Columns

On a scorching hot April morn, three days after April Fool’s Day, The President, the Prime Minister, the Speaker and a whole host of government members of Parliament assembled at Independence Square to swear a solemn oath before the nation and before television cameras in a propaganda exercise which may have cost millions of taxpayers’ money, not to mention the unseen cost in lost man hours.
The auspicious time to take that oath in Sinhala was between 8.30 and 8.32 am. For the Tamils, it was between 8.32 and 8.34 am. Gathered around the political chieftains were the commanders of the Tri Forces and the Police IGP, together with members of the assembled public.

At that same auspicious moment, akin to where millions of Sinhalese and Hindus light the traditional oil lamp and unite as one to herald the New Year when the Sun transits from the constellation of Pisces to Aries, millions of Lankans were asked to stop their stride in their pedestrian walk to work, stop their cars in their drive to office to take the same oath the President, in his new role as Lanka’s macho messiah, had pronounced fit for the nation to take in his new found mission to be the Duterte of Lanka against drugs after his brief visit to the Philippines this January.

Already on April Fool’s Day, he had declared his war against drugs. Commendable. President Maithripala Sirisena

TAKING THE FIFTH PRECEPT: Prime Minister Ranil and Speaker Karu swear not to take any intoxicant hereafter according to Maithri’s New Testament revealed at Independence Square this Wednesday

said that the consumption of narcotics can be completely eradicated as per the measures taken by the tri-forces, police, and Special Task Force personnel.

The President made these remarks, wearing a face mask to prevent him from accidentally sniffing cocaine, following the disposing of the 769 kilograms of cocaine which were seized during the last three years.

He also noted that the state-of-the-art equipment used in detecting narcotics will be imported from US and Israel since Sri Lanka was lacking such equipment at present. Mr. Sirisena further said that there are nearly 150,000 people who consume narcotics in the country and measures would be taken to set-up rehabilitation centres for these people. The President stressed that a broad programme to apprehend drug dealers and individuals who are involved in transporting narcotics, will be implemented following the Sinhala and Tamil New Year.

Good. Better late than never. Even if it is after four years in office. But why the need for this national oath he urged all of Lanka to take and why Ranil and his cabinet followed their shepherd even as he led them over the cliff?

THE 160 WORD ENGLISH OATH: I shall refrain from taking narcotics

And what was this oath, the President took at Independence Square on April 3rd, the same site where on that January 9th in 2015 he stood before a Supreme Court Judge and, after taking his oath of office as president, solemnly took the oath to hold the high office of president only for one term and no more and leave it when his term expired back to his Polonnaruwa grassroots and be content in ploughing with his buffalos the fertile fields that contribute to the grain bowl of Lanka, once famed as the granary of the East?

The mission was to eradicate the drug menace. Governors, Chief Ministers as well as Presidential Secretary Udaya R. Senevirathne, and secretaries to ministers, and other senior government officials, chiefs of security forces, and the Inspector General of Police were gathered at the event. The public attended the ceremony in large numbers.

The gathering made a pledge to commit themselves to make the country free of illicit drugs for the sake of the future generation, to successfully conduct and to accomplish the drug prevention programme and to take steps to shun drugs as an individual, and to dedicate with a utmost contribution for the great collective efforts to free the Sri Lankan public from drug menace. This event was live-streamed through electronic media, and it was simultaneously telecast to institutions, public offices, schools and the general public. The President believes that the national task of building a prosperous Sri Lanka by freeing the country from drug trafficking, and the task should be continued with a community attitude change and with active participation of the family unit and the society.

THE 175 WORD SINHALA OATH: I shall refrain from taking any intoxicant

The new programme of the Bakmaha Divuruma, national pledge against drugs, was organised by President Sirisena for a new approach to create a drug-free country. His intention is to obtain the cooperation of all sections for the success of the programme.

Good, Welcome. But what was the oath he, the President, the Prime Minister, the Speaker and a whole host of angels in the House took? What was the oath he asked others to take? Was it the Sinhala oath or the Tamil oath, though no auspicious time was given to the Burgher community to make their pledge in English?

For starters, read for yourself the 160-odd word vow in English issued by the presidential Secretariat:
“April Pledge” for a “Drug Free Country”
“In an era where our motherland is bestowed with a pure national cultural identity and being respected locally and internationally fulfilling the aspirations of millions of citizens, illegal drug trafficking is spreading like an epidemic and devouring the nation.

It is an established truism that this menace which is presently spreading throughout the country, is raising its head darkening the future protection of Sri Lankan children and exerting pressure on the community life as a whole.

In order to make the National Programme on Drug Prevention aiming at the creation of a ‘Drug Free Country’ a success, I affirm/take oath, commencing today with determination, to abstain from using drugs, and to take action to save my kith and kin who are already being victimized/not being victimized by drugs and to fulfil with maximum dedication and integrity the great collective duty assigned to me in order to save all Sri Lankan Community from drugs.

And read the sinhale version. After the preamble of how pure Lanka’s culture has been – god knows from where the script writer got that notion, perhaps from the Mahawamsa which proudly spells out the illustrious lineage of the Sinhala race as having been the descendents of a vagabond prince born out of incest, condemned to exile by a father born out of bestiality — the oath to be taken is to refrain from taking any intoxicants.

Notice the difference? Why two versions of a solemn oath to be taken by one common people of the land? Is it that the English speaking elite in his cabinet of ministers may readily swear against drugs and wholeheartedly promise to refrain from smoking even the odd joint of grass or sniff cocaine dust up their nostrils or inject themselves heroin, but may pause when it comes to making avowals of refraining from alcohol for all time and lift their hands to being card carrying members of the Temperance Movement?

Evidently it’s another presidential cock-up committed by the advisers that surround the president in his presidential cockpit. Is it easily digestible sweet curd for the English speaking Colombo elite to swear to and bitter gourd for the Sinhala and Tamil village yokels to swallow?

But apart from that, the question also arises, why this oath had to be taken and forced down the throats of the masses at great public expense. Was there any real need for it? Especially when it has been the habit and practice of all Sinhala Buddhists to swear by the five precepts, morning, noon and night?

Maithripala Sirisena maybe the President of Lanka but he is certainly not Maithree Budun come before his time to ask the people of Lanka to take a solemn 175-word oath to refrain from taking any intoxicant when every peel of the temple bell rings out the fifth precept in 9 words in Pali ‘Sura meraya majjapama dattana vera mani shikkapadam samadiyami’ day in and night out as it had done for centuries, tolling the five precepts that predates the Buddha who only endorsed it as an essential discipline to attain ultimate bliss.

Millions would have been spent to host this farce at Independence Square to boost the image and ego of one man with the Prime Minister and his cabinet sheepishly following their alien leader. But whilst the public may grudge their money being wasted on such a farcical display of politicians taking the solemn oath to observe the fifth precept, they would not have harboured one chip of resentment if these politicians, these representative had taken a solemn oath that day to observe the second precept ‘Adinna dhana veramani sikkha padam samadiyami’, I shall refrain from stealing.

And a billion bucks more to confirm it, if they also took the oath to observe the fourth precept ‘Musavada veramani sikkha padam samadiyami’, I shall not lie.

SUNDAY PUNCH ODE

Sway My Love Your Sensuous Soul By Don Manu Sway, my love, your sensuous soul; Sway to the rhythms my pipes now toll; Sway in rapture in serpent trance Before my soul, my love, now dance Spring, uncoil, from your casket loom Entice me with your forbidden bloom Feed me the fruit, feed slice by slice Let me devour its seed, its spice: And with your sultry sway caress And my throbbing noon time sun embrace, And show me how through pleasure’s pain Losing innocence, I an Eden gain; Bared nude in an animal state Where are the joys that Heaven await; In blazoned glare how can I find Mystic truths of the veiled divine: But a discreet fig leafed clove incites To probe the mystery hidden from sight And provokes within my bones tonight Ardours from zones concealed from light: So sway sensuous to my pounding beat Awake, arouse this intense heat And to my flute, to my thumping drum Sweet Lady let’s to music strum. Remove the ribbons of masks you wear, Shed its skins, leave your shoulders bare; Loosen your knot, let fall your hair; Tease with your tress, tempt me to dare To traverse untrodden virgin lair; ‘pon your altar make me fall in prayer. And now that dress, no, take your time; Each divine moment must be sublime; Hold on, swirl round, I’ll drink the wine Matured in your sensuous shrine, Sweet nectar sucked from salty brine; Each sip renews a fresh divine: Incarnate Beauty now undressed I feel within my passions pressed: And urge to spurt what’s long suppressed, Encapsuled joys that time compressed: Ah, yes, the beatitudes that await The stoic penance of pilgrimage; When, arriving at the Elysian gate, In frenzied bliss I the eternal slake. And then my flute blows forth its charms And dissolves my soul in fires, and balms, Distilling storms and heralding calms, I am transported to heaven’s arms: Where I, on the plains of ecstasy, Live out and sweat my fantasy: Where entwined in exquisite throes Transcend sunsets of earthly shores.

 

Who will be the first to swing?

Sunday Punch 2 President has date in mind and is busy preparing death list Sirisena: Busy compiling hanging list Whist the country suffers in darkness and sweats it out with the ongoing power cuts, it may be of some comfort to some to know that President Sirisena has not been idle but has been busy burning the midnight oil preparing the death list of those he wishes to hang. Eager to portray himself as The Terminator to reintroduce the death penalty in practice, a practice that five presidents before him shunned to follow, Sirisena has chosen instead to go off the beaten track in the footsteps of Philippines’ Duterte, whom he met on his visit to that archipelago this January and returned home armed with greater resolve to establish a macho image as a man with a backbone. Two years into his presidency he was to remark in public that many perceived him as a man spineless but that he will soon prove his vertebra. In the last lap of his presidency, he seems to have discovered its existence and now seems to be hell bent on stringing some death row inmates to prove its existence in his anatomy. In February, he announced that there will be the first public execution within two months of a drug dealer; that before the Sinhala and Hindu New Year. Last week he announced that he had already fixed a date and probably an auspicious time as well to carry out judicial murder with presidential assent. And this week, he also announced that he was busy preparing his own death list, Duterte style. One problem that may have seemed to beset him in his choice of whom to hang first may also have dawned in the distant horizon and surfed to the shore when a well-known drug dealer Welle Suda’s appeal to the Appeal Court again his death sentence was dismissed by the Appeal Court on Friday. The Court of Appeal confirmed the death sentence imposed by the High Court on Gampola Widanelage Samantha Kumara, alias Wele Suda in 2015. The bench comprising Justices Achala Wengapulli and Deepali Wijesundara dismissed the appeal filed on behalf of the convict. High Court Judge Preethi Padman Surasena on October 14, 2015 sentenced Wele Suda to death after he was found guilty of charges of possessing 7.05 grams of heroin in Mount Lavinia in 2008. But if he is granted leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, he may not be in the picture. What a pity. He would have done nicely, notorious as he is. Alas, some other sod will have to be found instead. One problem, though. No hangman has still been recruited, even though over seventy have applied for the job, a stumbling block perhaps being that the qualifications demanded to occupy the post to kill another man also demand that one must be educationally qualified more than some parliamentarians and must have an impeccable moral character. Perhaps that may well be sorted out this week. Well, if not, to prove the mettle in the man, there is always one’s own self to do the job. For there is no extent to which one will go to, to prove one’s libido and show the nation that he has not lost his mojo, is there? Addressing Parliament in February, he announced there will be a hanging in Lanka, the first to be done after Maru Sira was hanged in 1976, 42 years ago. Now with all systems in place, it seems the nation can welcome the New Year not to the caw of the koha but to the last squeaks of a human gasping for air with neck throttled in a Sirisena designer noose.

 

Navin’s reply to tea land deal: None of our business

Navin: It’s a private matte Even as Geof Aloysius walked free from his remand cell after being released on bail for his alleged role in the bond scam, this Thursday in Parliament, Minister of Plantation rose to answer a question posed to him after last week’s Sunday Punch exposure of the seemingly dubious handover of a 450 acre state owned tea estate to Geoff Aloysius and son Arjun on a thirty-year lease until 2046 for a monthly rent of Rs. 8,000. This is his reply: “The issue about the Tea estate given to Aloysius has been raised several times. Geoffrey Aloysius’ father formed the Mathurata Plantation company in 1991. In 2016 the Mahathudugala estate was suffering losses upto Rs 24 million . The Mathurata Plantation company and the Serendib company did a business of carbonic tea. Gefforey George Aloysius at this point had joint as a partner of the Serendib company. The Mahathudugala estate has 252 Ha. Only one of the bungalows of the estate had been leased out for the use of the Manager. The rest of the estate was under the plantation company. The agreement was under the plantation company and the JEDB. All the government dealings were between the JEDB and Mathurata plantations. Therefore, this is a sub-lease. Mathurata has given a sub-lease to Serendib. Therefore the government is not involved. During my period the sub lease system has been scrapped. The Serendib has agreed to pay the lease money to the Mahathudugala estate. Therefore this is a private transaction between two companies and the government is not involved in it.” However further questions remain to be answered. First: When did Mathurata Plantations sub lease the estate to Aloysius Serendib company? The date mentioned is September 26th 2015 just three weeks after Navin Dissanayakake was appointed as the Minister. Second: It is generally a standard clause in lease agreements that the demised premises will not be sub let to anyone without the express written consent of the landlord. If it was a private land owned by the Minister, it is no one’s right or business to question. But in this case, it is state owned land belonging to the people of this country in the custody of the Plantation Ministry. Is the Minister saying that for nearly four years he was unaware that such a valuable 450 acre estate had been sub let to another? Third: Is the Minister also implying it is not the business of the government to monitor the progress of state owned tea land – tea being a traditional foreign exchange money spinner – and looks askance to whatever dealings the tenant enters into with another party, even in breach of the original lease agreement? Mr. Dissanayake’s brief answer in Parliament raises more questions. And the owners of the land, namely, the people of Lanka, deserve a better answer than for the minister to merely say “this is a private transaction between two companies and the government is not involved in it.”