Whose Word do we identify with?

Gajalakshmi Paramasivam- 18 June   2016  

Prime Minister’s Duty v President’s Truth

I received response headed ‘Cometh the house, where's this man Ranil Wickremesinghe?’ from Mr. Malinda Seneviratne, directing us to http://malindawords.blogspot.com/2016/06/cometh-hour-wheres-this-man-ranil.html

The response was in respect to my article Bond v Arms dated 16 June 2016.

Mr. Malinda Seneviratne explains his assessment of the Government led by President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe  as follows:

[Regardless of familiarity or knowledge there are certain definitive statements that can be made of both.  Today, it is clear that few believe that this Government is serious about Yahapalanaya (Good Governance) because it is being observed in the breach.  We need not elaborate.  With respect to bonds, it is clear that the integrity of key players including the Governor of the Central Bank is severely compromised.]

To my mind, the closest – experience based structure through which  I can relate to  the current government’s leadership structure  is like that of Chancellor and Vice Chancellor of an Australian University. The Chancellor leading the Governing Council  is the parallel of the President of Sri Lanka under the current structure. The Vice Chancellor is the parallel of the Prime Minister in this structure.

One could also look at the respective positions and their duties through Prescriptive Land Rights which are a huge challenge in war affected areas of Sri Lanka which suffer from heavy emigration of old owners through legal title  and the challenges due to resettled new residents. The parallel of that in Australia is the Squatters’   Rights. The basic principle governing such laws is that Belief is of Absolute value and hence when applied  extinguishes legal title. Belief based De facto Titles are the parallels of Prescriptive rights. Likewise, belief based rebellion against official governments that have happened from time to time in Sri Lanka. Tamils have  ousted Sinhalese from the position of Opposition Leadership in Sri Lankan Parliament due to this value based on Belief.  Full Physical possession is essential to confirm this through Title. Those who do not need to ‘show’ could just believe.

If the elimination of the LTTE were based on Belief – the Sri Lankan Government cannot be faulted for its excessive use of arms  in breach of Global principles and laws of war. The power of Truth  would have risen / will rise to support them. Those who draw on Global Resources have the duty to respect and adhere to global principles in that project at that time. But that did not happen. Hence the blame of war-crimes hanging over the current government.

The question before us now is - Did the Bonds issue carry the parallel challenges to warrant dismissal of the Governor of Central Bank?

Is the power of belief of Sri Lankans directly affected by the Bonds issue absolute and therefore of enough value to override/extinguish  the net value that has accrued to Sri Lanka through the lawful pathway?

Mr. Seneviratne gives us some clue about his own thinking:

[How did Arjun Aloysius become a billionaire overnight?  Central Bank bonds.  Who is the Big Boss of Central Bank bonds?  His father-in-law.    There are dots and they will be joined.    There’s another possible joining of dots:  Aloysius and the Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake.  They are very good friends.  Now, a person claiming to be a senior officer in the Finance Minister, writing on the basis of anonymity in Colombo Telegraph and going solely on statements made by the Minister on the ‘Face the Nation’ show on Sirasa TV opines, ‘Karunanayake appeared to be unaware of the loss caused by the Bond issuance’.  Whether or not this is true, the Minister must surely know that there were massive benefits to his friend]

The parallel in my case to redeem my Land in Colombo is the Judge ruling in favor of a Sinhalese-Buddhist  who confessed to being educated only up to grade 2 – claiming prescriptive rights over my land – the period including the war period when my representative relocated to Jaffna and hence we could not provide subjective confirmation of our physical entries. But there were documents confirming that the occupier was lying about his occupation. Had I limited myself to thinking that this judge was biased due to my ethnicity and therefore ruled against me – using ‘Balance of Probabilities’. Even though I felt this to be the case I recognized also the lengths to which our barrister – late Mr. Nehru Goonetileke with his team - Mr. Mahendra and Mr. Manoharan – worked with commitment to bring out ‘facts’ through the legal pathway. Had I given recognition to the Judge’s ‘bias’,  that would have overridden / extinguished Mr. Goonetileke’s contribution through a mind that already was above racial bias. So, I dug deeper and found documentary evidence to confirm that the occupant had lied and misled Court.

During the process my belief that Truth shows Itself to one who is committed to Truth. Land is a Reservoir  of Energy – be it positive or negative. Any place where Truth is manifested becomes such Reservoir.

Mr. Seneviratne states in his website:

[Malinda Words

Words didn’t fall from the sky. They were coined. They contain histories. They are the landmark products of thought processes, the rest-signs of journeys. They move on, long after we die. They were something else centuries ago and they will be something else centuries from now as human being twist, turn, defined and redefine as appropriate to moment, place, culture and prerogative(s) at hand.]

It’s not the outer body of a word that stays on – but the feeling that stays on at that place. One may not say even one word – but the belief of one at the time and place where the word is said by someone else stays on due to that belief. Manifestations at that place are through such feelings from the past also. That is how places could be sacred or they could be haunted.

The basis of my discovery is my experience at the  University of NSW. Both Chancellors of my time confirmed their identity with my complaints and did what they could to invoke the Administrative and management processes. But not so the Vice Chancellors. The ‘legal’ title holders did not have enough strength to override the negative forces within the University system. Eventually after I left the University – the Administration suffered due to accusations of ‘scientific fraud’. The complaints were initiated by Asian migrants – the ‘group’ I was allocated to by those who persecuted me for doing my duty – the way I thought it was needed to be done. It took me a long time to appreciate that the moment the Chancellors delivered their verdict – I had won at that place at that time. They were owners with Absolute power. I was still looking for the endorsement of Administrators using relative power. Hence my pain back then. Now I endorse myself where I believe I am an owner.

Using that experience, I feel that given that Mr. Mahendran was elected by the current Government for Political reasons – to offset the damage due to war-crimes issue – removal of Mr. Mahendran through lower powers – would have damaging effects on the ‘reconciliation’ efforts happening in the nation.  If the President is to dismiss without Absolute Belief – it would be by a lower power due to the President’s lack of investment in global values. Prime Minister Wicremesinghe must make the decision  - not through logic of rights and wrongs – but through his own Experience – and the decision needs to be on behalf of Sri Lanka and not just the Central Bank and the Executive Government. Personalities have little value when we consider the whole issue. Mr. Mahendran’s appointment was taken as part of the solution to restore the losses in Tamil leadership due to ethnicity based discrimination. Premature use of ‘rules and laws’ to which Sri Lankan leaders did not contribute strongly over the past decades – is likely to dilute and extinguish the investments made by the current government in ethnic harmony.

The indicators of what can happen could be found in the  speech on the state of the implementation of the UN HRC's Resolution,  made by M.A. Sumanthiran, M.P. of Sri Lanka during his visit to the United States a few days ago:

[On the change that has taken place in the life of the Tamil People since 2015:

 Well, there is some change. The anxiety of having to face a hostile military of what we call the deep state - which is translated into military intelligence personnel prying into their private affairs and so on - a lot of that has changed. There is greater freedom to move around and so on. So people can genuinely feel the change - which is more freedom. But once that has been realised, day to day issues have not changed, primarily because most of them haven’t been able to recover themselves from the war devastation that is all around. A lot of them are not permitted to go to their own land which is occupied by the military and this is what I referred to in my presentation - that there was a promise to release all private lands which hasn’t been realized as yet. A small portion has been released in stages, but the promise was to release all of it in 100 days from January 2015 and one and a half years later about 70% still remains in the hands of the military and people can actually see that the rate has slowed down and there’s very little movement in that respect, and so their sense of frustration is growing. The military not only occupies people’s land but they cultivate it. They grow vegetables in it and they sell it at the market for lower prices than what the other famers are able to sell. So that has an implication on their livelihood. They are running 18 tourist hotels in those places. This is just one aspect. Return to normality in terms of getting back to normal civilian life has not yet happened to the people. People understand that they need to be patient and so on, but their patience is running out. We had an adjournment debate in Parliament just a couple of days ago and all our representatives from the North and East listed out various issues that affect the people and warned the Government that the goodwill may not last very long if these issues are not addressed. Our people feel very strongly that we brought about the change, we voted in full numbers to bring about a change, and that was done on certain promises which are yet to be realized. In a short answer, there was hope, there was initial euphoria, which is now turning into frustration and disappointment.  ]

Tamils who believed that they owned their homes and lived there over long periods but were injured and/or were killed by those with lesser values even though they may be in uniform – continue to live there – as eternal owners. The Energies of anyone in the group that caused those injuries – would invoke manifestations adverse to the official positions and opportunities.

Those who turn a blind eye to the plight of victims of war and give priority to cash issues, are confirming that they did not suffer due to the war and that the LTTE were not Terrorists to them.  

When we think about these issues – through our Truth – we have the higher experience. Majority of us would not be able to directly influence the Government through our words but each one of us would be able to influence the true Energies through our Belief which is born out of Experience. The ones we do experience through our words – would eventually form majority force – strong enough to defeat majority numbers lacking in belief.

Central Bank due to past weaknesses is a haunted place in terms of Administrative order.  The solution to the current problem should not be isolated to any particular person but needs to be addressed in the consciousness of Sri Lanka’s position in the global context.

Those who choose to use the Bonds issue as a ‘project’ need Objectively measurable evidence of wrong-doing on the part of the Central Bank Chief. That would protect the Government from weakening its own investment in ethnic harmony.