SL Crisis
#GO HOME GOTA#
A perverse twist: Blame Aragalaya, let Gota stay, and kids can go home!
by Rajan Philips
Although the May 9 Temple Trees ‘coup’ ended disastrously for its orchestrators, the coup’s purpose may have been fulfilled indirectly, even if only partially. Aragalaya, though still alive, has been deflated enough to encourage twisted reactionary politics creep back to life after going dormant for over a month. The perverse twist is being manifested in blaming Aragalaya for its allegedly infeasible demands, deriding its apparent inability to provide an alternative leadership, calling Galle Face protesters middle class kids and telling them they have had their fun and they can go home now, and asking Gotabaya Rajapaksa, even if tongue-in-cheek, to stay on and tidy up his mess.
I call this perverse and twisted partly because such insults and instructions were never flung at the Rajapaksa regime which has been on the run since the end of March, and more importantly because the mushrooming criticisms of Aragalaya totally miss the economic elephant in the room. Until May 9 and its violent Temple Trees teledrama, criticisms of the Aragalaya have been generally from the Left. They were mostly supportive and friendly criticisms. After May 9, the reactionaries seem emboldened to assume they have got their license back. Hence the flurry of criticisms ranging from a rather bizarre comparison to the utterly abominable trucker-protest in Ottawa, Canada, to the patronizing advice that Aragalaya kids have had their fun at Galle Face, have eaten their free biriyani lunch, and now they can go home.
Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya has many similarities with protests in other countries over the last decade in what is being described, both by the political Left and the Right, as the age of mass protests. According to one assessment the size and frequency of protests since 2009 are eclipsing the protest waves of the last century in the 1960s, 1980s and 1990s. According to another, a majority of the of the protests in different countries are triggered by the failure of representational democracy and the outrage over systemic corruption and lack of accountability. The latter study (World Protests: A Study of Key Protest Issues in the 21st Century. 2022. Global Social Justice, Initiative for Policy Dialogue, New York), identifies “mass middle-class involvement in protests” as a “new dynamic” that has ruptured “a pre-existing solidarity of the middle classes with elites,” mainly as a result of economic failures.
Even so, the Aragalaya in Sri Lanka cannot be understood or discussed in isolation from the economic calamity that the country is facing. The collapsing economy is virtually the be all and end of Aragalaya. There would be several contributing ‘determinants,’ but in the absence of anything like the current economic crisis, it is safe to say, there would not have been the Aragalaya that took Sri Lanka by storm for well over a month. What is so deterministic about Sri Lanka’s economic condition? In my view, it is what Professor Mick Moore of the University of Sussex described (to the BBC’s Today programme) as “the most man-made and voluntary economic crisis of which I know.” And public outrage has simply targeted the men who made it.
Egregious Incompetence
Mick Moore has been a consultant on Sri Lanka for the Asian Development Bank and he knows something about the island’s economy and its decision making compulsions. His description that it is “the most man-made and voluntary economic crisis,” is the most accurate assessment and explanation of our situation among all the assessments and explanations that are flying around. Moore rejected the lately canvassed idea that Sri Lanka’s difficulties are due to global economic problems, and asserted that the Sri Lankan crisis is “emphatically not that”.
His criticism would seem to include both the Mahinda and the Gota regimes. The former borrowed money for infrastructure projects and the latter “insisted in this very macho fashion” on repaying the massive debt instead of restructuring it. The government, Prof. Moore said, “went along in this way until about six months ago and basically they had given away virtually all the foreign exchange they could command”. “This is egregious incompetence,” he concluded.
Prof. Moore’s assertions were resoundingly validated by the Central Bank Governor Dr Nandalal Weerasinghe, when he appeared before the parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) on Wednesday, May 25. As reported in The Island (Thursday, May 26), the current Governor confirmed that his two predecessors (Lakshman and Cabraal), then Minister of Finance (and Prime Minister) Mahinda Rajapaksa, and Treasury Secretary S. R. Attygalle – all of them criminally failed to act on the dire warning given by the IMF as far back as March-April 2020, of an impending financial crisis and Sri Lanka’s debt unsustainability. Without debt restructuring, IMF has warned, that Sri Lanka will not be able to procure new loans.
The Committee was also informed how three members of the then Monetary Board (Governor W.D. Lakshman, Treasury Secretary S.R. Attygalle and nominated member Samantha Kumarasinghe) disregarded the written objections of the two minority members (Ranee Jayamaha and Sanjiva Jayawardena) and decided to maintain a fixed exchange rate at Rs. 203 by using the Bank’s reserves ($ 5.5 billion in reserves between June 2021 and March 2022), in order to hide the extent of the debt crisis.
Here we are a year later, with forex reserves depleted to daily subsistence levels and the country going from pillar to post in search of fuel, gas, medicine and food to meet its daily needs. What Prof. Moore called “egregious incompetence,” was described at the COPE hearing as “a crime” by committee Chairman Prof. Charitha Herath. The Chairman went on to call for a Special Parliamentary Select Committee to investigate those whose negligence has brought the country to its current plight. .
As Prof. Moore has observed, Sri Lanka’s current crisis cannot be blamed on global economic problems. No other Asian country is in the same perilous plight as Sri Lanka. Countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam, which were far behind Sri Lanka in the starting lineup for economic take-off, have now surged far ahead of Sri Lanka and they are not having any of the problems that Sri Lankans are now facing, Covid or no Covid. The current problems are not only man-made but they were also made in the last two years. There is much to be said about Sri Lanka’s economic trajectory after 1948, but none of it can be used to mitigate the misdoings of the last two years. Blaming 74 years of independence is simply lamebrained.
It is not 74 years, but only the last two years of egregious incompetence that are to blame. People caught it instinctively and it was their outrage that became Aragalaya. Corruption and incompetence are not unknown to Sri Lankans, but never before have they seen the two fusing in a single ruling family, to such a large extent and in so short a time. That made Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Mahinda Rajapaksa the bullseye targets of public outrage. For the first time ever, Sri Lankans targeted a political figure and his family for expulsion by resignation. And the target slogans Gota-Go-Home and Myna-Go-Home were given territorial grounding in Gota-Go-Gama and Myna-Go-Gama, respectively.
Political Failure
Put another way, it is the ‘egregious incompetence’ of the Gotabaya-government and the hardships it has caused for all Sri Lankans regardless of their social and spatial locations, which is at the root of the ‘Aragalaya’ movement and offers some insight into both its anatomy and its anticipations. Aragalaya is still a ‘real time’ phenomenon, and it is too early for broadly acceptable analysis and interpretations of the movement. So, it has become a dart board for others to throw their favourite missiles, often making their own projections rather than attempting reasonable insights. In the absence of plausible explanations, there is no harm in accurately describing what one can see about Aragalaya, and it would be sufficient to say for now, “this is how things are,” as a great 20th century philosopher used to say.
Aragalya activists have been described, on the one hand, as the westernized children of 1977, with the implication that they are undermining the achievements of the children of 1956. They have also been seen as lion-flag waving Sinhala supremacists who are among the 6.9 million who voted for Gotabaya Rajapaksa but who are now disenchanted with him after seeing him in action as President. And there might be many shades in between.
Another litmus test applied to Aragalaya is how inclusive and reflective it is of Sri Lanka’s ethnic plurality. Aragalya has shown no overt ethnic exclusion or symptoms of chauvinism. That in itself could be seen as a positive development in the twilight of Sri Lanka’s political past. In addition, the current economic hardships are so pervasive that there is hardly any opportunity for feelings of ‘relative discrimination’ between groups. Everyone is in the same bind, just like as it was after the 2004 tsunami. It was political leadership that failed then, and it is political leadership that is failing now even though the circumstances are vastly different.
Admittedly, Aragalaya has been deflated by the violence of May 9, the resignation of Mahinda Rajapaksa and the rest of the family (save one), and the appointment of Ranil Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister by the sole surviving Rajapaksa family member, i.e., President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. But to take Aragalaya for dead is to forget the economic elephant that is still in the room. Everyone wishes Prime Minister Wickremesinghe to succeed on the economic front. But can he look after the economy without minding political housekeeping?
That is the question and the difficulties he is facing are quite significant and they are not easily scalable. As some of us have been arguing, the manner in which Mr. Wickremesinghe was inducted as PM is also contributing to the difficulties he is facing. This is not something seen in hindsight, but should and could have been anticipated earlier. That is to say, Mr. Wickremesinghe should have had the discussions he is having now with political party leaders as part of accepting the President’s invitation to become PM rather than as a consequence to it.
And instead of proceeding to implement an agreed-upon agenda, the Prime Minister has to waste and time resources to deal with Basil Rajapaksa’s machinations involving SLPP MPs in parliament. It is now known that the latest vote in parliament to elect its Deputy Speaker was not parliamentary cretinism, but Basil Rajapaksa’s highhandedness to show that he alone is the SLPP boss, and not the President. Call it separation of powers, the Rajapaksa way!
And the youngest of the Rajapaksas is reportedly planning to sabotage the much anticipated 21st Amendment because it includes a provision that would disallow dual citizens as MPs, that would directly apply to Basil Rajapaksa. The current draft of 21A is less than the ideal as pointed out by the Bar Association in its letter to the Prime Minister. But even a second or third best version of 21A might become impassable in parliament if Basil Rajapaksa has his way.
In fairness to Ranil Wickremesinghe, he is not the only one to blame for the current stalemate. Both the SJB and the JVP have to take their share of the blame for failing to provide a proper transition plan that could have facilitated the resignation of the President and brought in an interim government to implement a limited agenda of crucial tasks before calling a general election. The SJB was looking for an invitation from heaven to lead an interim government, and the JVP was hoping for a general election to fall from the skies. The SJB is now looking for admission to the Ranil-Rajapaksa administration through whichever door, while the JVP seems to have suddenly gone silent. Or could it be that the mainstream media is ignoring the JVP unless it has something offensive to say about it?
As for Aragalaya, it might be deflated, but it certainly is not dead. Aragalaya is not limited to what goes on at Galle Face. It is manifested in every protest that is going one in any part of the part of the country. It is manifested in the long and never ending queues for scarce supplies. Aragalya may not have achieved its most publicized objective, the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Not yet. But it has achieved the resignation of Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister, which would have been impossible if people had not come out in protest starting in Mirihana. It has achieved, as well, in the very public pursuit of wrongdoers which is supported by lawyers acting pro bono, forcing the Attorney General’s Department to suddenly become responsive, and providing the courts the sociocultural context to resonate positively to what the people are looking for. These achievements are not insignificant by any standard.
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FEATURESPromoting ecotourism without depending on imported fuelPublished 22 hours ago on 2022/06/28
By Eng. Mahinda Panapitiya
The main objective of this article is to initiate a community participated low-cost multidisciplinary programme to promote Eco-tourism-cum Environmentally Sustainable Transport (EST) systems not dependent on imported fuel. Eco-tourism could be used as the main strategy to earn returns on capital investment needed to be incurred for the project.
Multidisciplinary Environmentally Sustainable Transport (EST) systems of this nature are very common in developed countries. For example, about 30% of the daily commuters, going to work in developed countries such as Germany, the UK, and Australia, use bicycles. Close to 40% of the commuters in Brazil and India also use bicycles. In most countries, a 3–10-mile bicycle ride is considered to be moderately easy. In Sri Lanka, it is more important because our road designers have not seriously considered cycling as an alternative transport system. Considering the current economic situation and the dangers posed by the road system for people riding bicycles, the stream banks can provide an attractive alternative for people commuting to work. The EST approach will also address the present fuel crisis being faced by the country.
1.1 Concept
According to this concept, the reservations, along selected natural streams under the purview of the state could be upgraded as cycle tracks or walking paths for the local communities. It is also important to note that stream banks and associated wetlands in the flood plains of those streams represent aquatic terrestrial interfaces of the eco-system having the highest bio-diversity and fertile soil. Therefore, as a parallel activity, those areas could be used to grow high value crops, having medicinal and fruit values. The newly-introduced tracks would play a role of nature trails providing access to those fertile areas. Therefore, this intervention would also generate income for local communities by promoting them to grow high value crops and trees along stream banks. Those tree belts would also play the role of bio-corridors interconnecting isolated forest patches in urban areas enhancing the urban bio-diversity. In selecting the stream banks to transform them to cycle tracks, ecotourism potential of the area should also be used as a criterion.
2 Already completed projects of
similar nature in Sri Lanka
This type of intervention was implemented in 90’s in System B of the Mahaweli Project (Maduru Oya), under an USAID, funded programme called Mahaweli Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) project launched in the 1990s. In that project, the main focus was to provide Cycle Tracks for farmers doing paddy cultivation in lands bordering natural stream banks. As a parallel activity, fruit trees were introduced along the stream banks, bordering paddy farms. Trees such as Kumbuk, Mee, Karanda, which strengthen stream banks against erosion during floods, were also introduced on the water spread side of streams. For more details about this project please refer the following web site.
https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pnabw863.pdf`
Jogging track concepts, introduced by the Provincial Development Authority (WP) in 2011, was the modification of the same concept, addressing the recreational needs of urban communities. It was introduced in parallel to a flood mitigation project in Gampaha. In 2014, that intervention won the first prize from the Institution of Engineers SL as the best water related multidisciplinary intervention1. Later the same concept was duplicated along stream banks around Kiribathgoda, Wattala, Kaduwela, etc. The proposed project, in this note, is diversification of the concept adapted for jogging tracks.
- Proposed Pilot area
Gampaha District is the target pilot area suggested for this new intervention. The internationally famous Henarthgoda Botanical Garden, located closed to the Gampaha Town, is proposed to be used as the nucleus to attract eco-tourists. Town centres like Minuwangoda and Udugampola, on one side of the Botanical Garden, and Cultural Centres and Asgiriya Rajamaha Viharaya, Pilikuttuwa, Warana, Attanagalla Temples having archeological values, Indigolla Church on the other side could easily be linked by Cycle Tracks laid along natural streams, such as Uruwal Oya and Attangalu Oya. It is expected that the Caves in Pilikuththuwa Temple to be used to attract eco-tourists because it has about 90 rock caves. There are also mini water falls in the target area. For an example Dunumala Ella is one of the most famous waterfalls in the Gampaha District. Yakkala Aurweda Hospital is another attraction.
Another advantage in this pilot area is that it is located closed to the Katunayake Airport. Tourists arriving at Katunayaka Airport could be easily diverted directly to the Gampaha side, instead guiding them to congested concrete cities like Colombo or cities such as Sigiriya located far away without depend on fuel for their mobility. In other countries, facilities are provided to rent cycles for tourists to travel from the airport itself to enjoy the natural biodiversity within the country. On the other hand, the whole world is marching towards a spiritual crisis.
Therefore, tourists of rich categories are looking for alternative ways to be happy life both spiritually as well as physically. This project will ideal opportunities for such tourists of rich categories by designing those paths as nature trails exhibiting our rich biodiversity. Sri Lanka has been identified as one of the 36 global biodiversity hotspots.
- Design guideline
Note that this project should be a very low-cost intervention. For an example, the surface of the tracks could be upgraded using only gravels mixed with cement. Earth to form tracks should be borrowed from the bed of the adjacent stream. stream banks can be strengthened using bio engineering technologies. Expensive method such as Gabions should not be allowed to strengthened stream banks.
View of a stream bank which could be improved as Cycle Tracks / Nature Trails
- Implementation Agency and potential funding sources
This project addresses transport sector issues; it facilitates Environmentally sustainable Transport (EST) for local people. Therefore, Provincial Road Development Authority (PRDA – Western Province) is the ideal institution to implement this project. It has experience in launching similar interventions such as jogging tracks along stream banks in Gampaha District. It also has its machinery unit located adjacent to the target area. Private Investor involved in tourism development could also use the PRDA as coordinating body to link with the Ministry of Tourism. USAID might be a potential funding source because this is an extension to a project already launched by them in 90s in Mahaweli Areas as explained above in Para 2. About 0.25 million US$ allocation is sufficient to mobilize this programme.
- Conclusion
The project could be named as NIVARANA in view of health benefits both physical spirituals, economical realized from the project. Nivarana is a native name having the meaning “COMPLETE CURE” With the new concepts introduced under this proposal to promote Eco Tourism, name could be improved as NIVARANA FOR SANCHARAKA in Sinhala.
CONTINUE READINGFEATURESRejuvenating govt. and fuelling expectationsPublished 22 hours ago on 2022/06/28
by Jehan Perera
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was expected to turn around the degrading tragic economic situation wherein child malnutrition figures are making Sri Lanka the 7th worst in the world. The country is living almost on a ‘ship-to-mouth’ basis where the delay of a ship, or the cancellation of a ship bringing fuel, can lead to enormous hardships. More than six weeks after the new Prime Minister took over, the deadweight he has to pull is turning out to be too much. It is not possible to say that the economic situation has changed for the better. If at all, it has turned worse. The queues outside the fuel stations that are still open, and only a few remain open, are longer than ever. Most fuel stations are closed.
The progressive shut down of the government continues with the “work from home” policy for government employees being further extended, along with school closures. The reason being given is to save on fuel stocks. There are fewer and fewer vehicles on the road due to the inability to find fuel to pump into vehicles. Schools have been closed for a further two weeks. It appears that the government is paving the way for the younger generation to be both mentally and physically stunted by lack of adequate nutrition and learning opportunities. Nearly all universities are conducting their classes “online” though the university teachers feel this is an ineffective mode of education.
When Prime Minister Wickremesinghe took over office there was much criticism that he had no moral right to become Prime Minister of a government that was no longer wanted by the people. However, there was a positive expectation that he would make a positive difference with his vast experience of politics, encyclopedic knowledge and international reputation. There was no other justification, certainly not one that could come from democracy, as his party had been routed at the last general elections in 2020, being reduced overnight from 105 seats to one. The main justification for him, with his single seat in parliament, to become Prime Minister was to rescue the failing economy.
SAYING SORRY
Prime Minister Wickremesinghe joined a government that was tottering due to the mass anger that had erupted on May 9. On that fateful day there were scenes of uncontrolled violence that gave a grim foreboding of what the future can become. It was widely believed that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa would be the next to step down after his elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa was forced to step down as Prime Minister following the violence which his party members had instigated. The President pledged to cobble together an all-party government of not more than 15 members and indicated his readiness to call for fresh general elections and a referendum on abolishing the presidency.
There is today much disappointment and anger that Prime Minister Wickremesinghe joining up with the government gave the President the excuse not to take this path. There is today a visible consolidation of the government and its past bad practices, including large size and allegations of gross mismanagement. The size of the Cabinet is presently 20 and there are more to be appointed including controversial persons associated with scams. There is a further complement of around 20 State and Deputy Ministers. Latest reports are that there will be district ministers also appointed which would make the grand total exceed 60 at a minimum.
Members of this government are quick to say they are “sorry’ for the mistakes they make. President Rajapaksa said he is sorry for his mistakes but has said he will stay on for his full term. The Minister of Power and Energy has emulated the President in saying he is sorry for having given false expectations about a fuel tanker docking last week in the port and easing the fuel shortage. But now that ship is no longer coming and there is no assurance of when the next shipment will come. In the meantime, government offices, schools and universities have been ordered to close or restrict their operations.
Apart from an acknowledgment of the wrong committed, an apology also implies two other things—a sincere request for forgiveness and evidence of a change in behaviour. Alas, these last two elements of being truly sorry are not manifested by Sri Lanka’s political leaders. They say sorry but continue as before. The latest manifestation of this characteristic is the landmark 21st Amendment which is ending up to be very different from what it was originally meant to be. It was hoped to be part of the “system change” that the youth–led Aragalaya protest movement, and larger civil society, have been seeking. It was to have removed the excessive powers of the presidency and transfer them to parliament.
ELECTIONS SOONER
Unfortunately, the indications are that the 21st Amendment will be doing much less. It will leave the President as powerful as ever, able to appoint the Prime Minister, ministers and secretaries to ministries and remove them at will. Armed with this power, the President will be able to determine the course of the government and make decisions as he once did, such as to ban chemical fertilisers and pesticides overnight. How long Prime Minister Wickremesinghe will be able to continue and retain the President’s confidence in this environment in which he, with his party’s single seat in Parliament, is a big question. He will have to contend with 60-odd ministers in the government and 224 other MPs in Parliament who are not from his party who belong to the old order and will want to keep it that way.
Last week a dialogue between civil society and parliamentarians on the 21st Amendment took place. The civil society members of the “Collective for Reform ” had labored long and hard to analyse all the civil society proposals with regard to the 21st Amendment and come up with a common minimum set of proposals to present to the parliamentarians. The proposals they studied included those presented by a plethora of organisations—the Bar Association of Sri Lanka, March 12 Movement, National Movement for Social Justice, University Teachers’ Association, PAFFREL, Direction Sri Lanka, Second Generation, ebuildSriLanka2022, People’s Constitution through a Participation Mechanism, People’s Struggle Cooperation Movement, Government Physicians Association, Way forward for Young Leaders, Transparency International Sri Lanka, Socialist Student Union, Inter-University Student Federation, Movement for Consumer’s Rights Protection, National Collective Manifesto, Sri Lanka Administrative Services Association, Public Council, Association of Health Professionals, Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, and Association of Internal Audit Professionals in Sri Lanka.
The parliamentarians who attended the “dialogue” made speeches in which they either claimed the civil society submissions were included in their own submissions, or they spoke on an entirely different track or justified their own conduct in the past and present. They made their speeches early and left early with only a few of them staying on till the end to listen to the conclusions of civil society. Among those who attended were those who had voted successively for the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th Amendments, one contradictory to the other, and now presumably will vote for the watered-down 21st Amendment. The younger generations represented by the Aragalaya protestors have seen through this lack of integrity and policy. Sri Lanka needs not only a “system change” but also a “politician change” which will best come through elections held sooner rather than later.
CONTINUE READINGFEATURESNew scene for Ruwini?Published 22 hours ago on 2022/06/28Ruwini (centre) with friend in Florida
Remember Ruwini Ranrekha who used to sing with the group Aquarius?
In addition to performing live, she was also very active, in the scene here, heavily involved in recording Sinhala songs.
The singer is now in the States, not as a performer, she says, but she has done some guest spots and has come in for praise from the audience, over there.
However, she said she is working on a new song and will keep her fans, back home, updated no sooner it’s completed.
Ruwini is based in Washington, D.C., and has also been to Miami, Florida, and Ohio, and will be seeing more of the States, she indicated.
Of course, she is having a great time, in the setup there, and is enjoying every minute of it.
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