The fifth death anniversary of J.R. Jayewardene falls on November 1

JR the good physician

1956     UNP     738,800     08     92,350

            MEP     1,046,300     51     20,514

1970   UNP     1,892,525     17     111,325

           SLFP     1,839,980     91     20,220

1977   UNP     3,179,220    140     22,700

           SLFP     1,755,328     08     231,816

By D. J. Sirimanne 

The uncertainties of today jog our memory to the seven-year rule of the United Left Front government. The period from 1970-77 was the worst of times, since independence. Shortages, scarcities and rationing of essential items were the order of the day. 

JR had seen it all!

The five-sixth majority at the 1977 polls (140 seats in a house of 168) underscored a nation's trust in JR and the UNP, and this awed him. It was JR's tryst with the destiny of a nation. 

Like the good physician, JR had diagnosed the ills of a nation in distress and had the remedy cut and dry, as it were. He soon set about implementing his ambitious programme for economic recovery. A failed socialist economy was quickly dismantled and the open economy was put in place. The country needed a massive dose of foreign investment to promote rapid economic growth through industries, exports and employment opportunities. The concept of the Free Trade Zone fitted well. Tourist resorts mushroomed and foreign exchange earnings flowed in. A bullish stock market in the Colombo Bourse was the index economic success of a revitalised nation - a stagnant economy turned vibrant.

The original time frame for the completion of the Mahaweli Development Programme was telescoped to less than a decade. Hydro power generation doubled from 327 MW to 600 MW, a unique achievement. The Accelerated Mahaweli Programme paved the way for increased food production, new road networks, townships, villages, rural electrification and sports. 

JR was a great achiever - a doer rather than a babbler. He led a simple life and eschewed luxury and personal comfort. He was never the extravagant epicurean. He was a leader who deserves a monument but does not need one. The economic, political and social transformation that commenced during his stewardship will remain a permanent tribute to the man and his party. Across the seas, in the sacred precincts of Unryuji temple, a grateful Japanese people have put up JR's statue which stands like an icon with the epithet - Benefactor of Japan's Independence. His persuasive oratory to plead mercy to a vanquished nation at the Peace Treaty of San Francisco in 1951 saved Japan from a humiliating peace settlement. 

JR not only changed the economic landscape of the country but also brought fundamental changes to political theory and practice. Much has been spoken and written about the Executive Presidency and Proportional Representation. Just as the knife in the kitchen which can be put to good use or abuse by its user - so is a Constitution. JR put it to good use to take the country to a hopeful future.

Having gone through the thick and thin and the ebb and flow of Sri Lankan politics JR's perceptive mind identified the areas which needed correction or democratisation. The presidential system put an end to the power vacuum and the political uncertainty that usually followed dissolutions until a new government was installed. Both presidential and general elections held since 1982 have proved this point.

An inherent shortcoming of the first-past-the-post system was the obvious disproportion between votes cast and seats obtained by political parties. Since 1956 this disproportion progressively increased to an unprecedented level in 1977. The election results of 1956, 1970 and 1977 shown in the table is self-explanatory. 

PR as the name indicates tries to rationalise the nexus between votes and seats, thereby giving value to votes. It prevents wild swings which negate the proportion between votes and seats. PR ensures a strong opposition, a sine qua non in a democracy and also acts against dictatorial tendencies. 

The PR has come to stay and any attempt to get rid of it will certainly encounter a lot of opposition from many quarters. However, no system is perfect. Most often, it is not the system that is faulty but the players and the way the game of politics is played. 

Despite spectacular economic strides and revolutionary constitutional reforms during JR's two-term presidency the northern militancy escalated and the second JVP insurgency raised its ugly head again. From what terrorism has come to, the world over today, the induction of the IPKF, the 4th largest army in the world, may seem to many as the best option available to JR at the time. 

To exaggerate flaws and underplay the good in a person is an ingrained human foible which is as old as humankind. "The good a man does is often interred with his bones" says the Bard. 

Time is not only the best healer but is also the best judge of both men and events, as it lends clarity to focus the past in the correct perspective. Even now, it may be too early to make an accurate assessment of the stature of J.R. Jayewardene and his contribution to this nation. 

Crying in the wilderness

By John R. Bradley

Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, the BBC aired its flagship political discussion program, Question Time, during which members of the public repeatedly came back to the relationship between America's foreign policy in the Middle East and why it had become the victim of equally immoral terrorism. A few days later, the BBC apologized for having caused "offense" and deemed in retrospect that the broadcast had been "inappropriate".

At the same time, Colin Powell felt obliged to take time out "to remind the world" that there was an ongoing conflict in the Middle East that should not be lost sight of, despite America's suffering.

It was then that America went into denial; and the terrorist acts and their causes have thus been distanced, one from the other, since then, with little dissension in the mainstream Western media.

The collective denial was confirmed when New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani turned down the donation of $10 million from Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal by cynically subverting what Alwaleed had said about looking at the roots of terrorism in order to eradicate it. "There is no moral equivalent for this attack," Giuliani claimed. "There is no justification for it." Who had mentioned "justification"?

Fighting against this barrage of falsity, there are the John the Baptist figures — notably Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag, Edward Said, Robert Fisk — crying out in that wilderness inhabited by columnists who have dared to break journalistic ranks. 

That history will prove them to be right we should have no doubt; time is on the side of the truth, and it will out. In the meantime, these disparate (desperate?) intellectuals preach to their gathering of converts, whose influence on mainstream politics and politicians is less than insignificant.

More recently, there was another media capitulation. CNN and the BBC agreed to requests from their respective governments that they air statements by Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda only after they had been "put in their proper context" (i.e. censored). And suddenly, the translators working for both media organizations — through whose garbled ramblings Al-Qaeda's propaganda has anyway been scuppered — have so bad a command of English that they would surely fail the TOEFL examination.

If journalists were doing their job, instead of hiding behind the intellectually indefensible and morally reprehensible banner of patriotism, statements issued by, and actions undertaken in the name of George W. Bush would themselves have been put "in context". Unfortunately, the English-language media have for the most part failed to reveal just how vague are the assumptions that form the shallow foundations of this bizarre war, in which a superpower has been pitched against a concept; and it has failed even more miserably to note the gaping holes in its consequently unstable superstructure.

Once upon a time, Western journalists used to ask their leaders difficult questions. Not any more. Colin Powell can go on his tours to "shore up support", with all the sordid underhand wheeling and dealing and horse-trading so often entailed, and none of it is analyzed. Not one genuinely penetrating question has thus far been asked of Powell by the American media at his regular press briefings, which have the air of a military leader briefing his troops.

America's (and Big Oil's) economic interests in executing this war — installing a puppet regime in Kabul will swiftly bring to fruition a massive pipeline project presently on hold but which will eventually channel natural gas and oil out of recently discovered fields in Central Asia through Afghanistan — has been overlooked in the midst of all the sentimental patriotic bonding, as have been the lies, inconsistencies and hypocrisy underpinning the ideological battle.

We have forgotten that the American government was unwilling, and unable, to provide any conclusive evidence of Bin Laden's guilt, despite a promise from the Taleban that they would hand him over if it did so.

And that Tony Blair was forced to admit that the evidence he himself presented would not stand up in a court of law. Now the Western media is routinely referring to Bin Laden as "the perpetrator", having casually dropped "prime suspect".

Forgotten too is that the Sept. 11 attacks proved the FBI and CIA to be almost unfathomably incompetent, and how vulnerable Americans were left as a result — despite the billions of dollars of their taxes funding these "intelligence" organizations and the broader defense establishment.

Ignored as well is that it took them two weeks to make available to their partners and colleagues in the American media industry the last will and testament of Muhammad Atta, alleged hijacker, whose curious decision to pack and check-in a suitcase before his suicide mission (did he plan on taking it to Paradise?) was matched only by the mystery of how, in the end, it never made it onto the plane — and why its contents were not revealed for two weeks.

In it was the letter, handwritten in Arabic. Here was a man who, we had been told, was an "Islamic fundamentalist" willing to martyr himself. Now he has been revealed to have been so terribly ignorant of his religion that in writing "In the name of God, myself and my family" he made even the most liberal Muslim cringe at the blasphemy. In all likelihood, that preposterous document is a fake.

Why did no one in Washington or New York smell a rat? Have they grown so accustomed to wallowing in the sewage that spews from their government's propaganda machine that they do cannot even notice when there is such a vile stink?

It was inevitable, given the above, that the broader picture would be ignored.

Consider America as the "defender of freedom and democracy". America's post-WWII foreign policy has been defined by its backing of dictatorships and its undermining of democratically elected regimes. 

And domestically, how could we have brushed under the carpet so quickly the debacle that got Bush elected, which — as David Du Bois wrote in Al-Ahram Weekly — "came close to a non-violent, rightist, political coup d'état"? Need we be reminded that as few as 35-40 percent of eligible voters typically vote in US elections? That less than five percent of the American population owns 80 percent of the country's wealth? That according to the UN, 16 percent of the adult population is illiterate? That one in five American children live in poverty? That Americans do not have access to a national health service? That a million non-violent offenders are languishing behind bars, part of the biggest prison population in the world in one of the most crime-ridden and racist "democracies" ever known?

When they travel abroad, American journalists should whisper their drivel about defending "freedom and democracy" and those eternal American values to the ghosts of the million civilians their country slaughtered in Korea; the half-a-million civilians it slaughtered in Vietnam; and the same number of Iraqi children who have died as a result of sanctions (their deaths "a price worth paying," in Madeline Albright's eternally damning phrase). They might also mention, if they can find time, the tens of millions of lives lost or ruined as a direct consequence of the tyranny of various Latin American dictatorships — particularly during the Reagan years — the American government repeatedly broke its own laws to install and then prop up. 

This is the context into which Bush's statements should have been put. Yes, the ideals of the American dream have captivated and inspired the world for more than a century, and they will continue to do so; but now is the time to focus on the reality on the ground. That is true for Muslim radicals too, who have predictably labelled the latest war one against Islam. It is nothing of the kind. American administrations have had no compunction about attacking Christian countries in the past, and would not have any in the future. 

Was the ocean of blood spilled in Vietnam part of a war against Buddhism?

The worst political fall-out from the Sept. 11 attacks, in terms of shifting media alliances, is that they brought to an end — whether permanently, we cannot say — the demonstrations against the propagation of America's free-trade policies via its two far-reaching economic arms, the WTO and IMF. 

This movement had seemed to have the potential of winning over large sections of the Western media, as it had tens of millions of people. 

During the six months leading up to the attacks, the US had also been unceremoniously booted off the UN Human Rights Commission and its crudely hypocritical support of Israel had been under the world's media scrutiny at the Durban Conference Against Racism.

– Arab News Saudi Arabia

Taliban repel US-backed offensive

US forces carried out heavy overnight bombardments on Kabul and Taliban positions defending the key northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, in what militia officials described as a failed attempt to support an opposition offensive.

The US jets bombed continuously and the opposition launched a heavy offensive but the morale of our forces is very high because they are fighting for God," said Abdul Hanan Hemat, the head of the Taliban information agency.

An opposition spokesman near the northern front in Samangan province confirmed by telephone that the offensive had been turned back.

The Afghan Islamic Press reported that five opposition commanders were captured during the fighting and then hanged, but Taliban Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi dismissed the report as false.

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan warned that his country could not cope with refugees fleeing the war, while the interior ministry said thousands of armed tribesmen were headed in the other direction to fight the Americans."

If we open up the gates freely, we will have to be ready for another two million refugees, that is our prediction," Pervez said, "There will be social and economic problems. Do we want another two million refugees?"

UN refugee agency chief Ruud Lubbers arrived in Pakistan yesterday to examine the crisis, amid frantic efforts to prepare for the expected exodus.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Ron Redmond told reporters in the Pakistani city Quetta near the Afghan border that 15 camps were ready to hold a total of 150,000 people."

The infrastructure is there, everything is pre-positioned and we are ready to go," he said.

The United Nations estimates that 1.5 million Afghans could be driven out by the conflict, and says tens of thousands have poured towards the Pakistani border since the US strikes began three weeks ago.

Pakistan has come under pressure to allow the refugees in, but the nuclear power fears for its own stability as anger at the US bombing spreads among its own population.

Thousands of armed Pakistani tribesmen set out in a 100-truck convoy to cross the border into Afghanistan to join the Taliban militia, threatening to fight any Pakistani guards that got in their way, officials told AFP."

Led by Soofi Mohammad, head of Tehreek Nifaz-e-Sharia Mohammadi (TNSM, movement for enforcement of Islamic Sharia law), the tribesmen are close to the Afghan border in Bajur tribal area," an interior ministry official said.

A TNSM spokesman said the tribesmen numbered around 10,000 and were armed with automatic weapons, swords and axes."

We will resist if the authorities try to stop us. The jihad (holy war) will start here," Qazi Ihsanullah said by telephone from the border area.

On Friday 50,000 hardline Muslims protested in Karachi in the biggest display yet of anti-American anger since the strikes began.

Pakistan also has the fear of germ warfare hanging over it. A doctor yesterday confirmed that he was treating the first confirmed case of anthrax linked to a germ-laden letter outside the United States.

The doctor, who works at the Aga Khan hospital in Karachi, said a worker at a branch of international financial institution which received a letter containing a suspected batch of anthrax was being treated, and would recover.

Three people have died and 11 more have been treated for anthrax infections in the United States following a spate of contaminated letters posted to government offices and media organisations.

US investigators said Saturday they still did not know who sent the letters, but suspicions have focused on the al-Qaeda organisation of Saudi radical Osama bin Laden whom Washington blames for terror attacks on US targets.

President George W. Bush launched a "war against terrorism" last month after hijackers crashed four jet airliners into US cities, killing around 5,000 people, in attacks blamed on al-Qaeda.