ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY FOR PEACE IS LOST!!!

Another opportunity for peace is lost
by Shanie

NOTEBOOK OF A NOBODY

One of the critical elements in military operations is the management of information, or as is more the case, disinformation management. In the early years of our current war, disinformation was almost the monopoly of the LTTE. They were able to convince the Tamil diaspora and indeed many of the local Tamil population that they were truly liberation fighters saving the Tamils from a racist Sinhala army. Today, security forces, the defence establishment and their spokespersons and apologists are equally engaged in the disinformation war. We are told the military operations are going according to plan, that almost every day some "key strategic" town has been taken from LTTE control, scores of LTTE cadres have been killed with hardly any loss of civilian lives and army losses only minimal. Tamil websites quote LTTE spokespersons as saying that hundreds of soldiers have been killed, several hundreds more injured and list arms and equipment taken from the army.

This is why the international media reporting both military claims and LTTE reports always add a rider that there are no independent sources to verify the accuracy of rival claims. This is a pity. The result of the disinformation war is to polarize the community – the ethno-nationalists on both sides will readily accept, if not believe, the version put out by the spokespersons of their side of the ethnic divide. The more discerning will take both claims with a large pinch of salt; they may have their own sources of independent information and know the truth lies somewhere in between. But the vast majority will remain confused. With no alternate untainted sources of information, they will be confused as to why the claims of the spokespersons are not reflected in the actual ground situation.

We now know that military operations have, for both sides, not been going as they would have wished. Over the last couple of weeks, the casualties (killed and injured) have been significantly high. This will also mean increased trauma and a drop in morale. This is why we believe that the Government lost an opportunity by rejecting out of hand the call by the Bishops for a temporary truce. We do not know if the Bishops’ call reached the LTTE but, irrespective of its response, the Government would have done well to respond positively and call upon the Bishops to follow on their offer to act as facilitators. This would have thrown the ball squarely into the court of the LTTE and placed the Bishops as arbiters of a truce. But more importantly, a temporary truce would have given a respite to the war weary and also enabled the security forces to pause to re-strategise. No doubt, this would equally have given the LTTE cadres also a respite. But with falling numbers and fighting on so many fronts, the LTTE would not have been able to re-group as they did in earlier cease-fires. Given the reality of the ground situation, it would have been to the advantage of the security forces to accept a pause in military operations. Besides, it would have raised the standing of the Government among the local civil society and the international community, whose support, despite all the rhetoric, the Government sorely needs today.


Confrontation with the Judiciary

The norms of good governance and our own Constitution provide for the separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers. The traditional view that this separation is strictly to be exclusive of each other is no longer valid and does not provide for good governance. Some overlapping is necessary and that is why our Constitution provides for public interest litigation and allows the judiciary to determine both on legislative proposals as also on executive action. It is in this light that we must view the recent interventions by the Supreme Court on a variety of issues. These interventions have always been as a result of litigation initiated by interested parties, where the Supreme Court was called upon to determine executive action that infringed upon fundamental rights. However, the latest Supreme Court order in respect of the price of petrol has provoked a strong reaction by the President. This reaction must also be understood in the light of the pending determination by the Supreme Court in respect of the non appointment by the President of the Constitutional Council in terms of the Constitution.

Even if anyone believes that some of the specific interventions have tended to violate the strict separation of the powers of the Legislature, the Executive and Judiciary, it has to be acknowledged that all the recent interventions by the Supreme Court on public interest litigation has received general popular approval. By defying the Supreme Court order, the entire cabinet of ministers not only run the risk of contempt of court but court electoral unpopularity. ‘Corruption Watch’ and ‘Defence Watch’ are visible signs that people are now prepared to come out into the open to express dissatisfaction with the way they are being governed. The action by the Supreme Court on the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation’s hedging deal only confirms the mismanagement and lack of professionalism in many areas of governance that was first exposed by the Committee on Public Enterprises that was then headed by Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe.

Many had the impression that President Rajapaksa had a sense of the pulse of the people. But his recent actions and statements, particularly in respect fellow parliamentarians challenging him and the most recent Supreme Court order, suggest that he is losing that sense. It requires only one or two mistakes to turn from being an idol to becoming a villain. Hitherto suppressed views on corruption, increasing authoritarianism, non-compliance with the provisions of the 17th Amendment, the waste that goes with a bloated set of ministers and advisors, increasing lawlessness and violence in the country, etc could come into the open. The excuse that all other matters should be subservient to the war against the LTTE cannot be sustained for long. President Rajapaksa must therefore tread cautiously in trying to take on the Supreme Court whose actions are by all accounts universally popular.


Gore Vidal on the US Presidency


Gore Vidal, the well-known writer, is a strong critic of the present US President George W Bush. He visited Cuba recently and was interviewed by a senior journalist. To a question as to what was necessary to re-establish (order and good governance) in the US, he had some very caustic comments which our own leaders could profitably take note of:

‘Listen to the great words of our greatest president, Mr. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, at his first inauguration. The country was collapsing, economically the banks were coming down, money was short, and he struck a great political note which other presidents have generally imitated, until we get down to this junta, he said "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." That is the basis of the Republic. Don’t be taken in by fear. There are people who make money out of fear. That’s their job, just to frighten.

‘I am not for real revolutions, because they always bring you the opposite of what you want. The French Revolution brought the world Napoleon Bonaparte, Louis XVI after all, was not as bad as that. So you very seldom get what you want if you have a violent revolution. I think we’re going to have one due to economic collapse

‘There was a headline in one of the big American papers the other day that the army was begging the administration for money. They don’t have the money to make fools of themselves in Baghdad. They’ve got to raise it somewhere; we have no tax revenues because all the rich people have been exempted from tax as well as corporations. It used to be that 50% of the revenues of the Federal government came from the taxes on corporate profits. Its about 8% now, they’ve just eliminated it. Corporations don’t pay tax and rich people don’t either. So they’ve not only helped all their rich friends who now have enough money to finance the Republican Party with billions of dollars so they can tell lies about anybody in the country and pretend that the patriots of the country are traitors. It’s a very good trick both economically for them and it’s a bad trick on us real Americans, we don’t like it. We’ve lost the Bill of Rights; we lost the Magna Carta, on which all of our liberties are based for 700 years. No, it’s not been an amusing time.’


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