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The people’s bafflement: How do you solve a problem like Sirisena?
If there is one tragic flaw in Maithripala Sirisena’s get up, it is his habitual tendency to absolve himself of all knowledge and thus responsibility to the nation when the first whiff of trouble blows in the air or the first whistle of controversy is blown at dusk to alert opposition hounds to bear their fangs and go for the kill when they smell Sirisena blood in the offing.
President: I didn’t know
His escape route, his favoured ruse: Constant reference to his ignorance as an all-redeeming, face-saving, eye-washing excuse. But he is only fooling himself for, unbeknown to him, he fools none.
Sad to say, he has become so accustomed to passing the buck that it has become second nature to him now to profess ignorance, even as the “I don’t know’ theme has become the signature tune of one of his more infamous cabinet ministers.
Perhaps he thinks – when he pathetically says that certain government decisions of great import have been taken without his knowledge, whenever it is shown to have turned sour later – his pathetic ignorance of what’s happening around him will stand him in good light in the nation’s eyes and will make the people’s tear drop fall in sympathy with his pathetic plight as to his pathetic helplessness. What he probably and pathetically fails to realise is how pathetically he sounds when he stands on that presidential pedestal and bleats in such pathetic impotence born of such pathetic self-confessed ignorance. It is not a tear jerking statement of defence. But an admittance of gross failure, even, though in his profound ignorance he fails to fathom how pathetically he stands in the nation’s contemptuous countenance: a people giving him the side eye to his lame duck pathetic excuses.
Not that anyone expects the executive president to be omniscient and to be in the know whenever a public loo has been declared open by some provincial council member at some bus depot in Moneragala. But is it unreasonable for the public to expect its elected head to be with it when it comes to the signing of binding international treaties at international forums, especially one so important as the one presented before the United Nation’s Human Right’s arm last week in Geneva?
But as far as Sirisena was concerned, he did not know that the nation’s ambassador to Geneva had signed the document to co-sponsor the resolution presented before the UNHRC which ultimately was passed without a vote being taken granting Lankan Government a reprieve of two years to get its act together, an extension of a further two year’s grace granted to it in 2017 on more or less the same terms.
Addressing an event in Meegahatenne in Kalutara on Wednesday, nearly a week after the resolution had been passed in Geneva and was history, the President said that Sri Lanka’s Ambassador in Geneva had signed to co-sponsor the resolution to consider the report on Sri Lanka again in two years without his approval and that he completely rejects it.
He said the signature had been placed without his knowledge or of the Foreign Ministry or the Foreign Ministry secretary. He said that he is opposed to this process which happened because of the wrong decision taken by certain sections of the country. The President said that he sees it as a betrayal of the people, the government and the tri-forces.
The President said that the delegation to Geneva had been appointed without any discussion with him and he took steps to change it afterwards. The President said that he advised the Foreign Minister subsequently on the way the presentation has to be made in Geneva in a way that is suitable to the country.
He added: “The responsibility of international relations rests with me alone and not anyone lesser than that.”
Not that it matters one jot to the United Nation’s body whether the President was told or not. As far as that body is concerned, a person authorised to sign the document on behalf of the nation had signed it and, therefore, it was a binding agreement. Not for them to question and go into the internal workings of the Lankan government. It is presumed that the ambassador had the presidential assent to ink his government’s approval; to co-sponsor the resolution.
While the President berated all those around him, accusing them of not telling him of this most important international crucible in Lanka’s calendar where the actions of her soldiers during the thirty-year-long terrorist war are biannually drawn to attention, the question the president must ask himself is not why he was never told by his foreign minister or his officials as to the stance his government will be adopting but why he failed to ask it?
As it is said, knock and the door will open, ask and you shall be given an answer. If one fails to knock or ask on so important an issue, at whose door does dereliction of duty lie?
| SUNDAY PUNCH ODE By Don Manu What are the Charms | |
 TRENDING: Khaki to get the boot New feathers make fine birds President Sirisena announced on Thursday his latest plan to improve the efficiency of the Lanka Police Force: To rearm them with a new uniform. He said he will hold discussions with the relevant parties to introduce a more suitable police uniform replacing the Khaki uniform that is being currently used. Wish it was so simple. That one could with one brush stroke paint a new hue on the long arm of the law and make its reach far more efficient. That the negative impression of the police could be changed overnight by replacing the colonial khaki with perhaps a more positive blue. And learn from that old adage that when it is not necessary to change something, it is necessary not to change it.
UNP punished for scooting from Parliament  Ranil: Red faced with embarrassment Shortly after Ranil Wickremesinghe became prime minister on January 9, 2015, he issued an edict to his own party members. He said that strict action would be taken against those who did not attend Parliament. No excuses would be tolerated, he said. No plea that one had to attend a funeral or sign as a witness at a wedding would be acceptable. Parliamentary attendance was mandatory, no excuses spared. In the manner of his old school motto Learn or Depart, his new dictum was Attend or Get Out. Sadly, his best intentions to instil discipline and a sense of public responsibility into his party members seem to have fallen by the wayside after four years of being cottoned in comfort. And this Thursday, as a result of this ‘No Action, Talk only’ policy, the votes on the budget expenditure for three UNP ministries were defeated by 24 votes for and 38 votes against. Not even the Prime Minister was in attendance: Serves the UNP right for this political cockup due to its sheer complacency and nonchalance, when it comes to discharging their public duties. As the Speaker announced a few months ago, it costs Rs. 5 million a day to maintain Parliament. Plus it costs the nation’s taxpayers billion of bucks to keep its members amply provided for with their salaries, their duty-free vehicles which they sell overnight and make a cool killing of over Rs 30 million, not to forget a whole host of other perks and privileges including their mobile phone charges. They are only expected to attend parliament for eight days of the month and still shun this simple duty. If they happened to be in the private sector or even in any government department they would have been sacked a long long time ago. So what happened on Thursday that led to UNP’s great embarrassment and tainted the birthday bash of its leader who turned seventy last Sunday and entered the House of the Aged? It was sheer complacency and laziness. Shortly before the vote was to be taken up, the opposition MPs left the chamber. The UNP MPs took the cue. They thought the remaining 24 members would suffice to get the vote through in the absence of the opposition and left the chamber to pursue their own delights of interest and enjoyments at public expense. But the opposition had done a coup. They had remained in the building and entered the chamber to vote against the expenditure proposal, leaving the UNP red faced the following day when the nation knew that the party that governs them had fallen prey to so simple an opposition trap. It’s time the UNP MPs took their job and its concomitant duties more seriously. And not represent the lotus eaters of the land. Perhaps now at least, once bitten as they are, it is only to be hoped they will be twice shy to leave the chamber in a hurry, even for a leak.
 Rathane Thera: Sinhala Only No English please, we are Lankans Rathane Thera says teaching kids in the international language will make them lose their national identity In 1956, when, at the behest of Sinhala nationalists, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike introduced his now widely condemned policy of ‘Sinhala only’, it served to condemn millions of Sinhalese of successive generations to an era of darkness, out of which only today they are slowly emerging. It also succeeded in effectively maintain ing the class distinctions that had prevailed during the colonial period and subjected all those who learnt only Sinhala and knew no English to second class status. Their brethren of the upper classes who spoke the Queen’s English stole an easy march over them even though their educational qualifications were minimal. Millions of Sinhala youth found themselves at a bottleneck when it came to occupying top posts both in the government and private sector. It has taken many long years for the nation to realise the folly of Bandaranaike’s ‘Sinhala only’ policy and having learnt from that grievous error has begun a clamour to learn the international language – the window and door to greater opportunities and access to the accumulated knowledge of all mankind. Now along comes a monk to turn the tide back and return the nation to the dark ages. And turn its people back to being frogs in the well. On March 15, addressing parliament during the committee stage debate on the budget, the National List MP, Venerable Athuraliye Ratana Thera, said Sri Lanka is currently following a concept which is not followed in any other country of providing primary education in another language other than the child’s mother tongue. He gave a new twist as well. It will make them less patriotic, they will not be citizens of this country then, he said. “If a child is given a primary education in a language other than his or her mother tongue, that child would not be a citizen of that country,” he declared without a blush. It was evident he had given much thought to it. Learning only one’s own language in the formative years was the way to build national unity, he said. According to him, “education should be a component which builds national unity. Accordingly, children in the North and the East should be provided education in Tamil, while children in other areas should be allowed to have their education in Sinhala.” He further added that since the majority of Tamils and Muslims who reside in areas other than the North and the East can be provided an education in Sinhala as a majority of them are fluent in the Sinhala language. When the nation’s Bandaranaike policy has served only to divide the nation with disastrous consequences, the Thera is now advocating a policy that whilst Tamils in the north can be taught in Tamil, the Tamils and the Muslims should be taught in Sinhalese. The Sinhalese should be taught in Sinhala, else they would not citizens of this country. Before turning educationalist and propagating this out-of-date nationalistic policy, he should have known that many of those leaders who fought for Lanka’s independence learnt their subjects in the English medium, including Bandaranaike who was tutored at home by an imported teacher from Oxford. Did that make them any less citizens of this country or any less patriotic? Does the novice seven-year-old monk who learns Buddhism at the temple privena in the Pali language less of a citizen of Lanka? One thing more: Even as he gave voice to his bizarre view in Parliament, he should perhaps have paused to ponder what he was doing in a chamber of politicians, engaged in the practice of politics directly forbidden by the Buddha’s disciplinary code for monks contained in the Vinaya Pitakaya. And also meditate on the fact that the Buddha’s philosophy is meant to promote unity between all mankind and not diversity which leads to conflict. That for the Buddha there were no national boundaries where humans were segregated according to their place of birth but treated as one of all mankind, no matter in which land one was born.  HAPPY FAMILIES: Arjuna Mahendran, his wife Nadine and Geoffrey Aloysius with his wife Nimmie at the wedding celebration of their son Arjun and Mahendran’s daughter Were Geoff and Arjun given 450 acre tea estate for 8,000 bucks a month? The claim was first published in a JVP-leaning week newspaper in 2017 but none of the mainstream media took it up. It alleges that seven months after mega billion bank robbery took place and one month after the August General election in 2015, the UNP-held Ministry of Plantations had given a 450 acre government-owned tea estate to Geoffrey Aloysius and his son Arjun to enjoy its spoils for thirty years till 2045 for a mere 8,000 bucks a month on lease. The tea estate owned by the Plantation Ministry had earlier been given to Mathurata Plantations and it is alleged that Geoffrey Aloysius had obtained it through a sub lease, even though it is further alleged, the company had no right to do so. To sign the agreement a new company called Serendipity Plantations chaired by Aloysius senior had been formed. The tea estate has two bungalows, houses for worker, a maternity home and a medical centre and also has some 19,000 valuable trees on the property. Perhaps the Plantation Ministry may wish to clarify the matter and clear the air over this otherwise seemingly shady deal and set the record straight in the public interest. SUNDAY PUNCH QUIP |
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