Exits and the dilemmas they spawn

In the second week of June, the Yahapalana Government dispatched several high ranking loyalists to the UK or else instructed those who happened to be in that country or were planning to visit for other business to lobby UK citizens of Sri Lankan origin against Brexit.

Harin Fernando, Harsha de Silva, Rosy Senanayake, Dayasiri Jayasekera, Dilan Perera and Susil Premjayantha are reported to have done the canvassing at the time. The majority of voters (51.89%) voted in favour of Britain exiting the European Union. The exit was formally written into law on January 23, 2020.

At the time, with Brexit impending, Ranil Wickremesighe, then Prime Minister, was reported to have said that Sri Lanka should look East. Specifically, he outlined long term plans to forget stronger ties with Asian countries (China, India, Japan and Korea). He spoke of fast-tracking ETCA (Economic Technology Cooperation Agreement) with India and Free Trade Agreements with the aforementioned economies.

It took Brexit, then, for the darling of neoliberalism in Sri Lanka to ‘see’ the neighbourhood. Fast forward to 2022, Ranil Wickremeisnghe, now President, ‘shockingly’ resorted to rhetoric that was almost a throw-back to the policies of the United Front government of the early 1970s. He has eased off that kind of stuff since, understandably so given a long standing fascination with neoliberalism which, in current circumstances, requires repeating the mantra ‘IMF is God’ and following relevant precepts.

From Day One it has been a case of wanting to get money from wherever in order to make people feel things are better. ‘IMF’ has been thought of as a means to secure further loans and attract investment on account of a relatively rosier picture of general economic health. The first is essentially about adding to the debt burden and getting deeper into a default cycle. The latter just doesn’t work that way. The government just doesn’t have any solid, sustainable plan to sort out the foreign exchange problem.

The focus instead has been on political viability and, on the economic front, ticking ‘IMF Boxes.’ Among them is a condition on restructuring domestic debt. Problem: local banks are saying ‘no can do.’ And why should they, anyway? They are not obliged to bail out governments.

What are the options, then, if the boxes remain unticked? China.

Wait. Julie Chung won’t be happy about it, right? The lady might think that it’s time for Wickremesinghe to exit! Perhaps this is why presidential pretenders like Patali Champika Ranawaka has adopted an unusually US-friendly position.  Perhaps this is why the pro-US Al Jazeera calls him a ‘dictator.’ That’s the first salvo of vilification and discrediting. Expect more of the same. ‘Unless,’ is the word unsaid followed by the do this and do that of arm-twisting.

Right now, there’s a tightrope to walk. A fine line. On the one hand, the government is unable to tick certain IMF boxes. On the other hand, Chung shouldn’t be displeased. Something has to give. Or, put another way, something has to be given. The devils have to be appeased. SOFA? MCC? Don’t be surprised, folks; this is a battle for political survival and not economic recovery, alleviating miseries or a plan to get the country out of a rut and ensure it doesn’t slip back. It helps when you are ideologically happy embracing such servility and facilitating such outright plunder. Bottom line: whatever it takes, never mind the people, the resources, who gets short-changed, who gets enslaved, what gets looted, the potential pillage etc.

All this is framed by the question of legitimacy. We have a legally appointed president who has a serious legitimacy deficit. Right now he’s dependent on numbers provided by a party that has severely discredited itself since the 2020 election and a few who have reneged from parties such as the SJB and SLMC. Naturally, he would prefer to be a president elected by the people and not their representatives. Thereafter he could stir the coalition soup to obtain the consistency required for political stability. Easier said than done. He does have the advantage of an opposition that’s not only divided by confusion, not to mention the fact that it is composed of groups and parties led by ego-maniacs who themselves stand discredited in the eyes of the people. All that, later. What of the here and now?

Maybe the most serious issue is that a politically beleaguered leader just doesn’t have the space to develop a solid, pragmatic and sustainable plan of action. Tossing out a date (2048 in this case) just isn’t enough. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government is like a bunch of specialist bowlers batting on a minefield and attacked by unforgiving bowlers while being surrounded by the sharpest fielders ready to pounce on edges produced by each and every false stroke. And no one to cheer either, for it is, for all intents and purposes, an ‘away match.’

The world has changed a lot after Brexit. The West is in decline; only the West doesn’t want to admit it or else just don’t believe the writing on the wall. Wickremesinghe knows this though. Ranawaka knows it too but probably thinks the bad days are still far away — therefore it’s a warm enough embrace to achieve political ambitions.  Wickremesinghe is in the hot seat, not Ranawaka. Right now he’s struggling to appease those who seem to have run out of patience and at the same time is wary of considering the obvious alternatives.

There’s one thing he can do though: address the larger and most worrisome issues at hand. What’s the plan? What’s the plan to fix the foreign exchange crisis? What’s the plan to encourage industry even as you implement austerity measures? The industries have to compete in a global economy. They have margins to worry about. Why not engage with them? Coherence. That’s probably a good thing to be framed by at this point. The sheer lack of clarity on all matters will not help.

And it would be good to revisit the post-Brexit thinking. There’s some distance from thought to action, but Wickremesinghe did get it right in 2016. There were no other options then. There are none today either. Could work, subject to the non-negotiable condition of the national interest informing all engagements.  He’s a tad poor on that. Indeed, he’s not alone there. All major political parties and their leaders are equal to him in this regard. Or worse.

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Suwa Seriya: How Harsha De Silva redeemed ‘Yahapalanaya’

I was skeptical about Suwa Seriya, the emergency ambulance service launched by the Yahapalana Government with Indian funding. My skepticism is rooted in disappointments with that regime which we need not go into here. Later I figured that I was too quick to judge the project. Still later, in December 2017, something happened that shed all doubts I may have entertained.

It’s a personal story. My father, then 79 years old, suffered a TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack) which left him partially paralyzed. I was out of the country. The man who was taking care of him had called my brother who immediately went to our father’s house. On the way he had called the healthcare outfit that has attended to such situations before. He had been told that they would take 45 minutes to get there. Then he had called ‘1990.’ This is how he related what happened thereafter:

‘They picked up at the first ring and asked me clearly where the patient was. I was told that the ambulance was being dispatched right away. The lady who answered the call contacted me three times to check if the vehicle had arrived. The ambulance arrived within minutes. He was rushed to the Kalubowila hospital. It would have taken us no more than three minutes to get there from Pamankada. Ten to eleven minutes after I made the call, he was being attended to by a doctor. When I turned around to thank the Suwa Seriya people, they had already left!’

I still recall responding to a post by Dr Harsha De Silva on Suwa Seriya where I mentioned the above incident. He replied my comment saying how happy he was that the service had helped ‘Uncle Gamini.’ Harsha’s father was a contemporary of our parents at Peradeniya University and Harsha was my brother Arjuna’s classmate. I’ve hardly ever agreed with his economic theories and have rarely had occasion to applaud his political decisions. We are friends though and I will refer to him as ‘Harsha’ henceforth.

I remember promising myself to write about Suwa Seriya. So let’s start at the beginning.

In 2015, the new Government headed by President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe were seeking to improve ties with India. India expressed interest in helping with projects that have a directed impact on the people. Proposals were solicited. The Prime Minister announced this to the Cabinet setting the stage for a wish-list to be made.

Harsha had a personal story too. He had realized the need for a service such as Suwa Seriya when a friend met with an accident in Kantale. Coincidentally, Harsha’s classmate and close friend Dumindra Ratnayake had been contacted by another friend, Prof Asitha De Silva about a project on these lines.  

‘Asitha is a close friend of Karthi Gajendran, a Sri Lankan working for Indian conglomerate GVK, heading the Airport Division. GVK has a not for profit arm called GVKEMRI (Emergency Medical Research Institute), which operates such a service across India. Karthi had suggested to Asitha that a similar service could be set up in Sri Lanka. So Karthi, Asitha and I met Harsha and discovered that Harsha had told the Prime Minister that the Indian grant could be used for such a project. Harsh went to see Ranil again, but the Prime Minister had told him that list had been finalized, but suggested that he could try convincing Prime Minister Modi when he visited in August.’


So Harsha met Prime Minister Modi and discovered that the latter had played a key role as a Chief Minister when such a service was launched in India. He approved funding for a year. It was a grant and the only condition was that GVKEMRI would be involved. They had helped with with budgets and estimates. The first phase was limited to the Western and Southern provinces. India allocated USD 7.75 million was allocated for 88 ambulances, equipment, training and a year’s operational costs.

Contrary to fears expressed about the entire operation being a cover for covert Indian intelligence operations, there were just three Indian technicians involved. All the Sri Lankan technicians were trained in a special facility in India dedicated for such medical operations.

So in July 2016 the project kicked. The ambulances were housed in police stations for efficiency and security under the supervision of a project committee headed by the Director, Health Services.

After a year, funding was requested by Harsh for the second phase. At the time he was the  Deputy Minister, Foreign Affairs. Harsha who worked closely with the Secretary, External Affairs of India, Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, kept the Indian Premier updated in each of his four visits to that country. He had to visit India 4 times and each time he met PM Modi and gave updates. In May 2017 when he visited Sri Lanka again Prime Minister Modi announced a second grant of USD 15.02 million.

There was one condition— Sri Lanka should take responsibility to sustain it beyond the grant.  In order to develop a sustainable model, an Act of Parliament was drafted and approval duly obtained. In August 2018 ‘The 1990 Suwaseriya Foundation Act No 18 of 2018’ was passed.

Accordingly a Foundation was set up and operated by a Board with four independent members appointed by the President. The Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of the Ministry of Health and the IGP were ex-officio members of this board. The independent members were Dumindra Ratnayake (Chairperson), Vijay Malalasekera, Sandhya Salgado and Prof Asitha De SIlva. The Act also allowed the Foundation to have a fund by which grants can be received with the Government making good on any shortfall of funds to have the service in operation. The assets of GVKEMRI-Lanka assets transferred to the Foundation.

Under the second phase operations were expanded to cover the entire island with the Eastern Province being reached last (July 2019), the delay due to the Easter Sunday attacks that year.

There had been some glitches at the beginning, Dumindra acknowledged, but these had been ironed out.

‘There are nuisance calls. If we get nuisance calls from the same number three times, we block it, but only for an hour because even this idiot might need the service; we just want to save lives, that’s all,’ he said.

That’s an important line, I found it. The motto is ‘we save lives.’ By way of elaboration, Dumindra related an interesting anecdote.

I asked a single question from each of the first 600 persons we recruited: “what is your job?” So they would say ‘pilot,’ ‘technician’ or whatever it happened to be. I would say ‘wrong, try again.’  It’s saving lives. We stop everything to save lives. If we have to we skip meals, we refuse to answer a call of nature. Every second counts. It could make the difference between life and death.

‘In fact everyone is committed to adhere to this. Every life matters, be it a rich man or a beggar. It’s the same for them. If anyone is out of line in this regard he/she is terminated. We can’t afford to take a risk in these things.

Today there are 297 ambulances covering the entire island. They are fully equipped not just with ‘medical stuff’ but tools that may be required to respond to any situation including cutting through to pull out someone from a wrecked vehicle. The average time taken to reach the distressed party is 11.4 minutes. An average of over 1050 cases are handled by Suwa Seriya. That’s a ratio of 1 call out of 5, most of the others being multiple calls for the same patient or accident, nuisance calls and inquiries. Dumindra said that 98.9% of the calls are answered on the first ring itself.

Yes, 98.9%. Suwa Seriya has all the data and it’s constantly updated. I spoke with Dumindra to ask about Suwa Seriya on March 15, 2020. He pulled up the numbers: Calls answered — 2,103,576, emergencies assigned — 456,705, hospitalizations 403,643, baby deliveries — 298, major mass casualty incidents — 5, multisite mass casualty incidents — 1. The data is separated by the kinds of cases, average response time and district as well. There’s near real time vehicle positioning, google traffic integration to select the fastest ambulance, call to wheel time targets and monitoring and follow up.

I was amazed by the sophistication and the attention to detail. I learned, for example, that there are separate protocols on patient handling processes, that it is compulsory to obtain a doctor’s advice, that there’s always a doctor at the call center and that on-call doctors are always available and that all of them are from the Sri Lanka Society of Critical Care and Emergency Medicine. The doctor decides which is the suitable and nearest hospital.

‘Protocol violation is a very serious matter. We enforce strict discipline. We have to,’ Dumindra explained.

Suwa Seriya is also marked by remarkably low overheads. It’s a voluntary board. The chairperson doesn’t have an office and doesn’t use any facilities. They are guided by the Shop and Office Act. Office closes at 5 pm. No chauffeurs, no secretaries, no assistances and no vehicles apart from the ambulances.

And they keep improving. For example a separate ‘crisis management call centre’ has bee set up so that the regular call center can be operated without interruption in the event of situations such as the Easter Sunday attacks. The software has been updated. It’s all Sri Lankan software, Dumindra revealed.

‘It’s optimized for efficiency. I want ambulances to be sent in five specific steps: a) number, b) district, city c) location (the fastest and not necessarily the closest ambulance), d) reason, and e) dispatching of ambulance. Every ambulance has GPS. So the system knows where each and every ambulance is and what’s happening; whether the engine is running or not, being cleaned or not etc.’

There’s constant training as well. The Society of Critical Care and Emergency Medicine conducts refresher training courses for EMTs every three months for example. Every driver is trained in google navigation and in listening to the ‘Google Aunty’ as Dumindra put it. People at the call center are also trained to improve location accuracy. And every EMT and pilot is evaluated every month. No one can slack off: ‘it’s a performance-based culture that we have created,’ Dumindra pointed out.

Dumindra lamented that although there are supposed to be 5 million smart phones in the country, only around 10,000 have downloaded ‘1990,’ the Suwa Seriya app. ‘People don’t think they might need an ambulance until they get hit,’ he observed. He’s correct. I hadn’t thought I might need one either. I downloaded it immediately!

It’s a free service and, like my family does, those who benefit are appreciative. They don’t know how much it costs though. Suwa Seriya plans to issue receipts mentioning the cost in each case and also carrying a note stating that it is borne by the people of Sri Lanka. ‘Universities should do that too,’ Dumindra quipped but quickly became serious, saying that an option for donations for the will be created.

Soon: a receipt. No payment..this is the cost….borne by the people of Sri Lanka (Univerities should do that too). Options for donations for the fund.

Suwa Seriya is now a fully state-run operation with an important voluntary component at the top-end of operations. It’s a model that can be replicated — at least in the use of technology, maintenance of high standards and the zero-tolerance of indiscipline.

Another noteworthy fact is that in a country where change of government typically sees not just changes in personnel but even complete abandonment of strategies including those which clearly work, Suwa Seriya has not been touched. The Government didn’t change the board of directors. The new Minister of Health had given the assurance that there would be no interference.

Dumindra runs a tight ship, but he insisted that if not for Harsha it would not have happened. ‘He managed all the negativity, he got the Act passed, the worked to obtain the second tranche and made sure that we got all the support we needed from the government.’

There’s not much to applaud in the Yahapalana years. Indeed, even those who placed a lot of hope in ‘the change’ of January 2015 were quickly left disillusioned. Nevertheless, it can be argued that it was all redeemed by Suwa Seriya. It is certainly the one stand-out project of that period.

As I mentioned Harsha De Silva and I don’t see eye-to-eye ideologically or politically.  In this instance, to him I raise a cheer. And this has nothing to do with the fact that we’ve been friends for half a century. I am grateful that it saved my father’s life, but that’s not it either. It’s much more than that. Much more than all the lives saved. It’s a sustainable endeavor which has taught and keeps teaching us how things could be done, how things could be changed.

Most politicians and all political parties owe the nation much more than the nation owes them. Harsha De Silva is an exception. We owe him. Knowing him, he would brush it off with a smile and perhaps a joke, but I am serious. Take a bow, Harsha.

This article was first published in the SUNDAY ISLAND (July 19, 2020)

malindasenevi@gmail.com

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On the Yahapalana Economists, lightly

Dr Harsha De Silva, Economic Affairs State Minister, has always been in awe of Ranil Wickremesinghe, the leader of his party and the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. He’s not alone in this. There are many who believed that Wickremesinghe was the only senior politician with his head screwed on right. 

[Well, ‘right-wing’ could be the subtext there, but then again he’s not been shy about his ideological preferences. We could add that the ‘left’ or what’s left of it is pretty ‘right’ too, in the wing-sense of the term.]

Let’s leave aside parentheses. Let’s focus on the economy, of which Wickremesinghe was made out to be an expert.  A good manager, we were told. A brilliant mind, we were told. Uncorrupt and would not tolerate corruption, we were told. We were told a lot of things. ‘Thanikara molayak’ we were told: a brain, nothing else. Let’s not go into the incorruptibility claim; let’s pass over all that with a single word, ‘bonds!’ 

Well, the approver, that’s Harsha, made an interesting plea just the other day. He wants the country’s upper middle class ‘to act with some social consciousness to help the government offset the impact of the depreciation of the Sri Lankan currency.’ He wants the ‘high income people’ to demonstrate some ‘social consciousness’ and offers some tips: postpone by just a couple of months that new luxury car or that trip to Alaska. These, he believes, could help cut the demand at the margin.

I don’t know where the middle class is located; I don’t know what kind of lines separate it from the lower class and the upper class. I don’t know, therefore, what lines frame the ‘upper middle class’. I don’t know if Alaska is a great tourist destination. A 7-day tour costs something like US$ 3,000 per person. Assuming a family of 4, i.e. of the punchi-pawla-raththaran size, that would be 12,000 US dollars. That would be around Rs 2 million and if you add airfare probably in the region of 3 million rupees. I don’t know what kind of income earning avenues allow for that kind of bucks to be spent on an Alaskan holiday. I don’t know the size of the ‘upper middle class’. Perhaps Harsha could tell us because it would indicate what kind of society we live in and of course tell us something of the wealth distribution.  

In any case, I am perplexed that someone like Harsha, who swears by capitalism, should talk of ‘social responsibility’. Why on earth should anyone think of ‘society’? It’s all about self-interest, isn’t it? Sure, we have CSR projects, but that’s brand-building and a palliative for a non-existent disease, corporate guilt. The upper classes are not into belt-tightening; they pass tax burdens on to the consumer, even as they lament such mechanisms. 

Let’s concede however that it’s actually in the interest of the rich to be socially conscious, to tighten best and embrace ‘austerity measures’ that force them to go to Anawilundawa instead of Alaska and take tuk-tuks for a change. Let’s say that it’s just a minor part of a major plan that Harsha and other economists in the UNP have hatched to save the falling rupee. 

The boss has laid it out. Wickremesinghe, speaking at a school in Nattandiya has said, correctly, that Sri Lanka needs to handle the devaluation crisis with utmost care. He says that Sri Lanka cannot increase interest rates as other countries have done because it would affect investments. Didn’t know that we had lots and lots of investors, but then again let’s just concede that we need to insure against investor-flight. 

What’s interesting is that the PM has stated that action will be taken to arrest the crisis in one month’s time, vowing that the government will not allow the economy to crash. What the ‘action’ is he has not detailed, but he’s given us a hint in the following observation:

‘The situation is expected to be more stable [by] then,’ that’s one month from now. If there’s stability then there’s no need of any ‘action’ one would think. It’s all volatile and that’s not his fault, of course.  However, the conviction he’s expressed regarding ability to prevent a crash sounds dubious when he also says ‘we do not know what will happen in the future with the trade wars which the USA had got into with Canada and China’.

Now all these are random statements made in forums not necessarily discussing the nuts and bolts of managing an economy, but they do indicate anxiety and confusion. The more disturbing matter is that this UNP-led government is clueless about the global economy.  

Dr W.A. Wijewardena, former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank has written extensively on how incompetent the government has been. Clueless, really. For example, taxing savings, any AL student would tell you, is a disincentive to save. Perhaps Harsha could detail the logic of that particular decision. 

That’s ‘local’. The understanding of the global, i.e. larger destructive processes which countries like Sri Lanka are ill-equipped to face, is as or more disturbing. Wickremesinghe didn’t seem to know that China exists, or rather, he had discounted China’s pivotal position in the global economy until ‘Brexit’ hit him between his eyes. Up until then he was badmouthing China. It took ‘Brexit’ to make him realize that the West won’t and indeed cannot help Sri Lanka. He said ‘We will look East’. Clearly, he must have been looking in some other direction.  

Sorry, but we can’t say kohomada tikiri mole to that. Even if one believes that model to prosperity peddled by the IMF, World Bank, the USAID and their preferred ‘economic experts,’ this kind of ignorance is unpardonable. 

I don’t know about the upper middle class, but I doubt that even the upper class (do they go to the moon on vacation and are they planning to buy rockets, I wonder?) must doubt the UNP’s claims to having a handle on things economic. 

The lower classes, i.e. the middle-middle and lower according to the 'Harsha De Silva Classification', do not have any doubts and if you have doubts, ask a cross section. Ask them what they think of Ranil or the UNP or this Yahapalana Government when it comes to sorting out economic problems. You would probably get an earful. On second thoughts, maybe you will not. Just two words, be it in English or Sinhala. No prizes for the correct guess.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer. malindasenevi@gmail.com. www.malindawords.blogspot.com.

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I am not buying "corruption-inevitability," are you?

Dr Harsha De Silva, Deputy Minister of Policy Planning and Economic Development, has come out strong on the subject of corruption.  He has observed that the entire country is corrupt.  The implication of course is that his government is also corrupt. He has said that he’s ‘sick of it all.’  

The deputy minister should be applauded for having the courage to say it as it is.  One hopes that he will soon disassociate himself from the corrupt regime he is a part of and not give it any further legitimacy.  One hopes, also, that he will in due course detail the corruption and identify the corrupt.  

His, however, is not an isolated cry.  Following the recent resignation of Ravi Karunanayake and the information that has surfaced in the course of investigating the Central Bank bond issue scam, ardent supporters of the yahapalana regime, perhaps in damage-control mode, have taken refuge in the timeless legitimator: ‘corruption there will always be.’  

The subtext is easily obtained: ‘we are not going to get anything better if we throw these people out.’  

That logic could of course be applied to a lot of ills. One could say, for example, ‘there will always be nepotism, abuse of state resources, violation of democratic principles, bribery, embezzlement, petty theft, murder, rape, child molestation, racism, and gender inequality.’  In short, it is a mischievous statement. 

Another set of people, more cautious and cute, while chiding the government for its failures, nevertheless offer legitimacy by interjecting that the alternative would be worse.  They talk of ‘fearful memories (of the previous regime).’  The Friday Forum, while conceding that “the government’s agenda seems increasingly disconnected from the hopes and expectations (of the voters) and that its record on corruption [is] abysmal, interjects ‘the Joint Opposition is a spoiler’.  [There is] abuse of executive power.’  Another ardent critic of the previous regime and campaigner for ‘good governance,’ during a recent television debate cautioned, ‘we can’t go back to the future,’ even as he lambasted the government along the same lines.  

Interestingly, most if not all of those taking this position, had no qualms in supporting people who had corrupt track records or were part of corrupt governments including the one they backed Maithripala Sirisena to oust in January 2015.  At the time it was all about regime-change, never mind the integrity or competence of the would-be replacement(s).

So it’s all about relative merits at best, or more likely a matter of which faces one likes less (or more).  What it also means is that the commentariat is intellectually and morally poor or worse, corrupt.  

What is it that prevents people from imagining a state that is different, a political reality where corruption is seen as corruption and therefore objectionable and not reduced to a debate on degrees?  Perhaps it is a mental block which stops people from imagining a Sri Lanka that is not governed by either of the major parties or coalitions led by them which include smaller political organizations the hands of whose leaders are dirty or bloody or both.  It is that, or else, it is a simple matter of complicity which speaks of a serious integrity-deficit; simply, it is all about assessing marginal benefits against marginal costs.   

The Chairman of the Elections Commission, Mahinda Deshapriya recently attributed declining numbers in voter-registration to disillusionment among young eligible voters, especially in the Greater Colombo area.  That ‘disillusionment’ can be read in many ways.  

One can be worried about it because it could indicate a lack of confidence in the democratic process and institutions, and therefore point to extra-democratic affirmations of citizenship.  On the other hand, it could mean that a significant number of young people are not willing to go along with the kind of pussy-footing that supporters of the two main parties engage in.  They may be unwilling to play the game of relative merits and this can be seen as a positive rather than a negative trend.  

Time will tell if the rejection of the politician and political party implied in these developments translate into extra parliamentary political action or lead to the creation of a new political coalition where such parties do not figure.  In any event, it is time that the citizens of these country do not short-change themselves by backing those they know have short-changed them time and again.  

If anyone says ‘corruption there always was and always will be,’ the chances are that he/she is peddling excuses on behalf of the corrupt or lacks the courage, integrity and commitment. 

The question we should ask ourselves is, ‘are we really that impoverished?’  We need to ask that question because if that is the case then all talk of good or better governance is meaningless.  

Now if we are not impoverished, what next?  First and foremost, we need to shed our fixations on the two major parties and all those other parties, political groups, civil society organizations and the various individuals identified with such entities.  They will not deliver, this they have established beyond all shadow of doubt.  

We are fooling ourselves if we think it is prudent to support this government because it might do this, that and the other close to our hearts or as the case may be desist from doing this, that and the other that we abhor, even if we cannot stand the nepotism, corruption abuse of state resources and the by now established readiness to unleash violence on objectors.  Similarly, we are fooling ourselves if we recall the positives of the previous regime and allow such recollections to erase from memory everything that was despicable about it.  

We simply cannot afford to push the default option button again and again; certainly not if we want a safe and sustainable Sri Lanka and a clean environment for our children.  We simply cannot suffer the corrupt just because the probable replacement is not to our taste.  We need to look for a different pathway to the future and we need to think of different companions on that necessary journey.   Dr Harsha De Silva has expressed disgust and if he were to make a clean break from the disgusting, he would be contributing greatly to the development of a different way of thinking about Sri Lanka, a Sri Lanka that is not willing to be resigned to corruption or be hoodwinked by the notion of corruption-inevitability.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer.  Email: malindasenevi@gmail.com.  Twitter: malinsene. This article appeared in the Daily Mirror, August 31, 2017.

   

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Fathers and Sons: Rajapaksas, Jayaratnes and others

[Some months after I wrote this, I came to know that Thushara Jayaratne had lied to me about two individuals he claimed were his wife and son. Perhaps he did not lie about the events related below. Perhaps he did. Anyway, it is judicious to exercise caution in reading his account -- M.S. June 19, 2018]

On the 14^th of May, 2016 in the dying moments of a rugby encounter when Ovin Askey sent the oval shaped ball floating over the crossbar to secure a tie for his school in an all important inter-school match.  Ovin’s father was right next to me.  He turned and hugged me, sharing his job and screaming: ‘Machang, that’s Ovin, my son machang!’  We were all thrilled for Ovin, his father Roshan and of course our old school, but even as I cheered, my thoughts were with another father-son story and in particular about the son who was at that very moment contemplating suicide. 

I’ll get to that story later.  Earlier that afternoon when I ran into my friend and our Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Harsha De Silva at the Mahaweli Reach Hotel, I asked him a few questions regarding what was happening at the high seats of power.  He paused and he didn’t have to say anything, his expression said it all.  I told him ‘All you need to say Harsha is that you cannot answer for anyone else but yourself!’  Later that evening, when I met him again, Harsha said ‘What can I do Malinda, I am Haris De Silva’s son!’ 

Another father-son statement.  I’ve known Uncle Haris almost all my life.  The former Director of the National Archives will always be remembered for being an exemplary public servant, a dedicated scholar and a man of impeccable integrity.  I quarrel with certain of Harsha’s political choices and have questions about his views on the economy but I think he’s clean and I hope he will remain clean (yes, I do not give blank cheques to politicians).  Two things are relevant here: a) integrity and b) the father-son story I referred to earlier.

During the above mentioned rugger match I got a message from a friend urging me to check out a youtube video.  I said I was at a match but he was insistent.  It was a video made by a young man claiming that he has decided that there’s no way he can win the battles he had decided to fight and that therefore he was going to end his life.  “මම අද සිය දිවි නසා ගන්නවා කියන්න වෙලා තියෙන්නේ සටන් කරන විදිහ නෙවෙයි , දාලා දුවන විදිහයි” was the title (“I have to say I am going to commit suicide not to show how to fight but to show how to flee”).    

I knew the young man, who by the way is now domiciled in Switzerland, having left Sri Lanka fearing assault or worse for statements he had made and positions he had taken vis-à-vis the previous regime.  The mutual friend who alerted me to the crisis wanted me to talk to him.  I sent him a message but there was no reply.  I tried to call, he didn’t pick up.  I left messages.  Finally (and thankfully!) he called, but the noise got in the way.  I told him to give me two hours that I will call him back. 

It was a simple ‘postpone the moment’ strategy and it worked.  We talked at length later that evening.  And he retold a story he had told me 4 years before.  It was another ‘crisis’ situation.  He was a Facebook friend who I had ‘added’ because he posted interesting and controversial comments.  We had exchanged pleasantries off and on, but weren’t buddies as such.  But that day was different.  He sent a cryptic message: 'සර්....මම තාත්තව මැරුවද සර්?' (Did I really kill my father?)’

I asked him for his phone number and called him.  He told me then that his father had passed away and said that he had been told not to attend the funeral.  He was sobbing.  Not knowing what to do I asked him to come to my office.  He did.  I told him I will accompany him to the funeral the following day and assured him that he will not be harmed.  Even now I don’t know how I could give such guarantees.  He left, promising to come back the next day.  He didn’t.  Now I know that he had indeed attended the funeral.  Shiral Laktilleka had accompanied him.    

I did see posts since then that indicated he was abroad, but there didn’t seem to be any particular reason to communicate until he called me out of the blue saying he was in Switzerland and that he was going to die.  He was sobbing once again and sounded desperate.  It appeared that he had consumed some poison. I told him to get out of his room and get some help, but he said he didn’t speak the language and no one understood him.  To this day I don’t know what really happened or how he survived. I did the best I could, asking a friend in Switzerland who lived about 4.5 hours away to check on him. 

Thereafter, there was nothing dramatic.  Just the posts.  The occasional ‘hi’.  Until this. 

From the above you might conclude that Thushara Jayaratne was mentally ill or at least considerably disturbed.  That may be so.  Nevertheless he is extremely intelligent, politically very sharp and highly articulate.  There’s something about Thushara that makes me want to believe him.  Absolutely.  But let’s leave that as an open question.

A few weeks ago, he told me ‘මගේ තාත්ත ගැන මොනවා හරි ලියන්න' (write something about my father), pointing out that his fourth death anniversary would fall on the 10^th of June.  I remembered that day in 2012.  I remembered telling him by way of trying to calm him down that his father, if he (the father) was like him (Thushara), would have in silence celebrated Thushara’s efforts to seek justice not just for himself but every single citizen of the country. 

Dasanayaka Mudiyanselage Thilakaratne Banda was 63 years old when he died.  He had been a lathe worker who worked at CPC (Ceylon Petroleum Corporation) and was a pensioner.  He had suffered a severe stroke a year before and had been bedridden since.  By that time, unfortunately, Thushara’s determination to fight a regime and a system single-handedly had made it impossible for him to visit his father, forget getting him the medical help he needed.  How all this happened is another ‘father-son’ story.  The father: Mahinda Rajapaksa.  The son: Namal Rajapaksa. 

It all began in October 2010.  Thushara was sitting for the final exam at the Law College, along with Namal Rajapaksa.  Namal, according to Thushara (as well as others) was allowed sit for the relevant papers in a separate and air-conditioned room where he was provided or else allowed to use internet facilities in contravention of standard examinations procedure.  Pertinent also is the fact that the then Principal of Law College was later made a Presidential Advisor by Namal’s father, then President, Mahinda Rajapaksa. 

Thushara lodged a protest in December 2010.  An inquiry was held in January 2011.  The following is the gist (translated from Sinhala to English) of his appeal to the Chief Justice:

“I complained to the Principal of the Law College, the then Chief Justice, the Secretary to the Ministry of Justice, the Human Rights Commission, the Commission to Inquire into Allegations of Bribery and Corruption, and the Keselwatte Police.  Mr Gajanayake who was the Office Manager of the Law College called me from a Law College telephone, threatened me and asked me to withdraw my complaint.  He threatened to kill me.  As a result of these threats I was unable to sit for the final paper of that year’s examination. 

“Your Honour, during an inquiry into this matter held on January 11, 2011, I submitted evidence to support three allegations. First, by providing special facilities for Lakshman Namal Rajapaksa to sit for the exam, including an A/C room with internet connections, basic examinations procedures were violated. Secondly, that the question papers had been leaked to Lakshman Namal Rajapaksa before the exam date. Thirdly, that I was threatened by a Law College official using a Law College telephone, where he demanded that I withdraw the above petition. To date I have not been intimated of the outcome of that inquiry.”

It did not end there.  In fact the more sinister harassment, according to Thushara began only thereafter:

“I was once abducted from Kohuwala and questioned.  This was on the 3^rd of March, 2011.  I managed to brush them off in the first instance and hopped on to a bus.  But one of them also got into the same bus.  I got off near the Pillewa temple and there they caught me.  They questioned me for about 10 hours.  They wanted to know who was advising me. 

“On another occasion, later the same month, some people came to my house and threatened me.  They returned a few days later and forced to sign some papers.  This was just before the results of the Law College exam were released.

“I went to Sunila Abeysekera and she put me in touch with an organization called INFORM.  They helped me.  The Law and Society Trust also helped me.  A fundamental rights application was filed on my behalf by Lakshan Dias who was at that time working at the Law and Society Trust.  Today Dias is the head of Transparency International Sri Lanka.  I was not granted leave to proceed because the application had been filed two days after the 30-day deadline had passed. 

“I was given refuge in a church in Kandana.  From there I was taken to a church in Hatton from where I was abducted by unidentified men who took me to a tea plantation where I was questioned and threatened”

Thushara says that when he was picked up in Hatton, someone had told his father that he had in fact been shot.  Apparently that was the day his father suffered a stroke.  .    

“Then I was moved to a seminary in Kandy.  Around this time INFORM advised me to drop the whole case.  After that I was essentially on my own.  A few months later, I was traced to a hotel in Wattala where I was assaulted, along with employees of the hotel.

“I have lodged police complaints regarding each of these incidents. My complaints to the Police, the then Chief Justice and the Human Rights Commission did not prompt any response whatsoever.  The Fundamental Rights application was rejected.  Meanwhile Namal Rajapaksa took his oaths before the then Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, who even posed for a photograph with him in her official quarters in an unprecedented move.   He took his oaths at an auspicious time and the then Registrar of the Supreme Court, Mr Mudunkotuwa had to make a public apology for calling out his name before this auspicious time.   

“Due to threats to my life, I left Sri Lanka and am now resident in Switzerland where I take treatment for ‘Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder’.  The Asian Human Rights Commission has complained to the UNHRC regarding my situation.  I appeal to you to initiate an investigation into the above and take steps to remove Namal Rajapaksa from the Bar.”

This is what Dasanayaka Mudiyanselage Thushara Jayaratne, son of the late Dasanayaka Mudiyanselage Thilakaratne Banda has to say.  And some of the above has been reiterated in a couple of interviews with Boston Lanka, one in June 2013 and another in January 2015.

Today, he reveals that there wasn’t a single NGO activist working on human rights who was ready to accompany him (Thushara) to see his father, who was bedridden following a stroke.  He expressed utter disappointment (generous word) regarding the behavior of human rights activists both in Sri Lanka and Switzerland.

So what do we make of all this?  The ranting of a mentally ill individual?  Downright lies?  Unsubstantiated claims? 

We do know that Namal was favored in many ways.  We do know that the then Law College Principal was the then President’s friend.  We do know that this same individual’s behavior with respect to his own son, another Law College student, was at best dodgy. 

We know something of fathers and sons.  We saw the tears in Mahinda Rajapaksa’s eyes when his other son Yoshitha was arrested.  I am sure Roshan Askey embraced his son Ovin tight and with much pride just after that rugby match.  I know that Thushara Jayaratne could not pay his last respects to his father after he passed away on the 10^th of June, 2012.   

At the end of it all, Thushara Jayaratne, a friend and a brother now, remains a traumatized individual needing all the help he can get but being shunned at every turn.  He wanted me to write about his father, but he didn’t tell me much.  All I know is that he had known Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra’s father because the two of them had been in the same trade union at the CPC.  All I know is that the old man had come home after appealing to Bharatha on behalf of Thushara to intervene and make sure that the law takes its course.  All I know is that he had reported to his family that Bharatha had dismissed him saying ‘ova karanna baha bandayye’ (such things cannot be done) and that Hirunika (now an MP) had laughed when he said this.    

On the 11^th of July, 2012, a month after his father passed away, Thushara left Sri Lanka.  There’s a lot that must have happened in the four years that have passed since then.  Let’s not go there for now.  How his story will unfold no one can really tell.  But one thing is clear.  He was dead right when he made the following observation: “I took on the Rajapaksas when no one dared to do so and yet, today, with the Rajapaksas out of power there’s no one of those who have benefited from the political changes who cares about me”.      

So, Thushara Jayaratne, on the 14^th of May, 2016, had come to a decision.  There was no point in attempting any penalty kicks.  The goalposts were made to move and make futile even the most accurate kick.  There’s no father to hug him and say ‘It’s ok son.’  This we know. 
  
Today, June 14, 2016, I got Thushara to give me access to the youtube video that he had removed one month ago.  The video is harsh on a lot of human rights champions.  It is also a sad indictment (maybe based on personal experience alone, but then again in a certain sense that’s all that counts, one feels).  He says: “Don’t place your trust on struggles.  The majority of those who talk of struggles will flee when two fire crackers are lit.  I am going to die as a victor because I have not reneged on my objectives – it’s just that there’s no way forward from here on.  My biggest objective was to enshrine the Rule of Law. This will not happen because today those who talk of the Rule of Law are the very same people who betrayed me – in this Government and in this program, only Mahinda Rajapaksa and Namal Rajapaksa are missing; all other rogues are with them.  Everyone has to go one day, but the lumpen politicians and NGO operators will never come to our aid.”

All of a sudden I am remembering the lines of a James Taylor song “I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song….just can’t remember who to send it to” (Fire and Rain). 

But let's not speak of addresses.  Let Thushara say something about 'fathers and sons'.

මාගේ පියාට කරන ගෞරවයක් ලෙස, මාගේ මරණ යෙන් පසු, මාගේ සිරුරේ සියළු පටක කොටස්, මෙහි අදාල පටක බැංකුවට, ලැබෙන ආකාරයට ලියකියවිලි සකස්කර බාර දුන්නෙමි.  මාගේ පියාද උපතින් බෞද්ධයෙකු උවත් , අපි දෙදෙනාම කිසිම විටක පෙර බවයන් විශ්වාස නොකෙලෙමු.  මාගේ පියා විස්වාස කලේද, මා අදවනතුරු විස්වාශ කරන්නේද, අප උපන් සමාජය වෙනුවෙන් උපරිම දේ කලයුතු බවයි.  තාත්තාට මං තාමත් ආදරෙයි.

"As a mark of respect for my father, I perfected and handed over all documents to relevant organ banks so that the respective organs can be collected upon my death.  My father was a Buddhist by birth but neither he nor I believed in previous lives.  What he believed and what I believe still is that we must serve to our utmost ability the society which we were born into.  I still love my father."

This article was first published in the Colombo Telegraph on June 14, 2016.  

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