28th November 1999 

Clinging on to a dictatorial presidency

Sound doesn’t kill the enemy

Clinging on to a dictatorial presidency

Under this extraordinary system, the President is the Chief Executive of the state and is the Commander-in-Chief of the three armed forces. He/she is the head of the Cabinet which is appointed by him/her and has the right to hold any number of ministries. He/she does not sit in Parliament but can address the Parliament. The President cannot be criticised in Parliament except in a resolution to impeach him/her which is tabled with the signatures of two-thirds of its members. He/she cannot be prosecuted in a court of law even when he/she has committed a serious offence or crime. 

When Chandrika Kumaratunga became president she solemnly promised she would abolish this dictatorial presidential system introduced by J.R. Jayewardene. She did not say at that time that she would need the support of two-thirds of the members of Parliament to abolish that system. What she said was she would convert the Parliament into a constituent assembly and abolish the presidential system. At the presidential election held after the parliamentary election, too, she not only gave an assurance to the country to that effect, but also gave a promise in writing to the JVP that the presidential system would be abolished before July 15, 1995. Although she scored a massive victory at the presidential election, she did not even fulfil her promise to do away with the president's immunity, to say nothing about abolishing the presidential system. After enjoying the privileges of a dictatorial presidential system for five years, she now says it was not possible to abolish the presidential system because she did not have the backing of a two-thirds of Parliament, but that she would do it definitely this time when she is re-elected.

There is a debate about the presidential system too. Some leaders of the minorities say the presidential system suits the country better than a parliamentary system, and that the presidential system gives the minorities the opportunity to influence the process of selecting the head of state. If indeed the presidential system is the best system available, it has to be a democratic presidential system and not a dictatorial one. If an executive presidential form of government, rather than a parliamentary form of government centered in Parliament, serves the interests of the country better, then this executive presidential system must be reformed at least to the extent of abolishing the dictatorial powers of the President under that system. At least the presidential immunity must be abolished as demanded by the leader of the SLMC.

Mr. Ashraff's demand was that laws and regulations abolishing presidential immunity be brought before Parliament and passed prior to the presidential election. The UNP too had agreed to support such a move. However the President did not agree to the request of her Cabinet colleagues. 

If Sri Lanka is going to step into the new millennium saddled with a dictatorial system of government, then the country would not be entering into a modernist future but going back to a feudalistic past. This would mean the people would be like vassals of a dictatorial President in a set up akin to a monarchy. Although the leader of the UNP speaks about a modernisation process, he too is silent about the reforms that would be effected in this system of dictatorial presidency. He has said if he wins, he would create an independent Election Commission and an Independent Public Service Commission and that he would abolish the criminal defamation law and enact laws that would guarantee media freedom before this Parliament is dissolved. All that is good. But why does he not, at least give an assurance that the President's immunity would be removed before the Parliament is dissolved? There cannot be any system of independent commissions under a dictatorial political system. Nor can there be free and fair election or true freedom of the press. The most important question is not whether the presidential system of government or the parliamentary form of government is best, but whether the head of state, under any form of government, should be given the power to function as a dictator. In this sense, a guarantee that presidential immunity would be given up is more important than promises of other great things before dissolution of Parliament.

Sound doesn’t kill the enemy

BY RAVI JAYEWARDENE

They expended large quantities of ammunition in full automatic fire often without making any impression on the enemy. They often fell victim to accurate enemy sniper fire, while they themselves found solace in shooting indiscriminate bursts of automatic fire with the weapons that they carried. Most of these bursts of full automatic fire were not aimed but fired in the general direction of the enemy. It was only an undirected stray bullet that may perhaps have caused a chance enemy casualty. 

The situation became so desperate that even weapons manufacturers incorporated a three round burst facility into their new models. When the trigger was pressed these weapons fired only three rounds and stopped. Thereafter to fire the next burst of three rounds the trigger had to be pressed again. This to some extent prevented the inadequately trained soldier from freezing on his trigger and expending all the ammunition that his magazine contained in one long burst of fire. 

Perhaps the American Government saved some money by this but the problem of how they were to make an impression on the enemy remained unsolved, as often even these three round bursts were fired without aiming, in the stress of combat and in panic. This dilemma had a simple solution but strangely the powers that be were slow to stumble upon it.

If one were to say that such as those that wield political power are not schooled in the ways of making war and that they are not supposed to know these things, then it was left to those that carry the weighty brass on their shoulders to advise. In the United States this lesson was finally learned though it was after some considerable cost to human life and limb.

The simple solution was adequate training. When specialised units such as the Green Berets were finally formed and sent to the battlefront, some difference began to be seen in the war in Vietnam.

Training is at many levels in many things. The legendary Bruce Lee, with one pointed perseverance trained his body to the very extremes of his strength and stamina in martial arts. This was one level of training. A production line worker may be merely doing a mundane job by pushing a piece of metal under a press and retrieving it at the other end to bin it for the next stage. This can also be called a certain level of training.

Not approaching either of these extremes, the training of the soldier is a unique accomplishment, where an average human being with all his fears and emotion is transformed into someone who merely responds to impulses, devoid of all emotion or indecision. If one were to throw a punch at a professional boxer, he would instinctively move out of its way, ward off the blow and most probably punch back in one fluid movement without applying any conscious thought to it. He would merely have reacted to an impulse as a result of his training. 

The trained professional soldier should react in much the same way when a potentially threatening situation confronts him. The weapon steadied on the shoulder, the safety catch released, target acquisition made and the trigger pressed to discharge the round all in on fluid movement in the blink of an eye without conscious thought. All the normal emotions in him - the fear, the thought of ‘shall I fight or flee,’ ‘will I get killed’ - should have been eliminated through training. 

The proficiency with the weapon that he carries should have become so automatic that it becomes like the professional boxer’s counter punch. He no longer thinks but reacts. It is only at this level of proficiency that he can be considered someone sufficiently trained - a soldier. 

Strangely the motivation to fight also comes from the confidence that is born of intense training. These scientific methods of training that transform the mind and body are available today. However, those who direct the war in Sri Lanka apparently either live in ignorance of them or live with the belief that they know better. Should we in this country then not ask ourselves whether we are being fair by those young men who enlist to fight for their country? Do we give them the training that equips them mentally and physically to withstand enemy fire, artillery, mortar and grenade? Or are we still sending young men merely in soldier’s uniform and inadequately trained, to tremble and shake in the din of battle, to forget the instructions that they have been given? Unable to find where the safety catch of their weapon is situated, these men are likely to drop the weapon and flee. Our decision-makers should take a long look at their own conscience devoid of motives and ambitions in order to determine whether all this is true. 

Most wars are fought for land and this one is no exception. It must then become obvious that however sophisticated your heavy weaponry is, it finally becomes the task of the foot-soldier to go in and occupy land, and if he is inadequate not so much in weaponry but in himself, then no victory can ever be achieved. 

Successive governments in our country have not listened to the voices that have learned through trial and bitter error elsewhere in the world. We did not learn then, and over fifteen years into this conflict we are still not learning. We rather wait patiently while our youth are delivered to grieving relatives in body bags and still wonder why the sound of his weapon did not kill the enemy. 

From the Green Corner

Editorial/ Opinion Contents