By Our Political Editor
The coming week will bring many moments of glory to President Percy Mahinda Rajapaksa. That it will be somewhat similar to those euphoric moments when he won the November 2005 Presidential elections is in no doubt.
He will host other South Asian leaders - the likes of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Nepal's caretaker Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, Bangladesh Special Advisor Fakhruddin Ahmed, Bhutanese Premier Leon Chchin Jigmi Y. Tinley and the Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.
One facet of President Rajapaksa's public relations campaign is the billboards that dot the City of Colombo and immediate suburbs. For sometime now, the large portraits on them had not been removed. In them, Rajapaksa is seen shaking hands with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahemadinejad. Whilst they stand on the sides of main roads, those welcoming the South Asian leaders are coming up in key locations. Evidently, some of those responsible for these hoardings have not done their homework. One, which we carry on Page 6 shows the Labour Minister having got his arithmetic wrong despite his so-called doctorate which he proudly flaunts.
The highlight of the Colombo sessions of South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) this week is the two-day summit of leaders on August 2 and 3. In some quarters, the event itself is branded as a "talk show." South Asian leaders will make official statements on August 2 at plenary sessions that will begin after the opening at 10 a.m. The next day they will adjourn to the Parliamentary complex at Sri Jayawardenapura, their retreat, for a luncheon meeting. It will be confined strictly to the leaders, their Foreign Ministers, Foreign Secretaries and the SAARC Secretary General.
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| The Europen Parliamentary delegation let by Robert Evans addressing the media in Colombo on Friday. Pic by Gemunu Wellage |
Even more important than SAARC, Government officials say, are the bi-lateral exchanges that will take place on the sidelines of the summit, though the SAARC summit itself is not meant to discuss bi-lateral issues. Most significant among them to Sri Lanka, according to these officials, is the meeting between Rajapaksa and Manmohan Singh. It was only last Tuesday that the latter's Congress Government won a trust vote in the Lok Sabha notwithstanding allegations that it has bribed Members of Parliament to cross-vote.
Besides talks on bi-lateral issues, Rajapaksa is to highlight a number of his Government's achievements. The first, of course, is over the ethnic issue where he is to tell Singh that the Government was busy making preparations to enforce provisions of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. Last month, Singh sent three of his senior most bureaucrats - National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and Defence Secretary Vijay Singh - for meetings with Rajapaksa and his officials in Colombo.
One of the main issues raised by India is its official position that there is no military solution to the ethnic conflict. Government officials say Rajapaksa will explain to the Indian leader that the military campaign against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is to weaken its military capability to unleash widespread violence. He is to showcase the victories made by the Security Forces against Tiger guerrillas. This is whilst the Government pursues its efforts to enforce the 13th Amendment to the Constitution - largely brokered by India's former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi back in 1987, this time on the lines recommended by the Interim Report of the Sri Lankan All Party Representative Committee (APRC). Thereafter, the Government is to look to the final report of the APRC with regard to further political proposals.
Another matter of significance will be Singh's meeting with the the Eastern Provincial Council's new Chief Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillayan. This is on the basis that he is now an elected representative of the people, and is the Chief Minister. This is notwithstanding another reality. The North and East were temporarily merged as one unit after the signing of the Indo-SriLanka Accord of July 1987. However, it was de-merged following a Supreme Court ruling. The elections to the Eastern Provincial Council took place in May, this year, only in this backdrop.
Another aspect, political analysts opine, is the fact that Singh's meeting with Pillayan would constitute a formal official recognition by India of the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal - TMVP - (or the Tamil People's Liberation Tigers).
The move is also salutary for India, which has one of its largest investments in Sri Lanka in the Eastern Province. It is the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) holding a part of the World War II vintage oil tank farm in China Bay, in the strategically situated Trincomalee harbour area. A politically strong TMVP in control in the Eastern Province will no doubt provide a better environment for the Indian interests in the east. Another such interest is the proposed multi-million dollar electricity generation complex that is to be built with Indian investment in Nilaveli (Trincomalee north).
The TMVP is the political arm of the LTTE breakaway faction headed by its renegade eastern commander, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan alias Karuna. Since Karuna's return from Britain where he served a prison sentence for illegally entering that country, he had been actively involved in TMVP political affairs.
Other political leaders Singh is expected to meet are Opposition United National Party (UNP) leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress leader Rauff Hakeem and Tamil National Alliance leader R. Sampanthan.
At least next week, the economic woes Sri Lanka is facing and what is now becoming the fast diminishing chances of Sri Lanka receiving the concessionary GSP Plus facility from the European Union will remain largely forgotten. This week, a European Parliamentary delegation led by Robert Evans met Government and Opposition leaders in Colombo. Members of the delegation did not hide their concerns about human rights violations and the unabated violence unleashed on the media that gave dissenting views on various issues of public concern. Perhaps, the only exception was the Sri Lankan born European Parliamentarian, Nirj Deva who remained largely non-committal. Though now a British citizen, he still holds a Sri Lankan Diplomatic Passport.
Opposition leader Wickremesinghe gave the European parliamentarians a detailed briefing on the political situation in the country. He said the Rajapaksa administration was wantonly violating the Constitution. He said human rights violations have reached an all time high. It has never been so bad. He said media freedom, an essential pre-requisite for any democracy, was being blatantly trampled upon. Media personnel who gave different views from that of the government were being harassed, abducted and assaulted. He cited the instances where The Nation's Deputy Editor, Keith Noyahr, the Sri Lankan Press Institute's Namal Perera, and Mahendra Ratnaweera of the British High Commission were badly beaten up by goons. No one has been brought to book so far, he pointed out. UNP's Kotte Parliamentarian Ravi Karunanayake, was to point out that the Government spent more than Rs 500 million a day on the war effort. He said the Government had kept away from the public many aspects of the war. This was by harassing and intimidating the media, he added.
In this backdrop, a controversy is brewing in opposition circles over how the Parliamentary Committee on High Posts had cleared Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the United States, Jaliya C. Wickremasuriya, a close relative of President Rajapaksa. Only five Government members of the Committee had been present at the meeting held in Committee Room 3 of Parliament on Friday, May 30 at 10 a.m. They had interviewed and cleared Mr. Wickremasuriya. Also cleared on that day was Nihal de Silva Jayasinghe, High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.
The members present at the meeting were Prime Minister, Ratnasiri Wickremanayake (Chairman), Dinesh Gunawardena, A.D. Susil Premajayantha, Prof. Wisva Warnapala and Rishad Bathiutheen. Also present was Parliament's Acting Secretary General Dhammika Kitulgoda.
According to the minutes of the meeting, Kitulgoda informed the Committee that Nimal Siripala de Silva, Ministers A.H.M. Fowzie, Karu Jayasuriya and UNP's K.N. Choksy had intimated their inability to attend the May 30 meeting. They had been consequently granted leave.
Some opposition MPs say they were unaware of this meeting. Hence, they could not attend it, and therefore raised objections. One of them is former Foreign Minister, Mangala Samaraweera. He told The Sunday Times, "Usually, all letters for meetings of the Committee on High Posts are sent to me by special delivery to my home address. However, this letter was in my post box in Parliament. I did not go to Parliament since it was prorogued on May 6. I went there only after June 5, when the House resumed sittings. By then the Committee had already held the sittings. This is highly irregular".
There are 31 MPs in the Parliamentary Committee on High Posts now. They are Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, M.H. Mohamed, D.M. Jayaratne, Nimal Siripala de Silva, A.H.M. Fowzie, G.L. Peiris, Maithripala Sirisena, W.D.J. Senewiratne, Arumugam Thondaman, Dinesh Gunawardena, Ferial Ismail Ashraff, Susil Premajayantha, Karu Jayasuriya, Wiswa Warnapala, Rishad Bathiudeen, Champaka Ranawaka, Joseph Michael Perera, Renuka Herath, K.N. Choksy, John Ameratunga, Mangala Samaraweera, Ravi Karunanayake, Lakshman Senewiratne, Suresh Premachandran, Mavai S. Senathiraja, Ranjith Aluvihare, Nandana Gunathilake, Dimuthu Bandara Abayakoon, Ajith Kumara, Dayasiri Jayasekera and Sharfeek Rajabdeen.
UNP's Ravi Karunanayake added, "even if such a meeting was within legal confines, it was highly improper for the Prime Minister and four other MPs of the Government side to sit without Opposition representatives. I know a number of other MPs who were unaware until the sittings were over. After all, the House was prorogued and during that period MPs did not visit there."
It is not illegal for the Parliamentary Committee on High Posts to sit during prorogation, Priyani Wijesekera, former Secretary General of Parliament told The Sunday Times. She said when the House was prorogued, all other Committees except the one dealing with High Posts lapsed. "All current business before the House and all proceedings pending are quashed except for impeachments," she said.
Wijesekera said permitting the function of the Parliamentary Committee on High Posts is Standing Orders 128A sub section (3). It says: "The Committee shall have the power to report to Parliament from time to time and shall continue its examination although Parliament may be prorogued." Wijesekera said that the Committee could hold sittings during prorogation.
A note circulated to members of the Parliamentary Committee on High Posts, copies of which were received by some Opposition MPs only after its sittings during prorogation on June 30, says Ambassador Jaliya Wickremasuriya had passed his GCE (Advanced Level) as a student at Nalanda College. He had begun his professional career as a Tea Taster, Management executive at MJF Group, Forbes and Walker in 1978. From 2006 to 2008 he has been Consul General for Sri Lanka in Western Region of the United States.
However, the United National Party contends that some of its members have been deprived of an opportunity to raise questions from Wickremasuriya. They now want to write to the Speaker W.J.M. Lokubandara protesting against only Government parliamentarians holding sittings on June 30 to clear Wickremasuriya. They are to seek another meeting which they say would be fully representative of the Parliamentary Committee on High Posts.
In the United States of America, where Wickramasuriya is now posted to, the President can make an Executive appointment when Congress is in recess (on holiday, but somewhat like a prorogation), which is valid only for a year. Often, when a President feels that his nominee will not get Congressional approval, he would make such an appointment during the Congress recess period, like when President George W. Bush II did with John Bolton, his Ambassador nominee to the United Nations. Bolton was appointed Ambassador, but lasted only one year on the job.
Many other similar procedures in the US political system have been under study in Sri Lanka for quite some time, one of them being the Oversight Committees which give power to the committee to question Cabinet Ministers and summon witnesses and documents, etc., in the interest of good governance. But it seems that all Governments simply wish to clear hurdles any which way they can, under the existing system, and be done with it. The Wickramasuriya episode is just one of those cases.
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