The Political Column

5th July 1998

By our Political Correspondent

Family reunion at CBK party

Hameed, Anura removed from UNP nomination board

Off to America UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and Anura Bandaranaike will be visiting Los Angeles to launch a fund raising campaign for the UNP. A notice on this states: Grand banquet dinner - Chief Guest: Ranil Wickremesinghe, Guest of Honour: Anura Bandaranaike M.P. Date: September 26, 1998. Time 7 p.m. Location: Los Angeles Airport Marriot Hotel. Gracing this occasion will be several local politicians, movie stars and TV personalities including world-renowned singers.

Family reunion at CBK party

By Our Political Correspondent

Amidst confusion and political uncertainty President Chandrika Kumaratunga cel- ebrated her 53rd birthday on Monday.

A function was held at President's House in Fort on Monday to mark this occasion. A few friends and family members attended, including her mother, the Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike and sister Sunethra.

Mrs. Bandaranaike did not carry a special gift for her daughter but her blessings for the President to do her duty well.

Among the others who participated were her uncle Clifford, cousin Kamal, two children Vimukthi and Yasodara, friends Ronnie Peiris, Dr. J.B. Peiris, Drs. Chandima and Tara de Mel, Suren Wickramasinghe and her Media Advisor Sanath Gunathilleke.

The function which started around 8.30 in the morning lasted for a few hours and it was observed that the mother and the two daughters were in a good mood and closer to each other than ever before.

On Sunday night there was another get-together for some state media people. It was hosted by President's media advisor Sanath Gunathilleke at the residence of a Mr. Panduwawela in Kotte. Attending were Information Director Ariya Rubesinghe, ITN Chairman Newton Gunaratne and Galadari General Manager Chandra Mohotti.

Newton Gunaratne sang old favourites including Sunil Santha's "Olu Pipila" while the others enjoyed talking politics with Ministers such as Mangala Samaraweera, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle and Kingsley Wickremaratne.

By midnight President Chandrika Kumaratunga made a surprise visit to Mr. Panduwawela's house where the party was in progress.

Everybody wished her a very happy birthday while enquiring about her birthday resolution.

The President said, her fervent wish was to have a united Sri Lanka and to see the dawn of peace.

Whatever her wishes she had many a problem on hand.

PC problem

The controversy over the Provincial Council elections was the key issue.

The President apparently wanted to call for nominations and then put off elections under prevailing law since the UNP had refused to give the necessary majority in Parliament to bring in a special provision law postponing elections.

According to legal experts the mechanism would be to invoke provisions of the Public Security Act once nominations are received and the date for the elections is fixed.

They are of the view that the elections could be postponed under the Public Security Ordinance read together with the Provincial Councils Elections act.

For this, they propose that the President should invoke the provisions of the Public Security Act and declare a state of emergency throughout the country.

The Constitution empowers the state to over-ride any prevailing law other them the Constitution itself.

Though the Provincial Councils are enshrined in the Constitution by the 13th Amendment, legal experts are of the view that the constitution does not govern the Provincial Council Elections law.

Hence they feel the PC elections could be postponed under the prevailing law of the country.

On Wednesday at the weekly meeting of the Ministers the President took the matter up. She said that if they were to put off elections it had to be done after receiving nominations.

"I heard that there had been a meeting between the officials of the Attorney General's Department and Minister Ratwatte where they proposed to put off elections without calling for nominations".

"In my view we have to call for nominations and then put off elections," she said.

Minister Ratwatte admitted he met Minister G.L. Peiris and Additional Solicitor General K.C. Kamalasabeyson in this respect.

He said they examined the prevailing laws thoroughly and were satisfied elections could be put off without calling for nominations.

The General added it would be ridiculous to call for nominations if they were not going to hold elections.

The question is not the postponement of nominations but elections, the President said.

With this both the President and General Ratwatte started firing salvos at each other while the other Ministers watched without a murmur.

One Minister said it was like an eruption of a volcano while another told this column they watched the heated debate in "dead silence".

On Friday June 26 also the Cabinet discussed the elections. General Ratwatte was asked to outline the security position for the elections.

He said the Elections Commissioner had specially mentioned that he needed at least 30,000 personnel for the elections.

He said the Police chief was not in a position to deploy such a large number of personnel for the polls.

It would not be possible is give adequate protection to polling booths.

General Ratwatte told the Cabinet he was not in a position to give security for the polls.

Minister G.L. Peiris explaining the legal position said it would be unpracticable to hold Presidential elections in August or before the minimum period of four years as stipulated in the Constitution.

He said he had spoken to the Attorney General and others on the matter and that they could not see any reason for having Presidential elections in August.

On Thursday Dr. Peiris conveyed the government's position to the leader of the Opposition.

Minister D.M. Jayaratne at this meeting proposed a way out, suggesting that elections be held on a staggered basis.

A notable absentee at the meeting was Minister S.B. Dissanayake, one of the two ministers, who promoted the idea of having a Presidential election before the PC elections.

Mr. Dissanayake and Minister Samaraweera argued for Presidential elections after the stipulated period of four years was completed. The Government later realised the UNP's challenge was different if not unpracticable and illegal.

The UNP even offered assistance to amend the constitution if the government agreed.

It was originally enshrined in the 1978 constitution that the term of office of the President is six years.

Later President J.R Jayewardene felt that he should go for an election before the stipulated period since the political climate was favourable for the UNP. So he moved to amend the Constitution enabling an incumbent President to go for elections after he or she completed four years in office.

It appears that the government is depending on the North East war to gain some political advantage.

Defence authorities feel troops could capture vital areas from the LTTE by December.

If this happens the PA feels it would have a good chance of winning any election despite economic hardships.

Hameed, Anura removed from UNP nomination board

The main opposition UNP was holding talks over the weekend to finalise its list for the PC polls. It is learnt that the UNP has finally agreed on Keheliya Rambukwella to be the Chief Ministerial candidate for the Central Province.

However, the UNP appears to be in disarray after the suspension of one of its oldest members, Wijeyapala Mendis.

Two frontliners who vehemently opposed the suspension, A.C.S Hameed and Anura Bandaranaike have been removed from the National Nominations Board.

In place of Mr. Hameed the leadership had brought in Imtiaz Bakeer Marker who is expected to be the UNP's Muslim leader while former Finance Minister Ronnie de Mel has replaced Mr. Bandaranaike.

Political sources have speculated on the cross-over of Mr. Bandaranaike back to the PA after newspapers reported that President Kumaratunga was to meet Mr. Bandaranaike last Saturday.

Mr. Bandaranaike himself had told some of his friends about the impending rendezvous.. However, President Kumaratunga denied this at the Cabinet meeting.

Several Ministers who were keen to know what was happening had asked officials close to the President about the reports of a possible crossover.

President Kumaratunga at the end of the Cabinet meeting said she had something to tell her Ministers.

Subsequently referring to the Chandrika-Anura meeting, she said she was not aware of any meeting between her and Anura as reported in the media. "It could be a creation of the newspapers" she said.

"I have not spoken to him for a long time. It is difficult to talk to him and settle matters" the President said nailing all rumours and speculations.

Besides this, during Wednesday's Cabinet meeting Minister Indika Gunawardena came under fire from the President. He had proposed that a new office complex be set up to ease the present congestion. He suggested it should be somewhat similar to the "Sethsirpaya" and "Isurupaya" built during the UNP time.

The President said they could agree to his suggestion in principle but she reminded Mr. Gunawardena that it would be far better if he devised a scheme to solve the problem of housing rather than setting up office complexes.

"There are thousands suffering without proper shelter and I would like you to settle their problems first" the president said.

In another development CWC leader and Minister S. Thondaman had proposed to the Cabinet a social mobilization scheme for the youth in the Estate Sector. He wanted to set up a 1000 strong youth cadre for community development.

According to Mr. Thondaman the youth in the plantation sector had been a neglected lot for years without proper education or vocational training.

He said interested parties were trying to brand them as Tigers, but he was making every effort to bring them into the social main stream.

Minister Batty Weerakoon said it should be managed and organised properly lest problems should arise from such a programme.

Mr. Weerakoon who warned the government of the consequences that could follow, however said he was not opposing the idea of Mr. Thondaman.

Mr. Weerakoon said it should be done with the proper participation of the Youth Ministry and Vocational Training Ministry.

Finally the President agreed and said the government could set up a special unit under Mr. Thondaman's Ministry to launch and monitor the programme.

Minister Thondaman's Cabinet Paper on the matter states: The Estate Community today is a community in transition. For over a century the Estate community was kept in isolation.

It was dominated by a sense of total dependency on the Estate management for all its needs. There was no significant social movement.

The spontaneous growth of youth movements did not make any special impact on the community. Thus the Estate community was denied avenues for self-expression and social development.

The significant political development of depriving the people of their political rights and condemning them to the status of a stateless community totally alienated them from the mainstream development of the country. As a stateless people the community was denied various social welfare programmes initiated by independent Sri Lanka. Frustration is mounting among the youth of the community. For a quarter of a century, the estate community was amputated from the development of the country.

The takeover of Estates, the repatriation of over 350,000 people to India also brought deeply disturbing developments on the estate community.

Electoral reforms, take-over of Estate Schools and the grant of citizenship rights have accelerated the process of integrating the Estate community into the mainstream of the nation.

The Need

It is perceived as a matter of priority to weld the estate youth with mainstream social economic development processes. The sense of isolation and the feeling of discrimination must be removed. The capacity of the industry to absorb the growing population is limited. Already there are in the estates, a large number of youth, not less than 10 percent of an Estate population, who are educated and are reluctant to work as labour in the plantations. The educated unemployed youth in the estates is new phenomenon.

This is a very potent force of social change. They are the first to become frustrated and discontented if their problems are not addressed. But if this force could be constructively engaged in social development, it would be a potent force in pioneering the social transformation which will sweep through the plantation sector. The electronic and print media bring to the people of the Estate Community the national programmes of development and socio-political changes which are being projected. The estate youth must not feel that they are once again being left out of reckoning in the national life. The objective of this training programme of youth for social development is to create a voluntary, community development cadre of youth for engineering social integration of the Estate Community with the national mainstream.

The components

An important element of this training is to transfer the role of the Estate management in servicing the community in the members of the Community in fulfilling its basic needs, for instance, in obtaining national identity cards, birth certificates etc. The youth volunteers themselves will attend to the needs of the community. Thus it is sought to break the dependency syndrome of the Estate community.

It will also extend to health needs, nutrition education, cultural development, physical education, sports promotion and library services. The first phase of training will be to create an informational network which will attempt to meet the needs of the youth and the community. The various community services that are available in a village community will also be brought to the Estate community by directly linking the state agencies with the people instead of treating them as a client community of the Estate management.

The ultimate goal of this youth Development programme is to have network of one thousand strong voluntary community development cadre, with at least 40 percent of them being women.

The strategy

The formation of a Voluntary community Development cadre is sought to be achieved through a series of youth training sessions. The training sessions will adopt a participatory methodology. The assistance and co-operation of the estate management, trade unions and voluntary association will be sought in selecting the participants.

The task of training the youth will be entrusted to resource persons with special skills, teachers, community leaders, Government officials and youth counsellors. As a first step there will be a training team who will be briefed about, the goals, objectives and the methodology of the training. A training module will be prepared and given to the training team. A quarterly review session will be held to assess the progress of the programmes and necessary modifications will be introduced if found necessary.

It is proposed to hold 50 training sessions a year, almost every week, with an average participation of 60 youth.

In a year 3000 youth would have gone through the training courses, out of whom, on the basis their ability, social commitment and the spirit of voluntarism a 1000 strong youth Cadre of community development will be constituted. They will form the vanguard of the envisaged social development activities.

I have identified Mr. R. Sivalingam who was a Director of Estate Schools in the Ministry of Education during 1970-1977 and has the necessary qualification and experience in training youth particularly estate youth to be the consultant to implement this programme. Funds are available in the Ministry for Community development programmes in the special allocation made in the Budget for 1998.

Situation Report

Editorial/Opinion Contents