Visit Asean millennium year-2002

By Renuka Sadanandan in Singapore

Announcing the initiative to market Asean as a single tourist destination the ministers said the plan would be carried out in a spirit of 'co-operative competition'.

Speaking at the opening of the Asean Tourism Conference, Singapore's Minister for Trade and Industry Lee Yock Suan said Asean countries had to get their act together, both individually and collectively to attract a larger share of the global tourism market.

"Asean has much to offer in terms of scenic beauty, history, culture, shopping and our traditional Asian hospitality. By combining our diverse attractions into various tour packages, we will be better able to entice tourists from distant locations. 

"Travellers tend to view the Asean region as a whole. The challenge is for us to develop new ideas and products to enhance the Asean tourism product and combat the negative fallout from the regional crisis," he said.

Formulating ways to boost the region's flagging tourism as a result of the Asian currency crisis has been the main focus of the Asean tourism forum, the annual gathering of the Asean travel industry. The ATF also included Travex, the Asean tourism trade show. 

Over 1,200 delegates from around the world attended the ATF which concludes today (January 31) at the Singapore Exhibition and Convention Centre.

The Asean Ministers urged that trade liberalisation for tourism services be speeded up to remove all obstacles to the free flow of tourism services among the Asean member countries. 

The Asean Tourism Association has already launched the Asean air pass developed by Aseanta member airlines to promote travel into and within the Asean region.

Are we moving from farce to tragedy ? 

By Kishali Pinto Jayawardena 

Events during the latter part of last year when elections to five Provincial Councils were postponed on grounds now ruled by the Supreme Court in its Wednesday's judgement to be "unreasonable, arbitrary, contrary to law, for a collateral purpose, discriminatory and in violation of Article 12(1) and Article 14(1) (a) of the Constitution," showed how vulnerable the Commissioner could be to executive pressure. The Wayamba province elections was an even more shocking pointer to the obvious helplessness of the Commissioner and his officials to effectively control both the conducting and the findings of the polls.

As the Commissioner of Elections accepts the judicial reprimand delivered to him that he ought to have insisted on "….. due compliance with the law in regard to all aspects of elections-even if necessary, by instituting appropriate legal proceedings in order to obtain judicial orders," he is indeed a gentleman cast in the proverbial unhappy situation between the devil and the deep blue sea.

His predicament is, of course, nothing new.

In the innumerable elections held during the UNP regime when pre and post election violence was common and the stuffing of ballot boxes occurred with impunity though not with such crudity as is happening now, there were many occasions when the then incumbent in the office of the Commissioner had to walk a political tightrope when performing his duties.

Then as now, calls were made for a remodelling of his post. Then as now, nothing much happened. Secure in their seats of power, those in governance were not overly concerned even though the opposition cried themselves hoarse.

Little did they realise that though the battles were being won by the skin of their teeth, the war was going slowly and surely against them.

The gradual corruption of the electoral process was one main reason for the ultimate defeat of the UNP at the 1994 general elections. Lessons from history though, are reluctantly learnt. The country, it seems, is fated to go through the entire sorry process all over again, to the detriment of its citizens and the disgrace of its leaders.

Is it too naive to expect a Government which came to power in 1994 promising a genuine change from the past, to seriously heed this call for an immediate vesting of the Commissioner of Elections with specific constitutional powers to effectively monitor the electoral process, so that successive elections at least could be secured to some extent? Such a step is different, in a very basic sense, from extravagant promises to deal with all those who abuse the election laws, which assurances the President and all her Ministers have been very free with during the past so many days.

It is different also from tying up reform of the Commissioner's post with the ill-fated constitutional reform package.

The need is immediate.

Whether it will be heeded will show, once and for all, the bona fides of those presently in power.Without such a crucial change, the direction of the Supreme Court this Wednesday to hold the election to the five Provincial Councils in the Central, Uva, North Central, Western and Sabaragamuwa provinces within the next three months, loses much of its sting. The Wayamba elections was a sad spectacle. Given a continuation of these same circumstances, one shudders to imagine the manner in which elections to follow would be conducted.

Once again, it is the perennial question that crops up.

Why is it that in this country, the supervisory organs of civil governance are so fundamentally deficient? Recent editorials in the national newspapers have drawn comparisons between the Indian electoral process and ours with good reason.

In India, the National Elections Commission which comprises the Chief Elections Commissioner and two other Election Commissioners, stands at the head of the country's electoral process.

Its position is so strong that if a dispute arises between the Commission and the Government with regard to the holding of a particular election allegedly on grounds of national security, the decision of the Commission would prevail over the Government. While the decision of the Commission is open to review by the Court, it has the power to countermand a direction of the Government and order a fresh poll in circumstances where the Commission feels that a free and fair election has not been held. In one particularly striking case, the flamboyantly assertive T. N. Seshan who is the present Chief Elections Commissioner, in fact, postponed a by-election in the Uttar Pradesh State on grounds of blatant violation of the model code of electoral conduct by the Chief Minister who had used a government aircraft for electioneering. Again, the counting of votes in another election in Calcutta was stopped by him on the ground that liquor was freely supplied to voters a day before the election.

Thus it was that controversial decisions taken by the Elections Commissioner passed clear messages to the politicians, forcing a rethinking of political strategies.

The strength of the Indian Elections Commission lies in constitutional provisions that guarantee its independence.

Removal of the Chief Elections Commissioner is by a stringent parliamentary procedure on the same terms as for a Supreme Court judge, and the Indian Constitution also provides that his conditions of service shall not be varied to his disadvantage after his appointment.

While there are some defects in the Indian provisions as well, they however allow the Elections Commissioner to assert his own mind which in fact, holders of the post have demonstrated time and time again, much to the displeasure of the Indian State and Central Government.

The Sri Lankan position is, of course, different.

As has been pointed out by commentators time and time again, the post of the Commissioner of Elections in this country is constitutionally weak. He is appointed by the President, "holds office during good behaviour" and could be removed by the President on extremely flimsy grounds. 

While within these limitations, it is no doubt true that the holder of the post can fashion for himself or herself, a considerable amount of authority depending on the strength of the individual personality, political realities make this difficult. Constitutionally, the post has to be revised.

As long as this is not done for the various politically expedient reasons that are offered by successive governments in power, the Sri Lankan electoral process can only degenerate from farce to tragedy. As we are now seeing in such devastating circumstances.

inside the glass house:

'They may be mostly against paper tigers'

By thalif  deen at the united nations

As a country long plagued by terrorism, Sri Lanka led the way at a media-hyped, treaty-signing ceremony at the UN's Department of Legal Affairs. Waiting in line behind Sri Lanka were some of the world's anti-terrorist heavy hitters, including the United States, Britain, France and Germany. 

But more than 12 months after the hoopla, Sri Lanka has still not ratified the convention that aims, among other things, at obligating nations with liberal asylum laws to deny safe havens to terrorists of all stripes. 

A UN treaty has no teeth— and hardly any bite— until and unless it is ratified by individual member states. The required number of ratifications, which could range from 22 to 40, make the treaty legally binding. 

"Ratification of a treaty creates binding obligations under international law," explains Palitha Kohona, the Sri Lanka-born, Australian diplomat, who is Chief of the UN Treaty Section. "Until a signatory state ratifies a treaty, it has only an obligation not to do anything contrary to the objects and purposes of the treaty. It is only on ratification that a signatory state acquires in international law, the positive obligation to give actual effect, in good faith, to the provisions of the treaty.''

This would include enacting the necessary domestic legislation to give effect to obligations under international law.

Surprisingly, the Sri Lanka government, which has been sitting on the anti-terrorist treaty, last week deposited the instruments of ratification for the UN convention against desertification.

In most Third World nations, including Sri Lanka, the ratification process is relatively simple because it is done by the Cabinet. But in most industrial nations, ratification could be a long drawn out process because it requires a two-thirds vote in parliament. As a result, countries such as the US, have dozens of international treaties held up for want of ratifications.

As of last week, the treaty against terrorist bombings had been signed by 40 of the UN's 185 member states but ratified by only one: Uzbekistan. The treaty can enter into force only after 22 countries have ratified it. But judging by the current trend, the ratification may not take place until the turn of the century. Kohona says that unless an interested country takes the initiative to launch a vigorous campaign for its ratification, the treaty will remain in limbo. Canada did just that for the much-publicised UN convention against landmines which was open for signature in December 1997. The treaty, one of the fastest ratified in history, received its needed 40 ratifications by August last year, eight months after the first signature.

The success of the landmine convention is attributed to the global ratification campaign conducted by Canada. "But nobody is pushing for the ratifications of the convention against terrorist bombings," complains Kohona.

Currently, there are about 10 international treaties relating to terrorism. But most of them— including treaties against hostage-taking, mercenaries and extortion — have neither been signed nor ratified by Sri Lanka. The United Nations is adding the final touches to a new treaty against nuclear terrorism while France has initiated a draft for a new international convention against fund-raising for terrorism.

By the end of the century, the UN may be saddled with 12 conventions against terrorism— but for all intents and purposes they may be mostly (no pun intended) paper tigers.
 

Return to News/Comments Contents