Let not SAITM, garbage and dengue issues go out of hand

 

Assault on the students may have been too harsh, but the question remains as to whether a legally elected government can just wait when a gang of students forcibly enters into a state department, chases its staff out and totally disrupts the work. Whoever is against SAITM has the right to protest against it in a legitimate way without trespassing into government buildings or disrupting public life

By Gamini Abeywardane

Collapse of Meethotamulla garbage mount two months ago was not only a disaster by itself, but also a harbinger of many more misfortunes to come. Two months down the line as the clamour over it subsided, a new issue of garbage has begun sending shock waves across the political spectrum – this time it’s over the inability of the authorities to ensure efficient garbage collection in Colombo and some parts of its suburbs.

While the government is trying hard to resolve the issue, the situation has become worse with high incidence of dengue which now has taken epidemic proportions resulting in many deaths and severe shortage of hospital beds. Accumulation of garbage in various points in the city is not due to any collection or transport issue, but because of the lack of a place to dump them even temporarily.

With outbreak of dengue there is stiff public protest against dumping garbage close to residential areas. Promises by politicians to recycle such garbage within a short period are no longer acceptable to people mainly because authorities have failed to keep to their promises in the past.

With nearly 70,000 suspected cases of dengue claiming over 100 lives during the last six months of the year, garbage collection too seems to be in the centre of the whole issue. While the government is facing this monumental problem, the issue over South Asia Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) took a new turn with protesting students forcibly entering the headquarters of the health ministry on Wednesday. They occupied four floors of the building and sent the staff out totally disrupting the work and asking for a meeting with the health minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne.

This unhealthy development warranted the authorities to call in police and STF personnel to control the situation and the ensuing confrontation resulted in injuries to 96 people including six police personnel. Protesting against the assault on students the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) launched a strike paralyzing the work in most hospitals.

The GMOA said that decision to launch an indefinite strike was taken for two reasons, firstly for protesting against the brutal attack on university students who protested at the Health Ministry and secondly for not extending the tenure of Professor Carlo Fonseka as the Chairman of the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC), a decision taken by Health Minister.

Assault on the students may have been too harsh, but the question remains as to whether a legally elected government can just wait when a gang of students forcibly enters into a state department, chases its staff out and totally disrupts the work. Whoever is against SAITM has the right to protest against it in a legitimate way without trespassing into government buildings or disrupting public life

Irrespective of the cause they fight for protestors have no right to disrupt the work of a government department and destroy its property. Moreover, if this kind of nonsense is tolerated it will become fashionable for any trade union to take the law into their hands and invade any state or private institution disrupting their work and such behaviour is not tolerated anywhere in the world.

The GMOA or any other organization has no moral right to defend this kind of illegal action by the student protestors. For a strike by a trade union to be legal, it should be for a valid cause connected to their trade. Although the SAITM issue is connected to the medical profession this particular criminal action by the students – trespass, damaging state property and obstructing the work of government servants is not connected to a trade union right. Then it has to be equally illegal to launch a strike in defence of an illegal action.

The other reason the GMOA has cited for the strike action is also far beyond their lawful trade union rights. It is a lawful right of the minister of health to extend or not extend the tenure of the chairman of the SLMC after he has completed the period for which he has been appointed. Nobody has a right to force the minister to extend the tenure or to reappoint him for another term for which there is a different procedure.

The sudden nature of the strike is another thing that may raise issues. The GMOA says that they had warned that there could be a strike at any time, but whether such general warning could be taken as notice for a particular strike is questionable. Ideally there has to be separate and sufficient notice before each strike.

Timing of the GMOA strike

The worse aspect of the whole strike drama is its timing. All hospitals in the country both government and private are full of dengue patients and there is a severe shortage of space as well as medical personnel and on moral grounds this may be the worse time to launch such a strike. Doctors who are supposed to be members of a noble profession should be well aware of these ethical issues.

If SAITM’s standards are not adequate they can be upgraded and formulating and implementing proper standards for medical education is the responsibility of the government and the SLMC. Undermining the whole idea of private medical education under the guise of protesting against SAITM should not be tolerated.

Private medical education

Private medical education has grown extensively in many countries that were far behind Sri Lanka in overall education standards a few decades ago and the worst is that a large number of students from our country join medical schools in these countries annually resulting in a massive loss of foreign exchange to the country. 

Despite phenomenal growth in the private sector medical care with many modern hospitals coming up throughout the country, we are lagging far behind in private sector medical education. This happened because the first such attempt in the eighties had to be abandoned in the face of mounting student protests and no genuine effort was made to venture into this area for several years thereafter.

This lacuna is quite evident when one looks at the phenomenal growth of private sector higher education in other fields including engineering. The growing demand for private sector education is quite clear from the number of international schools operating in the country at present. 

The SLMC is a pivotal institution in this whole exercise and it is well known that its current board headed by Prof. Carlo Fonseka has not been quite helpful in amicably resolving this matter and has refused to recognize the SAITM graduates despite Court of Appeal direction to do so. They have already appealed against the Court of Appeal order. 

It is natural for the GMOA to try their best to keep Prof. Carlo Fonseka in the seat so that they can continue to block the entry of SAITM graduates into the medical profession. Thus the ulterior motive behind the GMOA strike is more than clear and the government should decide whether it is going to leave the fate of the private medical education in the hands of few people in the GMOA. 

The sudden medical strike is yet another blow on the government which is surrounded by many issues – the SAITM issue, dengue outbreak, the garbage problem and racial tension against Muslims. Some of these are long standing issues and the failure to resolve them within a reasonable time does not augur well for the Yahapalana government in whom people placed much hope. Whatever the real difficulties may be any further delay to resolve these festering issues will result in a situation where people will lose confidence in the system while the country will increasingly become non governable.

Most of the protesting students have boycotted lectures during the last several months and the increasing frustration could result in worse behaviour by these students in the future. This could provide the golden opportunity to the Inter University Students Federation and other destructive elements to enlist more full time members and expand their movements. If timely action is not taken to stem these developments this could become a worse headache for the government in the future.

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Acts of racism: A slur on reconciliation

 

 

 

By Gamini Abeywardane

The need to curb acts of communal violence including attacks on places of business establishments belonging to Muslims came up for discussion before the cabinet of ministers this week.

Following the cabinet meeting Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in a special statement said that the Government would bring in new laws to stop religious and ethnic violence, if needed. He said this would be done in line with the policy of the current government and the pledge given by President Maithripala Sirisena when he was elected to office in 2015.

That was a direct reference to the policy of reconciliation, an idea that received wide support from all communities at the time the new government was voted into power. Communal violence of any form would be quite contrary to the idea of reconciliation which is a sine qua non for the economic development of the country.

He said that the police have been asked to take action against those who have attacked Islamic places of worship and business establishments belonging to Muslims, and also to arrest those who are engaged in religious and ethnic violence.  

If we are to stop repetition of the incidents that culminated in a bitter ethnic war which put our country behind by several decades economically, it is important to stem this type of tendencies right now. Bodu Bala Sena and various such organizations have been accused of incidents of arson and mayhem particularly against the Muslim community. These organizations have denied any involvement in these incidents, but it is up to the law enforcement authorities to find the real culprits whoever they are and take strict action against them.

The genesis of these organisations lie in the post war euphoria and the attitudes developed along with that. Buoyed by war victory those with communal inclinations would have thought that we have taught a lesson to the Tamils and shouldn’t we now teach a lesson to the Muslims as well.

 

They were blissfully ignorant that despite the presence of Islamic terrorist groups like IS, Hamas or Al Qaeda, elsewhere in the world, Muslims in Sri Lanka have been a peaceful lot traditionally concentrating on trading while younger generations have moved into higher education as well.

One thing that is clear is that after end of the war the country has been free of terrorism while in most other countries including Britain, the US and France there have been devastating acts of terrorism undermining day to day life as well as discouraging tourism and investment.

After many years of war and terrorism we are starving for foreign investments while tourism has just begun to pick registering satisfactory levels of growth over the last few years. Despite many other issues, both political and economic, one positive thing in or country is absence of terrorism and the prevailing peace.

In this context any person or organization that engages in any acts leading to destruction of that peace will be indirectly helping to breed terrorism and in the long run will be working for destruction of our country. Therefore, despite whatever claims of patriotism, people who act in a way to destroy amity among communities will be an obstacle in the way of reconciliation as well as the progress of the country.

Whenever accusations are levelled against these extremist elements in the south for their racist acts, they in turn make similar accusations against racists in the north and call for legal action against them as well.

Quite strangely Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and Tamil National Alliance (TNA) despite their characteristic differences seem to have much in common. This became clear some time ago when some draft legislation was prepared by the government to ban hate speech. Both groups argued that the proposed legislation would be contrary to freedom of speech.

The two anti-hate speech draft bills presented in Parliament at that time sought to amend the Penal code and the Criminal Procedure Code criminalising by interpretation anything said that could allegedly instigate communal violence and disharmony.

BBS lodged an official protest at the Human Rights Commission against these proposed laws on the ground they violated freedom of expression recognised by the constitution. TNA had reportedly called for the withdrawal of the Penal Code (Amendment) Bill, placed on the Order Paper, citing that its provisions were identical to those of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).

Whatever is their opinion on this matter one thing that is clear is that both parties seem to represent some extreme views to suit their own politics. Right thinking people however, believe that such hate speech that instigate violence and create religious, racial or communal disharmony should not be allowed in a modern civilised society. We in our country have enough examples of such speech leading to violence in distant past as well as in recent times.

Freedom of speech like every other freedom recognised by law should have exceptions. The best example is that just because we enjoy freedom of speech and expression, the law does not allow one to use it in a way that will defame or harm the reputation of another person or use abusive language to cause mental harm to another.

Although in our country hate speech has not yet been banned many countries in the world including the US, most of Europe, India, South Africa and Singapore have done so. Such legislation is of paramount importance to ensure peace and harmony particularly in multi-religious and multi-racial countries like ours.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which is a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly states that "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law".

Realising the importance of peaceful co-existence among different ethnic groups for the future economic development of the country the new government immediately after coming into power placed much emphasis on reconciliation. A special unit functioning under the guidance of former President Chandrika Kumaratunga has been working towards achieving these goals and the reemergence of communal and racial violence can be the biggest impediment to this exercise.

In this back ground anti-hate speech laws become much relevant as we are getting ready to find a lasting solution to our ethnic issue through constitutional means.  After all having a peaceful country is far more important than having all sorts of freedoms that would destroy such peace.

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Will the sticky issue of executive presidency block the new constitution?

 

By Gamini Abeywardane

Two years on, a constitutional solution to the minority issue, one of the electoral promises of the yahapalana government is far from being a reality. The ongoing constitution making process in the parliament has made some progress with regard to the degree of devolution – a sticky issue in the past, while the process has slowed down due to issues not related to devolution.

One such major issue seems to be the abolition of the executive presidency. Since Chandrika Kumaratunga government of 1994, all presidents came to power promising to abolish the executive presidency. But subsequently all of them either abandoned or postponed the issue depending on other political priorities, personal agendas or hunger for power. 

However, the difference this time over, is that the Yahapalana government of Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe was voted into power on the strength of a broad coalition which included minority parties and the promise of abolishing the executive presidency was one of the key elements in their agenda. Yet, the slow pace of the constitutional process makes one wonder whether the same thing is going to happen this time as well.

The constitution making process that was activated through the parliament first got delayed due to emotive issues like giving the foremost place to Buddhism and the use of the word ‘unitary’ in the constitution. However, subsequently there seem to be some progress even in these seemingly difficult areas.

For example, section 9 of the current constitution gives the foremost place to Buddhism while it also gives due recognition to all other religions and guarantees freedom of thought and religious belief.  There has been general agreement from all quarters including the Tamil and other minority parties to leave these provisions as they are.

Unitary state

Then the other issue was devolving power to the periphery while retaining the unitary nature of the constitution. It has been argued by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that the use of the word ‘unitary’ in the English text of the constitution could lead to wrong judicial interpretations undermining the very idea of devolution of power.  Therefore, they have suggested the use of the Sinhala word ‘Ekeeya’ in the English text as well, so that any future judicial interpretation will have to be made purely on the provisions and the structure of the constitution and not on the basis of one word.

If agreed, these suggestions may overcome some of the unwanted disputes thereby giving more priority to other important aspects such as the abolition of the executive presidency, introduction of a second chamber and the structure of the government in a way that will lead to a permanent solution of the long standing ethnic issue. 

Where devolving power to the periphery is concerned now with the provincial councils already in operation what is needed is to finalise matters with regard to some of the controversial areas like the concurrent list and what sort of police and land powers are to be devolved. Strange enough already there seem to be some agreement on these issues.

Despite the broad principles agreed upon by the political parties that joined together to defeat the previous government and form the yahapalana government, there seem to be no agreement between the SLFP and the UNP over the issue of abolishing the executive presidency. The idea is strongly backed by the JVP and several other small political parties including the Communist Party of Sri Lanka except the Joint Opposition which is likely to oppose any major change in the constitution.

Although there has not been any official stance yet from the SLFP, individually some of the SLFP members of the cabinet have made statements opposing any major constitutional change that will require a referendum. Their argument is that it will not be easy to win such a referendum. But, there are also serious doubts as to whether such stance is just a lame excuse to continue with the executive presidency.

Referendum

Meanwhile, fairly early in the constitutional process the TNA leader R Sampanthan had made it clear that for any constitutional change resolving the ethnic issue to be successful, it should have the approval of the people at a referendum.  

He said the sovereignty is vested with the people and hence it was essential to get the people’s support. He elaborated his position by saying “There can be a new constitution for the country, only if it is approved by the people of the country.”

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe also has endorsed this idea saying that the leader of the TNA accepted that the support of the majority community was essential to enact a new constitution.  Across the board there had been general agreement among parties represented in parliament that a referendum was necessary.

The provision for referenda which was introduced for the first time in our country by the 1978 Constitution was believed to be an enhancement on democracy that existed up to that time. In a representative democracy elected members legislate on behalf of the people. But, when it comes to a matter of utmost national importance a referendum enables the people to get involved directly and approve or disapprove it.

However, ironically this provision was used by its architect President J R Jayewardene in 1982 to extend the life of the parliament by another term without holding a general election because he wanted to preserve the two thirds majority he enjoyed at the time. An idea for a referendum never came up thereafter.

Thirty five years later it has surfaced again and the difference this time is that if a referendum is to be held, for the first time it is going to be for its original intended purpose – to decide a matter of great importance to the country. There cannot be anything more important than a Constitution, more so when it is intended to resolve some long standing national issues.

Sampanthan is right in favouring the idea of a referendum because even if everything is agreed upon in parliament some parties are likely to challenge the constitutional bill in the Supreme Court on the basis that it is not possible to amend or replace some of the sections of the current Constitution without a referendum. A court ruling in favour of such a petition would be a definite disadvantage for the proponents of such a Constitution.

The country has already tested two homemade Constitutions but none of them has succeeded in resolving the vexed national issue. Both these documents were drafted to suit the needs of the governments at the time, hurriedly passed in parliament and therefore lacked adequate public discussion or general approbation of the people.

This is going to be independent Sri Lanka’s third Constitution and now it is time for the country to agree on a permanent document.  Sufficient public discussion and extensive involvement of all political parties in Parliament are a sine qua non, if we are to come up with the right document. 

 A referendum will be the best way to ensure such debate and discussion while any piece of legislation directly approved by the people in that manner will have the legitimacy that is needed to give some sense of permanency for such a document in the minds of the people.

 

 

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Frequent disasters: A new political challenge

 

By Gamini Abeywardane

With hundreds dead and thousands stranded and an unprecedented disaster due to floods enveloping the nation, the question as to how prepared we are to face such an emergency situation has been dominating the minds of practically everyone.

We have faced disasters in the past, the tsunami of 2004 being the worst and the most recent disasters included the floods in 2016 May, earth slip at Aranayake, Salawa armoury blast and Meethotamulla garbage dump collapse.

Each time a calamity takes place it is customary that we talk about the need for strengthening our disaster management capabilities and the need for being really prepared. But the question is how practical we have been in our approach?  Is merely having a disaster management ministry and a task force enough for the purpose?

When we look at the recent disasters particularly the floods and its impact on citizens – the death toll and destruction to property, it is clear that our own contribution to the volume of damage is extremely high. These are mostly due to unplanned development such as highways and unauthorized construction and illegal settlement of people along riverbanks often with the backing of the politicians of the areas.

The severe impact of the floods is due to many reasons. Often the politicians try to put the blame on the change of weather pattern, conveniently forgetting the other reasons which are mostly man-made. The unprecedentedly high rainfall in certain areas may be due to change of weather pattern, but the impact of this would have been increased manifold due to wrongly done mega developments.

No doubt that the highways are a necessity for the development of the country. But some parts of these highways which according to the original plans were supposed to be constructed on pillars have been constructed on sand fillings blocking natural drain of water into the sea causing floods. It is alleged that flooding in Ja Ela and Kaduwela areas were aggravated due to this type of highway construction.

The other reasons that made the flood situation worse are adverse development on the river valleys. The natural ponds and water absorbing buffer zones along rivers have been used for development or construction of houses. When these low lands are blocked with constructions the natural result is floods destroying the whole area.

Unauthorised constructions

As already proposed stringent laws are now necessary to remove unauthorised constructions and to evacuate people who are unwilling to leave areas declared as danger zones in the face of a natural disaster. The vote-based political culture where local politicians collude with wrong doers in order to win the votes should also change forthwith, if we are to correct this situation.

Future development projects, however vital they may be for the economic advancement, should be undertaken carefully with due consideration for impact on environment. Similarly, the haphazard expediting and change of vital aspects of infrastructure development projects with the idea of completing them within a certain period with specific political objectives should also stop. Thus all mega development projects should be treated as national projects and not taken as pet projects of any political leaders designed for their personal glory.   

Up to now disaster preparation has been limited to affairs of one ministry with arrangements for some task force to get into action and to get the logistical support of the three armed forces and police to evacuate those in danger or to rescue the affected. But if we are to mitigate the impact of these unfortunate acts of the nature, there is much to be done by way of proper planning and implementation and now it has become more urgent because of the increased frequency of these disasters.
Some disasters like the Meethotamulla incident or the Salawa explosion could have been prevented if right action had been taken at the right time. However, there are disasters over which we have no control, yet their impact could be mitigated if proper plans are in place. When a major disaster takes place and people are affected it has to be managed and that is what we have been trying to do all these days and less attention has been paid for the removal of factors that have contributed to multiply the effects of these incidents.
As we have just begun talking about introducing special legislation to enable authorities to evacuate people from disaster prone areas, it is interesting to note how Bangladesh a few days ago moved to evacuate nearly one million people from low-lying areas as powerful tropical cyclone Mora pounded the country's southern coastline.
Our experience here is that despite warnings people are not ready to move out of danger areas mainly because people have no alternative places to go and it is practically difficult for them to do so, on their own. This shows that there has to be some mechanism with state involvement to remove people from danger areas. Perhaps Bangladesh which confidently undertook to remove such a massive number of people has some mechanism in place and it’s time to learn from the experience of such countries.
Weather forecast

The inability of our Meteorology Department to give an accurate weather forecast has also been highlighted these days probably as a way of making someone the scapegoat for failures of others. It was pointed out that the damage caused by natural disasters, including floods, could have been avoided in the past if institutions such as the Department of Meteorology had been modernised.

It is pertinent to recall that in 2012 then minister of disaster management boasted that a new Doppler radar system would be installed at Gongala Kanda in Deniyaya and with that advancement Sri Lankans could go out with an umbrella when the Met Department predicts rain and without one if it predicts good weather. However, five years down the line we are still in the same predicament even after having spent much on new technology. The system, for whatever reason is not functional and this time too accurate predictions have not been possible.

It is reported that there had been some malpractices in the purchase and installation of that system and some damage had been caused to the machine during the installation process and it had been lying idle for few years before it was sent to the manufacturer for repairs. That is a clear example for the kind of priority that has been given for accurate weather forecast in our country although these things are given much priority in discussions whenever floods wreak havoc in some part of the country. 

That shows there is something fundamentally wrong in the way we work and despite all good intentions there are reasonable doubts as to whether we as a country will be capable of putting in place a proper disaster preparedness mechanism even in another five years. At the rate things are happening there could be many more disasters by that time.

A proper disaster mechanism is much more than mere weather forecast. Such an arrangement should include the participation of all relevant authorities such as the UDA, local authorities, police and armed forces, departments of health, irrigation and meteorology as well as presidential secretariat backed by a proper legislative mechanism which can be activated during an emergency.
All in all, preparedness for this type of disasters is as important as developing the country’s economy. It is the same people who are supposed to be beneficiaries of economic development that becomes victims of disaster situations when development plans are implemented in disregard of environmental impact.

Some politicians have already started blaming the previous administration for floods caused in certain areas due to haphazardly undertaken infrastructure projects. However, these developments are not reversible and now there is a strong need for a complete non-political approach in dealing with this problem on a long term basis. What is necessary now is the political will on the part of the current administration to take the vital decisions that are necessary to minimize the harmful effects of both natural and man-made disasters.

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

     

     

 

     

     

 

 

     

     

 

 

     

     

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