Editorial

In the faraway continent of Latin America, a peace treaty between the Government and a rebel group has been rejected by the majority of the people.

The Government of Colombia and the ‘Revolutionary’ (a euphemism sometimes for a terrorist group) Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) agreed to a ceasefire and signed a peace package that included land reform, jobs, subsidised agricultural support, light sentences for senior guerrilla commanders and seats in Congress in return for a cocktail of issues including the stoppage of murders, kidnappings and bombings, and disengagement in the country’s notorious narcotic trade.

But the ‘No’ vote pipped the “Si” vote at a referendum and now the Government is desperately trying to salvage the peace accord that was to end more than 50 years of civil strife in that idyllic South American nation – the oldest running civil war in the world. At one time in its recent history, Colombia was split into three parts – one part run by FARC, another by narco drug cartels led by the infamous Escoba, and the Government controlling only one part of the country. No one was spared – from senior Government figures to ordinary folk, people were getting killed like flies in their thousands. There was an exodus of Colombians to neighbouring countries that had imposed visas to restrict the inflow of refugees. It was a situation far worse than what prevailed in Sri Lanka. The Colombian Government almost lost control of the state apparatus; anarchy was rampant.

There were striking similarities too with Sri Lanka of yesteryear; mostly, the scourge of terrorism.

With the end of the cold war, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Marxist-Leninist FARC lost its sponsorship (somewhat like when India closed the tap on the LTTE after the assassination of its one-time PM Rajiv Gandhi). Then came a heavy-handed regrouped Government military campaign against the guerrillas in their jungle hide-outs and the killings of their senior leaders. Hit from both ends, FARC moved in desperation to the lucrative cocaine business seeking funding which raised the ire of the United States to which most of the drugs were exported.

FARC realised, however, the end was nigh, and went into peace talks with the Government brokered interestingly by one-time adversaries, the US and Cuba. Even the Pope hailed the peace accord and on Friday night the Colombian president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Why then have the people of Colombia rejected the peace accord? Do they not want peace? Or is this not peace with honour? Do they not want reconciliation and a united Colombia?

The answers are not straightforward: the peace deal was promoted by the elitist liberal-minded “good guys” at the centre of power, while the ordinary people saw things more cynically. The latter felt FARC was a spent-force anyway, gasping for breath. They felt the guerrillas would rot in the jungles and were getting off lightly for the atrocious crimes they had committed over decades. The reign of terror they had unleashed had got under the skin of the vast majority of the people. Reconciliation with these ‘murderers’, they felt, was a pipe-dream.

There is a point of departure here with the situation in Sri Lanka. The LTTE is completely vanquished. It does not come into the equation now as a terrorist group. Reconciliation is not necessarily objected to by the vast mass of the people of Sri Lanka, but devolution of power is viewed with extreme suspicion in the South. The recent ‘Eluha Thamil’ (Rise Tamil) uprising, if one can call it an uprising, has only raised or rekindled those suspicions.

These demonstrations in the North organised by those now having the freedom to engage in democratic politics with the defeat of the LTTE, and the vituperative and racial language used only helped stoke the dying embers from the ashes of the LTTE. In the circumstances, it would be naïve for the Government to pack up its Security Forces and Intelligence units from the North and leave just yet.

The scuttled Colombian peace accord and the West Asian peace accords of the past have shown that the International Community (usually the West), whether having its own agenda or however bona fide is divorced from the ground realities and wishes of the majority of the people. The Brexit vote earlier in the United Kingdom also showed very clearly that these days, the people are reluctant to trust their Governments – even if they voted them into power and place.

 People paying for colossal blunders 

It was announced this week by the Minister of Finance that the people of this country will have to fork out as much as Rs. 25 billion for aircraft that were ordered by the previous Government for the national carrier, but which are found to be of no use to the debt-strapped airline.

This payment had to be made in default of a contract signed for what the new dispensation at SriLankan Airlines say were long-haul aircraft not needed for the airline’s current routes. What the people could do with this money is mind-boggling. While the Minister maybe somewhat exaggerating when he says we could have built another Mahaveli project with that money, he makes the point. How many rural schools can have science labs, hospitals have the equipment they so desperately need, in fact the airline could have even run for months without further burdening the Treasury, giving discounted tickets in the process.

The Minister, however, did not say who was responsible for this loss – and if so, why nobody has even been questioned for this order, leave alone charge-sheeted and put behind bars if found to have made a buck out of the deal. On the other hand, the airline’s incumbent Board has swept things under the carpet and rejected any criminal liability for those responsible for this terrible miscalculation.

There has been a history of bungling by state ventures that has escaped the scrutiny it deserves.  Soon after the Central Bank bombing in 1995, the UDA together with Ceylinco launched a joint project to re-design the Colombo Fort area as a Financial Centre with a Government-backed guarantee to a US company, Evans International. The Government reneged on the contract and ended up paying some US$ 450 million as compensation – for nothing. In the CPC oil hedging case, more than Rs. 8 billion was paid to foreign commercial banks and millions were lost in counsel fees and travel for arbitration proceedings. In the Greek Bonds case, again millions of US dollars amounting to billions of rupees were coughed up. Where are those responsible for these colossal blunders?

The Supreme Court went into some of these dubious deals, but those responsible got off scot-free without even going to Remand Prison for a week, while those going in now seem to have committed ‘petty theft’ in comparison. How have the corruption busters got their priorities in such a tangle?