Gajalakshmi
Paramasivam – 24 October 2015
Why Sri Lanka Needs Tamil Administrators & Commissioners
During one of my training sessions here in
Australia – I said to the staff I was training – words to the effect – that we
could all be managers and gave some examples in terms of decisions that we
could make due to our work at grassroots level. Then Richard Caroll – who said that
he understood Accounting much better the way I explained it than it was taught
at the University showed interest – demonstrated excitement about the
management position. Then Kathleen Caden who was the manager of Richard’s
section said that Richard would like the money but not the Responsibility. Richard
smiled as if in agreement. Most workers like the benefits but not the
responsibility.
The above came to mind, when I read – ‘Cost of Doing Little’ by the Island Editor in
relation to the unruliness in Sri Lankan Parliament [There have been numerous instances where the Speakers sought to use
religion and ethics in a bid to knock some sense into unruly MPs. Speaker W. J.
M. Lokubandara was famous for pontificating on religious values and warning
those who misused public funds that they would be reborn as buffaloes. Speaker
Jayasuriya has perhaps realised the futility of giving misbehaving MPs who are
obviously beyond redemption, religious and moral lessons. On Wednesday, he
sought to use economics in a bid to bring order out of chaos in Parliament.
Speaker
Jayasuriya told the warring MPs that a single parliamentary sitting cost the
taxpayers as much as Rs. 4.6 mn. Parliament usually meets eight days a month at
a cost of about Rs. 36.8 mn. A sitting usually lasts six hours. That is
sittings cost the taxpayers Rs. 12,777 per minute.
If
sittings are suspended for ten minutes about Rs. 127,770 goes down the gurgler.
This is something the lawmakers who kick up shindies and resort to fisticuffs
at the drop of a hat ought to bear in mind.
Meanwhile,
a government panjandrum has claimed that it costs about Rs. 150 mn a month to
maintain the President’s House in Colombo Fort and that is why the incumbent
President has decided against occupying it. (The place has to be maintained
anyway with or without him living there.) Curiously, the cost of having a
225-member Parliament in session continuously for one month is less than that
of maintaining the official residence of the President! Isn’t this an eloquent
argument for abolishing the executive presidency?]
In my article ‘Motherland Intuition’ http://austms.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/gajalakshmiparamasivam-14-october.html
I pictured the Balance Sheet as follows:
[One of the ways in which we protected
ourselves was the erection of a steel fence and installation of CCTV to monitor
our ‘borders’. The electric wires were disconnected and we are now in the
process of installing Solar Panels. In the meantime we reported the matter to
the Vaddukoddai Police and also to the Government Civil Officers concerned. We
have claimed compensation from the latter for Rs. 1,432,900 as follows:
(i)
Money – Rs 116,450.
(ii)
Human Value – Rs
600,000. [The
current value of our Donated Land (Rs. 500,000 from which we need to deduct the
RESPECT shown for the Donor by the Donee or Add to it the DISRESPECT shown –
which in this case is Rs. 100,000 – Rs.116,450 rounded down to the nearest
hundred thousand) ]
(iii)
Policy Value - Rs 716,450
[The total of the above
losses – the other side of which was enjoyed by the authorities as comforts due
to idling]
As per the above Actual in an area of Sri
Lanka where Law & Order is weak – the ratio of Cash to Total Cost is 1:12 (116,450: 1,432,900 ) . Hence the total
cost of a sitting of Sri Lankan Parliament is 56.6 million Rupees or AU$566k. Relatively
speaking – Australia’s Cash Cost as per figures I found through my quick search
- amount to $5.2million per sitting. Given that I do not have the ‘status cost
values’ of the current government – one could conclude that the Total Cost is
double the Cash Cost and amounts to $10.4 million per sitting. In terms of Law and Order in Parliament – one could
conclude that in a global context, Australian Parliament is 18 times more
orderly than the Sri Lankan Parliament. Hence the status of Australia through
its Government in a global context is 18
times that of Sri Lanka through its Government. Once therefore a matter comes
to the global forum – the above weightage needs to be applied, to escalate the
value of the problem or the opportunity to equal footing. This is what happened
in the case of war-issues escalated to the UN.
Hence the ‘punishment’ for internal
purposes needs to be only one eighteenth the punishment for global purposes for a
government that acknowledges this ‘status’ difference at global level.
As per this Sunday Times report [the lives of those who attempted the
perilous journey and ended up being apprehended ,now face an uncertain future,
caught between the law and economic hardships.
While
a majority of those who left the country did so due to economic reasons,
mortgaging lands and houses or borrowing between Rs. 600, 000 to Rs. 800, 000
to secure a place on an Australia-bound boat, many who made the abortive
attempt face a worse predicament economically than before, some of them told
the Sunday Times..]
The real cost/loss is Rs 7.2 million to Rs.
9.6 million per person to Sri Lanka. Australia recovers this cost in two years at
the level of the individual who carries its policies. But to fill that vacancy
in Sri Lanka, it would take Sri Lanka 13 years. The net rate at which people migrate
(emigration – immigration) confirms that the policy ownership gap. Declarations
of Sinhala only and Tamil only need to be discounted by this rate to arrive at
the real value relative to the other country.
Once we start using global values – our relativity
would be through this ‘total’ value. Like infinity, Policy / Ownership is absolute value. But it
is taken to have ‘total’ value for the purpose of relativity. Hence the use of
Projects instead of Programs in bottom-up Democracy.
Within Sri Lanka – Sri Lankan Army and the
LTTE need be taken to be of Equal status
once the minority side declares itself to be Independent of the other side –
through a bottom up process. I myself did so with the Central Administrators of
the University of NSW – who kept ‘ignoring’ me despite my outstanding
performance at the Faculty level. This eventually led to the Vice Chancellor of
the University being listed by the Police as a witness. As my son said to me in
Court – about the individual who was the Dean of Engineering when he was an
Engineering student at UNSW - ‘He
denied you due time and now he has to wait the whole day in Court’.
This Separation of Powers was NOT practiced
by the LTTE nor the Sri Lankan Government led by Mr. Rajapaksa. Current Prime
Minister Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe confirms this as follows – as reported by
Economy Next:
[Wickremesinghe
said there was no doubt that the Tigers killed Kadirgamar, a key
contender for the presidential nomination, clearing the way for
Rajapaksa.
"There is a connection between the Kadirgamar assassination and the presidential election," Wickremesinghe said. “The kadirgamnar assassination must be thoroughly probed and all this will come out.”
He said Rajapaksa was keen to save Puleedevan who had been the key figure who engineered Wickremesinghe’ s narrow defeat at the 2005 vote.
"Who wanted to save Puleedevan? Who put the November 2005 deal through for Rajapaksa," Wickremesinghe said. "Why did the regime want to save Puleedevan? I don't like people being killed, but Puleedevan is a man whose actions put the Tamil community in jeopardy.
"I do not shed any tears for Puleedevan. If not for him, Rajapaksa would not have been able to take power. It is by trying to save Puleedevan that the country is now facing this white flag crisis.
"Instead of leaving battle field decisions to field commanders, the then government tried to interfere. They were negotiating a surrender."
Wickremesinghe suggested that a senior military commander may have been getting conflicting signals about the surrender and that led to the killings.
The then Sri Lanka’s top official Palitha Kohona had asked the Tigers to carry white flags, walk slowly and give themselves up to the military.
Later, the Tiger leaders were found dead and the UN as well as the Paranagama commission has called for an independent judicial investigation in to the killings after characterising it as a war crime.
Wickremesinghe suggested that local field commanders had carried out the shooting without being fully aware of the negotiations between the Rajapaksa regime and Puleedevan, a fact that is well documented by United Nations diplomats who were involved in the process.
"If it was not a surrender that was negotiated, we won't be facing this problem today," he added.]
"There is a connection between the Kadirgamar assassination and the presidential election," Wickremesinghe said. “The kadirgamnar assassination must be thoroughly probed and all this will come out.”
He said Rajapaksa was keen to save Puleedevan who had been the key figure who engineered Wickremesinghe’ s narrow defeat at the 2005 vote.
"Who wanted to save Puleedevan? Who put the November 2005 deal through for Rajapaksa," Wickremesinghe said. "Why did the regime want to save Puleedevan? I don't like people being killed, but Puleedevan is a man whose actions put the Tamil community in jeopardy.
"I do not shed any tears for Puleedevan. If not for him, Rajapaksa would not have been able to take power. It is by trying to save Puleedevan that the country is now facing this white flag crisis.
"Instead of leaving battle field decisions to field commanders, the then government tried to interfere. They were negotiating a surrender."
Wickremesinghe suggested that a senior military commander may have been getting conflicting signals about the surrender and that led to the killings.
The then Sri Lanka’s top official Palitha Kohona had asked the Tigers to carry white flags, walk slowly and give themselves up to the military.
Later, the Tiger leaders were found dead and the UN as well as the Paranagama commission has called for an independent judicial investigation in to the killings after characterising it as a war crime.
Wickremesinghe suggested that local field commanders had carried out the shooting without being fully aware of the negotiations between the Rajapaksa regime and Puleedevan, a fact that is well documented by United Nations diplomats who were involved in the process.
"If it was not a surrender that was negotiated, we won't be facing this problem today," he added.]
Separation of Powers is needed due to the
way positions are structured. The Judiciary for example is structured to start
with its investment in Law. The Executive on the other hand is structured to
start with the Truth of the People it represents through Common Belief. The
decision of one may look very different to the decision by the other even when
both are right relative to their own positions. Often where Politicians keep
changing laws, Judiciary would not have enough time to adjust its mind-order –
and thus they become two separate entities – like Sinhala only and Tamil only
groups. In the case of the Rajapaksa Government – this resulted in very weak
memory of the Judiciary – when the Government was in Administrative mode. In addition the
Executive colluded with the LTTE for selfish purposes and hence they were no
longer Separated but under One rule. This in turn weakened the LTTE’s
independence. The 2005 negotiation was
the beginning of the downfall of the LTTE – for it cheated the very Tamils whom
it claimed to represent.
They say that all is fair in Love &
War. This is because in both – one is in Truth. In the battlefield it is
between two individuals and no last minute orders ought to be given to lower
ranks for this reason. They write the war-exam as per their studies until the
test. When they take last minute orders – they are writing someone else’s answers
in the test – under their name.
Prime Minister Wickremesinghe states [that local field commanders had carried out
the shooting without being fully aware of the negotiations between the
Rajapaksa regime and Puleedevan, a fact that is well documented by United
Nations diplomats who were involved in the process.]. Those who fired are
not wrong because they are entitled to act as per their thought at that moment.
It is difficult to override ‘Terrorism’ with ‘Surrender’ at the last minute
where it is a question of kill or get killed. All of them in that ‘negotiating’
group – and this includes Australian Dr. Palitha Kohona – are guilty at the
global level.
At the local level, once the LTTE ‘negotiated’
– any action against them has to fall within disciplinary action and not
external punishment by the Judiciary. Only the leaders who agreed to the negotiations
could be tried by the Judiciary.
The following words I wrote today, to a
fellow Australian mother seeking to take loving care of her child – would help
appreciate the value in the Sri Lankan conflict:
“Sadness
is as sweet as happiness when we are in Truth. It naturally gives you a share
of those who are happy. This is what Gandhi discovered. If your child is
happy – and you are sad – you would be wholesome together. That’s when there is
completion. Likewise when you are sad that will help the needy be happy
in issues where there is just the two of you – in your mind and in the other’s.”
If LTTE is still considered a Terrorist group – then those who surrendered are Sri Lankan Government’s children and cannot be tried independently. The rest are LTTE – and could be tried – not by the local Judiciary in which they declared no belief – but by an international court where the Sri Lankan Government also need to be summoned. The laws applicable to the two sides have to be the lowest common laws as per Human Rights values practiced by Tamils of Sri Lanka in whose name the LTTE acted. It’s as simple as that!
As per Ada Derana.lk report ‘Foreign involvement in mechanism a political decision – Paranagama’
[The Chairman of Sri Lanka’s three-member
probe commission says that certain isolated incidents that may have occurred
outside the activities of the war should be investigated in depth to come to
conclusion. He said that whether to permit foreign involvement in the
mechanism, more than observing, is a political decision. “Those are political
decisions we never wanted to tread,” Maxwell Paranagama told Ada Derana in an
interview. ….
But there were a
few incidents that were of very public importance, incidents like the Channel 4
video, the white flag case and surrendees going missing, Mr Paranagama.
“Those are
isolated incidents that may have occurred outside the activities of the war
which we say they should be investigated in depth to come to conclusion,” he
said.
“At no time have
we come to conclusion those wrongs have been committed by our security forces.
We can also say security forces always acted for the safety of civilians. They
took all precautions. They created No Fire Zones. They always acted in defence
of the civilians. Sometimes they had to shoot to save civilians. In the midst
of this crossfire some civilians may have died.”
“We have applied
that humanitarian principle proportionality and we have analyzed to what extent
it can be justified in regard to the number that may have died and what the
army achieved by doing so,” he added.
“I could say we
have set out a balanced report also when you overall take into consideration our
forces have done a humanitarian operation sometimes you cannot have nil
casualties because it’s a war with both sides dealing with arms.”
“We have also suggested a mechanism,” he
said, adding that if someone had done wrong - be they LTTE or our security
forces – “how they can go through a process of freeing themselves.”
“We have said setup a special High Court so that if
some soldier is alleged to have committed crime may go before the High Court
and proving his innocence by going through the process of law,” he said.
“At the same time we have recommended to set up a
truth commission where if anybody – LTTE or security forces - can go before the
truth commission and say ‘I did this wrong under these circumstances please
have amnesty.’ So the truth commission will consider.”
“Putting into operation what we have suggested is not
a difficult task.” We have recommended the process, he said.
“We have said setup a special High Court so that if
some soldier is alleged to have committed crime may go before the High Court
and proving his innocence by going through the process of law,” he said.
“At the same time we have recommended to set up a
truth commission where if anybody – LTTE or security forces - can go before the
truth commission and say ‘I did this wrong under these circumstances please
have amnesty.’ So the truth commission will consider.”
“Putting into operation what we have suggested is not
a difficult task.” We have recommended the process, he said]
It may be attractive to those who were with
their respective side largely for monetary / benefits purposes. But LTTE
carried a large doze of Belief – and this has been overwhelmingly acknowledged
by the Tamil Community taken as a Total. It would weaken the Independence value
of Sri Lanka – if such members of the LTTE to whom that fight for Independence
was the only life - were influenced to
give it up for something less. Leaders who ‘negotiated’ do not carry this value.
Those who continued with their belief – need to be honored by the Tamil
Community and this must be facilitated by Tamil leaders like the Hon
Wigneswaran who continues to counsel them in his own way – through the
Provincial Council structure. The above recommendation by the Paranagama
Commission would not suit Tamils. It should NOT be imposed on Tamils.
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