Ostriches cannot fight terrorists

Immediately after the LTTE was militarily defeated, the peace-brigade that had for years fought tooth and nail for ‘parity of status’ (i.e. for the LTTE vis-a-vis the Government of Sri Lanka) and insisted, inter alia, that the LTTE was the sole representatives of the Tamils, said ‘the government can now dismantle all military camps in the North and East.’

At first glance, this seemed to be a logical suggestion. After all, there was no military threat now. On the other hand, that logic could be applied to all military camps, which ought to be dismantled. One could go further and argue that the entire military establishment should be done away with. Silly. 

Silliness, however, seems to go hand in hand with such people. If, as they have argued, the LTTE was a product of a history (a tale told selectively and with appropriate twists to justify a narrative that is poor on substantiation, by the way), then what is done or not done in the here and now can have consequences. 

In a terrorist-infested world order, dominated by powers that are not adverse to unleashing terrorism, national security is not a suspendible subject. If there were doubts on this, the Easter Sunday attacks would have laid them to rest.  

And yet, we have seen the Colombo Twitterati (Kolumbians, if you will) and of course those who think they’ll get membership in that exclusive and snooty club by parroting their prejudices repeatedly skirting the issue of terrorism. 

We had Phil Miller of the website ‘Morning Star’ (which is ‘for peace and socialism’ no less!) pointing the finger at Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, following the now tired tokenism of flagging the terrorist. Here’s what he says: ‘There are certainly some Muslims in Sri Lanka who may exhibit extremist tendencies.’ Some? May? Talk about downplaying the most terrible single-day execution of terrorist attacks! 

Let’s forgive Phil. He obviously doesn’t know much. The New York Times and the BBC ought to know better than to conjure the now tired ‘billa’ of Sinhala Buddhist extremism, but then again going by the political persuasions of those who provides information at this end, one need not be surprised.  

There are others less forgivable. Prof Jayadeva Uyangoda, in an interview with the Sunday Observer offers two proposals. The first is to defend democracy and human rights. He explains, ‘Slightly similar to the 9/11 attacks on American and global democracy, the Easter Sunday tragedy could be used by certain sections in Sri Lanka to curtail democracy and bring in an authoritarian form of governance.’ He is correct. 

Here’s the second: ‘Restoration of the institutional balance between the President, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet is vital for Sri Lanka to resolve the political crisis which paved the way for the Easter Sunday tragedy.’ Well, some form of clarity is of course useful, and to that extent this is a sensible suggestion.

Is that it, though? It seems that’s it as far as Uyangoda is concerned. In terms of dealing with the threat, all he has to say is ‘[t]he so-called radicalization of Islam has a unique feature, has associated itself with a global armed insurgency, or a global war,’ and ‘what is necessary now is a global conversation about all religions’ secular role.’  So-called? He’s not sure? Well, a conversation is important and that is taking place in various forms, but Uyan talking to Jehan and sharing insights thus obtained with Victor Ivan and Victor briefing Sumanthiran so that Civil Society can take a cue is hardly a conversation and certainly not something that those who plot attacks such as the one on Easter Sunday will lose sleep over. 

Victor Ivan, writing a guest column for the Daily FT titled ‘Sri Lanka: our of the frying pan into the fire,’ talks about the history of Muslims in Sri Lanka, the political conundrum of a president and premier at loggerheads, throws in the bogey of Sinhala Buddhists (as the villains of the piece, obviously) and glosses over the terrorists and the ideas, ideals, identities and faith they profess and affirmed. All he has to say is that it has ‘caused shock and shame among the Muslim community.’ That’s in all of 2,698 words! At least Jehan Perera, in his initial responses to the attacks (published in international media) was not so verbose in the usual vilification of Sinhala Buddhists. Jehan, though, demonstrated once again that he was all at sea when it comes to identifying threats. Still, one would have expected him to advocate a negotiated settlement with the perpetrators. He did not. Is it because churches were attacked, one wonders!

Sumanthiran, TNA Member of Parliament, speaking at an event organized by people who could be described as Wannabe Kolombians, offers that the Easter Sunday attack is a result of Sri Lanka’s failure to address minority grievances. Yeah right! Is he saying that removing the tokenist privileging of Buddhism from and scripting Eelamist devolution into the constitution would have stopped the terrorists who claim to be doing the work of Allah (and not necessarily delivering the aspirations of all Muslims)? 

‘Civil Society’ had to issue a statement (see ‘We cannot afford a second breach’ in The Island,  May 1, 2019). They were ‘appalled by the carnage.  They are, like Uyan, upset about the President and Prime Minister not being united. Naturally, for most of the signatories were gung-ho about the yahapalana lie. They don’t want another ‘carnage’ but apart from a cursory and dismayed allusion to the need for emergency regulations, they’ve focused primarily on possible vigilante violence.  

We don’t need vigilante violence. That would be a tragedy and would play into the hands of the terrorists. Agreed. But is that what everything boils down to?  

Many such people were and are horrified about elephants being used in peraheras. They were quite vocal about elephants being kept in Buddhist temples. They’ve not been upset about swords being found in mosques. They are not questioning the Minister of Muslim Affairs explaining swords as garden tools. They don’t see the truth. They don’t see the threat.  

They are ostriches. And they want the rest of us to play ostrich too. Such an eventuality would be the closest thing to heaven as far as the ISIS, the NTJ and other Jihadists can experience. 

They were like this with the LTTE too.  Indeed, the LTTE may have been defeated much earlier and much carnage avoided had these people not diverted attention from the matter at hand (defeating the LTTE). Red herrings is what they are all about (when they are not being ostriches, that is). It’s not too hard to figure out that the terrorists will have to be defeated, with or without the ostriches. 

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Transparency blurred in ‘Integrity’ Awards

Victor played a brilliant role in this case

Those who do not know Victor Ivan, former Editor of the ‘Ravaya’ newspaper would learn from Prasanna Vithanage’s documentary ‘Silence in the Courts’ that Ivan is an exceptional journalist.  His efforts to go the proverbial extra mile to obtain justice are legendary, one would conclude, after digesting the story of two citizens who clearly belong to what Fyodor Dostoyevsky might have called ‘The Insulted and Humiliated’. 

As Vithanage documents, the two women are raped by a judge presiding over cases involving their husbands as accused parties.  There’s no one to entertain their grievances.  Those institutions which shut the door on them include the Judiciary Services Commission and the Bar Association of Sri Lanka.  It is in desperation that one of the women comes to Victor Ivan.  

Ivan not only publishes her story, but goes on to write a series of articles exposing the judge.  The then Attorney General refuses to take action.  Undeterred, Ivan exposes the cover up forcing the Judicial Services Commission to appoint a tribunal to investigate.  The judge is found guilty but gets off with the light ‘punishment’ of ‘compulsory leave with pay’.  Later, when moves to make the Attorney-General the Chief Justice came to be known, Ivan wrote a book about the failure of the justice system.  He insisted then that it was wrong and unethical to appoint as Chief Justice a man who was accused of wrongdoing, was being investigated and as at that point yet to be cleared. 

One doesn’t need to watch this documentary to know of Victor Ivan’s efforts to champion the cause of justice.  There have been occasions when he got it all wrong, once even leading to the suicide of a police officer falsely accused.  The intention, however, was not malicious.  By and large Victor has been the voice for the voiceless, he has given space for those denied proper representation and has consistently argued for transformation of structures and procedures to ensure justice, accountability and transparency. 

Perhaps it is all this that prompted Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) to give Victor Ivan an ‘Integrity Award’ as part of the celebrations to mark the World Anti-Corruption Day.   The other recipient, posthumously of course, was ardent good governance advocate the late Ven Maduluwawe Sobitha Thero. 

Now TISL has its own ‘transparency’ issues, particularly with respect to donor funds requested, obtained and used for ‘election monitoring’.  

"The CPA, NPC and TI received Rs. 272.31 million, Rs. 171.23 million and 174.79 million respectively, it was reported in ‘The Island’ of March 5, 2011.  This is peace-time bucks, folks.  If they got Rs. 618.33 million in three peace-years or roughly over Rs 200 million a year, one can only imagine how much money they wallowed in during the height of the war! " For more details, read "CPA, NPC and TISL are about bucks (BIG bucks)"

'Integrity' and these two don't go together

There’s also an issue about the ‘giver’ of the award.  If anyone still believes that President Maithripala Sirisena and the word ‘integrity’ can legitimately go together, then a quick look-back at how he fiddled with ‘democracy’, championed nepotism and wrecked corporate good governance, not to mention the abuse of presidential powers, would set the record straight.  Let’s leave all that aside.

Does Victor Ivan deserve this award?  If we knew only what has been mentioned above, the answer is a clear ‘yes’.  However, there is damning evidence to impeach Ivan on questionable (we are being generous here) financial transactions.

There is the issue of his involvement in Ravaya’s non-payment of taxes where the former President nudged state agencies to advertise in that paper so that monies owed the Department of Inland Revenue could be paid.  More seriously is the issue of Ivan demanding (and being given) millions of rupees from a fund made of donations solicited and obtained from the general public by Ravaya Solidarity.  The would-be donors were not informed that the money collected would be used to purchase shares from Ivan. Indeed, as a Limited Guarantee company, there can be no ‘shares’, although the word has been used (loosely) by those defending the transaction. 

What is most damning is that Ivan has agreed to pay back the money clearly indicating that what was done was wrong. While Ivan should be applauded for this act of ‘penitence’, it does not exonerate him.  Ivan knew what he was about.  Ravaya Solidarity knew what was happening.  The public was deceived.  Neither Ivan nor spokespersons for Ravaya have offered clarification that clears either party.  Instead what we’ve seen is vilification of the whistle-blowers, a course of action that detracts from Ivan’s considerable contributions towards building a just and democratic society.   

An investigation into all this is currently being conducted by the Registrar of Companies, who, we are told, keeps all documents under lock and key, as should be of course.  The documents out in the public domain clearly warrant a ‘second look’ at Ivan by those who are passing around integrity-awards, one would think.  TISL obviously thought otherwise.  That’s their business. 

In Ivan’s case, it would have been much better had he followed his own advocacy with respect to the Attorney General he ‘exposed’ in the case that Vithanage made a documentary on, i.e. had he said ‘There’s an ongoing investigation and until and unless my name is cleared, I shall not accept this or any other award.’   He did not do that. 

He was under a cloud and that cloud has got darker.  As things stand and as was pointed to Prasanna Vithanage just after his documentary premiered at the Liberty Lite Cinema some months ago, he has to at least consider a second documentary.  This time on Victor Ivan. 

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Plots and plants that fascinate the milk powder industry

About a month ago, one of the many scurrilous gossip-mongering websites that pretends to be posting news published a story about a conspiracy.  The claim was that there was a conspiracy to attack the milk powder brand Anchor in order to better position another brand in the market. That conspiracy or ‘plot’, it was claimed, was masterminded by Namal Rajapaksa, with the prominent stock market investor Dilith Jayaweera and this writer (among others) being part of the implementing team.  Big claims, zero substantiation. 

One thing was clear: whoever runs the website doesn’t have a pulse on the media, for the issue was first raised by The Nation way back in March 2013.  The Nation named Fonterra and its most prominent brands.  It took the rest of the media at least 4 months to consider the issue ‘newsworthy’. 

But that was a website run by nameless people and one that is yet to get to A in the alphabet of media ethics.  On September 12, a daily English newspaper announced, ‘Plot Exposed’, with a say-it-all over-line, ‘A small milk supplying company attempts to create fear psychosis among public’.  The author: ‘A Special Correspondent’.   Now anyone who knows anything about public relations will immediately think ‘plant’. 

The plot-claim is basically one of false advertising which ‘cast doubts (about) competitors while misleading the public about the safety of Fonterra, Maliban and Nestle brands’.  The ‘small’ brand, owned by a famous supermarket chain, is said to own just 8% of the market.  A ‘leading media network’ apparently had rejected one such advertisement, on the grounds that it violated media ethics.  The correspondent cites a Health Ministry notice on labeling and advertising: ‘No person should label, package, sell or advertise in a manner which misleads, creates a wrong impression or contains false information about the nature, standard, consistency and quality of a certain food item’.

The media network is not named in the article.

On the morning of Saturday, September 14, 2013, MTV unveiled a hoarding promoting ‘News 1^st’.  The screaming claim was, ‘The plot that failed’.  The tagline, ‘Stock Market Mafia enters “Milk Industry”.’

A clever PR campaign, then? 

All this follows a raging controversy over contaminated milk powder and vexed questions regarding regulations, implementation of regulations, adequacy or otherwise of testing facilities, inexplicable behavior on the part of informal (dis)approving entities such as the Nutrition Society of Sri Lanka and questionable solicitation of sponsorship and agreement on the same involving Fonterra and the Sri Lanka College of Paediatricians.  

What’s MTV’s beef?  Theoretically, it can be argued that the similarity of ad lines is coincidence.  It could be just that MTV was self-righteously acting in the larger public interest, convinced perhaps that there was no contamination in Fonterra brands and oblivious to behavior which, though legal, is at best mischievous. 

Then again, it could have been inspired by nostalgic attachment to the flagship Fonterra brand, Anchor, which MTV’s parent company, Maharaja, introduced to Sri Lanka.  Coincidentally, again, that venture followed a similar contamination scandal in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster.   

Anchor’s entry followed a concerted campaign against Nespray and Lakspray spearheaded by Ravaya which included numerous articles on the subject as well as ‘ads’ parodying the payoff lines of these brands.  The Anchor line when the ads began to appear, interestingly, was ‘From New Zealand only’, clearly playing off the legitimate fear of contamination in products originating in Europe. Perhaps Maliban has taken a leaf off Fonterra’s book with the ‘Only from Australia’ strategy.

Victor Ivan, then Editor of Ravaya told The Nation that a spoof of the Nespray ad was used because it was felt that this was the best way to warn/convince the public, especially since many countries had stopped milk powder imports from European countries.  According to Ivan, this was not a ‘planted’ campaign, with even the testing being done free by a Tokyo University professor, who promised to visit Sri Lanka and testify if a case was filed against the paper.

‘Using taglines such as “From New Zealand only” and “From Australia only” could be unethical,’ Ivan said, noting that after the Ravaya revelation, Fonterra used the controversy to increase its market share.

Leon Clement, Managing Director, Fonterra Brands Lanka, told The Nation that he hadn’t seen the ‘Plot Exposed’ story and did not want to comment on a matter about two other institutions.  He diplomatically declined to comment when asked whether local milk producers were indulging in scaremongering, ‘You can come to your own conclusions’.  Unlike Ivan, Clement said there was nothing unethical about Maliban using ‘Product of Australia’, since it was not directly casting aspersions on rival brands.    

He said that Fonterra takes food safety issues seriously:

‘When DCD was found in milk products sold in some countries, Fonterra removed those products from the market. However, now it has been found that DCD is not a food issue. Sri Lanka is the only country that keeps on insisting that DCD poses a threat to food safety. Only some New Zealand dairy farmers used DCD. Now even they do not use it.’

He claimed further, that Fonterra was ethical in its marketing.  Fonterra, though, is clearly walking on the edge in the ethics of advertising, as evidenced by clever sponsorship of events (see The Nation of September 8, 2013) and doesn’t come off looking squeaky-clean in the eyes of the alert consumer when it plants representatives even in informal approving bodies such as the Nutrition Society.  It is certainly legal and there’s nothing wrong in a corporate ‘covering bases’; in this instance it is the Nutrition Society that has to answer the tough questions (which, by the way, it consistently refuses to do). 

There is no evidence (so far) that Fonterra (or MTV) is part of a ‘plot’ or rather counter-plot to the claimed plot, even though the coincidences raise the eyebrows of even the most gullible.  What is strange is that the aforementioned ‘special correspondence’ seems to have totally missed out on Fonterra’s culpability in violating the said Health Ministry notice on labeling and advertising.  The Nation, on April 28, 2013, delved into the issue of exaggerated claims and scaremongering in a story titled ‘Anlene’s Calcium myth’ (Anlene is a Fonterra brand).  The advertisements for its infant formula brands are classics of exaggerated claims.  These do not tread on competitors’ toes, true, but they do warrant ethics query.  For the record, Fonterra did not respond to this story. 

Throughout the process (and it is far from over) there were many who cried that if Fonterra were to pull out, it would be hard to meet the demand.  Dire warnings were posted in social media sites such as Facebook, warning that such an eventuality would result in dampening investor confidence.  Babies would starve, some said.  Some of the objectors did not reveal at the outset that they had in fact serviced Fonterra brands. These are not important matters, though. 

What is important is that this country has better regulatory systems in face.  If food security is part of national security, then self-reliance cannot be pooh-poohed.  A better idea of overall demand has to be obtained, considering that demand can be inflated (Sri Lanka’s per capita consumption of powdered milk is a regional high).  There should be systems to ensure that loopholes are eliminated.  Relevant organizations should have clear, unambiguous guidelines for sponsorship that don’t leave question marks regarding integrity and which inspire and not dull consumer confidence.  Human resource problems should be addressed and resolved.  The consumer has to be alert. All the time.  All this is good for the consumer and good for the corporates, at least in the long run. 

As things stand, whatever assurances that officials may give about Fonterra brands, poor communication and other errors did nothing to make the consumer believe Fonterra. 

Finally, here’s something that policy makers, regulators, distributors, advertisers, media networks, purveyors of gossip labeled ‘news’ and the general public would do well to reflect on.  Neither during nor after the whole Fonterra contamination issue did we see even an inkling of concern about a milk powder shortage. 

It looks like true supply is matching true demand.  And there’s no plot there.  No plant either. 

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Ravaya: a critical ‘mark’ in the political firmament

The twenty fifth anniversary of the launching of a newspaper is cause for celebration.  It is also a moment for a slow, long gaze at the journey.  ‘Ravaya’ is not the most popular newspaper in Sri Lanka.  It doesn’t have the circulation and the readership of other weekly Sinhala newspapers.  And yet, it has something that few newspapers in this country have: widespread respect. 

The bottom line is that Ravaya does not cater to the bottom line, it does not write to the gallery and is not interested in catering to the lowest common denominator.  The content is serious, sober, deliberately political and shows an aversion to sensationalizing.  It doesn’t concern itself with the trivial and ‘surface’ is clearly not its favourite grazing ground.  The Ravaya likes to delve, likes to dig deep, likes to engage with the complex, likes to analyze from angles that are not common in other weekly Sinhala papers. 

This does not mean of course that other newspapers are fluffy or fascinated with the trivial.  All newspapers have description and analysis, after all.  What is distinctive about the Ravaya is the deliberate privileging of things ideological.  It is principally for those who are interested in issues of power and consequently the structures of power, the structuring of power and the spaces for and examples of processes that engage with these things. 

Whereas the content in almost all weekly papers is organized around roughly the same structure, i.e. with features, business pages, sports, sections of kids and youth, Ravaya’s thrust is the political commentary.  As the paper evolved, other elements common to the newspaper industry, made their way into the Ravaya, but even then a preference for sobriety over the frivolous was maintained.  ‘What happened’ was and is invariable accompanied by ‘why it happened’ and typically by ‘why it should not happen’, ‘what the corrective should be’ etc. 

Now not all people are interested in power games.  Not all are interested in the deeper cultural and political economical articulations and implications of things and processes.  The target audience is therefore miniscule and this is why doing it for 25 years  is a remarkable accomplishment in longevity. 

Victor Ivan, the founding and continuing editor, some would say is the Ravaya, that the two are indistinguishable.  This is not true, though.  He is enough of a liberal to solicit and accommodate views contrary to those he holds close to his heart.  What he does is give direction.  He frames the parameters of writing, not in terms of ideological cans and cannots but argumentative quality and decency.  For all that liberality, however, like-feathered birds naturally flocked together.  Thus, even though the occasional ‘dissenting’ piece was accommodated, the regulars were mostly from one thin sliver of the ideological spectrum. 

For those who didn’t identify with the ‘Ravaya Position’ on issues, especially those pertaining to the conflict, this was a convenience. All one had to do was to read the Ravaya to find out what the other side was thinking, fearing, strategizing etc.  The arguments were coherent no doubt, but they were based on flawed premises.  The conclusions, recommendation and rhetoric were therefore flawed.  At the end of the day, some might say, the Ravaya got some egg on its editorial face, but one-upmanship aside neither Victor nor the Ravaya need feel any shame.  They had a position, they had preferred outcomes and they stuck to their guns.  They still do.

No, neither Ravaya nor Ivan have unblemished records when it comes to ethical journalistic practice, but those hiccups were rare and eminently forgivable when one considered the abysmal levels to which the media culture has descended in the matter of ethical conduct.  More disturbing was a certain deliberate tweaking of the dictum ‘Facts are sacred, comment free’.  The facts were screened to make sure that what appears as ‘news’ supported strongly held beliefs about how things are and how things should be.  This is why the Ravaya (along with YaTV and yes, ‘The Nation’ at one time) was bracketed with eminently rubbishable outfits in the NGO sector.  The Ravaya, committed to the belief that the LTTE cannot be militarily vanquished and therefore must be engaged in processes of give and give (‘take’ was tokenism, for the most part), downplayed LTTE atrocities, vilified those who thought otherwise and by and large ended up painting itself as a needlessly overzealous anti-Sinhala, anti-Buddhist rag. 

Despite all this, Ravaya remains the forum where a particular political position (pro-devolution, anti-history, more or less Marxian and fundamentalist-secularist) is articulated, coherently and consistently.  At one time this ‘Ravayan’ (shall we say?) position had sway, especially between 1994 and 2005, not any more though. And yet, in good times and bad, the Ravaya batted on bravely.  More importantly even as it erred in political analysis of the conflict, it was consistent and spot on in the larger issues of democracy, i.e. representation, transparency, accountability and the rule of law.  That, in fact, is what gave respectability to the jaundiced ideologies that came thick, fast and consistent in its pages. 

Today, even though there is very little evidence of humility regarding the errors of the past, Ravaya continues to be in the forefront of the battle to win back meaning, dignity and power for the ordinary citizen as per the promise of democracy. 

You won’t get it all in the Ravaya, but what you do get is something you will not find in other newspaper or, if you do, only in bits and pieces.  Salutations are called for.  This is mine:  remain!  

[published in 'The Nation', February 26, 2012]

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