I was delighted when asked to review Right of Way: A journey of resettlement by Sharni Jayawardena and published by the Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA). Sharni’s skill in photography is enviable, and was the co-creator of Walkabout: Slave Island, supported by Groundviews. At the time of review, the publication was not in the public domain, and given what I had seen of Sharni’s previous work, I expected it to be a largely photographic record, in a coffee table book format, of the human displacement that occurred as a result of the E01, Sri Lanka’s first highway. And yet the book features few photos. 72 pages long, the book has just 8 photos included in it. I’ll come back to why I think this makes for a less compelling way of grappling with what the book sets out to do.

Thousands, since E01 opened late last year, have taken the highway to Galle from Kottawa. The focus when on the road, particularly if one is driving, is on safety at 100kmp/h. In its early days, the highway was a high-speed slalom of road kill and stray dogs. Today, even a driver is more at ease to take in, especially if driving around sun-rise, the spectacular beauty of the countryside the E01 snakes through, without the visual pollution of billboards.  Few if any would have given even passing thought to the issue this book deals with – the displacement of thousands to make way for the highway. The book’s aims are three-fold. One, it “is an attempt to document what happened to the people who had to move, and the different impacts the project had on their lives. It is based on a structured monitoring process carried out over four years, that involved a survey of 400 households, more than 30 group discussions with affected households, and over 450 individual interviews with residents, experts, local government officials and donors” (page v). Two, it attempts to show how “the Road Development Authority, comprising engineers whose primary task was supervising the road building, also implemented the project’s social programmes, often under difficult and contentious circumstances, working with a diverse group of people who, as in any real-life situation, acted and reacted in diverse ways” (page v). Finally, “it attempts to visualise the place and circumstances as it used to be, before the road came” (page vi). The first and second aims are achieved far more than the third.

Sharni’s style is easy to grasp, avoids jargon, convoluted sentences or arcane references.  Right of Way is very readable, well researched and insightful. It sees the E01 through the perspectives of those who are affected by its development – the families forced to relocate and in some cases, live close to a highway on which traffic volume will continue to grow with little or no benefit to those passed by at 100kmph. Sharni quotes the statistics, but what the book does is to go beyond the numbers and through personal narratives, humanise these vexed issues. The statistics alone are revealing. As the book notes,

“An estimated 1,338 families were displaced by the Southern Transport Development Project (STDP), of which 509 families obtained land in 32 sites provided and developed by the Road Development Authority (RDA). This figure would have been much higher if the project had not made a deliberate attempt to avoid highly populated areas, sometimes though at considerable cost to the environment as well as to agriculture. Much of the land acquired was agricultural; consisting of paddy, tea, rubber and cinnamon cultivation, and close to 4,000 households were affected due to loss of their landholdings. In addition, about 550 households were indirectly affected.” (Page 3)

Even approximately, the number of those affected in some way by the development of the E01 is mind-boggling. At a conservative 4 members per family, around 5,300 children, women and men were displaced. Another 4,000 had their incomes disrupted, and their livelihoods placed at risk. It’s currently 400 rupees one-way from Kottawa to Galle or back on the E01. Few of us give a second thought to paying that amount. Sharni’s research highlights the hidden costs of E01’s development, where to date, families that had for generations lived where they did, had stable income, well-established business and fecund land were forced to give it all up. It’s a humbling, vital narrative. Sharni deals with the history of how the E01 came about, but the process and politics of compensation, relocation are the book’s most important contribution to public record. It is unclear, as the book itself notes at the end, how much of what was employed during the construction of the E01 to deal with displacement feeds into current and future mega-development projects. Recording and sharing failures as much as lessons learnt is vital, but it’s also quite obvious that neither is done well in Sri Lanka. And yet, the book flags what was done well, and the innovation – not just in terms of mechanical engineering but also in terms of compensation and responsiveness to human displacement – seen during the construction of the highway. As it notes,

“The project’s Resettlement Implementation Plan (RIP) took a radical departure from Sri Lankan law on land acquisition, compensation and resettlement and the Land Acquisition and Resettlement Committee (LARC) could be considered its most important mechanism. LARC was notably different from the instrument the State usually turns to when it wants to acquire private land for public purposes – the Land Acquisition Act (LAA) No. 9 of 1950. A key difference is that the LAA does not deal with the broader issues of restoring livelihoods or living standards of the displaced people.” (Page 9)

The book goes into great detail about LARC, and the legal aspects aside, it’s interesting to take-away from this example how, if government authorities set their mind to it, they can choose to be more citizen-centric and less heavy-handed in their approaches. The research brings out some notable facts with broader implications. For example, in negotiating compensation, the report notes that the LARC process “especially benefited two contrasting groups: households seen by the Committee to be particularly vulnerable and households with well-informed family members who were able to convincingly argue their cases.” This has implications for Right to Information legislation for example, where vulnerable people through access to information are better able to negotiate with higher authorities, and all communities stand to benefit from more accessible information on governance. Perhaps more expensive for government in the long run, but the fear of heightened public spending over compensation is its own potent mechanism for better developmental planning and strategies. Sharni deals with the complex process of compensation and appeals, particularly for those displaced, extremely comprehensively. Particularly with regard to the exact sum of compensation, there is great scope when reading through the book for the development of decision support systems that aid both government and citizens, on the lines of Smartsettle.com for example. Sharni examines in detail the constitution, efficiency and effectiveness of bodies like the Grievance Redress Committees (GRCs) and the so-called Super LARC, a process of appeal. On page 17 there is a very interesting breakdown of the type of households that fed into the sample that the report is based on. More could have been done with this data. For example, there’s no comparison between the compensation first offered to and subsequently agreed upon by male and female headed households, the working assumption being that a male headed household would have a higher median than a female headed household. The report itself flags this,

“But there were some instances where female householders perceived that they were not taken seriously simply because they were women. “My husband was abroad when the acquisition took place and I had to deal with it until he came down. I think they paid us less compensation because I am a woman.” (Householder, female, age 39, 2006)” (Page 21)

There is however no further study of this in the report, which is a gap. I could also find no explanation as to how and who exactly, for the E01 project, defined what was an ‘extremely vulnerable household’. The term is often used by never clearly explained. There are other shortcomings. A trivial one is the strange inclusion of a Sinhala phrase (Honda sahayogayak dunna) in the excerpt of two female householders on page 22, when the entire book is in English, even though the responses would have been largely if not all in Sinhala. Not clear why Sharni thought it fit to keep this one phrase in. More seriously, gaps emerge in comparative analysis. On page 22 the book notes,

“About 60% of the displaced householders opted to move into other plots they owned or to buy a new plot. The project also provided 32 resettlement sites, which was the preferred choice for relocation of the balance 40% of displaced householders, who did not have a viable alternative or could not afford to purchase land.”

There is however no study into whether the resettlement sites identified and offered by the RDA where better (infrastructure facilities, quality of construction) than the plots and areas selected by the affected families, that on their behalf, the RDA negotiated the purchase of. Again, Sharni deals with what appears to be significant variance in passing, noting on page 33 that,

“The infrastructure facilities at resettlement sites are generally well developed, even if this development did not always take place at a consistent pace. However, there seems to be some differences in the quality of the infrastructure provided both within and across sites, often due to factors that could not be immediately dealt with by the project.”

Highlighting the nuanced interplay, the study of caste, gender, profession, skill, neighbours and a sense of home by Sharni make the book more interesting than just a cold survey of numbers and statistics. Yet we don’t find the voices of youth and children. From memory, the youngest voice reflected in the book is 30. How the youth feel about development and displacement is vital to how the E01 will be perceived and used in the years to come, and arguably more important to record than the opinion of a septuagenarian farmer. Through the book, graphs underscore points Sharni flags in the text, but on page 36, there is an illustration with smiley faces that is impossible to fathom. Some of the smiley faces are truncated, it is not clear what the two stick figures holding hands represent or what the unit of measurement is for a smiley face that is whole. It is noted in the book that there is a definite drop in productivity related to all crops as a consequence of relocation. This is a major economic and existential challenge, and yet the book doesn’t explain, how, if to any degree, local chambers of commerce and industry have stepped into help and support SMEs and farmers during and after the construction of the E01.

Sharni notes that during the 10+ years it took to build the E01, “People had to live for an extended period of time with severe air and noise pollution, and vibrations caused by blasting, compaction, pilling, and heavy vehicle movement.” Driving down it now, you don’t even think of this. But the scale of this air, noise and visual pollution is many times more than the ruckus and fuss we create when there’s a pavement been made, or a road re-tarred in our own neighbourhoods. It’s hard to imagine how it must have been for those close to and living in this maddening environment for so long. The last chapter deals with how the best features of dealing with resettlement, relocation, displacement, compensation and grievance mechanisms around the E01 can and must be more broader applied. It is unclear whether author or publisher intend to follow up on the E01 development beyond Galle, and revisit this study and the sample base say 10 years hence, to ascertain to what degree lives, livelihoods and perceptions had changed.

Right of Way is a genuinely useful contribution to the sadly sparse debate on balancing infrastructure development with human development, and how the former is often ill-secured by an insensitive, centrist, obdurate approach to the latter. I do wish however the book played to Sharni’s strengths as photographer more, or as much as her skill in writing. CEPA itself has the model. As Kannan Arunasalam notes, “CEPA’s photography ‘policy’, an informal understanding which came about as a reaction to the way ‘poor people’ are generally photographed by photojournalists and development organisations, taken without thinking of their rights to privacy and profiting from the use of their ‘faces’, was another challenge that we needed to creatively work around.” Kannan went on to create To Escape or Maximise: The estate worker’s dilemma, CEPA’s first audio visual ‘think piece’, aiming to communicate the findings of its substantial research on the plantation sectors of Sri Lanka to a wider audience. It is a compelling presentation of a complex issue through photography. I wonder why a similar model wasn’t used for this book. CEPA and Sharni could have also gone beyond, and given those affected their own (cheap) cameras to document, through their own eyes and process of selection, the change in their lives brought about by the construction of the E01. Juxtaposed and curated, this could have been a marvellous photographic essay and collection, mediated not through Sharni’s occasional visits and eye, but by those at the heart of the issue the book deals with. Such an approach would have made it far more effective in the book’s avowed goal of being a visual record of the E01’s development.

Yet warts and all, Sharni through this book brings to light a distressing world beyond the dotted lines usually followed on the E01, and the blur of lush green. Sharni ends the book by noting that,

“When we take to the expressway, perhaps we should spare a thought for the many who gave up their rights over this land – their right to use it as a home, a business a cultivation – to allow others the right to travel on an expressway.”

I couldn’t help but think after I read Right of Way cover to cover that it’s not really our right to travel on the E01, but more a privilege we enjoy only because of the real, incredibly hard and on-going sacrifices of those who lands we traverse in our vehicles.

Let they not be forgotten.

• The Incomplete Thombu: A compelling interlace of architecture, drawing, memory and art
• Homeless in one’s homeland
• The Muslim question and resettlement of Muslim IDPs in post-war Sri Lanka: Two comprehensive interviews
• Human displacement
• Forcible resettlements in East

Prof. Gupta teaches at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and was in Sri Lanka recently to deliver the first Ray Wijewardene Memorial lecture. Prof. Gupta is one of the world’s leading voices on social innovation, and the development of social capital. We began our conversation with Prof. Gupta defining what he sees as social entrepreneurship, and why it is important to recognise and nurture it. He then talks about the difference between big science and small science, and how the support of the former through national budgetary allocations does not necessarily address or strengthen the latter. Prof. Gupta also shares some insights into how grassroots innovation can be supported and through the blending of what he calls formal and informal sciences, development made more sustainable and equitable.

Prof. Gupta’s multi-disclipinary background holds him in good stead when he talks about the double-helix of language and culture, and how the preservation of one is to support the development of the other. He speaks of the knowledge rights of people and how at the grassroots, innovations that address common problems and shared socio-economic challenges exists that multi-national companies and even national governments are often unaware of. Prof. Gupta also has a rather unique take on Intellectual Property rights!

Given that so many today use the phrase ‘grassroots’, Prof. Gupta explains what it means to him, and notes that when he started to use the phrase, it was one that was rarely used or recognised.

Throughout the conversation, Prof. Gupta brings up a number of examples from India and elsewhere to support his argument that innovation exists in the unlikeliest of places, and that these innovations often have a broader applicability and in some cases, even push the frontiers of established science and technology. To listen to him is to realise the untapped potential of this innovation, and in fact, how much of it exists even in Sri Lanka. The other important point Prof. Gupta flags is that this innovation often exists amongst children and youth.

Towards the end, we talk about what impedes innovation of the kind Prof. Gupta’s most interested in. Prof. Gupta also ends with five key points, or lessons if one chooses to see them thus, on how a country can strengthen grassroots innovation, and why doing this is vital to its growth.

• Interview with Prof. Tissa Vitharana on the 13th Amendment, Constitutional Reform, IT and English language
• In conversation with Prof. Sumanasiri Liyanage
• Strengthening democracy in Sri Lanka: An open invitation to generate fresh ideas
• Democracy in Sri Lanka: Ideas and responses
• Ground realities in Jaffna and its environs: Two key perspectives

Lessons from China or Tunisia?

Just few months ago, in response to a public outcry for more accountability and transparency in the use of public funds, the State Council, which is the Cabinet in the Chinese government, directed 98 public institutions including ministries to make public their budgets and expenditure on  official receptions, official overseas visits  and public vehicles. Why these three items? China has recognized these as the most abused items of public expenditure, which have long been viewed as major sources of squandering and corruption. Though the nature of lavish and wasteful expenditure varies from country to country, one can see similarities of the operation of such expenditure.

I begin this article on extravagance on public expenditure, with this Chinese example to demonstrate that criticism on extravagance is not a Western concept, as probably our coteries of political advisors and self-serving propaganda experts would always say.  Those great people who have found solutions for their own countries have always identified the problem first.

There is nothing in Sri Lanka without lavishness. From birthday celebrations of the Head of the State or a Minister to an insignificant event, waste of public finance becomes so obvious.   Inauguration of the second term of the President marked two weeks of celebrations with specific instructions being given by the Presidential Secretariat itself to heads of departments and public corporations to engage in various activities,  such as planting of millions of  trees, decorating and illuminating  public institutions at night, having over 10,000  flexed-hoardings and bill boards with specifically designed artwork  and having bodhi pujas at temples – all expenses being met with State funds. Detailed arrangements were made through security establishments to ensure that celebrations are not disturbed. The entire State mechanism worked on the celebrations for one whole week. Though the costs were obviously more than what one could imagine, no head of a public institution dare oppose such wasteful expenditure for fear of the repercussions. Even if a minimum Rs. 1 Million (much below than actual figures) was spent on an average by each Ministry and Corporation the cost would be over 1000 million for this extravaganza, in addition to direct expenditure from the President’s office and defense establishments and waiving off of numerous costs.

Consider the waste of State funds when over a hundred and fifty handpicked people including the Governor of the Central Bank of this economically ailing country, are taken to the Caribbean island, St. Kittes,  to bid for the Commonwealth Games.  Only a mere 20 had arrived from Australia, a country, which is over 117 times larger than Sri Lanka, but has about the same population.(http://www.srilankabrief.org).

Take the foreign visits by our Head of State even when he goes to address the UN General Assembly – free passage for hundreds of politicians, state officials, supporters, relatives, beauticians etc. at public cost. The costs include accommodation in five star hotels; possibly they also enjoy other perks like transport and being invited to official parties.  Usage of Air force helicopters for local holiday travel, together with state protection, for even political appointees such as Central Bank governor is just acceptable.

Look at the public purchases. Sri Lanka Air Force has received two Bell 412 helicopters in December 2011 from USA and, according to media; these helicopters have been configured for VIP passenger travel. This is obviously not for security concerns but purely post-war luxury. Who pays for them? Are we dreaming of the fallen Tunisian dictator Ben Ali’s collection of private jets here in Sri Lanka?  Whatever the counter arguments may be; let us not forget that the money spent are ours – money that belongs to you and to me.

One of the six key globally recognized principles of public expenditure is “the principle of economy”.

“The principle of economy requires that government should spend money in such a manner that all wasteful expenditure is avoided. Economy does not mean miserliness or niggardliness. By economy we mean that public expenditure should be increased without any extravagance and duplication. If the hard-earned money of the people, collected through taxes, is thoughtlessly spent, the public expenditure will not confirm to the cannon of economy.” (http://www.economicsconcepts.com)

In that context we need to understand what is extravagance? The dictionary meaning is “excessive outlay of money; wasteful spending”.

To enter the discussion on this topic, let me place before you the thoughts of Samuel Johnson, who lived in 18^th Century and who is considered by many to be the most distinguished man of letters in English history.

“As to the rout that is made about people who are ruined by extravagance, it is no matter to the nation that some individuals suffer. When so much general productive exertion is the consequence of luxury, the nation does not care though there are debtors; nay, they would not care though their creditors were there too.”

From Parliament to Finance Ministry and then to Individuals 

There is a difference in extravagance at public expenditure and lavish expenditure by those who have accumulated wealth by corrupt means. This article only deals with the former.   It does not discuss how some of the corrupt individuals have become billionaires overnight with political power or resorting to other means. How did the elected leaders, officials and their families get the authority to spend public money lavishly?  To answer this question, “the public expenditure element” must be understood with basic principles of accountability of public finance. As in many other democracies, Article 148 of our Constitution states,   “Parliament shall have full control over public finance”. This is a fundamental constitutional principle since parliamentary democracy was born. The often quoted words of Gladstone summarize the basic principle of British parliamentary accountability of public finance thus, which is worth reflecting again and again:

“The finances of the country is ultimately associated with  the liberties of the country. It is a powerful leverage by which English liberty has been gradually acquired. If the House of Commons by any possibility lose the power of the control of the grants of public money, depend upon it, your liberty will be worth very little in comparison.”

According to constitutional conventions and the law, the Parliament is mainly responsible for the protection of public finance. This includes the responsibility of the parliament to prevent abuses such as extravagance and waste of finances.  However, we need to find out why Parliament is so weak in Sri Lanka in this regard. I can cite FIVE main reasons for the present  status.

Firstly, its Constitutional position – Parliament has been placed subservient to the Executive. There is nothing that the Executive cannot get done through Parliament.

Secondly, Parliament is distorted in today’s context. Does anyone know who is in the Government and who is in the Opposition?

Thirdly, there is no strong and transparent financial committee system that is capable of holding the Chief Accounting Officers (the Secretaries of Ministries) accountable, let alone the Ministers.  A good example is to ask whether any of the parliamentary committees would summon the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and question him effectively?

Fourthly, the quality of parliamentarians matter for the protection of public finance and liberty. Today, most of the parliamentarians are motivated by perks and they are themselves responsible for a lavish lifestyle; Extravagance is part of their life and except for a few, they are unwilling to go back to their roots.

Finally, there is no effective and genuine follow-up action on any findings of a finance committee.

Let me move on to the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance. It is the Ministry of Finance, or the Treasury,  that is the guardian of expenditure because the Treasury is entrusted with the authority to disperse the funds, once funds are allocated by Parliament.  In any respectable democracy, the Finance Minister is a Member of Parliament but in our country for more than a decade the President has been the Minister of Finance. In other words, the Minister in charge of the Treasury is not available for questioning by Finance Committees.  The Minster in charge of Finance (the President) is the main spender through other Ministries such as Defence, and how can such an authority act with responsibility in the case of a conflicting expenditure.   In my view, prior to a post auditing exercise by the Auditor General, it is the Treasury that has some idea about what goes wrong in expenditure.  Chapter III of the Government Financial Regulations gives sufficient directions for the Treasury to supervise management and accountability of “government monies” and “general oversight of all financial operations of the government”.  There may be a few weaknesses but in my view, if the Financial Regulations are given effect to by the Treasury, some of the extravagant spending could be minimized.

I would be failing in my duty, if I do not touch upon the individual responsibility because, none of these institutions can operate with accountability without individuals – whether politicians or officials.  Not all individuals do have the authority to control public finance or to get anywhere near a revenue source.   The knowledge or qualifications neither make great institutions nor great countries; unless those who run them have their own integrity.  Qualifications and integrity are two distinct values; one does not necessarily depend on the other.  If those who run our finance, including the Ministers, Parliamentarians, Treasury officials and other public officers cultivate integrity in their own lives and respective professions,  the political leadership might reform. Why shouldn’t they be taken to task in the normal course of law enforcement?   If such honest people are present in higher positions, no power can overcome the liberty of the citizens. No abuse or extravagance of any Ministry including the Ministry of Finance or the Ministry of Defence would then be tolerated.

Acute & Corrupt Extravagance

Admittedly, Sri Lanka is not the only country which has resorted to extravagance at public expenditure, for many decades, not to mention the present status when it is absolutely appalling.  Swindling of public resources under the guise of a perfectly justified expenditure can easily be recognized. Acute and continuous extravagance has its own uniqueness.  There lies deception and corruption at highest levels, particularly when extravagance continues with impunity.  It is no secret that such acute extravagance is covered under a conspiracy of silence, generally coupled with bad governance.   To me, the following deadly realities and features emerge, wherever such large scale corrupt extravagance exists, particularly, where there is virtually state capture:

1. Coteries of corrupt political and bureaucratic network create or find an event, assignment or project,  suited for such expenditure.  They have a common element – vested interest in the government, economy or business.
2. An identified and trustworthy mastermind plans the expenditure under the guise of “national” or “economic” advantage, with the support from a state propaganda machine. Without exception these groups exploit the ego and megalomania of the political leadership.
3. Political leadership, if not directly involved in such operations, will be convinced of two things; firstly, that their names will not be dragged into an unsuccessful operation and secondly, that they will have the comforts of the outcome of such extravagance.
4. All avenues of a challenging probing are effectively blocked – from parliamentary level to law enforcement levels – through manipulation of institutions and appointments into key positions.
5. In case of a backfire of exposure resulting in street protests or unmanageable criticism, another strong public resources is kept ready to deal with it – that is the military, that is prepared to execute unlawful orders of a political master!

I request the readers to apply these principles carefully to the major areas of extravagance of the Government of Sri Lanka today, be it buying of Bell Helicopters, construction of Cricket stadiums, Hambantota airport, all types of projects ending with the word “Neguma”   or unsuccessful attempt to win Commonwealth Games busting public money. Wayne White, an adjunct scholar with the Washington-based Middle East Institute, cited  the fall of the Gadaphi regime for his extravagance and says he will be remembered for waste, misgovernment and corruption. Should our political leadership be worried? Is there a lesson to learn for the New Year?

The core of the issue of corruption, extravaganza and abuse of power lies in the hearts of the people, who either tolerate it or fight it. Some of them believe that the Constitution and  the law alone can find solutions to these deep seated problems;  for some,  the judiciary  is the forum to address all the issues. As Gladstone pointed out (quoted earlier,  the finances of the country is ultimately associated with the liberties of the country. However, the hearts of the ordinary man and woman matters to protect them. Let me wind up by quoting Judge Learned Hand on this very point and urge you to take the responsibility to realize a dream for our country – a country free of corruption and extravagance at least in the coming year.

“What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon Constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes.

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies, there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no Constitution, no law, no court to save it.”

• (Mis)-apportioning the Public Money
• Attacking the North – Marching Forward or a Downward Spiral?
• The post-Prabhakaran government strategy in Sri Lanka and overseas
• BUDGET OR NO BUDGET? IT IS A CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION
• In conversation with Nelum Gamage: Does anyone give a damn about corruption?

The Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) for 2006 found that an average Tamil family in the estate sector consumed 17.4 Kg of wheat flour per month when the cost per Kg was less than Rs 40.  At the time the national monthly average was 2.4 Kg per household.  Even though price of wheat flour more than doubled since then to close to Rs 85 a Kg currently (the increase was much higher relative to rice), the HIES for the year 2010 found that estate Tamil households consumption fell only marginally to 15.4 Kg per month indicating how price inelastic these household are to wheat flour.  The 2010 data, which covers the entire island, also show that the household wheat flour consumption in the Jaffna district was 19.3 Kg per month while in Vavuniya it was 18.1 Kg per month in contrast to Hambantota at 0.4 Kg per month and Matara at 0.8 Kg per month.

Therefore, someone must explain to the Prime Minister that given the preference for wheat flour in their daily meal even at much higher prices, not only Tamils living on the estates but in the North as well continue to purchase significant amounts of wheat flour.  This is because this segment of our population is used to, and simply enjoy, consuming rotti and other food prepared using wheat flour.

By banning the import of wheat flour, or even increasing the taxes on wheat flour to very high levels, would exacerbate what in economics we call ‘Horizontal Inequalities’ or policies that impact only particular segments of society; in this case, ethnic.  Simply put, the Prime Minister must be briefed that such half-baked policies will have significant negative impacts on the Tamil people of this country just when policies must be designed to reduce such inequalities.

[Editors note: The author is a National List MP representing the United National Party. Download spreadsheet with figures used to create graph above here. The spreadsheet was provided by the author.]

• Record-breaking rice cakes, but at what cost?
• Different forms of terrorism
• No one to listen to our pleas
• Anti-competitive Activities, the source of rice crisis
• Queue For Pongal Rice

“You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths.” Karl Marx

No one knows how far the government is planning to go to gain control over nation’s wealth and sell it to those who patronize its economic and political agenda.

The controversial expropriation bill that plans to grab 37 properties is likely to be followed by another proposal to amend the Town and Country Planning Ordinance to acquire lands for economic, social, historical, environmental and religious purposes within municipal and urban areas. It will also end taxes and restrictions on foreigners buying and developing land anywhere in the country. The opposition’s parochial politics and ideological bankruptcy prevent constructive engagement with the procedural and substantive issues pertains to these the new property laws that are likely to create disastrous consequences for Sri Lanka’s economic and political sovereignty.

Expropriation or eminent domain—in which a government exercises its right to acquire private property for the common welfare—has a long history. “Property being an inviolable and sacred right no one can be deprived of it, unless the public necessity plainly demands it, and upon condition of a just and previous indemnity.” states the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.  A ‘just indemnity’ is the central issue here. In democracies, these appropriations are expected to follow substantive public deliberation and the advice of experts, to involve Supreme Court interventions, and result in payment of just compensation based on rigid criteria and transparency. In reality, though, the acquisition of property under the capitalist system has always been one of dispossession and alienation.

Here in Sri Lanka, an electoral majority achieved through ‘variety of different means’ is being substituted for transparency, accountability, fairness and justice! Public anxiety about the motives and the consequences of these Bills continues to grow. They are published in English language and approved within 48 hours, leaving us little time for reflection. Conflicts of interest are inevitable because the country’s defense, economic development, and finance are under the control of small group of people.  “The Parliament has lost all its powers merely because the government has obtained by dubious means a two-thirds majority.  This House has been reduced to a mere rubber stamp.” argued Mr. Sumanthiran of the TNA. The bill is deeply ‘flawed as it arrogates powers of the judiciary and executive and amounts to ad hominem legislation targeting a specific citizen….the bill tantamount to the suspension and/or amendment of the Constitution of the country and could not be passed by simple majority of Parliament or otherwise.  Simply put the bill misleads the public,’ says Sri Amaresekera, a public litigation activist

New property acquisition Bills are likely to be implemented under the surveillance of highly centralized ‘defense-development industrial complex,’ which seems to be enjoying liberty to avoid standard practices of accountability and transparency, much more than the military industrial complex does in the United States.  Although both complexes follow the same capitalist logic and have been driving their respective nations into debt and deeper economic crises, the United States, relatively speaking, is less vulnerable because of its national economic and political bases are much stronger than Sri Lanka.

In the current ‘culture of fear,’ the “subject ministers” (political appointees now empowered by the new Bills to declare to acquire assets) are unlikely to heed to expert advice in assessing property value.   The technocrats and civil authorities are as opportunistic and parochial as the politicians.  In response to Supreme Court Approval of the Bill, Mr. Sumanthiran noted that the Cabinet has abused its power in referring this matter as an Urgent Bill to the Supreme Court. “[How] can the Supreme Court rule on whether a particular enterprise is underperforming or not without examining the accounts of that enterprise – without examining other material?   The reason for such Supreme Court Verdict is the 18^th Amendment where “judges are no longer vetted by the Constitutional Council, there is no independent judiciary in this country.”

It’s nonsense to say that the state is ‘nationalizing property’.  When socialist or social welfare democracies nationalize property, they do it with the intent of maximizing social good. But the neoliberal state perverts the term when it uses ‘nationalization’ as a cover for mere privatization. (President Premadas cutely refers to this as ‘peoplization’.)  The neoliberals’ intent is to create a global property market, transferring property to the highest bidder.  They care only about the short term market value of property, and the transaction benefits only few who can pay.  The most misleading aspect of the bills is their claim to benefit ‘national’ interests.  Can these property laws that are undemocratically approved and predicated on inequality-breeding economic system safeguard inclusive national inclusive interests?

The progress of the capitalist system depends on the institution of private property and its continual acquisition (land, social safety nets, education, health, intellect etc.).  Historically this rapaciousness has taken many different forms: nothing is considered beyond commodification.

In capitalism, disposed and alienated labor creates private property, which is then used as a means to further alienate labor. It is the fundamental cause of inequities in material wealth and the power and privilege associated with it.  But as capitalism matures the even capitalist class and the state could lose the control of the value of property. At this point, national security is introduced to safeguard the interests of the property-owning class and suppress public complaints about the state’s failure to manage public property for the benefit of the people and the environment.  The gap between the property owning class and the wage earning class then widens even further.  Global economic recovery is highly unlikely, and the poor will suffer a disproportionate share of the social and economic costs of bankrolling real estate development.

Although the government has not yet specified the criteria for declaring assets to be ‘underperforming and underutilized,’ we can be sure that its commitment to neoliberal policies will dictate their conformity to market values. Social, economic and environmental costs and benefits will be treated as if synonymous with market value.   But ‘market values’ alienate people from land and property, and make their benefits accessible only to the wealthy classes.  Market values neither provide an accurate assessment of values to an eco-system, nor compensate for the loss the eco-system suffers due to realization of market values.

Government also could under-value the properties it intend to acquire in order to generate revenues by selling them cheap to bank roll it’s administrations expenses, real estate development, and to expand its political support base.  Similarly the state is also vulnerable to demand for easy access to country’s wealth by those geopolitical powers that help the country to withstand the internal pressures regarding international human abuses.  Unlike the East Asian states, Sri Lanka state is a rent seeking state – a state that seeks short term rents rather than economic efficiency of the enterprises, either public or private.

The Sri Lankan state is unlikely to reap even the capitalist efficiency.  In a climate of nepotism, corruption, and surveillance, there is little reason for us to believe that the state can run the institutions more efficiently than the private sector.  Change of ownership does not automatically change work ethic and politics.  Increasing inequality and erosion of popular legitimacy of the state will increase the possibility that the possibility that goals of nationalization will be determined by political rationale than by economic rationale.

The current economic global economic crisis has been caused, and is continued, by market values.  Trillions in investments aren’t helping governments to restore their troubled economies.   The drop in markets has cost governments and people alike their economic safety nets, and governments are increasingly forced to adopt drastic austerity measures and to suppress public dissent by military means.  When privatization is couched in the language of national or public interests, the state can hide the fact that it is subsidizing the private sector with public funds. It can also pretend that suppressing dissent against privatization is legitimate.  They can try to mask the truth, but they cannot erase it.

Transfer of property is not a simple matter of economic efficiency. It is a technique of social and political engineering.  When the government calls privatization ‘nationalization,’ it casts doubts upon its interest in and sincerity about power sharing with the minority communities. Privatizing via nationalization will disempower minorities through dispossession, reduce their bargaining power, and make devolution meaningless.  Nationalizing property in the name of ‘recreation’, ‘beauty’ and ‘safety’ is a cynical tactic to displace politically troubling populations and increase state capacity to suppress protest against dispossession and inequality.  One can then be arrested for exercising freedom of protest in public spaces, rather for trespassing or endangering private property.

In a situation of acute ethnic and class polarization, and politics over-powered by exclusive nationalism, the government’s rhetoric about acquiring property for ‘public’ or social purposes can easily obscure the specific interests and vulnerabilities of communities. In the worst case, it can sow the seeds for another conflict, particularly when the land and property at stake is closely intertwined with the identity and economic and political securities of these communities.   The acquisition of property could easily cast doubt about the governments’ sincerity of power sharing complicate peace process because political power is closely intertwined with economic power embedded in land.

Because Sri Lanka is fiscally bankrupt, the state may not even realize the economic value of property it acquires. In all likelihood, ‘nationalization’ will simply transfer this property to private investors and use the increased rents to maintain the state machinery.  In a climate of nepotism, corruption, and surveillance there is little reason for us to believe that the state will run any institutions it appropriates more efficiently than their current owners.  The greater the inequality and erosion of popular legitimacy of the state, the greater the possibility that nationalization will be over-determined by a political rationale that prevails over any economic rationale.   The investors are already becoming anxious investing in Sri Lanka when the political expediency and rhetoric treat them ‘gullible voters.’

The capital poured into property development is driven by highly volatile speculative financial markets, which in many ways shape the behavior of the commodity markets.  There is no reason to believe that markets will stabilize, and much reason to believe they will continue to fluctuate wildly. Under the new system of ‘nationalization,’ the consequences of a sudden drop in property values will transferred to the general public, while private investors will safeguarded with public funds. (We have seen this happen again and again in the enormous financial bail-outs of the super-powers.)  For example, the crisis of the US financial markets caused real estate values in the Middle East to plummet, leading to layoffs of migrant workers and reducing remittances in Egypt. This chain of events culminated in the overthrow of Mubarak.

None of the mainstream opposition parties have provided a competent analysis of the two Bills. Nor have they conducted campaigns to create public awareness about them or organized protests against them.  Instead, they appear comfortably complicit. The left-wing allies of the government support these Bills in the same spirit that socialist China has become the vanguard of the market economy.  The JVP too is unable to make a difference because it has failed articulate an alternative approach to property rights, radically different from the one held by the UNP, JHU and the UPFA.

UNP’s opposition to ‘nationalization’ is motivated by political expediency.  But if they cede control over wealth to the government, they’ll be even more economically and politically bankrupt.  Protecting property to serve the common interests of society is antithetical to the economic ideology of the UNP, which is now being perfected by the UPFA.  UNP is patronized by capitalists and fears losing access to their wealth. Thus, when UNP claims that the government is trying to take over the properties of Sinhala businesses, it’s merely evidence of their opportunistic exploitation of ethnicity and their moral bankruptcy. The UNP and UPFA debate over the expropriation bills represents competition between capitalist classes, rather than an effort to ensure the welfare of the non-proprietary classes.   Where was the UNP (and JHU) when the Dole Banana Company took over more than 62,000 hectares of land including the land belong to Somawathi Chaithiya sanctuary , many temple lands and Wildlife department?

For nationalists like JHU, the issue of economic and political sovereignty is a concern only insofar as it relates to power sharing with minorities. They are apparently unconcerned when Sri Lankan sovereignty is undermined by the transnational capital (anything to the investors, not an inch to minorities!)  In the meantime, the Tamil political parties are also preoccupied with identity and power sharing issues, and their economic ideologies are as capitalist as their opponents.’   WikiLeaks continue to provide ample evidence of the contradictions between the anti-Western and anti-imperialistic rhetoric of the ruling class and its secret collaborations with the Western countries, the IMF, and the World Bank.  Nationalism in contemporary Sri Lanka is not organic. Instead, it is designed to prepare the nation for exploitation by the global market and to punish those that protest against it.

Many of the civil society organizations, such as Transparency International, are either powerless or similarly rooted in capitalist ideology. Their donors will permit them to talk only about transparency and accountability of private property acquisition.  Discussion of its capitalist underpinnings is forbidden.  In truth, there are hardly any differences between the ‘good governance’ project of the NGOs, and the goals of the neoliberal state and corporations.

When Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors downgraded Sri Lanka’s investment rating they weren’t in the least concerned with public welfare.  They responded to the erosion of investor confidence: investors feared that the government might fail to sell the properties to highest bidder and chose to punish the private sector when face with public dissent.  This is evident in the threats of legal action against Sri Lankan government by British and Indian companies.  The UNP seems joined the international campaign to protest against the acquisition Bill.

Neoliberal economists provide the ideological underpinnings for the institution of private property and when private property is threatened they call for ‘good governance’.  Their prescriptions are based on abstract models, and their so-called objectivity depends on probabilities and uncertainties.  Without attachment to the reality on the ground or anchored by a realistic assessment of the nature of human behavior and its effect on market outcomes, “economics is restricted by… socially restricted vision,” notes Richard Peet, a Geographer at the Clark University.

We must not buy into the oft-debunked myth that social benefits will ‘trickle down’ via ‘privatization through nationalization.’  Self-proclaimed prophets of capitalism like Fredric Von Mises like to promote the fantasy of ‘free markets’ navigated by ‘egoistic and self-interested’ individuals ‘imbued with Freedom’.  They trumpet that markets harmonize selfish interests and make them socially and environmentally responsible because market outcomes the result of spontaneous and unplanned decisions made by rational, freedom-loving, self-interested individuals.  It’s a pretty story, but it’s not a true story, and we can’t afford to believe in fairy tales anymore.  Markets are constructions built and maintained by hierarchical social, economic and political institutions that deprive individuals and nations of equal opportunities to realize their full humanity.   Political propaganda and advertising shapes public opinion, not free choice or rational self-interest.

Marx, in his critical remarks on elevating competitive self-interest in the markets into common interests, noted that ‘common interests’ proceed “behind the back of these self-reflected particular interests, behind the back of one individual interest in opposition to that of other.” It is worth paying attention to Karl Polyani: “There is nothing natural about Laissez-faire. Laissez-Faire itself was produced by the state.” The violence and protests that we witness around the world today are evidence of the markets’ failure to harmonize human interests for the common good.

The ‘occupy movements’ and ‘citizens’ movements’ around world are expressions of frustration with the state, corporations, technocrats, and NGOs.  These protestors, now indentify as “99%” of the society, may lack ideological or programmatic coherence, but they signal an emerging global solidarity against the consequences of loosing of their common wealth to 1% of the society.  Although these protest movements are fluid, assemblies of diverse interest groups, ranging from those fighting for sexual rights to proponents of universal health care, are signs of an emerging global solidarity that is likely to pose serious challenges to the hegemony the property owning class.

• A Common Programme for a United Left Front in Sri Lanka
• The end of the “Gimme…, Gimme…” era?
• Let’s stop corruption in Sri Lanka!
• G- 20 and the World Economic Crisis
• The ‘coolest’ publisher of English books in Sri Lanka: In conversation with Sam Perera

The Sri Lankan government is callously gambling with investor confidence. The effects are already evident, and will get worse. 

###

One can understand President Obama’s urgency. His legislative programme has been delayed by a divided Congress, his approval ratings have fallen and next year is election year. Hence his new slogan is ‘We can’t Wait’. Despite claims of unconstitutionality and abuse of power he has resorted to issuing executive orders to get things moving. Obama would envy President Rajapakse. With complete control of Parliament, the latter enjoys high approval ratings and an election is not any time soon. Yet Rajapakse’s government is in an equal hurry. Thus certain legislative proposals are being pushed through Parliament as ‘urgent bills’. Around a year ago, the 18^th Amendment to the Constitution was presented as an urgent bill. The latest is the Expropriation Act previously known as the ‘Revival of Underperforming Enterprises and Underutilized Assets Bill’.

There a lots of things wrong with the Act. Apart from sloppy drafting there are arguments of abuse of power, political victimization and unconstitutionality. But President Rajapakse is not the first to make maximum use of a very generous constitutional arrangement and a very compliant Parliament. There are is a certain déjà vu about the Act. After all it is reflective of a more general problem that ails democratic governance and Sri Lanka in particular and that is, not everything can be left to be decided by politicians elected through a vote.

Yet, democratic decision making has an appeal that other means don’t have. Whether it be deciding on a family holiday, activities of a social club or even governing a country, there are several reasons why we adopt a system of voting and pick the choices backed by a majority. For one thing, everyone feels consulted and no one feels left out and in any case, if most of us agreed on something – it probably was the best option after all.

However this is not always the case. The protests in Zuccotti Park in New York, St Paul’s in London and the European solution to replace the Prime Ministers of Greece and Italy with technocrats buttress the argument that democratic decision making do not guarantee good decisions. In fact democracies are known for making bad choices. Laws have been passed for example against women – when they were a weak and voiceless minority, against political opponents of the majority and most notoriously against ethnic and racial minorities. The Sinhala Only Act was a product of an elected legislature which had the backing of a majority of the voters.

There are reasons that cause this kind of defective decision making.  For one those who are in power have a tendency to try and hold onto that power – hook or by crook. A common strategy is to weaken or eliminate opponents or change the rules to ensure that those in, stay in, and those out, stay out. The imposition of civic disability on Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike by the J R Jayawardene government belongs to this classic type of majoritarian tyranny. But not everything results from malefic intentions. After all sometimes certain majorities may simply not understand the needs and aspirations of the minorities – despite their best intentions. For example to overcome this systemic defect at least with regard to gender and age based minorities, political parties are now required to nominate a certain percentage of female and youth candidates at elections on the basis that their male/more senior colleagues have difficulties in understanding feminine/youth perspectives when formulating government policy.

So majority decision making needs a braking system. Something that tells them – wait, think again, do you really want to do this? This is where, of the three arms of government, the unelected one – the judiciary plays a critical role. For example, when White majorities oppressed Black minorities, the judges of the US Supreme Court in Brown v Board of Education ruled that laws that promoted racial segregation were unconstitutional. They opened the doors for racial equality and in the long term those of the White House to a Black President. Similarly the Indian Supreme Court has contributed towards making Indian society more equal through their judgments attacking the caste system, bonded labour and gender inequality amongst a host of other issues.

However when judges do take on this role, they are often attacked for acting ‘anti-democratically’. But in reality when judges stand up for equal rights, political freedom etc they are not undermining democracy but strengthening it. When judges act to ensure media and political freedom, free elections, gender and ethnic equality they are enlightening majorities, creating a climate for effective debate, establishing an environment where people converse with respect and as equals. Thereby judges contribute towards strong, inclusive and vibrant societies. Therefore in the present Sri Lankan political context, the important role played by the judges of the Superior Courts cannot be overstated. As the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Ifthikar Muhammed Chaudhry demonstrated, the political impact of a judicial order ought not to be underestimated. It is in this regard that the opinion of the Supreme Court with regard to the Expropriation Act was a disappointment. No doubt the opinion of the Supreme Court demands great deference and respect. Yet article 12 (1) of the Constitution demands that equals be treated alike. Then when a law singles out a specific enterprise and certain specified assets leaving out others of a similar nature, there is a prima facie violation of Article 12(1). At a cursory glance another underperforming enterprise is Mihin Lanka. On the day the Expropriation Act was passed, Parliament was informed that the Government had pumped over Rs 10,000 Million between 2007 and 2010 into Mihin Lanka despite colossal losses. If the principle of equality were to apply, the Act ought to apply to Mihin as much as it applies to Hilton. After all under Article 123(3) of the Constitution all that the judges need is to have ‘a doubt’ about constitutionality and in such case they are entitled to declare that the bill is inconsistent with the Constitution.

If the court had ruled that the bill did threaten the rights of citizens several possible scenarios could have played out. In the very least the judges would have made the Government pause and reflect on their course of action. The Government could have either considered the views and concerns of the judges re-drafted and re-submitted the bill or forged ahead and passed it using its special majority in Parliament. If the Government had taken the first option, then we would have seen a better considered bill. If on the other hand they chose the second option then the Government would have been put under pressure politically to explain itself in very clear terms as to why the law is needed. Both scenarios help the quality of democracy and decision making in the country. On other hand what we do have is a scenario where people feel that their rights have been violated, a wrong policy adopted, yet the powers that be seem unconcerned – nothing like how a democracy should feel like.

The last time we had this same feeling, it was when the Supreme Court stamped its approval on the private sector pensions bill. On that occasion a young man sacrificed his life before the bill was withdrawn – surely democratic governance in Sri Lanka can find better means for participation, political expression and impact.

[Authors note: This is an expanded version of an article that was first published in the Daily Mirror on 15 November 2011]

• The MPs Pay Hike Case – An Opinion from Australia
• “Sound is no substitute for argument”: Exclusive video of TNA MP M.A. Sumanthiran’s speech in parliament against 18th Amendment
• Urgent questions to pose to the Leader of the Opposition
• Outrageous process and substance: The proposed 18th Amendment to the Constitution
• President’s second term: Two options before the Supreme Court

Photo from RNW

‘Seek ye first the political kingdom, and all things shall be added unto you.’ Kwame Nkrumah (First President of Ghana, 1960)

We got the ‘political’ kingdom and nothing has been added unto us: A lot has been taken away (Chinua Achebe, 30 years later)

Security and development are primarily responsibilities of the state.  Our cities need visionary leaders and disciplined citizens. We should also appreciate the efforts of our leaders who are trying to take our country forward amidst of many obstacles. But if urban development is merged with the Ministry of Defense as ‘State Defense and City Development Ministry’, we run the risk of replacing public-spirited behavior and deliberative politics with selfish interests, authoritarianism, and militarism. This sets us back in our efforts to achieve sustainable ‘human security,’ and in the long run could undermine the nation’s economic and political sovereignty.  ‘Human security’ requires the continuous protection of individuals from economic, political, environmental deprivations, and from all form of violence. In these terms, there is no difference between being shot with a gun, and being deprived of equality, justice and freedom!

Defense is a top-down command-driven institution called into action when the security of society is threatened or in emergencies when other civil institutions are incapable of performing their duties. Development is (at least in theory) a participatory decision-making institution responsible for everything that matters for human well-being.  The merging of such different institutional cultures could limit the ability of either to carry out their respective duties.  The evolution of these two ministries raises many questions about their ability to create a democratic space to navigate development.

Although the security-development convergence appears as an extension of the post-war popularity and military power of a government consolidating its control over society, its real origins lie in the global phenomenon known as ‘new urbanism’ (deceptively branded as sustainable/green city development), which utilizes national security as a means of preparing cities for global capital in its desperate search for safe areas of investment.  Investments have to be grabbed as quickly as they become available, and the safety of investments takes priority over every other ‘national interest’ even if it requires clinical interventions similar to those used during the war on terrorism.

Securitization of development, a rapidly globalizing ‘clinical’ approach to urban development, is a response to a paradox of the neoliberal state-i.e., the privatization of social welfare (‘rolling back the state’) and historically unprecedented increases in state power (‘rolling in the state’) to managing the objective and subjective, inequalities, insecurities and dissent arising from abrogation of the state’s social welfare responsibilities.  National security apparatuses, under the pretext of liberating the city from inefficient public institutions, uncleanliness, threats of terrorism, and criminal behavior, take the responsibility of removing the barriers for property acquisition and investments arising from bureaucratic procedures and democratic norms safeguarding society, religion, culture, and freedom of dissent often concentrated in urban settings.

In Sri Lanka, urbanization and securitization of urban development, especially since 1977, occurred incrementally, often through policies that were abruptly approved without a dialogue and under the pretext of serving other interests such as law and order, preventing terrorism, progress, stability—a pattern of policy making that seems to be getting worse under the current regime.  There have been different patterns of urban development, and their negative implications-dispossession, marginalization, and vulnerability continues to outweigh the positives. The following is a glimpse of that story.

Since colonial times, people moved to cities because they offered more opportunities for upward social mobility, attractive lifestyles, and social-safety networks.  Urban areas have also been vibrant public spaces for intense intellectual and political activity, where inequalities were debated, contested and resolved, and the welfare system and instigation of racial politics (thanks to the nationalism of the Left) managed the conflicts between the rich and the poor. That balance was upset in 1977, however, when the state began drastically cutting social spending, and making the country a safe haven for private investments by suppressing democratic freedoms and deliberately channeling dissent against reforms along ethnic lines.  Pre-planned anti-Tamil riots in 1983 involving the Jathika Sevaka Sammelanaya (JSS), the UNP trade union, targeted urban Tamil business and neighborhoods, which saw the exodus of Tamil businesses; particularly those not deeply entrenched with the mainstream political parties.

Following the 1983 riots, property developers, including those from the Sinhala and Tamil Diaspora, invested in gated communities, high-rise apartment buildings and luxury houses. High concentrations of Tamils in these well-fortified residential complexes under constant security surveillance are evidence of how dispossession, marginalization, insecurity and anxiety are exploited by the capitalist class.  Urban sprawl followed gentrification with rapid development of residential and commercial buildings on the outskirts or otherwise underdeveloped areas of the city, that bypassed the established building and environmental regulations and protocols.  This new phase started when those displaced by high rents, housing prices and property taxes, and fear of repletion of riots began to move out of Colombo.  Urban inequities and related tensions were transferred to the suburbs, and, in response to infiltrations of the LTTE, these suburbs were subject to tight surveillance by security forces and the general public.

Elaboration and normalization of the security apparatus and its extension to development has continued even more aggressively after than during the war, all in the name of capitalist  ‘efficiency’, stability, and security, according to the dictates of the “unholy trinity” (the World Bank, IMF and the World Trade Organization), the dictates that often masquerade as ‘national interests.’

‘Efficiency’ is about removing barriers for property acquisition. Investments from bureaucratic procedures mask the reality that the city contracts property, education, health, water, sanitation and transportation to the highest bidder, transforming them into commodities accessible only to those who have the ability to pay ever-higher prices.  Efficiency arguments promote ideas of etiquette and civility as conceived by the investors and the middle class, and take the basic needs of the working class and poor out of the equation. They are about replacing social welfare efficiency with market efficiency that ends up increasing dispossession, marginalization and insecurity of vulnerable urban communities.  The cosmopolitan culture symbolized in architecture, religious rituals, billboards, and entertainment obscures the fact that Colombo is polarized between malls, gleaming high towers, skyscrapers, casinos, night clubs, entertainment parlors, luxury housing complexes and ‘Collywood’ (Colombo’s version of Hollywood) glitz and the slums and crowded tenements where janitors, laborers, rural immigrants and the urban poor live.

The Expropriation Act hurriedly passed without a substantial parliamentary or public debate, classified and intends to allow the government to acquire ‘under-utilized’ or ‘under-performing’ land and assets that are ‘prejudicial to the national economy’ and ‘urgent in the national interest.’ This act was followed by Town and Country Planning Ordinance proposed to empower the ‘subject Minister’ to acquire lands for economic, social, historical, environmental and religious purposes within municipal and urban areas.  There is no public debate about these acquisitions.  Their values are likely to be assessed according to short-term market values and often corrupted by patronage and geopolitical cleavages, rather than judged by their long-term economic, social and cultural values. In other words, social and environmental returns and present and future values of land and property are treated as synonymous.

The same public property and institutions the government is likely to classify as under-performing and which it seizes are those that the state neglected and underfunded.  Given the bankruptcy of public accountability systems and the culture of fear, these classification systems are likely to be arbitrary, and its objective is to pave the way for privatizing them.  Under normal circumstances, these public properties and institutes would face stiff opposition to being privatized.   When the government acquires these properties under the guise of ‘national interests’ and sells them off to private investors, it deprives the masses (and even the state) of their commonwealth and the safety nets that could be useful in the future.

Many private sector institutions are underperforming because of the global financial crisis and losses they face from the competition.  Under-performing private sector institutions are begging for billions of public bailout money.  Unlike the private sector, the public sector is long lasting, and does not abandon the nation when it is not making commercial profits, because its priority is commercial returns.  Ironically, public sector subsidies are considered wasteful, while no one seems concerned that the private sector absconds with millions in public funds.  Government-run EPF, now a target of privatization (as the Social Security in the US) is a far more secure form of social security than those invested in private financial institutions. Today the private sector is increasingly a target of anti-corporate protesters who are demanding universal education, health, water, and other basic needs.  We must remember that relatively advanced human development that we all enjoy is due to its public sector.

The “National Policy on Involuntary Resettlement” is ignored when impoverished families are uprooted, depriving them of their livelihoods and their sense of belonging to places where they have lived for generations.  Beggars too are fast disappearing from the urban scene. Some residents sell their properties to meet the rising cost of living and the expense of educating their children abroad.  Traditional and Victorian houses and buildings are being transformed into tourist attractions or used for commercial ventures.  Shopping complexes and malls displace local businesses and street vendors, increasing the cost of living for the urban poor.  The high costs of privatized health, education, water and sanitation services in the urban areas are transferred to the entire nation.

The urban landscape is being rapidly transformed into complexes where production, recreation, housing, cultural and religious experiences, and open green spaces are all integrated and secure.  The products of the village are now brought to the mall, so anyone with the money can enjoy traditional village food cooked in clay pots and served in banana leaves in Disney-like village environments, without actually living in the villages or experiencing their less pleasant realities.  Villagers supply traditional vegetables and fruits to the urban population, and, in turn, urban supermarkets pay them higher prices so they have more cash to purchase other necessities.  It sounds idyllic, but rural food insecurity and unhealthy consumption habits are often a direct result of the “supermarketization” of food distribution and the importing of unhealthy practices of city dwellers. Urban rich consumers enjoy organic food and ‘green’ lifestyles, while the poor consume contaminated food and live in unhealthy environments.  Importing (or creating idealized simulations of) rural traditions and lifestyles into urban spaces simultaneously dispossesses rural folk.

Highly fortified malls are paradoxical spaces, where hyper-tradition, hyper-religiosity and Western modernity coexist with apparent ease.  Women dressed in conservative religious attire eat Kentucky Fried Chicken cooked according to religious guidelines.  Mall security places patrons under security surveillance, ostensibly to protect them from groups espousing extremist ideologies and terrorism, although their main job is keeping out the ‘vulnerable’ and ‘undesirables’ like the poor and destitute.

Morality and spirituality are compromised to take advantage of the new economy.  Casinos and religious centers also thrive in close proximity to each other, often patronized by the same people.   Madam Gena’s brothel and the Japanese Buddhist temple coexist in Liberty Plaza Mall, which is also a location where transnational sex workers solicit clients. Fear and paranoia among the powerful have a given a new boost to ‘voodoo spirituality’ which now has become a lucrative business in the city.  The high costs and social restrictions limiting entry into the most coveted places of entertainment result in the spread of lower-priced imitators to the suburbs and even to villages, along with the violence and immoralities associated with them.

New urbanism especially increases the dispossession and vulnerability of women. Despite the fact that visible and invisible work of women are the main contributors to the national wealth now invested in security and development, their wages are far smaller than those of men, and displaced women spend more time in commuting without changes in their traditional roles. The impact of displacement are disproportionately born by women, whose cheap labor once made Sri Lanka attractive for foreign investors and brought in highest proportion of the remittances to the country. Architecture and urban services are allegedly gender-bind; the security and surveillance systems are intensely masculinized.  Built environments incorporate general beliefs and stereotypes about the differences between men and women: the experiences of dispossessed women living in urban and suburban environments are radically different.   Society’s behavioral expectations for women in public spaces are drastically different and far more rigid than for men and the design reinforce them.

Today Colombo is a magnet for women drawn into the sex industry due to poverty, or being kidnapped or sold to pay off debts.  Transnational sex workers ‘loiter’ in Colombo city, or commute between Colombo and Kandy, and they are in the same predicament as local sex workers, often with even fewer rights or resources.   Male sex workers, for example, are subject to homophobic assaults, but the whoring of politicians and the decadence of the rich and powerful is viewed as benign.  In those waves of arrests, though, you find the sex workers who are penalized rather than their pimps, employers, and customers.

Exposure to urban lifestyles increases the expectations of rural populations, particularly youth, who may resort to illegal activities or join extremist social movements out of frustration with being deprived of access to the material benefits and exciting opportunities the city seems to offer.  Poor and marginalized people who commit crimes are penalized and placed under surveillance, but politicians and their children, the wealthy or even the enlightened middle class escape this fate when they commit the same crimes.

New urban development transfers economic and political power to financial capital connected with property development.  Although success of real estate development rests on fragile foundations because they are driven by speculative financial capital subject to abrupt changes of their values and instantly could move across borders, also attract many gullible investors.  For example, Ceylinco Limited’s controversial success in property-development attracted the middle class (cricketers, politicians, businessmen, pensioners, and religious heads) to invest their funds.  Property sales, loan default rates and delinquencies soared as people’s real income did not increase on par with the increase in property prices.  The rich and powerful withdrew their money and received their compensation, leaving many middle-income depositors stranded.  In some ways this is comparable to the subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S. where bailouts and rewards went to the rich, rather than on justly compensating those who had lost their hard-earned savings, and they also failed miserably to rescue the crumbling financial institutions and real estate markets, and restore consumer confidence.  Many investors fled with bailout money and the cities inherited vacant buildings, unemployment and impoverished masses.

Under new urbanism the urban informal sector does not disappear or shrink, but simply expands and get relocated in the margins of society, because though marginalized, and often criminalized, it is those who live in the informal sector who sustain the mainstream economy.  The informal sector compensates for the shortfalls of formal sector incomes. Human rights abuses in the formal sector are not eliminated, but transferred to the informal sector: prosperity and security in the informal and poverty and violence in the informal sector are two sides of the same coin.

Evidence from major cities around the world demonstrate that the underworld and mafia act as subcontractors of the economic, political and law enforcement ventures that formal institutions were unable to carry out within their jurisdiction. Recent violent incidents involving the underworld reveal the consequences of the rather uneasy and embarrassing relations between underworld and the powers that be.  The underworld absorbs the blame for violence and state increases its popular credibility by suppressing the underworld activities.

The disproportionate concentration of resources in urban development not only continue to neglect the agricultural sector, but also the latter is driven by the interests of urban and foreign investors, and the resulting influx of imported vegetables and fruits to rural markets continues to displace local varieties and subsistence crops continue to disappear in favor of cash-crops, which deprives the farmers of their livelihoods and land.  The rehabilitation of the irrigation system vital for rural incomes and food security is neglected and underfunded in favor of tourism and urban real estate development, and the costs and benefits of the later is unevenly distributed between rural and urban sectors.  The uneven rural development of new urbanism is simultaneously about connecting the rural and the urban by polarizing the populace into haves and have-nots, and the placing of development under Defense deprives the freedom of dispossessed groups to voice their dissent, instead dissent gets criminalized.

The merging of state security and urban development is a class project in which the dispossessed and marginalized are criminalized and subject to punitive treatment.  It is also imperialist as national cities are cogs of economic empires and the “slums of poor Third World cities have become a decisive geopolitical space.”  Pentagon strategists are lending great importance to urban planning theory and architecture, since the peripheries are “one of the most challenging terrains for future wars and other imperialist projects.”

The new urbanism’s success in organizing and connecting world citifies along a universal logic of security and global capitalism, explains why the international states’ hyper interests in trying to hold each other accountable for human rights, war crimes, freedom of expression, and human security are superficial, and hardly amount any concrete actions.

New urbanism transforms the entire nation as ‘outward looking’ and vulnerable to a highly volatile global economy and its promise to create equality and justice are always undermined by its own economics predicated on inequality and intractable crises.  The only way in which the inevitable gap between promise and reality could be sustained is by ever expanding surveillance that leaves out no aspect of social fabric, and concentration of power to the extent that the state trusts no one except for a few closely linked with governance.

The urban architecture follows the logic of security-development of the new economy. Mega-malls, national parks and apartment complexes are panopticons, subject to surveillance by real and virtual police.  New urban space is exclusive and cosmopolitan only for the passive consumers. ‘Beautification’ of the city is also a means of privatizing and policing the urban commons as much as direct suppression of electronic media and compulsory documentation/registrations of the city dwellers.

Many conform to the securitization of the urban space as it sustains their livelihoods while consumption, entertainment and pseudo religiosity desensitize them to their own vulnerabilities. They in their private automobiles can escape from the cold realities of the street by moving freely from their fortified housing complexes to malls, offices and entertainment centers.  Fear and survival make to remain silent. Fear and silence are oppressive and paralyzing, and can be explosive.   Insecurity and fear could easily reinforce the articulation of dissent against dispossession and marginalization along the lines of race, nationalism, and xenophobia.

In the final analysis, however, states—fiscally and politically bankrupt and having lost the common wealth to the private sector—fail to safeguard human security and have become isolated from society, finding no option other than to continue to safeguard the interests of economic forces even if it entails sacrificing the economic, political and cultural sovereignty of their respective nations.  The awareness of marginalized groups that “the emperor has no clothes” brings penal and austere governance to direct confrontation with the marginalized, who around the world are now reclaiming the urban commons as sites of dissent against mortgaging human security for corporate greed.

Our failure to engage constructively with the economics and politics underlying the defense-security merger will make us complicit with the anarchy, disorder, even bloodshed that the country has experienced periodically.  History does not always have to repeat, to think so is a recipe for paralysis.

• Militarisation of Sri Lanka and its infiltration into Higher Education
• Let’s stop corruption in Sri Lanka!
• Power of sovereignty, standards of life and education
• UNP victory in Colombo Municipal Council: A Political Economy of the Numerics
• Minister of what?????

We woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of screeching tires, booming exhausts and the smell of burning rubber recently. My cousin’s children had nightmares and could not get back to sleep when the test runs were done. Calls to police emergency numbers were ignored: there seemed to be official patronage for speedsters and noise polluters – including of course the daily Presidential convoys in the area.

Residents of Green Path and its environs, one of Colombo’s posh residential neighbourhoods, are worried about the latest sports extravaganza planned by the ever entrepreneurial Rajapaksa Bros Inc. Earlier this year they ran a weekend “Hawkers Street” there with loudspeakers blaring till the wee hours, but that was not a commercial success, so drag races are planned to bring in the crowds in November. Drag racing, however, can drive local communities up the wall, and there have been several fatal accidents recently in high profile races. Why inconvenience and traumatize already besieged city dwellers who look forward to some peace and quiet on the weekends? They are already coping with increased noise and environmental pollution as Colombo’s tree canopy is destroyed as part of city ‘beautification’ coordinated by the Ministry of Defence, that includes knocking down walls, painting facades, displacing shanty dwellers, and land and house grabbing. And now there is the pending legislation for Govt. appropriation of so-called “underutilized assets” that erodes the notion of private property beyond the reach of the sovereign/state.

Do savings, a habit encouraged even among children, qualify as ‘underutilized assets’?  Shouldn’t the government rather concern themselves with underutilized and under-performing state corporations and institutions such as Mihin Air or the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and the 249 loss making Govt. institutions listed in the latest COPE report or the jumbo Cabinet of Ministers, most of whom could be considered both underutilized and overvalued?

Meanwhile, Green Path residents are questioning the necessity for so many sports extravaganzas (Hambantota Beach Games, Cricket stadia, Commonwealth Games etc.) which seems to be piling on the national debt. Is it to distract us from the fact that the Urban Development Authority has been taken over by the Defence Ministry?

Religion, Sports and Opium (aka Kudu)

“Religion is the opiate of the masses” wrote that brilliant theorist of capitalism and its discontents. Marx meant that religion was like the icing on the cake of the status quo – it enables the capitalist class to rip off the labouring masses by extracting excess labour value, while distracting the latter from the conditions of poverty, suffering and underdevelopment. Religion, in other words, discourages labourers, the wretched of the earth, etc., from protesting or asking for their rights (land rights, labour rights, fair wages, etc.). It teaches people to be patient and delay gratification in order to be rich, metaphorically speaking, in the next world. (recall: “men are born free but everywhere they are in chains,” and most of the time don’t even know it).

As inequality reaches breaking point in many parts of the globe (witness the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York, the US and elsewhere, and riots in Greece, Rome, Britain, etc., and capitalism’s paper money castles melt away due to debt and likely default with unemployment rising), a witty observer of South Asian affairs noted that with modernity, city living, and new styles of consumption, etc., cricket has become the new opiate of the masses. Cricket, among other things, enables nationalism to flourish amidst burgeoning poverty in the South Asian region (poverty in the subcontinent is second only to Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the UNDP), and makes precarious lives liveable, even enjoyable.

Well, one might ask, what’s wrong with religion, sports or a little bit of kudu? We all need some fun after all, especially since we have been liberated from the LTTE after thirty hard long years of war. Marijuana is after all legal in Amsterdam and California. The adrenaline and endorphin rush that sports enables may go a long way to make us all feel good. True, drag racing is a ‘rich man’s sport,’ as was recently noted on NDTV in a debate on whether India needs a Formula One race track built on Advise land, given the Maoist war, and all that jazz.  But that’s not the point.

The problem is that the current regime in Lanka seems to be on the fast track to aping the very same western model of economic development, inequality and conflict that’s causing all the trouble now: deficit spending, conspicuous consumption, resource depletion, encouragement of corporate colonialism, and financial crisis, with looming defaults. This model of neoliberal development enables the rich to get richer and the poor poorer, and increases social, economic and regional inequality leading to violence. As Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel (author of Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do) recently said, is it fair that CEO of Banks and even some athletes make billions of dollars while a school teacher who perhaps makes a greater contribution to the social good makes barely enough to get by?

Painting Facades, institutional de-development, and fixing (poverty) figures

Thus, not surprisingly, the regime seems to have figured that blurring the economic picture of growing income, social and regional inequality with a few sports extravaganzas and lots of spin may do the trick. The poverty figures (like the commercially borrowed foreign currency reserves that the Central Bank boasts about), have been fixed at around 9 percent only because the poverty line has conveniently remained the same for the last three decades, at around a dollar a day, obviously a sum insufficient for anyone to live on.  India has debated and revised its poverty line upward, but local poverty think tanks swallow the spin and look the other way, preferring to publish platitudes about the ‘multidimensionality’ of poverty.

Thus, Lankans living in the South (never mind our relatives in the northeast living with military occupation) are being given a double dose of liveliness and spin: religion, sports and opium (aka kudu) to survive the regime’s excesses and extravagant ways at this time. After all, ‘Buddhist’ values are used to justify militarism, war and violence, while the underlying values are actually fast cars, casino culture, and now, it seems drag racing.  Formula One has been suspended over the Indian Ocean for the time being till the land is filled, found or appropriated.

While painting facades and building infrastructure are certainly a good idea it does not add up to sustainable development which is about institution building and investing in talent and human resources. Despite government plans to turn Lanka into a ‘knowledge hub’, the Colombo Public Library languishes like a medieval relic, sans a computerized catalogue,  standard in any library  these days. The head of the library is only “acting” (as are so many other heads of state institutions), and hence there is no development plan or policy for what should be a flagship institution. Meanwhile the decennial National Census, scheduled for this year, which would be the first to include the whole county since the war began and a national priority for regionally balanced, knowledge-based development policy planning has been postponed due to understaffing and other problems.  The current governance practice of political patronage, corruption and militarized management is marginalizing qualified individuals with the necessary technical knowledge and actually de-developing institutions and hollowing them out. Heads of public institutions and department, be they universities, hospitals or libraries, are increasingly appointed on the basis of political connections these days, a practice that encourages brain drain. Thus, several universities have dished out free Doctorates to the Rajapaksa siblings.

Investment in human resources, institution building, people-cantered planning and good governance including promoting meritocracy (rather than mediocrity) is at the core of sustainable development. The question then is: why doesn’t the regime stop meddling and fix underutilized and underperforming state corporations and institutions that are misusing assets– such as Mihin Air, Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, Sri Lanka Cricket, rather than drawing up secret legislation to take over so-called underutilized assets? Are the regime’s coffers running so low — despite and because of borrowed foreign currency reserves? Appropriating and then selling or leasing underperforming assets may help pay off the interest on commercial loans and losses incurred playing the tanking stock market with EPF and ETF funds and other losses incurred due to delays with the mega projects, not to mention the 19 billion losses made by 249 Govt. institutions listed in the latest COPE report.

Finally, once take over will the under-performing assets? Will they be run by the military — as are many of the newly built debt-ridden cricket stadia?

Sports and Corporate Colonialism

At the same time, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has confirmed that the 100 national cricketers have not been paid their salaries for months, since April when the country co-hosted the World Cup together with India and Bangladesh. Capital expenditure on the recent World Cup left the country’s richest sports body facing a sizeable debt. There are also doubts about whether the SLC will be able to pay salaries in the next two months. Meanwhile Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage earlier told BBC Sinhala that Sri Lanka still owes more than $18.1m (£11.2m) to the Chinese construction firm that built the brand new stadium in the president’s hometown, Hambantota.

Sports is a good thing, but the increasing capitalization and commercialization of spots has eroded the ethics of sportsmanship in many places resulted in corruption scandals – from FIFA, to the Indian Premier League scandal, not to mention the mess in Sri Lanka cricket that Kumar Sangakkara noted. Aside from the noble sportsmen and women, the sports enterprise is increasingly about band advertising and corporate colonialism and a lack of business ethics is apparent in the over capitalized global sports enterprise, of which car racing is a growth sector. Thus, recently in a discussion with Zainab Badawi on BBC, civil society representatives from India and South Africa, which hosted the Commonwealth and Olympic games, said that these sports events had benefited multinational corporations and media organizations rather than local communities and labourers, while indebting the country’s economy and hindering the fight against poverty in South Africa and India. The consensus was that such sports extravaganzas impoverish already poor countries and merely benefit trans-national corporations.

Take Back the City: The UNP Must

Colombo’s citizens are hoping that now that the Colombo Municipal Council has come under the control of the UNP there will be a rethink of development priorities, and that the sort of mindless activity that drag racing represents will be discouraged. Drag racing is really about car sales and corporate colonialism that the Rajapaksa regime thrives on despite its anti-western rhetoric.

Meanwhile, the Urban Development Authority was brought under the Defence Ministry as a means of justifying the increase in the Defence Ministry budget in 2012 and to keep the people quiescent– more than two years after the end of the war in May 2009, and in the context of mounting civil society opposition to the overt militarization of every aspect of governance, education and civic life. The Sri Lankan government has allocated the highest, nearly 230 billion rupees, expenditure to the newly organized Ministry of Defence and Urban Development in the 2012 Appropriation Bill, which was recently presented to parliament. According to the government, the total expenditure for 2012 is estimated at Rs. 2.22 trillion (US$ 20 billion) necessitating an increase in Recurrent Expenditure from Rs. 1.029 trillion in 2011 to Rs. 1.109 trillion in 2012, and the Capital Expenditure from Rs. 938 billion to Rs. 1.111 trillion.

As Mark Duffield in his book Security, Development and Endless War has noted, the current global trend of securitizing development ensures the policing of the boundaries of inequality that enables the rich to get richer and the poor poorer, in real terms. In the context, civil society and opposition parties in Lanka would need to form a Rainbow Coalition to resist the current regime’s economic development model, first by takeover of the UDA by the Defence Ministry and one might add the underutilized assets appropriation bill that sets a dangerous precedent.

Commonwealth Games and Regional Inequality

Last year India played host to the leaders of the big five of the United Nations Security Council: David Cameron of Britain, Sarkozy of France, Medvedev of Russia, Hu Jin Tao of China and Barak Obama of the United States; but they all ignored Lanka, even though Mahinda Rajapaksa had won the ‘war on terror’ against the LTTE amidst allegations of war crimes. The Colombo regime is thus desperate to have some distinguished visitors in Lanka and to show its status – hence the emphasis on the Commonwealth, an organization which is irrelevant. The Commonwealth is an institution which has no economic, political or social significance (unlike OECD or G8 or G-20 or BRICS or NAM). How much was spent on the show in Perth with all the security, for what? Couldn’t those funds have been better used as development aid? Why are all the anti-western governments such as the Rajapaksa Regime going along with this joke of an institution – a group of former British colonies so many years after the sun set on the British Empire? It is those who are desperate for a bit of recognition like Rajapaksa who sustain the great waste of time and resources that constitutes the Commonwealth which should be disbanded?!

In his breakfast speech at the recent Commonwealth meeting in Perth Mahinda Rajapaksa said that the Commonwealth Games in Sri Lanka would enable reconciliation. In fact, the Hambantota Commonwealth Games bid has meant that funds needed for reconstruction in the conflict-torn northeast of the country have been spent lavishly on the South, exacerbating regional socioeconomic inequalities – one of the root causes of 30-year war in the country. Sri Lanka hosting the Commonwealth Games will merely widen regional inequalities between conflict-affected regions in the northeast and the South

The Commonwealth Games will also push Sri Lanka closer to bankruptcy.  The 8 percent growth figure may conceal the real economic picture which as Nobel Prize economists Stiglitz and Amartya Sen have noted in “Mismeasuring our Lives: Why GDP does not add up”, while foreign currency reserves are fixed to conceal the country’s highly indebted status. The Central Bank is overvaluing the rupee in order to pay off some of the dollar denominated national debt but this is affecting exports  and harming the real economy.  This macro-economic policy subsidizes many white elephant infrastructure projects and the regime’s excesses, but is fundamentally anti-poor, as pointed out by a panellist at the State of the Economy 2011 seminar organized by the Institute for Policy Studies. GDP figures of 8 percent conceal the fact that most of the growth is due to consumer spending rather than on productive investments or Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in any case.

In Search of Development Alternatives

India built the Commonwealth village in New Delhi, a city with 14 million people, while Hambantota town has a population of 300,000. The whole of Hambantota District has a population of 525,370 of whom 96% are considered rural residents. The demographic and population profile as well as the labour market profile of Hambantota would not support the infrastructure being built, since it is unlikely that skilled labour would migrate there to fill job vacancies! While developing poor regions is of course important, there needs to be a national plan for balanced regional development that leverages existing assets including human resources rather than presuming that skilled service workers will migrate to Hambantota once an airport is built.

Why build an international airport in Hambantota, when the population of the entire district is only just over 500,000, of whom 96% are classified as rural residents?  If the country needs a second international airport, it should be in Jaffna which has the demographic and population profile, including the Diaspora, to support it.  Surely economic development policy and planning is about leveraging already existing assets, including human resources? Hambantota getting the Commonwealth Games would be the surest means of greater regional, economic and social inequality that would further strain the current highly militarized peace in Sri Lanka. There will be a lot of white elephant infrastructure and stadia once the games have come and gone, not to mention debt to China which is hedging its bets building Indian Ocean ports in Gwardar, Pakistan, Chittagong and Myanmar (String of Pearls).

Finally, communism collapsed in the USSR giving rise to mythologies about the ‘end of history.’ So too, capitalism is collapsing now under its own contradictions – much as Marx predicted. There must be a third way of development– an equitable growth model that remains to be sufficiently theorized. At this time, when talk in the global village is of the rise of the BRICS (Brazil, India, China, Russia and South Africa), and South-South cooperation, there is a need for southern voices and political-economic analysis for an alternative development paradigm to the current iniquitous model of growth sans economic and social ethics or justice.

As Professor Laksiri Jayasuriya has written in Taking Social Development Seriously, Sri Lanka must refrain from following the path of the Euro-American model of economic development, inequality and debt, so long held up as the model by the Breton Woods Institutions, IMF and World Bank, which now need a ‘hair cut’ and downsizing with early retirement for technical experts, much like the European banks exposed to Greek debt. Simultaneously, there is need to link economic analysis to the social, on the one hand, and political (governance and government, including militarization) on the other. This requires independent thinking and knowledge generation in the global south. Sri Lanka, which once had high social development on low per capita income and was held up as an example of human development by Amartya Sen in the seventies, should be investing in human resources and talent towards theorizing development alternatives rather than aping an increasingly discredited economic development paradigm- if it is to be an Asian Knowledge Hub.

Meanwhile, a plan to minimize noise and political pollution in Colombo is materializing – offer Rajapaksa Bros Inc. Hambantota as their very own country. This way the increasingly Gaddhafi-esque Royal Family and their playboy sons and nephews may drag race through the villages in peace in their Principality. And we would have some peace!

• In conversation with Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy on Sri Lanka’s post-war economic development
• In defense of the JVP campaign to support Sarath Fonseka
• Colombo night races: Racy development in post-war Sri Lanka
• Lanka @ 63: The ‘military business model’ of post-war economic development
• (Mis)-apportioning the Public Money

Editors note: Hotel Developers (Lanka) Plc, a CSE listed company that owns the Colombo Hilton hotel was named in a controversial new bill, rushed through Parliament in secret, not unlike the outrageous 18th Amendment.

1. The Bill appears to have been certified by the Cabinet on the 20th October 2011 as an Urgent Bill and was presented to and reviewed by the Supreme Court during the last week.
2. The Bill has reached the Media and Citizens only towards the end of last week ie. after the review by the Supreme Court and possibly after its verdict had reached the Speaker of Parliament
3. The need for this bill to be deemed an Urgent Bill needs to be properly justified by the Executive and unless so justified it appears to be so classified with mala fidei interests to by pass democratic good governance expectations of society
4. The secrecy surrounding the bill and its reported compilation outside the purview of the usual drafting sources adds further grounds to the belief outlined in 3 above
5. The selective criteria as defined for the application of the classification of Under performing Enterprises and Under Utilized Assets being capable of application to many other listed and unlisted private sector entities whose enterprise names and assets can easily be added in the future as a part of the schedule by simple majority approved new enactments raises amber lights in the eyes of investors, entrepreneurs and business decision makers locally and overseas and will lead to lower ranking of Sri Lanka as a attractive destination for investment, do business and operate in
6. This bill will raise significant risks linked signals and country profiles in the minds of business leaders, decision makers and entrepreneurs, both local and foreign of the much feared Business Acquisition Act applied viciously in the past till it was removed from the statute books
7. The specified businesses and assets and asset owning entities listed in the schedules and impacted by the provisions not being the only such business enterprises and asset owning enterprises that can be so classified raises amber lights and significant potential risks in the eyes of investors, entrepreneurs and business decision makers locally and overseas and will lead to lower ranking of Sri Lanka as a attractive destination for investment, do business and operate in
8. Investors, entrepreneurs and business decision makers locally and overseas will fear to invest in new businesses in Sri Lanka after this experience , especially start up businesses, green field operations and long gestation period investment businesses and businesses subject to and impacted by global economic factors, seasonality factors, commodity price fluctuation linked business , business with high  risks and businesses even with more than moderate risks
9. Investors, entrepreneurs and business decision makers locally and overseas will question as to why this type of legislation was given priority when a long felt need pressed on by investors and businessesin the form of a Chapter 11 type restructure provisions were left out of the statute books including at the time the Company Law was reformed .
10. Unless all stakeholders including the Executive, Business Chambers, Professional Associations, Media and Civil Society Watchdog institutes begin immediately an earnest intellectual debate on the need for this bill, the associated secrecy and urgency, the rationale for the selectivity, risks associated and seen by investors and business decision makers, other options and risk mitigation strategies analysis, sustainable national economic benefits,in the longer term interests,the Nation, business and people may eventually be sorry that this bill was adopted in haste.

Revival of Underperforming Enterprises and Under Utilised Assets Act

• A Public Memo to Members of Parliament representing the Tamil National Alliance from the Tamil Civil Society
• Sinhala and Tamil translations of UN Panel’s report on accountability
• Launch of Moving Images: Stunning documentaries and photo essays from Sri Lanka
• Mojo for mayhem or source of serendipity? Sri Lankan Army’s model to defeat terrorism
• State Capitalism: Revitalising under performing businesses the Mussolini way

Image from Wikipedia

In the current hype on ‘Development’ have any of us questioned its intent?  Does it just mean ‘progress’ in the manner referred to by Anada Coomaraswamy when he published the comment that  “we who call art significant not knowing of what, are also proud to progress, not knowing wither” ?  Wandering aimlessly, with success measured only by an increase in industry and consumerism. The current vision of development certainly could not refer to cultural or philosophical development.  So exactly what type of development are we referring to in Sri Lanka when we have various public figures exhorting us towards ‘development’?

It would seem bizarre indeed if it transpired that we have been developing for the past 40 odd years manly in a western consumerist perspective.  One of the standard answers to the question of what is development? is that it means economic growth. On this point Prof. Dudley Seers notes, “in fact, it looks as if economic growth may not merely fail to address social and political problems, certain types of growth can actually cause them”. Economic growth, measured by such indices as GDP, is fundamentally dependent on consumption. The more one consumes the better.  To consume more, one must crave more, but to us in a Buddhist society the consequences of such action should be obvious.  As the Ven. Bengamuwe Nalaka Thera noted: Buddhism clearly states that the cause of suffering is craving. “The first sermon of the Buddha states as follows: “Katamauchauso dukkah ariya sachcha? Yaya tanha pono bhavika nandiraga sahhagta tatra tahtabhi nandani seyyathidau kama tauha, bhava tauha, vibhava tauha” “O! Bhikkhus, what is the cause of suffering? It is this craving that leads to repeated becoming, delighting now here, now there, namely craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence and craving for non-existence”

A. M. Hockart who was the head of the Ceylon archaeological survey wrote some poignant words in 1922 that bear relevance to the phenomena of creating desire:

“Here is a politician who appeals for help in disturbing the pathetic contentment of Asiatic peasants and is ready to pillory as an inhuman wretch anyone who may wish them to remain contented. Contentment has become a crime, because it opens up no markets for goods or for doctrines, woe to the man who does not want more fish, more art, more science, more education, more speed. Trade has no use for him politics and science abhor him. The men after their own heart is the one who can make two desires grow where only one grew before. What, though he threw to the wind, the old fashion restrains and the time honour virtues? What though his stoops to cringing or insolence, to false wood, even to corruption? He is hailed as a creative artist for he has created desire”.

I wonder how truthful would be an advocate of a Buddhist righteous society, if he or she believes in development in the current context, where craving and greed is encouraged as officially as development?

An example of this process at work can be seen in our desire for oil. Oil is a commodity traded on the world market place. The sellers are few and the customers are many. Anyone even remotely familiar with any aspect of marketing will know that as an item of high demand becomes scarce the price increases correspondently. Such is the nature of market commodities. The old story of supply and demand. So, as oil becomes scarce the price increase will become correspondingly larger. Its development measured by increasing dependency in such a commodity?

In a port city in France, goes a story; there live some of the most unscrupulous criminals. There are the drug traffickers who deal in the cruel drug heroin.  Heroin is addictive, it creates a sense of well being; but one requires increasingly large doses to maintain this sense of well being. The victim who begins to take it becomes even more dependent on the drug and freedom from it becomes increasingly difficult. The traffickers it is alleged, give free doses to children in the 12, 13 age group knowing well that the gullible, naïve, children will soon become addicted. When they become addicted they have to pay and the price they will have to pay increases with the addiction. They are trapped in a vicious dependency cycle and there is no way out. They end up being the chattel of the criminals.

Is development to be spell out as dependency on oil? If this is the criterion that governs development and our hopes and sense of well-being is tied to the oil purveyors, how safe are we as an independent nation?

Unfortunately, the power to protect us from these dismal trends reside with the political leadership and their capacity to be sensitive to the long term well-being of the people.

The words of J.R.Jayawardende in his early writings demonstrate such sensitivity.  He wrote; “The environment which the State provides today, for building up the character of its citizens, tends not to the establishment of the ideal but to its destruction. The majority of States, including Sri Lanka, stand for “the purely industrial and utilitarian view of life, the cult of power and machinery and national comfort.

Public education, financed by the State, equips the young to fit into this same environment. Even religious organizations preach the ideal, but practice the opposite. In the social world, in the professions, in commerce and in politics, we find the struggle to acquire for self as the dominant factor. The society that comprises the state is a purely acquisitive society: and the sickness we suffer from is the sickness of an acquisitive society.

The politician in power can change this framework. He can change our environment and he can control and direct Education. He can, by legislation, make it impossible for citizens to control wealth and possessions. He can, by public education teach the ideal and mould the young citizen to take his place in a society that is not acquisitive”.

But most perplexing is that, in rising to power, in a complete betrayal of his stated philosophy, he invited consumerist consumption and the robber barons into this nation as the agents of development.  Thus a nation must remain ever vigilant to the entry of unsavoury elements into the ‘development’ dialogue. It must remain vigilant of hypocrites who trumpet ‘development’ as an excuse for all of their unsavoury activities.  Tragically, a significant feature of today‘s development was begun with the legalizing of gambling and free movement of money, exactly the same policies enunciated by Batista the Cuban dictator at the height of his power to facilitate the entry of the Mafia, which eventually acquired control of that country, spreading misery to the populace.

Can a Buddhist citizenry really accept the current vision of development without being totally hypocritical? To accept greed and desire as a laudable attribute will be to face a future full of suffering, if we accept as true, the words of Gautama Buddha.

• Packets of White Powder
• Desire, Violence and Leadership
• Minister of what?????
• Let’s stop corruption in Sri Lanka!
• Accountability and Universal Values in Development

In capitalist modernity ‘elections’ are a means by which disparate social interests are brought together and ruling class hegemony is maintained. “Their politics consist of activity completely defined by the framework of bourgeois society…the actual training of the masses to become imbued with the inviolability of the bourgeois state” (Trotsky, The Lessons of October, 1924).

UNP’s victory is elusive and unimpressive.   We are left with several interesting questions: why did UPFA lose despite its claim that Colombo is on the fast track to becoming a cleaner, greener, secure, investor-friendly, tourist-friendly and sustainable city?  Is the UNP victory in Colombo indicative of an emerging movement towards substantive democracy (freedom with equality and justice, social and environmental) in Sri Lanka? Is this going to be the end or a new beginning of the UNP?

It would be simple to explain it away like this: Humans, as ‘moral beings’, value freedom and decent standards of living: humans have the capacity to transform the conditions under which they live in, rather than forever being their slaves.  Majority voters with diverse interests ‘spontaneously’ formed a protest block and voted for UNP (and DNF) because they believed that these two parties offer the best possible option to change the status quo, despite uncertainty as to whether either party can fulfill its promises.  But numbers and profiles of the elected personalities do not tell the full story; in fact, they can be misleading.  We need a more nuanced analysis of the ‘specificity’ of politics in the urban landscape.

Despite the fact that there are few substantive differences between geographical administrative units in an increasingly interconnected world, Colombo’s metropolitan landscape still appears open and fragmented. Households are physically and socially distanced from one another and enjoy ‘relative autonomy’ compared to the social cohesion in rural areas.  Social relations in urban space are fluid and vulnerable to change because there is les social capital (fewer strong networks and bonds between people). This makes ‘mobilization of predictable block votes an extremely difficult task to accomplish.   Manufacturing consensus is not easy in highly cosmopolitan urban environments because under bourgeois liberalism and morality “all fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his, real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”

Urban voter choices and electoral blocks shaped by ‘social distance,’ meaning multicultural/multi-ethnic polity exposed to information, opportunities for social mobility, and market forces make alternative group affiliations possible, and they are not only determined by ethnic and religious affiliations of the candidates and the voters.   The ethnic, religious, and kinship relations and time and space are vulnerable to reconfiguration by the politicians and voters, and they can take many different forms and swings.   In urban areas, freedom and incentives for individual expression of opinion during elections may be far greater than in rural areas because the cities are highly visible to election watch dogs (international observers, NGOs and media). This makes manipulation of voter behavior extremely difficult, especially when cities like Colombo and Jaffna are Sri Lanka’s poster children of democracy, freedom, development, and reconciliation.

Ominous signs abound.  At the time of the elections, the UPFA regime was struggling to cope with multiple domestic and international crises, most of which were highly visible in urban areas.  The costs and benefits of economic policies are unevenly distributed between different geographical regions and different social groups, and urban classes (especially the rich) are the main beneficiaries of economic development — often at the expense of non-urban areas, including the plantation sector.  At the same time, urbanites may have the luxury of being very conscious of the ethical and moral aspects of economic relations/transactions.  For urban green activists the alleged destruction of the Sinharaja and Knuckels forests is a slap on green credentials of the government. In fact, for some urbanites (I mean the green capitalists), deliberating these moral and environmental issues is a lucrative growth industry.

A typical characteristic of bourgeoisies’ morality is that on the one hand they want to maintain the capitalist economy. And on the other hand, they also want to champion democratic freedoms, equity and justice. Ironically, they are often oblivious to or disinterested in the fact that the former is primarily responsible for the erosion of the later.  This kind of compartmentalization of economy and morality (the pretense that they are two distinct and unrelated domains) by the middle classes may explain their unease with historically unprecedented levels of nepotism and kinship-patronage, media suppression, corruption, and abuses of the state resources during elections.   In liberal moral economy the market rationality is the legitimate ethical principle, as it is the leading alternative both to social welfare policies, traditional principles and bureaucratic social controls despised by the capitalists. “This ethic of ‘free trade’ asserts itself wherever people engage in commerce. Its logic is the accumulation of capital. Liberalism is essentially the ideology of capital.” (Andy Blunden) Neoliberal moral economy exalts the state to discipline and punish the society when it does not uphold liberal ideology by whatever means necessary, including blurring of the boundaries between civilian and military.

The end of war does not bring about an end to the culture of fear. Peoples’ sense of freedom is far broader than the freedom from terrorism, and their list of terrorist may include groups other than the LTTE.  In Sri Lanka, symbolic and real boundaries between defense and the civilian sector rapidly blurred, and the militarized state may be perceived by a segment of the urban population as exerting unfair influence the acquisition of property, allocation of resources and costs and benefits of urban reforms.  Marx excoriated Kariser’s Gotha Program in Germany for resorting to the subterfuge “of demanding things which have meaning only in a democratic republic from a state which is nothing but a police-guarded military despotism, embellished with parliamentary forms, alloyed with a feudal admixture and at the same time already influenced by the bourgeoisie, and bureaucratically carpentered, and then assuring this state into the bargain that one imagines one will be able to force such things upon it ‘by legal means.’”  Perhaps this what implied in Milinda (Pinto?) Morogoda’s celebration of freedom for all dissent, hence lost the elections.

Economic/moral dualism and tensions are paralleled and reinforced by economic/religious dualism and tensions.  Colombo is not a secular city, but a religious society.   Recently we have witnessed the heightening of religiosity among the middle class, evidenced by their patronage of extravagant religious rituals and financial contributions to churches, temples, mosques, and other lesser known religious centers.   Sundays, Fridays, and Poya days, they are busy with religious rituals and charitable activities. At other times they go about their business, hoping that their religious observances will get them into heaven or earn good karma.   The boundaries between the domains of faith and reason, superstition and wisdom also continue to blur, and middle classes are exhibit entrepreneurial skill in moving between these domains, often in collaboration with the religious establishment.

In the best case, religions inspire their followers to be conscious of ethical and moral incompatibilities and the tensions between economic practices and religious beliefs: indeed religion has the capacity to be a prophetic voice by rising above the parochial interests.  In less shining moments, religious organizations encourage followers to believe that these divides can be bridged easily by charitable, philanthropic and religious activities.  In the latter case, rather than resolving these tensions theologically and in their personal lives, both religious leaders and followers project them into the domain of the political. They vainly hope that a change of governments will bring economic ideals and practices and religious beliefs into congruence.   And how different is this from the ideology of progress in capitalist modernity, where capitalism’s failures are attributed to political failures (i.e. ‘right politics ‘will yield ‘right price,’ or good governance will trickle down the benefits of capitalism)?

Voting for an opposition committed to capitalist ideals (i.e. the UNP and DNF) must also be understood as an act of religious ritual and an act of faith, in many ways similar to faith in the invisible hand of market capitalism.    Ordinary believers, at the bottom of the economic hierarchy, vote for the political parties that are supported by their respective preachers, elders and priests. It is hard, in this case, to argue with Karl Marx: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

Ethnic and religious minorities constitute a significant voting majority in Colombo.   Although these larger minorities are unlikely to be united in social or economic terms, these minorities prefer the UNP and, combined, may well have influenced the election.   Muslim, Tamil and Christian religious minorities share a great deal of frustration at the state’s failure to take effective actions against the perpetrators of scattered violence and harassment of minority religions.  The Tamil minority, including those unconnected to the North and East, are exasperated with the government’s distinct lack of enthusiasm for negotiating a political settlement to the ethnic crisis, especially since the war was allegedly fought to prepare the ground for a negotiated settlement.  Internet and print news stories about ‘colonization and militarization’ of the north east may have encouraged those in cosmopolitan urbanites to empathize with Muslims and Tamils in the North and east.   In addition to the frequently shifting loyalties the ruling regime, the increasing involvement of China and India in Sri Lanka, even groups who share ultra-nationalist ideology may be worried about the future of the country’s sovereignty, and feel a sense of betrayal.  They now caste doubts upon the Sinhala Buddhist nationalist credentials of the ruling regime and their personal fortunes of being its ally.  Opposition to vulgar nationalism and distrust of the government’s nationalist credentials may well have boosted support for the opposition, just as we have seen happen recently in the Middle East.  These nationalist and sub-nationalist projects are also class projects: their respective nationalisms are focused on resolving inter- and intra-ethnic group never ending class conflicts. This partly explains the reasons why the state (and main stream political parties) exploits ultra nationalist groups, but maintains a distance from them, and they rarely make significant electoral gains.   The value of nationalism diminishes when the bellies are hard hit.

As capitalism increasingly colonizes national interests, nationalism and post-war patriotic fervor is exhausting its capacity to relieve the sense of deprivation and anxiety among traditional established local business classes. These feelings have emerged in response to increasing concentration of investments and development projects away from Colombo (many of them them controlled by foreign investors and those patronized the ruling regime) and claims by the media and politicians that these economic ventures fail to follow established protocols and procedures.  Inter-capitalists’ competition and their anxieties are compounded by the increasing costs of living for the urban poor, particularly when the economy fails to generate growth in parallel with infrastructure investments made with borrowed money.

Those evicted from urban areas are unlikely to be bought off with promises of new houses.   They have no good reason to believe such promises, and will likely find their cost of living increasing, and their opportunities decreasing once they are out of reach of the benefits of the urban informal sector.  Increased cost of living for the poor also increases cost of living for the middle classes while reducing profits (i.e. unpaid labor).  It’s far too easy to say that economic crisis is a matter of global recession. Economic crisis is also produced in collaboration with the state and bourgeoisies classes who progressively abrogate the welfare-based social contract. The UNP and DNF focus on a regime change that appears to be a compromise between urban rich and urban poor, but it’s really a tactic to divert the wrath of the poor against the rich.   But class analysis of the economic crises (as opposed to analysis framed in terms of jingoistic nationalism, ethnicity, and religion) would be suicidal to bourgeois moral economy and its opportunistic ideologues, including those with patriotic and Leftwing credentials.

In the current climate of state and self-imposed censorship and limitations on the media, urban populations have greater access to internet news stories about the ruling regime than those in rural areas.   Urbanites are more influenced by NGO activism and protest movements than those in rural areas, and may be more sensitive to the growing unpopularity of our government in Western countries. Urbanites tend to live more Westernized life-styles, and their economic fortunes, their choices for educating their children, and their targets of migration are mostly in Western countries.  Urban space may more fluidly process and absorb the ideas of human rights, freedom of expression etc., than rural areas.  The state has branded urban political activism as Western, pro-LTTE, and anti-Sri Lankan, and this tactic has insulated the rural masses from the urban areas. This explains the popularity of the UPFA among rural dwellers.    But my point is not that urbanites are more progressive.  We all know the most racist ideologues are part of the urban intelligentsia and that past ethnic riots began in the cities where the beneficiaries of exploitative economic practices concentrate. Instead, my intention is to point out that the UNP and JVP have essentially become urban middle class parties with hardly any relevance to rural populations.

Another notion that’s too simplistic to serve us is that parliamentary elections equal (or will usher in) democracy.  Democracy is government by the people for the people and of the people. That’s a nice notion, but in the real world, ‘the people’ are divided into classes.  During elections, enfranchised citizens are lumped together and called ‘voters’, and each has the equal opportunity to cast a vote.   But their life circumstances are far from equal.  The fundamental defining character of the state is that it separates the economic and political into two distinct domains.  Equality promised in the domain of politics is always undermined by inequality in the domain of economics.  The limitation of bourgeoisie democracy lies in channeling economic struggles into economic spheres: it envisages the possibility of change through the mere conquest of the political institutions. This limitation appears as a failure of the state capitalist state as it is engaged “in a continual process of upholding the principles of freedom and equality, which constantly modify their application in practice, to secure the political and social conditions for the survival of the capitalist system” (John Holloway and Sol Picciotto).  The state will only dig itself deeper into the crisis, not simply because it is managed by the Rajapakshas, but because it is capitalist.

Democracy in a capitalist context is not absolutely opposed to authoritarianism or dictatorship.  Democracy can very well obscure and suppress social, economic and power asymmetries as effectively as totalitarian regimes.  Dictatorships masked as democracies co-opt their opponents as allies of their regime, and may even decentralize governance by handing over responsibilities of the state to private interests.   They demand loyalty in the nation of national interests, security, progress, and reconciliation.  This pretense of democracy (which I describe as a ‘national government’) can very mask the intent to further concentrate power.  The multi-party composition of the government is not a good indicator of democracy: it does not tell us anything about how we are governed or how we conduct ourselves.  If we are to understand the function of democracy under a UPFA government, we must conduct a systematic analysis of the manifestation of state power in everyday practices in every sphere of the society (e.g. media, education, religious rituals).

If we engage in such an analysis of power I believe we will find that we are governed and we conduct our daily affairs according to the interests of the state and international capital, both of which succeed in retaining power by blurring the boundaries between the oppressed and the oppressors, democrats and liberals, etc.  The UNP’s victory and now the DNF factor (and even TNA election wins) are weak and misleading indicators of substantive democracy, or the country’s onward march towards it if they do not have power to respond to the interests of their respective constituencies.  An Anarchist would say: “Whoever you vote for, the government wins”!

Political realism’s analysis of power relations are limited because it is preoccupied with the military capabilities of the states, and less concerned with the economic relations and norms, values and institutions that shape the behavior of the states (Realists, including their father Thomas Hobbes misread the war between Athens and Sparta in the Peloponnesian war. Consequently, some define such political ‘science’ as bad history and International Relations as illegitimate child of that history!)

Some newspapers reported that the government plans to remove the security forces from its charge to carry out cleaning chores in the city!  The UNPs alliance with the DNF is still uncertain. The sacking of the two UNPers continues to intensify the rifts within the UNP.  Only time will tell us whether the government will succeed in imprisoning the UNP within the Colombo MC until its extinction from politics or the UNP evolve into a formidable national opposition party.

• Local Government Elections: In sending the UNP and JVP to political oblivion the nation may find hope?
• A pseudo democracy in Sri Lanka
• The UNP’s Leadership Crisis: An Individual Conflict with Catastrophic Prospects or Redefinition of Current Political Tasks
• Sri Lanka: the waning of Liberalism?
• Tamil Question and the Global Crisis of Capitalism

Steve Jobs would have been bemused by the many epithets assigned to him in the wake of his death on 5 October 2011.

He was described variously an inventor, digital entrepreneur and marketer. From humble origins in 1976, he – more than anyone else – propelled Apple, Inc. into one of the world’s best known and most admired consumer electronics companies. That was achieved through a relentless pursuit of innovation, technical perfection and high emphasis on design aesthetics. He inspired a cult-like following for himself and Apple products, many of which bore his signature style.

All very true — but also very passé. The minimalist Jobs would have settled for just four words: he changed the world.

And change he did — in many ways, some already known, the rest still unfolding. He used to say that Apple sat “at the intersection of the liberal arts and technology.” Similarly, for 35 years, Steven Paul Jobs stood like a colossus at the global intersection of computers, consumer electronics, popular culture and fine design. There were other giants in each realm, but none that straddled and cross-fertilised as much.

He was listed as either primary inventor or co-inventor in 338 US patents or patent applications. Impressive — but nowhere near the top among the most prolific inventors. Thomas Edison held over a thousand. Polaroid inventor Edwin Land, one of Jobs’ heroes, had 535.

The legacy of Steve Jobs was not in piling up patents or turning them into dollars. TIME magazine got it right when they called him technology’s great reinventor. In a world sinking under the weight of patents — many for marginal ideas or devices — we badly need reinventors to shake up entire industries. Market and social transformation requires more than fancy gadgets and clever marketing. It needs systemic thinking, the ability to grasp the Bigger Picture – and then reconfigure it. Jobs had this talent.

He paid attention to details too – obsessively so! A fine balance between functionality and design elegance characterised their products. In pursuit of this, he may have been influenced by the thinking of another American design maestro: Richard Buckminster Fuller. The American engineer and systems theorist once said: “When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”

All his life, Jobs looked for ways to enhance humans’ interactions with computers and electronics. For example, early developers of Personal Computers (PCs) didn’t see anything wrong with all interfaces being heavily text dependent. In 1979, while visiting Xerox’s PARC research lab in Palo Alto, California, Jobs saw an experimental computer with a mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI) – one that allows users to interact with electronic devices through images rather than text commands. As he later said, “Within 10 minutes… it was clear to me that all computers would work this way someday.”

Xerox was the first to market a PC with GUI in 1981, but Apple really exploited the concept. The Apple Lisa (1983) and Apple Macintosh 128K (1984) both used menu bars and window controls. All others followed.

Needs vs. Wants

By going beyond functionality and creating elaborate — and more expensive — products, Jobs also distorted our perceptions of ‘needs’ and ‘wants’. Consider the mobile phone. A decade ago, Nokia looked set to dominate the low and middle range mobile handsets, while BlackBerry had cornered the emerging smartphone market.

The iPhone, introduced in 2007, challenged that. It not only became a toy among the more affluent, but raised aspirations for tens of millions of mobile phone users around the world. Other smartphones can serve our communication needs just as well; however, they no longer satisfy our wants. Someday, it seems, we all want to brandish an iPhone…

Such unapologetic pandering to consumerism got Apple ahead of the pack. The company apparently didn’t invest in market research; instead it relied on its maverick CEO’s instincts on what consumers truly wanted.

How did Jobs get things right most of the time? Which roots of his complex personality – Californian, hippie, Zen or geeky — contributed the most? In what proportion did the Western and Eastern influences shape his thinking? We can only speculate.

For over a decade, Apple and Jobs have virtually owned the letter ‘i’ in the Roman alphabet. It started with the iMac (1998) and continued with the iPod (2001), iPhone (2007) and iPad (2010).

Officially, the ‘i’ stood for “Internet”. To many, it also represented the product’s focus as a personal device — ‘i’ for “individual”. The ‘i’ can also stand for innovative, iconoclastic and ‘insanely great’, a favourite phrase of Jobs’ to describe his products. And, we might add: impatient, impetuous and irreverent. All attributes that made Jobs a culture-changing force, and a fine example of American soft power in action.

However idiosyncratic Steve Jobs was, his carefully orchestrated public appearances were a lot more than mere acts of corporate one-upmanship. They ultimately defied entire systems of thinking and practice: unilateral declarations of independence (UDI) from the status quo.

Only the most gifted – and gutsy — mavericks can get away with that in an increasingly discerning global marketplace. Many tributes have acknowledged that Jobs was a maverick, which he turned into a core value at Apple. As he said, “Those who are crazy enough to believe they can change the world, are the ones that do!”

That was the basis of an advertising slogan – ‘Think Different’ – that boosted the sagging image of Apple in 1997. Jobs had just returned to the company after spending 11 years in the tech ‘wilderness’, and wanted to send a strong message. His PR team couldn’t have picked a better theme. 

The Crazy Ones

The campaign’s television component comprised a commercial titled “The Crazy Ones” which paid tribute to mavericks through history. The entirely black-and-white creation featured 17 iconic personalities – among them Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Buckminster Fuller, Thomas Edison and Amelia Earhart. Also included, interestingly, were singers Bob Dylan and John Lennon, artist Pablo Picasso, boxer Muhammad Ali and the muppets inventor Jim Henson.

The voiceover of the shorter, 30-second version said: “Here’s to the crazy ones. The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Jobs narrated the first commercial which was never aired. Instead, what went public was the version voiced by actor Richard Dreyfuss. Those 30 seconds – and a longer, 60 second variation – captured the very essence of Apple. It did not show a single tech product. There was no need.

Over a dozen years later what does all this mean to us in Asia?

We might admire – even revere – mavericks like Steve Jobs from afar, but few Asians have any idea where mavericks come from, or how best to deal with them. Our conformist and hierarchical societies don’t nurture mavericks. Our cultures tend to suppress odd-balls and iconoclasts. That’s probably why we don’t have enough of our own Steve Jobses, Richard Bransons and Anita Roddicks.

Oh sure, we Asians are smarter than most other nationals in science, maths and engineering. We can master all things geeky in next to no time. And thanks largely to China, India and Japan, Asia’s share of global research, knowledge creation and patents is steadily increasing. Asians have world class laboratories and high tech corporations churning a dazzling gadgets and gizmos that now compete with the finest brands of the West.

Yes, we excel in the collective form — just like honey bees — and that is no mean accomplishment. But how many Asian tech mavericks can we think of in everyday technology? Does anyone know – or care – who heads the Samsung Corporation in Korea, the closest rival to Apple in smartphones? Or do we know the Japanese inventor of the Sony Walkman?

There are reasons for this. Information technology and electronics industries are accelerated by impatient consumer demands as never before. Armies of wizards must work 24/7 like elves to keep up.

Nevertheless, there is still a place for lone inventors tinkering in a backyard and maverick scientists swimming against the currents of conventional wisdom. The crazy ones. The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently.

Mark Twin said: “The man with a new idea is a crank – until the idea succeeds”. The question is: do we Asians hush down our home-grown cranks even before they have a sporting chance? Are we culturally too biased against individualism that propels useful – and potentially transformative — mavericks?

As a ‘maverick spotter’ and cheerleader for all types of innovation, I often worry that we do. I have come across bright young men and women who were ridiculed in the classroom (‘freaks!’) or scorned at home (‘losers!’) for not wanting to be doctors, engineers or lawyers.

Or think of how our societies treat the left-handers among us. Now you know why mavericks don’t stand a chance…

Toy Maker – or Magician?

While Apple’s marketing campaigns celebrated mavericks, the company itself was run in a very businesslike manner with no touchy-feely sentimentalities. In fact, Apple was – and still is — every bit as proprietary as Microsoft, but perhaps a bit cleverer at disguising it.

It made no concessions to popular movements advocating ‘software freedom’ and open source software. Apple staff was sworn to secrecy and the company’s public image was tightly controlled. In recent months, there have been media reports about appalling working conditions in factories in southern China manufacturing Apple products. Apple’s App Store has been accused of censoring content: leading industry critics have called for clearer, more transparent guidelines on what is allowed.

Meanwhile, despite his personal worth estimated to exceed USD 8 billion, Jobs was not particularly philanthropic. At least not publicly.

Yet somehow, Apple’s adoring fans – many liberals among them – have reconciled with these and other contradictions. Evidently, Bill Gates was held to a stricter standard…

But before you dismiss Steve Jobs as a cold-hearted genius who was simply out to reshape the world, consider the other half of his illustrious legacy: Pixar Animation Studios.

The movie company, started by George Lucas in 1979 and acquired by Jobs in 1986, has produced a total of 12 animated feature films. To date, it has won 26 Academy Awards among many other accolades, and grossed USD 6.3 billion at the box office.

Pixar is further evidence that Jobs knew we are all ruled primarily by our hearts than brains. Movies like Toy Story and Finding Nemo tugged at our hearts in ways that only Walt Disney’s army of illustrators had succeeded before. This time around, computers were generating all the images. In the two decades he owned Pixar, Jobs firmly bridged Silicon Valley with Hollywood.

It’s no coincidence that Toy Story and its sequels are among the most popular films made entirely with computer generated images, or CGI. Tapping into our emotions deeper than we understand, they make the Global Family laugh and cry.

But toys have a deeper meaning as well. Jobs knew we are all children at heart. By giving us fancy new toys at regular intervals, he kept us contented even as he made Apple the richest tech corporation in the world.

Apple and Steve Jobs were not really making computers or consumer electronics. It manufactured personalised dreams for seven billion human beings. We readily suspended our disbelief for Pixar movies – and for many Apple products.

Now that our planet’s favourite Pied Piper has moved on, whose mesmerising tune are we going to follow — and to where?

HELP!

Science writer Nalaka Gunawardene has been profiling triumphs and struggles of Lankan inventors for two decades, and written widely on policy and institutional reforms needed for nurturing a culture of innovation. During 2009-2010, he hosted a weekly TV show on innovation, and is a trustee of the Ray Wijewardene Charitable Trust that seeks to promote innovation in Sri Lanka. He blogs at http://nalakagunawardene.com

• In conversation with Prof. Anil K Gupta: Grassroots innovation and development
• TASTY CHOCOLATE AIDING TERRORISTS
• Sri Lanka’s and South Asia’s first citizen journalism iPhone app
• Anti-competitive Activities, the source of rice crisis
• Groundviews now formatted for iPad

We understand that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is planning to compound undisclosed securities fraud by some billionaire investors. Media reports have begun to circulate that Environmental Resources Investments (ERI) and its Directors have agreed with the SEC to pay an insignificant fine of Rs 10 million and compound an offence related to securities trading. While the nature of the fraud has not been made public it was well known that the SEC was investigating ERI for trading and disclosure related matters.

While the SEC is yet to make an announcement on this matter and acknowledging that this statement is based on media reports we nevertheless believe it is the SEC’s duty, as the regulator, to take swift action against fraudulent activities under the SEC Act.  The Act calls for prosecution. If ERI has not committed any fraud they will be found not guilty but if convicted the perpetrators shall be imprisoned and fined accordingly.

The reason for tough action is to discourage white-collar crime. Why US prosecutors are seeking a near 25-year sentence for Raj Rajaratnam is to drive home this point. However the cancer of insider dealing, front-running and money laundering that is going on at the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) is well known but nothing is being done about it. For instance, while the conflicts of interests with the Central Bank using Employees Provident Fund (EPF) to trade in shares of commercial banks have been pointed out on numerous occasions and shown to violate its own code of conduct for investments in the CSE, the Central Bank continues to buy and sell shares of almost all commercial banks.

When the SEC keeps silent it sends the wrong message on white-collar crime at the CSE and destroys the confidence among bona fide investors.  The status quo does not augur well for the CSE or the economy in the long run. This is particularly so when Sri Lanka is looking for large scale private investments to sustain the post-war development effort.

With respect to ERI, it is known that ERI was under the watch of the investing public and analysts for quite some time for its transactions with hardly any solid information to substantiate its various claims. The unprecedented and sudden rise of its share price from Rs 28 to Rs 275 based inter alia on news of purchasing a company purportedly with access to platinum assets and the subsequent outflow of some USD 18 million to the British Virgin Islands as part payment had been under constant query by market watchers.  It has now been revealed that the shares of the said company; Environment Resources Limited (ERL), ironically sounding almost similar to ERI, has been sold to a company who’s ultimate owner is the same entity that ERI originally purchased the shares from.  In this background allegations of money laundering and market manipulation continue to be rife.

Paradoxically, ERI, boasting of mega profits from global and local investments have just filed a consolidated loss of Rs 23 million for the quarter ending 30 June 2011 as opposed to Rs 418 million profits for the year ending 31 March 2011.

Market watchers have also levelled allegations of overseas criminal convictions on at least one of the Directors of ERI bringing in to question the record of the so-called whiz kids behind this company. Allegations of non-disclosure of related party transactions have been made on at least two Directors with regard to a company by the name of Knight Trade that happens to be the second largest shareholder of ERI which is owned by a company named Yenom which coincidentally is owned by the said two Directors of ERI. Questions have been raised if this company has the authority to use the official ‘Lion’ logo of Sri Lanka.  It is further alleged that ERI uses the identical logo for a stock broking company in Sri Lanka named ‘DNH Financial Private Limited’ and for a company named ‘DNQ Financial Private Limited’ based in Dubai to confuse investors and undertake deceptive transactions.

In an almost unbelievable development, as per the official bid book, ERI had agreed to build the 2018 Hambantota Commonwealth Games Village along with Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation and become the largest private sector investor of the Games while the SEC was investigating the company for alleged securities fraud and or disclosure offences. This almost seems like buying oneself out of trouble and most certainly a conflict of interest.

Given there is no information forthcoming from authorities it is anyone’s guess as to the validity of these allegations. Therefore, as a responsible opposition safeguarding the interests of the public and the nation it is our duty to call for action to either prosecute or clear the persons involved.  Having seen the fallout of scandals like Golden Key where innocent middle class families lost all their savings it is a matter of serious concern that repetitions are avoided.

The irony however is that it seems every time high profile persons get caught for fraudulent activity the SEC seem to cut deals with them to leave them out of jail in return for insignificant fines by compounding their cases.  The last publicized case of compounding was that of two Directors of Nawaloka Group who paid petty fines of Rs 3.3 million each for conspiring to manipulate the share price of Nawaloka Hospitals.

In this background the SEC cannot any longer afford to turn a blind eye to the allegations at the CSE.  It is certainly detrimental to the country’s development drive. The SEC must act swiftly and with the full force of the law to punish fraudsters to make the CSE a place for bona fide investors; both local and foreign. The fact that the All Share Price Index (ASPI) is up only by a marginal 3.6 percent for the entire year is sufficient proof to show that the CSE is not performing at the level it was expected to, and more need to be done to build investor confidence.

It is noteworthy to point out that in 2005 ADB wrote in its Sri Lanka: Financial Sector Assessment Report that “compounding of charges is only compounding the problem of insider dealing. The SEC should cease the practice of compounding charges.”

It is high time the powerful Board of the SEC heeded this advice before the CSE loses its already shaky credibility as a place that honest people can do business in.

• Corporate Scandals with Impunity
• TASTY CHOCOLATE AIDING TERRORISTS
• Stanley Rd Closure Affects Traders In Jaffna
• A Prima Facie Critique of The New Bill to Vest in the State Under performing Enterprises and Under Utilized Assets
• In conversation with Nelum Gamage: Does anyone give a damn about corruption?

Anushka Wijesinha (who blogs here), a Research Economist at the Institute of Policy Studies, sent us these incredible photos and video of the chaos in Colombo today when thousands of Korean job seekers appeared for Korean exam applications at the Police Park down Havelock Road. Mainstream media reports a figure of 10,000, which going by the video and photos appear to be mostly young men.

In a speech by Dr. Anura Ekanayake, outgoing CCC chairman and IPS Board member, he noted that of the 4.5% unemployment rate overall in Sri Lanka, 18.1% of youth (age 15-24) are unemployed and within this around 10.7% of those qualified with A/Ls are unemployed.

Anushka observed that,

• Many were queuing from 5pm yesterday, which means they had spent the night on the pavements.
• By the time the centre closed at 11.15am (as was informed by the officials there to those gathered 3,500 applicants had been registered. There was at least 1,000 more in the queue at that point, who were turned away.
• Many had gone to the Kalutara centre and had been unsuccessful, and had came to to the Police Park centre today
• IPS did a snap survey of the profile of the applicants seeking work in Korea and the results will be published along with an article soon, on the blog www.ipslk.blogspot.com. Sample of around 50 youth.
• Preliminary results: majority were from Colombo, Kalutara, Gampaha, Matara, Galle and Hambantota districts (Emphasis ours)
• Majority of those interviewed in the snap survey had A/L as their highest qualification, with few even having degrees
• Yet, the majority stated they were seeking ‘any type of work’ or ‘manual labour’, while a minority were seeking specific occupations.
• The remaining crowd of youth were informed that they can try again at 28 other centres across the country

The route Anushka took down Havelock Road is plotted below, around 1.5km.

View Job applicants in a larger map

All photos above and the video by Anushka Wijesinha. More photos on Daily Mirror’s website.

Live updates from Anushka below.

• Photographic evidence of war crimes in Sri Lanka, or not? (Updated)
• Ground report: Widespread public perception of military links to ‘grease devils’?
• Milinda Moragoda: The gap between promise and reality
• Would killing 50,000 civilians to finish off the LTTE bring peace?
• Twitter explodes with reactions and responses to Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields

[Editors note: For background on the Katunayake protests, read Protests in Katunayake Free Trade Zone: No police in sight]

The state sponsored triumphalist ideological noise of Sinhalese ethno-nationalism was suddenly disturbed, on the eve of the officially declared month for the commemoration of war heroes (ranaviru), by an unexpected eruption of workers at Katunayake Free Trade Zone (FTZ) into the political field. The majority of these were women workers who came from rural areas, effectively defying the sanctioned definition of traditional Sinhala women, as propagated by the current nationalist ‘truth-regime.’[1] Although the government media points its fingers at some political parties over the May 30^th clash between thousands of workers and the police at the Katunayake FTZ, the protest campaign likely reflected the worker’s own fear and distrust of the Pension Bill, introduced by the government for private sector workers. A young worker died and hundreds were injured as a result of police gun fire, enraging trade unions, opposition parties and the critical public including even some sectors that supported the ruling regime in other respects. Reacting to this emerging opposition, the Rajapaksa regime has had to be on the defensive for the first time since its victory over the LTTE, and was forced to retract the present Pension Bill and promised a new one.

The events that unfolded on the Katunayake protest thus announced a possibility of change, in terms of trade union actions being able to prevail even in a context of strengthening constitutional authoritarianism, supported by a strong ethno-nationalist ideological imaginary in the South. It is interesting that this event grew out of political economy factors (not ideological factors), even while the mainstream politics had been distracted by the flood of ideologically over-emphasized issues such as the UN panel report, the Indo-Lanka Joint Statement, and the celebration of victory over the LTTE, so on and so forth.

There is no doubt that the Katunayake event raises many important questions regarding the country’s political futures and the changing nature of the existing political equilibrium. Putting those complex issues aside for a deeper analysis, this short article intends to draw attention to the way this event should be able to emphasis the importance of revisiting the political economy, within the current debates. I would take political economy here not in the old fashioned traditional Marxist sense of economic reductionism, but in an alternate Marxist sense of ‘doing concrete analysis of a concrete situation’[2]. An invincible legacy of the scholarly tradition of political economy is analyzing the concrete socio-political issues without overlooking their interconnectedness.

In the Sri Lankan context, such an interesting debate on political economy was seen through 1970s and early 1980s with significant contributions of prominent social scientists of the day like Newton Gunasinghe, S.B.D. de Silva, Charles Abeysekara, Mick Moore and Vijaya Samaraweera. The prominent issues addressed in their writings consisted of political transformation in the Sri Lankan state in 1956, open economy and its effects on ethnic relations, ethno-religious nationalist articulations of postcolonial capitalism, changing dimensions of caste and class, agrarian reforms and rural poverty. However, this debate on the political economy was gradually sidelined by the late 1980s by the emerging interest of identity politics and ideology of ethno-nationalism among social scientists and public intellectuals with the spread of ethnic civil war. As Gunasinghe correctly observed during this period, ethno-nationalist antagonism became one of the central overdetermining factors in the country’s body politic at least since the ‘black July’ in 1983[3]. This significant political change had its own consequences and, I would argue, it affected the scholarly and public discourses as well. Unfortunately, the dominant trend of social science researches in this period was likely to turn away from the political economic tradition of concrete analysis of concrete political economic issues towards abstract explanations of selected and isolated issues.

The NGO civil society politics mushroomed in the country, especially since the early 1980s, also has contributed towards the above trend. New themes of discussion like ethnicity and gender, conflict resolution and peace studies, identity politics, good governance, human rights, state reform etc. were introduced and promoted through the funding policies of International Organisations. It is also important to keep in mind that this was the time when NGO civil society politics, or so called ‘new politics’ spread around the global South as a result of a significant policy change of global financial regimes (IMF and World Bank) and ‘donor countries’ under the banner of ‘democracy promotion through civil society.’ As the Sri Lankan experience suggests, many leftist political activists and groups were absorbed into newly emerged NGO civil society politics that introduced them to new practices like writing and following project proposals, focusing on issue-based campaigns, reporting the progress to donors, which developed a new kind of political professionalism as a whole. In precise Althusserian sense, one can argue that, through the above mentioned material and institutional practices, the ideology and identities of the leftist social activists themselves were changed and one can further identify this as ‘NGOsation of the Left politics.’ Perhaps, when the ‘ideological Berlin Wall of the old Left’ collapsed in the late 1980s, Sri Lankan leftists found the radical issue-based campaigns championed by NGOs to be attractive.

However, as I argued throughout this short piece, within the dominant civil society discourse during the last two decades, isolated issues and institutional agendas, selected through funding policies, were highlighted at the price of concrete analyses of the existing political conjunctions. This might have paved the way for the failure of liberal and Left-wing civil society groups in calculating the real relations of power on the ground, in accounting the hegemonic potential of ethno-nationalist populism against a background of neo-liberal economic reforms and in predicting the defeat of militant Tamil nationalism and in conceptualizing the post-war political scenario. A self-critical acknowledgement of the above failures would be imperative in any attempt to reinvigorate democratic and progressive civil society politics in the country. It is in this sense that I would welcome the Katunayake protest not only as an important political manifestation but also as an invitation to a largely ignored legacy of paying attention to the political economy.

• Half a Democracy
• Why women in politics always matters: A conversation with Chulani Kodikara
• Engage the Diaspora
• A Marxist Perspective on Constitutional Reforms
• Last comment on Sri Lanka: Is the war really over?

Crime of “Dissent” & of Murder
Killing of Roshen Shanaka Ratnasekara,  a factory worker in the Free Trade Zone (FTZ), Katunayaka gives a signal to the country on how peaceful protesters would be dealt with. Those who are familiar with police accountability will accept that police cannot carry guns and ammunition, without accountability. The records of the police must reveal as to who issued firearms and ammunition and who, in fact, ordered the police to fire.  Police is required to make frank notes of their actions after they return to the station. However, all these come out only if a credible investigation is conducted. Knowing the track record of governance in the country and impunity with which law enforcement and political authorities operate, there is hardly any genuine hope of such transparency in any investigation.

The purpose of this article is to briefly examine the legality of use of excessive force by law enforcement officers and the impact of the response of the government on fundamental liberties of the citizens.

The issue on which the workers went on a protest was a legitimate demand affecting them. They challenged the proposed Pension Bill. This Bill came into being without any discussion,  at a time when the EPF fund  is being used for questionable investments in share market. No  wonder people have reservations.  There is no doubt that they had a legitimate constitutional right of expression to object to the government’s proposals. The Supreme Court had, in fact, given the green light to the Bill. The government with its two-thirds majority was confident of passing it through Parliament. Then came the workers’ protests centered on the main Katunayaka FTZ. With my own personal experience in and around this Zone (where I associated myself for many years with a main women’s center working towards unionization of workers), I believe that the protests were spontaneous and were decisions of the workers themselves. Contrary to what the government says, I do not believe that they were manipulated by a political party or two.  These workers were not initially unionized when FTZ was introduced but slowly they were. Suffice it to say that the workers in the FTZ are undoubtedly a legitimate group to raise their objections against the Bill.

The protestors took to the streets and one assumes that this is a democracy. This is a usual form in legitimate protests involving workers all over the world.  The motive of the crowd was abundantly clear – to have the Pension Bill withdrawn and to protect their savings against what they call “a robbery by the State”.  The TV footage and the eye witness accounts appeared in some of the Sinhala newspapers clearly indicate that the protests were peaceful, until they were attacked by the police. At one stage, the police had broken open the gates and gone into the Zone and attacked the unarmed workers mercilessly, when they were pleading.  An eye witness account in another newspaper reveals the state of affairs: “We ran and hid as soon as we heard the noise, but the police broke into our factory and pulled us out. They beat the boys and the women police officers beat us. I was hit with a helmet.”  Then there was senseless firing from all over.  Whom were they shooting at – unarmed and unplanned workers who were agitating against the Bill. Many protesters received gunshot injuries while hundreds of others, mainly women received injuries and were admitted to hospitals. One newspaper reported that some of the injured did not want to be admitted to hospitals close by in fear of arrest and they chose to go to their far away villages, so that they would avoid repercussions.

Let me say in no uncertain terms that the use of firearms by law enforcement is a matter of International Law now. For example, the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (Basic Principles) provide, in principle 9, that firearms must not be used against persons except in self-defence or defence of others against the imminent threat of death or serious injury and only when less extreme means are insufficient to achieve these objectives. The Principles explicitly provide that, in dealing with assemblies where people are using violence, law enforcement officials may use firearms only when less dangerous means are not practicable and only to the minimum extent necessary and only under the conditions stipulated in Principle 9. Any other use of firearms is unjustified. Judging from the  eye witness accounts appeared in media, there is no justification whatsoever to use firearms in this instance at Katunayaka.

The legal position, as introduced by the Police Ordinance, Penal Code, Police Departmental Orders and practices in Sri Lanka is, in fact, compatible with the international standards, where the police can use firearms only as a use of minimum force to prevent a crime or in self defense. To my recollection, the weapons used are also required to be examined and detailed notes kept for inspection thereafter. Let us hope that these rules are practiced by police. Though the confidential notes of the police officers are yet unknown, it is clear that there were “over preparation” by police for “some reason”. This fact is borne out from the fact that there were a large number of high ranking officers including DIGs present in the vicinity.

From Crime to Cover-up Through Propaganda & Extra-Judicial Actions
Following its usual technique, the government resorted to their infamous and confident propaganda mechanism to cover up. No doubt they would have taken many decisions at political level. The first decision seems to be to get the IGP to go on “leave prior to retirement” – just one week before his actual date of retirement. (I am not surprised, if he is later appointed as a Commissioner of one of the Commissions or as an Ambassador.) Then, there was an effective move to prevent information leaking from hospitals of the conditions of the patients. Many were prevented from even entering hospitals to see patients.  Then there was a statement from the government blaming the JVP for the incident. The usual “conspiracy theory” came next. Then came the news of the death of this young victim due to gunshot injuries. The TV coverage of the state media and the news items and political discussion programmes over the state media (not to mention the controlled private media), both print and electronic, made a herculean task to cover up the overall state responsibility.  Payments of millions to the victim’s family and the government’s decision to withdraw the controversial Bill dominated state media. Not to forget that there is, according to the government, a top level police investigation to ascertain whether “outsiders” have infiltrated into the Free Trade Zone.

Passing the buck to another is a clearly visible strategy. Let me quote the first line of the editorial of the government’s leading English Sunday paper: “The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has proved yet again that it has more faith in the bullet than in the ballot…”

Generally, the government’s motives in a situation like this can be easily judged from its responses. Similarly, inferences can also be drawn on the government’s bona fides from its behavior. Obviously the government was worried with the series of protest rallies organized by trade unions, civil society groups and political parties and the crowds attending the rallies. At one point, there were announcements in Katunayaka with loudspeakers announcing that the Katunayake zone is closed and requesting the workers (most of whom are boarders) to go home until further notice.  Many of those rallies held could not be obstructed firstly, because they were not organized by political parties and secondly, because they were spontaneous. The biggest rally, however was organized by the JVP on Friday at Lipton Circle, Town Hall and the government’s performance was the most visible there! Police and Army were strategically placed, while bus loads of thugs (armed with clubs) were awaiting orders to attack the peaceful protesters.  It is no secret that those thugs were brought by an MP, who is the “monitoring MP” to the Ministry of Defence and that those thugs were given protection by the police.  I was not at all surprised with the statement of police media spokesman SSP Prishanthe Jayakody who said  that “there are no restrictions for people to walk along the road carrying poles as a person armed with a pole could hit a dog if it tries to attack him” (‘Lanka Truth’ website quoting the spokesman). What would be the response of the police spokesman, if the FTZ workers had a few clubs in their hands? Just shows the level to which professionalism has gone down! We saw a similar crowd of armed thugs with clubs attacking unarmed civil protestors a year ago near the Supreme Court but no effective action was taken by police against the identified offenders even then.

There were also credible information and news items in newspapers that a large number of posters pasted by many groups led by the JVP condemning the attack were taken into custody by police/army the day prior to the funeral. This is a certainly a counter measure to control the political criticism of the government.  Suffice it to say that this should not be the function of the law enforcement officers.

Funeral and State Capture
Probably the most stunning operation of the government was the “funeral” of the deceased itself. A democratic society must, I repeat MUST, not forget what happened at the funeral particularly because this may be the order of the day in time to come.

State media coverage of the funeral was no different to the coverage of the war. It was only state sponsored and one-sided news. Inexplicable military presence – thousands of them – raises the question whether it was the funeral of a terrorist leader.   There was no doubt that the government had taken all measures to prevent disturbances but whether a government has any right to meddle with a private funeral to that extent is doubtful.  I heard many saying it was a well planned “psychological operation” (which term I am not very sure)!  One could not move without bumping on to a military person; or talk without someone approaching to listen to the conversation. People were disheartened to be there, to pay respect to the victim of a crime of the state. Newspapers reported that there was a Magistrate’s Court order placing restrictions on how to conduct funeral proceedings. I am yet to understand the relevant provisions which give a Magistrate the power to control a funeral. Usually, the Magistrate has power under the Criminal Procedure Code to conduct an inquest and the Magistrate holding the inquest to make consequential orders such as visits to crime scene, pronouncing on apparent cause of death and to release the body to a family members etc. The judge or the coroner may give directions not to cremate the bodies or to bury in an identified burial ground. Never can I recall an instance where there was a court order limiting the number of speeches at a funeral and how and where to carry the body.  Let us hope that there is a serious academic discussion on the legality of the Magisterial Order.

Overall operations of the government to control the funeral seem to have had at least two short-term objectives – firstly to prevent an event that can challenge the government’s authority and secondly, to control freedom of expression at the funeral. Nevertheless, the outcome was an unusual  “captive State Funeral”-  a new lesson to learn from Sri Lanka; “We kill you & then bury in our own style.” With what we hear and saw at the funeral, the role played by the church (in particular, the Parish Priest) is a matter of concern. This is very unusual for the church, which has maintained a good record of their integrity. Who is benefited from such an intervention of the Church?  A story of a family member giving an affidavit cannot justify a state capture of a funeral of this nature. The support of the Parish Priest or a church does not erase an immoral and impious conduct.

Intolerance & Over Stepping Powers to Stifle Dissent
The law enforcement functions in Sri Lanka have been so politicized that any unlawful action of the government can easily be justified with impunity. The other intricacy is the law enforcement has now been mixed with military action, just like in Syria, Egypt and Libya.  This combination is certainly not conducive to a democracy which recognizes a clear distinction between military action and police action.  The continuous emergency situation and counter terrorist measures taken by successive governments have created a different psyche among the law enforcement officers. This I believe can be addressed. However, the abuse of authority by political masters under the cover of such emergency situations cannot be overcome so easily – because they believe that they have “majority power”. And they have a vested interest.

Perhaps, the government would attempt to justify the use of firearms due to possible political instability that can be created in the strikes and the wave of protests on the Pension Bill. This is not acceptable in a democracy. According to the UN Principles on use of firearms, “exceptional circumstances such as internal political instability or any other public emergency may not be invoked to justify any departure from these basic principles.”

According to the UN Basic Principles, governments are obliged to ensure that arbitrary or abusive use of force and firearms by law enforcement officials is treated as a criminal offence under the law. The Basic Principles also note that the government and law enforcement agencies must ensure that superior officers be held responsible if they know, or should have known, that law enforcement officials under their command are resorting to unlawful use of force and firearms and they did not take all measures in their power to prevent, suppress or report such use.

The law on illegal orders and right to disregard unlawful orders are very clear in national and international law. Sri Lankans cannot forget the famous Kataragama Beauty Queen murder case (Wijesuriya v. Queen 77 NLR 25), where the Court of Criminal Appeal  of Sri Lanka held that it is no defence to plead “superior order” in committing a murder. In that case, the army officer shot and killed the detainee on the orders of the superior officer. Any law enforcement officer knows that it is illegal to kill a detainee. As decided in this case, under section 100 of the Army Act every person subject to military law is required to obey only lawful commands (and not unlawful orders). This legal position is equally applicable to the police as well.  International criminal law is no different. Let me reproduce the UN Basic Principle 26: “ Obedience to superior orders shall be no defence if law enforcement officials knew that an order to use force and firearms resulting in the death or serious injury of a person was manifestly unlawful and had a reasonable opportunity to refuse to follow it. In any case, responsibility also rests on the superiors who gave the unlawful orders.”

One can argue that the motive of the officer who fired at the crowd is not very clear. However, the motive of those who gave orders cannot be so unclear. Judging from the events leading to the killing and the past conduct of the government, one can easily conclude that it was basically to control public dissent. The public (including the trade unions and workers) have a duty to express their views by holding protest rallies or any mode of expression.  Before winding up this article, I wish to advert to a clear constitutional principle that is relevant here.  The state does not have the authority to make criminal peaceful expression of unpopular views and to deal with protestors like criminals.

Let me conclude by quoting Justice Brandeis (Whitney v. California) on the constitutional importance of freedom of speech and expression:

“Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that in its government the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary.  They value liberty to both as an end and as a means … they believe that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and the spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile… that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that the public discussion is a political duty and that this should be a fundamental principle…. “ .

I sincerely hope that our leaders and the readers will read and re-read the following paragraph of the same judgment of this great judge, Justice Brandeis:

“Those who won our independence were not cowards. They did not fear political changes…..  Fear of serious injury cannot justify suppression of free speech.”

• Women and Media Collective Press Conference on Violence Against Women
• Protests in Katunayake Free Trade Zone: No police in sight
• Can GOSL Implement LLRC Recommendations?
• Elections in the East
• Manufacturing claymores in the Sinhala media – Media ethics withering on the vine

Protests in Katunayake Free Trade Zone: No police in sight has audio and video footage of the violent protests over the course of the week in the Katunayake Free Trade Zone. A 10 minute video of the protests on Thursday, after the Police killed 21 year old Free Trade Zone (FTZ) worker Roshan Chanaka, can be seen below.

As Rasika Jayakody notes in an article dealing with Rohan’s killing,

“Apart from this tragic death, this brutal police attack against Free Trade Zone workers left more than 200 people injured. On Monday evening, Ragama and Negombo hospitals were flooded with injured protesters. It is, undoubtedly, one of the brutal crackdowns in recent history. There are several video footages which clearly show the barbaric and inhuman manner that some police officers carried out attacks against unarmed protesters.”

The withdrawal of the proposed pensions bill is a major embarrassment for the government. So embarrassing in fact that some reports suggest the President’s media unit coerced mainstream media to not give it the prominence it deserved in media coverage.

The protests over the course of the week weren’t the first mass scale protests against government since 2005, but they’ve certainly been by far the most forceful. In November last year, the government was forced to shelve plans to develop the Negombo lagoon into a sea-plane friendly area. Their livelihoods threatened, hundreds of fisherfolk – those who had in fact voted in this government – took to the lagoon and the streets against it. As we observed,

“Neither the Police nor the Army could not control the crowd. This is evident in the video footage, in which person after person openly taunt the authorities and mention that this is not what they expected from a government they had voted into power.”

On Friday, Colombo saw for the first time hundreds of Buddhist monks protest outside the President’s house. See dramatic photos from the demonstration taken by Vikalpa below.

The area surrounding the President’s house is a high security zone, and even violent protests last year involving university students who tried to give a petition to the President weren’t allowed anywhere near it, and were repelled back by tear gas.

Not so with the Buddhist monks on Friday, who numbering around 600 sported placards openly and explicitly against the government and the President. Tellingly, the monks even refused refreshments sent out to them from Temple Trees.

As we noted last year,

“There is growing social tension in Sri Lanka. Over 2010 alone, student unrest in Universities increased considerably. A number of trade unions are joining the fray. Any one of these incidents alone can be cast aside or seen as isolated incidents by minority groups. Collectively though, tens of thousands of people have been involved in demonstrations against government (including those who voted it into power), and there is no sign that this trend is abating.”

The violent protests this week by thousands from the core vote base of the incumbents only strengthens the contention that even a government which won the war cannot by extension harbour the belief that it can, carte blanche, do whatever it wants with public coffers through illiberal governance.

• Protests in Katunayake Free Trade Zone: No police in sight
• People are not a flock of sheep: The murder of a 21 year old by the Police
• WE REMEMBER after 21 years…
• Economic prospects in post-war Sri Lanka
• Monks of War – Al-Jazeera on the JHU

The 21 year old Free Trade Zone (FTZ) worker Roshan Chanaka, who was seriously injured during the clash between the police and the FTZ protesters on Monday, passed away mid-week to his deadly injuries. His death has now sent shock waves to the government. According to reliable sources, prominent cabinet ministers were seen at his residence this morning, shedding crocodile tears over Roshen’s death. It is reported that all the SLFP party organizers in Gampaha district are advised to attend his funeral and console his family members.

Giving a new twist to this controversy, IGP Mahinda Balasuriya has resigned from his portfolio. He has sent his retirement papers to the Ministry of Defence and has gone on leave with immediate effect. Senior DIG N.K. Illangakoon has taken over the duties as the acting Police Chief. Therefore, quite obviously, this cannot be considered as just another premature death caused by ‘misfortune’. It has toppled the top chair of the Police Department.

Apart from this tragic death, this brutal police attack against Free Trade Zone workers left more than 200 people injured. On Monday evening, Ragama and Negombo hospitals were flooded with injured protesters. It is, undoubtedly, one of the brutal crackdowns in recent history. There are several video footages which clearly show the barbaric and inhuman manner that some police officers carried out attacks against unarmed protesters. Those footages resembled the brutal crackdowns carried out by Libyan armed forces against civilians.

However, the Police Chief’s sudden resignation could arise several questions about his role in this entire scenario. Is he the one who ordered the police officers to open fire at unarmed protesters? Though he is the Police Chief, does he have the authority to make such a big decision at a crucial moment like this? Before seeking answers for these two questions, it is better if we can recall the common ‘prosody’ which they often chime when the Department of Police achieve something ‘good’ and ‘applaudable’. “…Under the directions of President Mahinda Rajapakshe and with the guidance and immense support from Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakshe…” Why cannot they sing this prosody now? What prevents them from chiming it? Doesn’t it resonate well with this particular incident? We can still remember how a top level official attached to the defense ministry gave ‘directions’ to a senior police officer during a protest carried out by minister Wimal Weerawansa against the three member panel appointed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. That particular incident, I believe, provides a decent answer to all the above questions. So it’s not so difficult to understand IGP’s role in this melodrama. He’s just a messenger who’s placed somewhere in-between ‘the top’ and ‘the bottom’ and he’s not permitted act in accordance with his own conscience. He’s not so different from you and me , after all !

This particular protest, done by Free Trade Zone workers in Katunayake, has given an unexpected shock therapy to the ‘big shots’ of the government who are intoxicated with power and high-handedness. It has sent them a clear-cut message about people’s agitation towards their snobbish political behavior.This political snobbishness and high-handedness stood behind all the blunders they made during the recent past. When media institutions and media personnel were attacked continuously and constantly, the government did not utter a hoot about any of these incidents. No serious investigations were conducted into these incidents and no serious approach was shown towards ensuring the safety of media personnel and media freedom. This is snobbishness.

This snobbishness was and is the main reason behind the entire ‘process’ against Former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka. This same snobbishness is the driving force behind violence against dissidents. It was the main factor and logic under the notorious 18th amendment.Snobbishness provided them confidence to come up with shameless constitutional amendments without any kind of hesitation or second thought. That is why they politicized all the independent bodies of this country, swiftly and diligently. That is why they crushed the backbone of democracy without any shame. That is why they murdered ‘freedom’ and ‘rights of the people’ in daylight. Snobbishness, with all its glory, prevails at the top above everything and everyone.

The snobbishness and highhandedness of the government encourages despotism. Despotism will always introduce kleptocratic policies, methods and rules. Despotism and kleptocracy go hand in hand all the time and Sri Lanka is gradually becoming a splendid example for that. The entire political domain is filled with motley fools and people who play hosannas for a self- proclaimed king. This appears like nothing but a black comedy in which humour arises from skepticism and cynicism. We all are struggling to get out of this stinking pool of mud.

Laws and legislative measures were drafted and passed above the head of the citizenry. The people were kept in dark about their ulterior and anterior motives. Citizenry was deceived and misled on many issues. The government’s policy was to cover up every problem, using the ‘splendour’ and ‘charm’ of one person. This splendor was created and nurtured by henchmen, stooges and other flunkies in Media. People are blindfolded and the government is taking them away just like a flock of sheep.

It is true that the present government has an overwhelming majority in the parliament and President Mahinda Rajapakshe is keeping everything under his jackboot. UNP, the main opposition party has been dismantled and struggling with their internal conflicts on a daily basis. JVP, on the other hand, did not obtain satisfactory results during recent elections. But this doesn’t mean that the government is in a position to dominate each and every sector of the society and make the people dance according to its whims and fancies. If someone thinks like that, it’s nothing but a fatal miscalculation. All the powerful rulers who proceeded with such miscalculations were dumped by people through out the history and it will, undoubtedly, be repeated in the future as well.

This agitation, which took place in Katunayake, sends an alert message to the government. It says that the people are awakening slowly and gradually from a long, deep slumber. People are trying to open their eyes, after some long years of hypnotism. People are rallying around to remove the jackboot of despotism, nepotism and corruption. No one can deceive everyone, everyday.

• The limits of the Mahinda Chintanaya: FTZ workers and Buddhist monks rise up against government
• “I want to continue to highlight the activities against the humanity” | Gnanasundaram Kuganathan
• Protests in Katunayake Free Trade Zone: No police in sight
• The killing of journalists and the Media Minister’s comments
• Bearing Witness: Submit content on IDPs and Police brutality to win a Flip Ultra video camera

Vikalpa captured these images and video at the protest held yesterday in the Katunayake Free Trade Zone. Tens of thousands of workers have been involved in violent demonstrations this week against a proposed pension bill seen as grossly unfair. Over 200 were injured on Monday alone, by Tuesday, the demonstrations forced the closure of 70% of the factories in the zone, forcing the government to withdraw the bill. In March, the government noted how it would benefit the working classes,

Referring to President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s recent statement on the proposed pension scheme in Parliament, Labour Minister Gamini Lokuge told the Sunday Observer that the Bill will be presented in Parliament next month. The working class in the country will be provided a permanent income for life after retirement under this scheme. “Although the private sector pension scheme issue was discussed with trade unions in the past, it would definitely be introduced this time in keeping with the Mahinda Chintana concept, he said.

Guess the Mahinda Chintana concept didn’t resonate with the workers who would have been most affected by the provisions in the bill. As this article noted,

“Under current Sri Lankan labour law, women can withdraw their full savings from the statutory welfare funds when they marry, or reach 50 years of age. If the pension scheme is introduced they will have to work for at least 10 years first, and will not be entitled to payments until they turn 60. And instead of a lump sum, they will get a small monthly pension, estimated to be only about 1,900 rupees ($US17.27) per month for the low-paid garment workers. Most of the country’s 250,000 garment factory workers will lose out altogether because they work, on average, for just five years. Moreover, the pension funds will be managed by the central bank, which will invest in the stock market, providing a new source of capital for speculation by the banks and financial institutions. In addition, the scheme will take 4 percent of workers’ salaries (2 percent from workers and 2 percent from employers), in effect cutting wages.”

Police fired live ammunition at the protestors, killing one and forcing the Inspector General of Police, due to retire on 18th June, to step down from his post with immediate effect on Wednesday.

On the 1st of June, protests had spread to Colombo.

Yesterday, the protests were directed largely against the Police brutality and anchored to the death of the FTZ worker. Vikalpa’s citizen journalists who were on the scene said that there wasn’t a policeman in sight, and those maintaining civil order amidst the unrest were from the Special Task Force (STF) and the Army.

A video of this protest can be seen below. A longer version will be placed here anon.

• Stanley Rd Closure Affects Traders In Jaffna
• Abolition or reform of Executive Presidency in Sri Lanka?
• A timeline of duplicity: Promises to abolish the Executive Presidency
• The protest by Wimal Weerawansa against the UN in Sri Lanka: Condoned by government?
• Katunayake Protest as an Invitation to Political Economy

Admirably, the Government was kind and open enough to provide a live web feed of the proceedings of the three day Defeating Terrorism: Sri Lankan Experience seminar, held in Colombo. This allowed for non-invitees and non-participants like us to monitor the saccharine presentations via the web, flagging inconsistencies as well as inconvenient truths that were unsurprisingly left out or marginalised in the proceedings.

Often tongue-in-cheek but flagging serious issues and concerns, our updates over Twitter and on this site were anchored to content presented at the seminar by a range of government and army representatives. We published a key address by Australian counter-terrorism expert David Kilcullen on Day One and, given it’s official stance, rather surprising comments by the US Embassy’s Defence Attache on Day Two. On day three, the final day of the seminar, we listened in real time to the presentations by Ajith Nivard Cabraal, Governor of the Central Bank, Lalith Weeratunge, Permanent Secretary to the President of Sri Lanka and Chairman of the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission and the closing remarks of the seminar by Rohan Gunaratna, who according to Wikipedia is “an international terrorism expert”.

Most of our live tweeting occurred today listening to these presentations, where we pointed out the divide between what was presented and the reality on the ground plus stories and information that placed in context some of the false or misleading assertions that were made, particularly regarding economic development, the use and spread of ICTs, the rehabilitation of former LTTE cadre and the conditions in Menik Farm immediately after the war.

All our updates are presented below for easy reference. We also did a screencast of the video presentation made today on the Sri Lankan army’s contributions to UN Peacekeeping missions.

• Northern Local Government Elections
• How Sri Lanka Defeated Terrorism, Defence Seminar: Observations from a participant
• Post-election updates from Colombo
• US Defence Attache’s observations on the end of war in Sri Lanka (Updated with US State Department response)
• History is Irreversible – A ‘Postmortem’ on the Seminar, “Defeating Terrorism: Sri Lankan Experience”