later, as Putin’s popularity ratings top 50 percent, Putin is Russia’s latest rising star, hailed at home as the architect of an uncompromising war that many Russians have welcomed as a belated, if brutal attempt to restore the battered authority of the Russian state.

The State Duma election

The parliamentary elections of December 1999 confirmed the Kremlin’s expectations in prime minister Putin and probably provided Boris Yeltsin with the assurances he needed to let go of power. The surprisingly strong showing of two newly created pro-government parties, concocted by Kremlin strategists and blessed by Vladimir Putin, broke the eight-year-long stalemate in Parliament, dominated until now by a Communist-led anti-Yeltsin opposition.

But putin’s rise is also traced to a shift in the national mood, as voters, tired of the uncertainties and corruption associated with Yeltsin’s tenure, cast about for a strong leader. As prime minister, Putin has benefited not just from the Chechen war and the patriotic fervor enveloping it, but from an economic comeback propelled by a rise in world oil prices and a devalued rouble.

Vladimir Putin

Putin’s admirers see Putin as the ideal man for Russia’s darkest hour. Putin’s aggressive pursuit of the Chechen war followed the bombings of five buildings in Moscow and other cities and was blamed on terrorists. This established Putin’s image as a tough and no-nonsense leader at a time when Russians were seeking just such a person.

Putin is said to be dedicated to democracy and to government economic controls, but is pro-market. Although he is former president Boris Yeltsin’s man, Putin is thought to stand apart from Yeltsin’s infamous entourage of tycoons, schemers and supposed thieves.

Vladimir Putin (47)is by all counts an extremely competent, cautious and intelligent man. Born in Leningrad, later St. Petersburg, he graduated with honours in 1975 from Leningrad State University’s law department, where he studied economic law. Instead of becoming a lawyer, Putin joined the KGB’s foreign intelligence arm and served in Moscow before being assigned to Dresden, then part of East Germany, in the 1980’s.

Putin returned to Leningrad in 1989 and, by March 1999, became head of Yeltsin’s security council, responsible for internal security and national defence. On 9 August, he replaced Stepashin as prime minister and yeltsin’s heir-apparent.

Presidential hopefulls

The race for the Kremlin is on and in less than three months Russians will elect the second President of the post-communist era. Putin will have the advantage of incumbency and will also have credibility by being Yeltsin’s personal choice as his successor. After 15 years spent in the KGB he is said to have a knack for fighting corruption and crime, two of the worst evils in modern Russian society.

Yevgeny Primakov announced his candidature just before the State Duma election. He is a former foreign minister and later prime minister, who functioned successfully as premier until Yeltsin fired him presumably because he thought that Primakov was becoming too popular.

Among other contenders are two other former prime ministers, Sergey Stepashin and Victor Chernomyrdin, communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, retired general Alexander Lebed, Moscow Mayor Luri Yuzhkov, ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Grigory Lavlinsky, leader of the reformist Yabloko party. The front runner is acting president and prime minister Vladimir Putin, whose reputation has soared along with the popular support for the war in Chechnya.

Prabhakaran selects a president

by Susantha Goonatilake
The sham democracy rolled on. Beyond the results one fact stood out. Prabhakaran’s actions have over the last ten years determined who would be our rulers. He has done so this time too. He was the unseen Commissioner of Selections.

J. R. Jayewardene in his futile effort to permanently rig democracy invented the new constitution and the dictatorial presidency. It is perhaps the most draconian elected office on earth and gives near unlimited and unaccountable power to the incumbent. A constitution terrorist who could defy the laws of the land. But this intractable system gives only an illusion of power. This dictatorial presidency attracts death because the elimination of one constitutional terrorist could pave the path for another one with entirely different ideas. And a new legally unaccountable President could follow policies entirely different from his predecessor or those of the voters and even of his party. And if the party is run on a dictatorial internal constitution like those of the JR approved UNP one or run on family bandyism like the SLFP; one could have dramatic changes at the whim of the new dictator. The family candidate Chandrika could follow entirely different policies from the family candidate Sirima.

Prabhakaran is no grand strategist. His mind prepared by a century of Tamil racism runs on a simple personal logic. Eliminate individuals who stand in the way of his racism. In this simple-minded pursuit of this death cult he killed all Tamil leaders who stood in his way, even those of the TULF who gave him his racist ideology. This included TULF’s Amirthalingam and Tiruchelvam whose officially sponsored publication Genocide in Sri Lanka spread racist hartred through the lie that Sinhalese ate Tamil meat and that Buddhist monks raped Tamil women. This crude ideological war helped justify Prabhakaran’s death cult.

With no sense of gratefulness he had earlier killed Rajiv Gandhi whose mother had first made him and supplied him with arms. Ungrateful, he then killed President Premadasa his biggest arms supplier. He also killed the UNP leaders who could have been presidents like Lalith Athulathmudali, Gamini Dissanayake and Ranjan Wijeratne.

But the separatist drive whose culmination is Prabhakaran did not start in 1983 as Chandrika says or in the 1958 riots as her enemies say. Nor did it begin with the more recent book ‘‘Unmaking the [Sri Lankan] Nation sponsored by Kumari Jayawardene, the wife of our Ambassador in London. Or by Jayadeva Uyangoda and Victor Ivan justifying separatism in their writings.

Its roots lay in 19th century Tamil politics of South India and Jaffna. This led to demands in South India for a separate state, which only died after Nehru banned separatism through the 6th Amendment in the late 1950s. We banned it only in 1983 after the shameful riots. Sri Lankan Tamil leaders strongly supported by an anti-national Christian lobby got detailed support for separatism from this Indian root. In India today, Tamil is only a regional language, not a national or official language as in Sri Lanka. And to many Indian Tamils, Prabhakaran is a deep embarrassment specially after his plans for a Greater Eelam encompassing South India were revealed in the Rajiv Gandhi trial. Tamil separatism in India is dead and Indian Tamil leaders compete with each other to be part of the central government whose officials and increasingly working lanaguage is Hindi.

The ethnic issue dominated the elections even before the bomb blasts. The last few weeks, government propaganda was of a Tiger-Ranil combine conspiring to give the fictitious Tamil homelands in the North and East to the Tigers. PA propaganda spoke also of human rights violations of the UNP. Ranil replied that he meant only handing over to an interim council. And his other, rather inane pronouncements fell into the background, as did other PA promises like changes in the constituion. This latter was specially hidden from PA propaganda and posters.

Ranil had wanted to hand over the North and East under the interim arrangements of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. The 13th Amendement, which was rushed through with Indian gunboats literally at our shores, was a treaty of surrender to an India, which had trained the terrorists and led a proxy invasion. India has now rethought her position and is today the SAARC country closest to us. Incapable of seeing even recent history, Ranil wished to go back to the terms of that infamy. He wanted to resurrect the interim North-East council, a signature of that treaty of surrender. His uncle JR, thanks to whom Ranil is in this position was only a reluctant signatory. The cowardly nephew without the pressures on JR and grasped the chains that the Indians had made and was now recommending it to the country.

Prabhakaran settled the issues for all. Being a true believer in equality he bombed both parties. Later some partisans from both parties were heard muttering that it was the action of the PA or the UNP. Fatuous arguments brought about by insularity and inability to see the real enemy. A true statement from the heart was the Lake House chairman Aloy Ratnayake, a truly patriotic Christian calling Prabhakaran an untrustworthy "monster" whose calls for negotiations were "red herrings".

In the last few days, the government media screamed that voting for Chandrika was a vote for the motherland against the evil Ranil-Tiger combine. The private media, specially TNL, which in the election period functioned as a UNP propaganda organ, — and sponsors the Tiger friendly doctor Jayalath Jayawardene — lamely tried to defend talks with the Tigers. But it was to no avail. Prabhakaran had voted with his bombs. To spite the LTTE some nationalists who had wanted to spoil the vote it is said now also voted for Chandrika. Ranil was soundly defeated. He had committed near suicide by flirting with the Tigers.

One other political suicide was the total defeat of the foreign funded NGO’s candidate Vasudeva Nanayakkara. (What I mean by "foreign funded NGOs" as I had reiterated many times are only those entities that deal with our sovereignty, not those that deal with harmless issues like the environment or health.) In a TNL interview, Vasudeva specifically defended the role of these foreign entities. But Vasudeva with both the NGO and his own political network to rely on ended as a truly pathetic figure. In many parts of the country he was nearly the last, probably getting votes only from NGO employees. Complete unknowns like a Ranjith, Abdul Rasool, and a Kamal Karunadasa and the better known Rajiv Wijesinghe and Tennyson Edirisuriya often ran ahead of him. Only the bankrupt TULF endorsing him gave him a better showing in the North and the East. Real civil society had trounced the phony ones.

The number of voters in Jaffna is today possibly only half the 600,000 figure quoted as the official voting strength. Yet in Jaffna non-racial national parties the PA and UNP got reasonable votes in a difficult atmosphere . The TULF had also wilfully committed suicide by abdicating its role and handing it to Vasudeva. Tamil estate parties meanwhile joined the non-racial main stream.

And after her own earlier flirtations with the Tigers Chandrika had now realized the truth in the most painful of ways. Apparently there is nothing like a bomb blast to awaken unused brains. She now used the strongest words against the Tigers. Unwittingly Prabhakaran had perhaps arranged for his own suicide. Prabhakaran’s message is simple: kill or be killed. No games of chivalry like in the case of the South Indian invader Elara and the local Dutugemunu. No gentlemanly request for a hand-to-hand combat by one and the building of a special tomb for the fallen. Although an invader, Elara is remembered in the Sinhala imagination as the epitome of justice. But Prabhakaran is no Elara. He should be given the same summary medicine he has given to others. No mercy.

Kumar Ponnambalam
The rebel in search of a cause

by Gamini Seneviratne
It could be said that Kumar Ponnambalam played with fire and some would say it.

It could be said that Kumar’s aggressive polemics, which sometimes skirted the borders of vituperation, was not the way to go. Well, that could also be said of high-profile expatriate patriots like S J Tambiah, and of numerous others who hide behind the academic status that Tambiah had acquired, several decades ago, through his "World Conqueror and World Renouncer: a Study of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand" and his other major work in that setting.

Kumar sought no such cover. His communalism was derived from his father’s, which did not include notions of empire. As the media have reminded us, he was an Advocate by profession. It is a feature, the primary one, of that class of professional that they speak to a brief. However strong or weak the ‘case’ might be, an advocate’s reputation and rewards depend on his making the most of whatever arguments are available to him.Whether the client was in the right or in the wrong is not material; personal judgements and ethical or other such considerations do not enter the arena where the case is heard and judgement entered. To be sure, an advocate may speak of ‘ethics’ and raise ‘moral issues’ - but only in so far as they would tend to advance the interests of the client.

Kumar Ponnambalam was not, in that sense, an ‘advocate’ of Tamil communalism: what he advocated was that which he himself believed in. Unlike many others, including some spurious academics and unprofessional journalists, who continue to espouse similar objectives, Kumar required no ‘retainer’ of any kind.

And he had enemies among the latter class. The paper he presented at a Ceylon Studies Seminar at Peradeniya in 1983, on ‘The All Ceylon Tamil Congress, the Federal Party and the Plantation Tamils’ alone would have ensured that. Perhaps too he was himself guilty of leveling taunts in the manner his father is known to have done.

That he styled himself "G.G.Ponnambalam, Jnr." was indicative of the deep respect and affection he had towards his father, whose stature in national politics Kumar could not quite reach, for the obvious reasons. The times had changed in Jaffna as they had elsewhere. By the time Kumar became actively engaged in politics, the time was long past when a ‘Colombo lawyer’ could visit his ‘borough’ in Manipay, or even in Jaffna or Point Pedro, rather like an absentee landlord, arrange jobs for poor relatives’ children who wouldn’t threaten their own, talk with senior opinion makers, sip a glass of palmyrah toddy in public, and get back to Parliament. Their ‘home-work’ was done for them by party cadres and by officials who executed ‘public works’. The caste-divide was being perforated, and politics was becoming a matter of dis-enfranchising the people in other ways.

Kumar was working on a biography of "G.G" for some years. Such a document would provide numerous insights to those who wish to understand the nature of communal politics at least since the 1930s

not only in Jaffna, but, more particularly in Colombo among ‘the native bougeoisie’, who continue their squabbling through a variety of other means. Let us hope that the biography comes to be published in whatever form he left it, and that a selection of his own numerous articles is put together.

Kumar Ponnambalam was not, in the conventional sense, a ‘warrior’, nor the wisest of men. But he was a candid advocate of what he believed in, and in these times when such qualities, in whatever degree, are rare, his passing brings to mind an old Nahua song:

"Nothing remains but flowers and sad songs Where once there were warriors and wise men ..."

Sri Lanka’s education in crisis

by Denis de Rosayro

Only 20% qualify
According to statistics released by the Department of Examinations, less than 20% of the students who sit the GCE O/L examination qualify to sit for the GCE A/L examination,

According to statistics, in 1995 only 17.1% students actually passed the exam (i.e. passed in six or more subjects with first language and Mathematics). While in 1994 and 1993, the pass rate was 19.5% and 18% respectively.

The statistics also show, the percentage of students who passed in all eight subjects had declined over the year with a mere 8.8% passing in eight subjects in 1995. In 1994 and 1995 only 7.8% of the students and 5.6% of students passed in all eight subjects respectively.

The statistics also show that only 17.8% passed in one subject in 1995, while in 1994 and 1993, 19.2% and 18.8% of students passed in one subject respectively.

Sri Lanka’s system of education can be compared to a one-track express train with an incompetent engine driver at the controls derailing all its carriages full of student passengers at regular intervals all along the way and finally reaching its university destination with only a paltry 2 per cent of its original number of passengers - after of course having caused havoc all along the line.

Of the children who enter school 25 per cent dropout and leave before year 5, another 15 per cent before year 8 and a further 48 per cent before year 11. These startling and alarming statistics revealed by the Deputy Minister of Education and Higher Education are ample proof that Sri Lanka’s education is in crisis.

The continuing plummeting of standards of education in our schools can be laid squarely on the bureaucrats in our tradition- bound Ministry of Education who have failed to realize the simple truth that schools are not "factories". For too long students have been treated as "products" to be processed similar to a car or a refrigerator. Ours is a "one way street,’ system of education leading to the university. It is no small wonder then, that for students without an academic interest or those totally unsuited for university, the curriculum in schools is uninteresting, meaningless and frustrating. Naturally it follows that formal schooling for the majority of students is a waste of time, money and energy and the large number of dropouts attests to this fact.

Though Sri Lanka boasts of some excellent schools, the overall quality of education nationwide has fallen drastically. We cannot afford false pride. Despite a claimed literacy rate of nearly 90 per cent many so-called literates cannot communicate correctly, are not functionally literate and are deficient in numeracy skills. No right thinking person will deny that student achievement levels are terrible.

A UNESCO sponsored survey carried out by the National Institute of Education confirmed that at the 1995 GCE (O/L) Examination a staggering 400,000 of the 499,000 students failed the examination. Statistics also confirmed that students fared no better in 1993 and 1994.

There is no doubt that there are major fundamental flaws in the education system. Thus far what has passed for education in most of our schools has been rote memorisation, stereotyped note taking and mechanised, routine exercise drills. This indoctrination that passes for education has relentlessly lowered the standards of education to levels the weak students can meet.

Ultimately it was the delusion of successive mandarins of the Department of Education to believe that everyone can be brought up to university level that has brought schools down to everyone’s level.

Presently schools simply perpetuate a two-tier system of education for rich and poor. Schools in rural areas are much less likely to have the resources and personnel to provide a proper education. Decades of authoritarianism and mismanagement have resulted in a chaotic system of education. There are precious few sacred cows in education and its policy makers are certainly not among them.

Is a pass with distinction in English Language at the G. C. E. (O/L) worth anything today? The vast majority of our students leave school ill-equipped and lacking even the basic communicative skills to earn a living in our increasingly technological society and international marketplace. It is therefore not surprising that year after year an avalanche of students from most schools, even prestigious ones, after completing the GCE (O/L) seek some remedial programme from private institutes to learn the reading and writing skills in English that they ought to have developed in Junior and secondary school. English has become an insurmountable hurdle for our students.

It is an indisputable fact that English is indispensable for anyone who wants the full benefits of education and modern technology. Apart from its utilitarian value the English language has a tremendous impact in building harmony and amity through understanding between the different ethnic communities. It is understandable therefore that most parents fear that if their children are educated in government schools they will lose out in the third millennium. Due to this fact the new phenomenon in Sri Lanka is the rapid rise of international and private schools.

The Minister of Education and Higher Education has gone on record stating that Rs. 30,000 million has been allocated for the development of education in Sri Lanka for the year 1998. Spending on education is referred to as an investment on human capital. If that is so, it seems reasonable to ask whether the investment pays a worthwhile return. It therefore becomes imperative to critically assess if the "freely" imparted education in our schools will be useful, meaningful and relevant even in the future.

Educationists and politicians alike have been touting the benefits of the new education reforms that are expected to revolutionise the entire system of education in this country. The reforms will be implemented islandwide in 1999. In fact a pilot project in primary school reforms was carried out in the Gampaha District in 1998.

The new education reforms have been hailed as the panacea for all the ills of the prevailing system of education. Despite the rhetoric and the euphoria over revolutionising and transforming the system its success will depend on correct implementation and an ongoing process of evaluation. While the ideas sound great in theory past experience of reforms has shown that frustration has been the reality.

There is no room for complacency. Making the most of the new reforms will require a dramatic shift in pedagogy. The curriculum must shift from what the Department of Education desires to teach to being what students desire to learn. Equally important is the big divide between the education reform planners and the classroom teachers which will have to be bridged. The President herself has pointed out that the previous government recruited over 100,000 untrained teachers and strongly stated, "There is a crying need to train teachers". This fact also highlights a national failure and poses the question of how the reforms will be implemented in the neediest rural schools.

The present educational planners must not on any account be carried away and wax lyrical about the new reforms by comparing it with the dismal record of the past.

The main thrust of the education reforms is the thinking that the educational system in Sri Lanka needs a greater fusion between academic and vocational training. This is indeed a misconception that can backfire with serious repercussions. What is needed is not a fusion of the two tracks but a sharper division between them coupled with a forceful and pragmatic programme for diverting intellectual "also-rans" out of the academic track and into the vocational one. That is where they are heading in life anyway. The majority of youth today emerge from school knowing nothing that is useful in the marketplace.

If the reforms are to succeed let us move forward with purpose, direction and dedicated effort. It is imperative that we build on our good experiences and learn from our bad ones.

(The author is the course director of the Lasallian English Academy)

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