SLAF returns land, but wings of owners clipped

Sunday, September 28, 2014

The Air force last Thursday returned more than 240 acres of paddy lands to 37 families In Keppapilavu, a village in Mullaitivu District. There were conditions attached. Before the lands were given back, the owners were met by senior Air Force officers individually and asked to sign a document agreeing to the conditions.

One of the conditions was that if there would be any civil war in future, those lands would be willingly given back to the Air Force.The conditions further said if the lands were not given back willingly, legal procedures would be instituted to take the land back to the Air Force. Another condition was that the owners cannot put up permanent fences or plant big trees such as coconut in those lands. Most of the owners said they had no choice but to sign those documents leaving behind doubts whether the military was not sure if there would be another civil war.

At least one of the owners of these lands refused to sign the document saying it was her land which she had got as dowry and she would not sign temporary documents which serve only as permits to use the land. The lands were part of some 1,200 acres of lands currently used by the military in the area.

Buy Mihin, fly SriLankan: Holding hands and drowning in the sky!
Mihin Lanka is popularly known as Sri Lanka’s struggling, low-cost airline.  It offers cheap tickets with some frills thrown in a desperate bid to remain afloat.
It is also known that SriLankan Airlines, the country’s debt-ridden national carrier, is helping in a big way to keep Mihin’s nose above the water (just about).
Code-sharing is one way of doing this. This attractive arrangement means that passengers can actually buy budget-priced tickets from Mihin and often fly SriLankan with meals, newspapers, blankets and whatever other facilities the higher-paying travellers on the national carrier get. In the end, both make colossal losses. After all, it’s all one family, eh.

Compromising with China: The slip is significant
Freudian slips strike really close to the mark sometimes, don’t they? The Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies invited the media to cover an event it was hosting on September 22.

It had the usual, nondescript intro. The Kadirgamar Institute seeks your kind cooperation in providing media coverage…blah, blah. The date and time were given. The event was then described as: Discussion forum with Chinese Delegation compromising [sic] of former scholars and ambassadors.
Now, “compromising” is a word many right-minded Sri Lankans might be thinking when considering the vast generosity of the Rajapaksa regime towards the Chinese. Not only has Sri Lanka borrowed huge sums of money from China, it has used those loans to build infrastructure, some of it for use by the Chinese themselves (we are visualising “ports” here).

But whether it’s wholly suitable to use the word “compromising” in an invitation pertaining to the Chinese is debatable. It is one thing to think it, and another to verbalise it. However, this is where the term “Freudian slip” becomes relevant. The simplest definition of it is, “A mistake in speech that shows what the speaker is truly thinking.” We are not saying that intellectuals and researchers at the Kadirgamar Institute believe there is anything compromising about Sri Lanka-China relations.

Still, being “a multi-disciplinary research forum dedicated to analysing Sri Lanka’s strategic interests in the realm of international relations, within the contemporary domestic and global contexts”, perhaps the good folks there subconsciously know where we are heading?

Top public officials violate ethics; join UPFA campaign
Public officials—particularly officers of the Sri Lanka Administrative Service (SLAS)—are meant to be apolitical and there was a time when they were. That time has clearly passed.

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) on Thursday launched a 90-day mission for the reelection of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The first office for this campaign was opened at an auspicious time by Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa on the same day. The objective of those present was to work towards and support the reelection of President Rajapaksa for a third term.

Present among the crowd were some recognisable public officials who hold high position in the country’s governance structure. Some were SLAS officers. Others were political appointees.

They did not declare what they were doing there. However, they clearly wished to be associated with the political campaign to reelect the head of a specific political party as President for a third term.

Among them was National Delimitation Commission Chairman Jayalath Ravi Dissanayake; Mass Media and Information Ministry Secretary Charitha Herath; Telecommunication and Information Technology Ministry Secretary Gotabaya Jayaratne; Economic Development Ministry Secretary Nihal Jayatilleke; Ports and Highways Ministry Secretary R. W. R. Premasiri; Industries and Commerce Ministry Secretary Anura Siriwardena; and the inevitable Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivaard Cabral.

Vasantha Senanayake in mulberry move
UPFA Gampaha District MP Vasantha Senanayake may have drawn inspiration from the Mulberry group comprising Government backbenchers who during the tenure of President Chandrika Kumaratunga worked to put right certain doings on their side. This happened when Mr. Senanayake decided to come forward in Parliament on Thursday to move a Constitutional amendment which seeks to restrict the Cabinet to 30 and restrict the number of portfolios held by the President to one.

The MP of course did not go ahead and present this private member’s Bill. He subsequently wrote to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) General Secretary Maithripala Sirisena explaining that he had decided to postpone the presentation of the Bill on the advice of some seniors in the party. However, he added he was keen that the ‘Senanayake’ proposals were implemented as they would win bipartisan support.

The MP wants his proposals approved before the term of this Parliament ends in 2016 and the proposals to be implemented when a new government is formed.