A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Back to 500BC.
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Monday, June 12, 2017
The
profound disgust felt by citizens of this country towards elected
representatives on both sides of the political divide is without a
doubt. This week’s adjournment debate in Parliament on the deaths and
misery caused by recent catastrophic floods in the country reinforces
that disgust.
Reducing Sri Lankans to beggars
What surfaced predominantly were cheap political shots aimed at each
other with some national suit clad worthies evidently glorying in the
discomfiture of their fellows. Conspicuously lacking was the
identification of the disaster as a grievous tragedy over and above
party political lines. No emphasis was laid on the prioritizing of a
professional disaster prevention policy along with a mechanism to
prevent as much as possible, the awful fury of natural calamities
instead of wailing to the heavens and distributing relief after disaster
strikes. Reducing once self sufficient members of thriving village
communities to the level of beggars waiting for handouts is not
something to boast about. That much is clear.
Meanwhile empty promises to appoint yet another parliamentary committee
(proposed by the so-called Joint Opposition apparently) or to hold an
international conference to bring together donors for flood relief by
the Government only arouses more infuriation. Is this all that can be
suggested? While the immense sacrifice by parliamentarians giving up
their lunch interval to carry on with the adjournment debate, (perhaps a
good precedent for the future) must be accorded its due
acknowledgement, was this the abjectly squeaking mouse that the roaring
mountain gave birth to, as Aesop’s Fables famously satirizes.
That same surreal unreality attaches to the bristling justifications
offered by the Minister of Disaster Management. This personage, as
pointed out last week, was so imbued with a sense of his own
responsibilities that he took close upon a week to return to the country
after the disaster hit. The excuses now offered would be funny if they
did not grimly reflect the lack of accountability which prevails.
Ignoring core concerns of disaster management
Thus the public was summarily informed that the Ministry and the Centre for Disaster Management worked exemplarily. However, the ‘only problem’ was that centres for evacuation and disaster management had not been set up to enable people affected by oncoming natural disasters to be moved into
Pray is this not the very core concern of a functional and effective
disaster management policy? Without such centres, where are the people
supposed to go even if the Government blares into their ears from noon
till night that disaster may strike? Can you blame occupants if they
refuse to leave, particularly in view of the fact that the law and order
situation is so chaotic that their meager belongings may well be looted
before they return? It is only now that this need is being addressed,
apparently again through foreign funding. Why is this not prioritized in
utilizing the country’s own monies without always resorting to the
begging bowl? Where are tax payers’ monies being diverted to?
In effect, without addressing these key concerns that have been ignored
for decades due to the blundering of successive and the present
Government/s, all that the responsible Minister and his colleagues (who
also formed part of the Rajapaksa government, let us not forget) can
bleat is that Sri Lankans are unique in that they refuse to leave their
homes when disaster looms. Therefore (we assume), the victims are held
to be responsible for what befell them. Is there no limit to this
indecency if not idiocy?
Glaring corruption and mismanagement
The fundamental issue is not the reluctance of people to leave their homes. Or the lack of law as stated previously. Rather, it is the corrupt and mismanaged way in which development and basic urban planning takes place. Much of this was accelerated during the Rajapaksa Presidency when these same worthies were in government. Ministers wax eloquent now in regard to unauthorized buildings blocking water ways and so on. But it was the same political establishment of which they were very much a part of, which permitted these constructions to take place for hefty considerations passed under the table.
During the Rajapaksa Presidency, bypassing required environmental
approvals in major development projects became common. The former
President and his supporters (some holding ministerial positions now)
should hang their heads in shame if, of course, they understand the
concept of shame in the first place. But the fault does not lie with the
Rajapaksas alone.
Seeing the calamitous scenes of the flooded Southern Expressway last
week, I hunted through old court papers relating to legal challenges
brought to the shifting of the Expressway from the original trace and a
later approved combined trace. Though it was ultimately built on a final
trace, this was not subjected to a Supplementary Environmental Impact
Assessment in terms of the National Environmental Act.
Sri Lanka not immune to global anti-establishment anger
This columnist was part of a legal team which challenged the arbitrary re-drawing of the trace without proper environmental approvals in the Supreme Court in a public interest petition filed against the Road Development Authority and other relevant state agencies. Though the Court delivered judgment holding that a Supplementary Environmental Impact Assessment should have been conducted and upholding the right to compensation of the petitioners whose lands in Bandaragama and Akmeemana had been arbitrarily acquired for the Expressway, it stopped short of halting the project (SC Appl 58, 59 & 60/2003, SCM 20/01/2004).
That caution may have been justified at the time due to the enormous
costs incurred if a more drastic reprimand had been issued. But thirteen
years later, we see the terrifying consequences of unplanned and
unregulated development. As politicians of the local kind mouth
hypocrisies, many Sri Lankans identify with the anti-establishment
fervor sweeping the world, most recently in the general elections in the
United Kingdom. This casts caution to the winds with the contemptuous
rejection of the ‘old political mindset’ even if the ‘new’ veers
dangerously on an unstable unknown. This is an irresistible tide that
Sri Lanka will not be immune from.
Even as some are content to make professional and personal hay while the
sun shines, it is increasingly evident that even those uncertain and
occasional bursts of sunshine under the unity alliance may be short.
Indeed, Sri Lanka may soon be gripped in a pall of an icy chill, worse
than what we have ever experienced before if its political leadership
fails to understand and respond properly to the public mood which (with
very good reason) is turning hostile in some parts and downright ugly in
others.