Focus on Rights
Just another eating, drinking forum
By Kishali Pinto Jayawardena
It was in the course of deciding whether the '98
Municipal Council elections in Negombo were valid in the face of widespread
intimidation, thuggery and violence that the Supreme Court delivered one
of its strongest judicial pronouncements on election violence in recent
times.
" The acts of general intimidation complained of in these proceedings
should be an eye opener to those vested with the responsibility of good
governance to take appropriate steps to prevent such occurrences in the
future, lest it be thought that even after 50 years of independence, the
oft lamented scourge of election violence has become part of our 'election
culture'" the Court said
This was, of course, before Wayamba, indicating clearly that the reminder
by the Court had impacted in no significant manner on our policy makers.
But let us trace the developments in the country subsequent to Wayamba.
While it is true that civic consciousness regarding election violence and
the importance of the right to vote has increased as a direct result of
the mayhem that occurred in January, thus (hopefully) making it more difficult
for such blatant excesses to re-occur, has there been any real change of
heart at the center?
Events appear to indicate otherwise. One obvious example being the dismal
fate of the once eulogised multi- party Elections Monitoring Committee.
Expectations of what the Committee could accomplish had naturally been
high at the outset. Immediately after its formation in late January, a
state owned paper hailed its establishing under the "far sighted and
resourceful leadership" of President Chandrika Kumaranatunga as a
"triumph for democracy".
This time however, the state media was not alone
in its perpetual optimism. Wearied by the continued intra-party and inter-party
fighting, the country's people welcomed the Committee as working towards
a much needed bi-partisan consensus in the conducting of polls. So much
so that a lobby group of top business leaders in the country decided that
their coming together to agitate for free and fair polls, following the
Wayamba elections, was no longer needed in the face of the all-party initiative.
A month later and within striking distance of the April 6 polls, the free
and fair conducting of elections which the Committee is supposed to ensure
has not come about. It is evident that the optimism has been singularly
ill founded and on the whole not a particularly successful cosmetic exercise.
What, indeed, has this Committee achieved so far? Was it not hoped that
it would spearhead some kind of consensus as to the immediate implementation
of legal and constitutional safeguards that would take the April polls
out of a "Wayamba-less" mood and bring back some sanity to the
electoral process? Surely, the expectations were not merely that it would
be a "eating and drinking forum" at which representatives of
the various political parties could blow hot air about their grievances?
Unfortunately, the latter is precisely what it has turned out to be. The
manner in which its meetings have been postponed since its inception is
a matter of public record and the Committee has confined itself to issuing
sanctimonious exhortations to officials conducting and policing the polls
that are, to be irresistibly clichetic, not worth the paper they are printed
on.
With the JVP withdrawing from the Committee this
week, any faint hope that the Committee would be able to pull out the rabbit
from the hat at the proverbial last moment deteriorated still further.
In a statement that underscored their past commitment to the functioning
of the committee in spite of their members being attacked and harassed
in increasing numbers day by day, the JVP has set out a succinct list of
broken promises as reasons for their ultimate withdrawal. High on this
list comes the inability of both the PA and the UNP party leaders to effectively
intervene in the spread of pre- election violence and the lethargy of the
Government to set up the committee that was supposed to investigate Wayamba's
election malpractices.
It is pointed out that this inaction on the part of the Government not
only condones further violence but openly supports the boasting of certain
Provincial Council members in Wayamba that their seats, though won by thuggery,
will remain with them. Additional failed guarantees concern the non allocation
of equal space for party political space on state radio and television
and the failure to give the Commissioner of Elections adequate resources,
including the providing of mobile phones and vehicles, for the conducting
of the elections.
Thus it is that the initial promise to give the
Commissioner at least one vehicle per polling station in order that ballot
boxes will be transported directly to the counting centres instead of the
same vehicle being used to collect boxes from other stations, shows no
sign of being carried out. On the other hand, the irony is that PA politicians
are presently using state vehicles with impunity for electioneering. But
by far, the most important lacuna identified by the party is the lack of
political will to expand the legal and constitutional authority of the
Commissioner of Elections, particularly the power to declare invalid a
poll in a particular polling station if there is intimidation, rigging
or stuffing of ballot boxes.
" It is a puzzling question why these changes in the law cannot
be carried out as a matter of urgency, if those in power genuinely wish
for a free and fair election……………….." the statement queries in typically
tongue- in - cheek fashion.
The puzzlement of the JVP is only natural. The initial request by the
Commissioner to amend the law in this respect was made as far back as February
27, 1999 as clearly seen in a letter sent to the Secretary to the President
which is now part of the court record in a fundamental rights case filed
by five voters of the Western Province late last month arguing that, by
reason of the extreme violence during the Wayamba elections, their free,
equal and secret ballot in the upcoming elections stood in imminent danger
of being violated, unless speedy action is taken by the Commissioner of
Elections and the IGP to safeguard their rights.
Here, the Commissioner has made an urgent appeal for specific changes
to the Provincial Councils Elections Law including amendments "in
order to curb situations arising on the date of poll". This, in effect,
would give him the power to cancel a poll in five situations, namely if
it is not possible to conduct the poll due to any reasons beyond the control
of the presiding officer, if one or more polling agents are chased out
during the poll, non arrival of the polling party at any polling station
due to obstruction on the way, if any disturbance of peace at the polling
station makes it impossible to take the poll and if any stuffing of ballot
boxes are forcibly done by any unauthorised persons.
The Commissioner has also called for amendments
to the law compelling police officers to comply with any direction given
by him in the conducting of elections as well as compelling the police
to take steps against violators of election laws and to ensure the ordinary
conduct of an election. At present, obligations imposed on the police in
this regard are vague and give little authority to the Commissioner.
These are then, changes to the law that would have been of important
practical effect in ensuring trouble free voting in the forthcoming polls.
If the Committee, backed by the President and her ministers had indeed
implemented them, the end result could only have been a distinct softening
towards the bona fides of the present Government, rather than a general
feeling of revulsion that the voter in any of these five provinces now
feels when contemplating his or her civic duty on Tuesday. Reportedly,
the Government has not reacted favourably to these suggestions, merely
deferring them for inclusion in the eternally overdue constitutional reform
package of the Government.
Instead, the focus is on the monitors, amidst allegations
that figures relating to pre election violence are being inflated in sinister
"UNP backed" moves. While the rhetoric is abominably and predictably
vulgar, what is more alarming is the increasing use of criminal defamation
as a threat not only against journalists but also polls monitors.
The reportedly frivolous manner in which these complaints are being
registered and investigated by the police on the basis of partisan political
complaints and without the necessary sanction being first obtained by the
Attorney General indicates clearly the open contempt with which the law
is now being held. How much more can go wrong?
inside the glass house:
More of a Secretary than a General
By thalif deen at the united nations
NEW YORK— Whenever the United Nations is embroiled
in a political crisis involving the five veto-wielding members— namely
the US, France, Britain, China and Russia— the conventional wisdom at the
UN is for the Secretary-General to play it safe: act more like a Secretary
and less like a General.
Article 99 of the UN Charter says the Secretary-General may bring to
the attention of the Security Council any matter, which in his opinion,
may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.
But since the Security Council has already voted 12 to 3 rejecting a
Russian resolution to end the US-led NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia, Secretary-General
Kofi Annan says there is very little he can do because he doesn't have
an army of his own.
UN spokesman Fred Eckhard points out that Annan feels he has done—and
is doing— everything that is within his power. "At the moment, he
doesn't see a role for himself."
When Annan took the initiative to visit Baghdad last year to break a
deadlock on UN arms inspections, he not only had the implicit support of
the Security Council but also received the right signals from Saddam Hussein.
In Kosovo, he has neither.
Asked if the US or anybody else could stop him from going to Belgrade,
Eckhard said Annan is head of a Secretariat that services member states.
"He doesn't get very far in front of his bosses— those 185 governments.
If he went, it would be with the blessings of member states."
With the Secretary-General exercising caution and the UN moving with
the leisured pace of a paralytic snail, the military strikes by NATO forces
and the ethnic cleansing by the Serbs move into their second week. The
capture of three American servicemen has only infuriated the US providing
more public support for President Clinton.
Meanwhile, the Russians, Chinese and the Indians - who are saddled with
their own domestic problems with Chechens, Tibetans and Kashmiris respectively-
have denounced the US attack as a violation of national sovereignty. India,
which is now upholding the principle of non-interference, is being told
that it violated the same principle when it intervened to help create Bangladesh
in 1971. India is also concerned that the US may one day decide to take
out its nuclear facilities on the ground that they are a threat to international
peace and security.
Since India, Russia and China are countries with the world's three largest
populations, Indian Ambassador Kamalesh Sharma did a quick calculation
and pronounced that the international community could hardly be said to
have endorsed NATO military actions when representatives of "half
of humanity had said they did not agree with what NATO had done."
Almost all of the Muslim countries have expressed their sympathy with
the sufferings of ethnic Albanians who profess the Islamic faith. Malaysia
and Gambia, two of the Muslim countries in the 15-member Security Council,
voted against the cease-fire and implicitly supported the US attack on
the Serbs.
The traditional alliances at the UN have been turned around. The 114
member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the largest single political grouping
at the UN, is divided and has been struggling for days to find consensus
on a statement on Kosovo. The draft statement gives precedence to the humanitarian
crisis — virtually justifying the US attack— over violation of sovereignty.
Meanwhile, several American newspapers have drawn a parallel between
Kosovo and Sri Lanka. A US Senator, who is opposed to NATO intervention
in the Balkans, went on national television last week to argue that if
Americans could unleash their fighter planes on Yugoslavia, they could
also justifiably bomb Sri Lanka because both countries have one thing in
common: an ethnic problem.
Since there is only superficial comparison between the two situations,
Sri Lanka has maintained tight-lipped silence at the UN lest it antagonises
one of its strongest allies against terrorism: the US. The decision is
clearly a choice between national interest and political grandstanding.
Sri Lanka has opted for the former.
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