15Oct 2018
14/10/2018The Office was promised in 2015 when it was included in the United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution 30/1 which was co-sponsored by the Government of Sri Lanka. In 2017, the Government requested for more time to implement the commitments contained in the Resolution and received a further two year extension. In June this year there was a rush to introduce the Bill with just one consultation session organised in Colombo for select civil society members. The civil society made calls for broader consultations and shared proposals for potential amendments, but these were ignored and the Bill hastily gazetted and tabled in Parliament. In the enthusiasm to rush the Bill, limited attempts were made by the authorities to genuinely engage with victims and affected communities and to raise awareness among the public as to what reparations are, and how a future Office could function. This was confirmed recently when I spent a few days in the North of Sri Lanka where the lack of awareness on the new law was evident.
This lack of awareness was apparent during the Parliament debate where, barring a few, many MPs were not fully aware of what reparations are and how they can be beneficial for their own constituencies. In the absence of information and constructive debate, divisive positions have been emboldened. Some of the statements made by politicians also highlighted the lack of understanding of a Bill that was in the public domain for a few months, now. Either due to this lack of understanding or in an attempt to create mischief, false assertions were made during the debate which could exacerbate tensions and create mistrust among affected communities. It also highlighted the critical need to understand what reparations are and their potential impact in postwar Sri Lanka.
Reparations are one of the four pillars of transitional justice, the others being, truth, justice, and non-recurrence. Reparations complement the other pillars and should not be treated as a separate entity. Leader of the Opposition R. Sampanthan in his speech during the debate recently, reiterated the need for truth and justice, and underscored why reparations are not a substitute to these. This is an essential point. The new law provides for individual and collective reparations and can also assist victims by way of providing material and symbolic support to assist with rebuilding their lives. If implemented in a comprehensive manner, reparation can directly and comprehensively benefit victims and affected communities across Sri Lanka.
Reparations are a critical component for societies that have experienced past abuses. Reparations are a way of recognising the grievances of individuals and communities and providing them with appropriate remedies. They can also allow victims to be recognised and be treated as rights holders. Reparations as provided in the new law will be available to all victims of past abuses and are not meant for a select few.
Reparations are not new to Sri Lanka. Successive governments have provided various aspects of reparations with institutions such as, the Rehabilitation of Persons, Properties and Industries Authority (REPPIA) and others being tasked with administering these forms of reparation. REPPIA has had its own challenges, from a narrow scope to limited funds. We have also witnessed the lack of uniformity in how reparations are dealt, with multiple actors being involved with compensation schemes in relation to different disasters and conflicts in the past. This has inadvertently resulted in victim hierarchies where some victims receive greater compensation than others. The Office can address these anomalies by bringing the different reparation schemes and programmes within one entity and ensuring there is coherence and consistency in the future.
The Office is meant to be an independent entity to define and implement reparations for all Sri Lankans. This means anyone across Sri Lanka can go before the Office. But, several worrying sections remain in the recently enacted law. One is the dependency on the Cabinet for the approval of policies and guidelines formulated by the Office (section 11(1)(g)). Recent debates demonstrated particular views held by some in Cabinet which can possibly colour any future approval process and ultimately impact the work of the Office.
Second is the role of Parliament. Section 22(4) provides that any policies and guidelines authorising the disbursement of funds require Parliament’s approval. This adds an additional layer of approval to what is meant to be an independent entity, potentially leading to delays and resulting in policies and guidelines being changed to address concerns raised by politicians.
The Office will have its own fund with identified funding sources which will be audited by the Auditor General. A lesson to learn from existing reparations schemes is to ensure that the Office has sufficient funds to provide reparations. Limited funds will negatively define reparations programmes, shutting out some victims and leading to the creation of victim hierarchies and divisions within victims and communities. Reparations, however, are more than mere compensation and every effort must be taken to design and implement comprehensive reparation policies, guidelines and programmes which address all dimensions of the suffering endured by victims.
It is hoped, the process of appointment provided in the law will ensure that the five members to be appointed to the Office will be those with expertise and knowledge and be independent. The OMP took an unduly long time to be operationalised and one hopes the Office does not face the same fate. Equally important is the recruitment of staff with necessary expertise and skills, and ensuring regional representation so that people across Sri Lanka are able to access the Office. Further, communication is a critical area that requires considerable strengthening in order to educate the public as to what reparations are, the mandate of the Office and other relevant information. A concerted effort must be made on raising awareness and engaging with victims, affected communities and the larger public.
Time is of the essence. This month, the President promised to return state-occupied lands to their owners by the end of the year. The OMP has produced an interim report which contains several important recommendations requiring attention. Numerous victims of violence and conflict are still awaiting financial and social assistance. Challenges in memorialisation remain for many who lived through the war. All these and more come within the purview of reparations. We now have the law to provide for an Office. The coming weeks and months will tell if the Office is able to deliver and whether it goes beyond mere rhetoric to one that truly facilitates in genuine transformation.
Sunday Observer
There are three broadly distinct economic classes of people in Sri Lanka. The rich, the middle class and the poor, each of which could be sub-divided: 1. the richest to which the past and present politicians and their closest cronies belong and some of the business class and businessmen who also are in many ways beneficiaries of the favours of the ruling class whose material worth is calculated in the hundreds of millions. 2. The upper middle class who have inherited possessions of substantial worth that continue to bring good incomes along with those with prosperous businesses and the lower middle class who live off monthly earned salaries, small properties, investments and savings. 3. The poor, some of who are employed as minor staff while others do menial jobs or are self-employed earning a living for their day-to-day existence and the very poor among who are the old without any stable income and who have no one to look after them and those who have no income except what may be received as a ‘charity’ allowance from the government. (It is an irony that a throw-away dole is called charity. Charity is a self-sacrificing donation of oneself in fraternal compassion.)
The poorest of the poor who have no proper abode or food or clothing and do not know where their next meal is going to come from. Some of these poor people have found their way to elders’ homes managed by voluntary charitable and religious institutions who feel for the pain the poor go through.
Visible to the keen observer is the wide gap between these classes of people. It is not only surprising but also indicative of a civilization and culture and a high level of self-respect on the part of the poor as well as their helplessness and weakness that in spite of the visible contrast between the rich and the poor, the animosity of the weak and the poor do not create frequent tensions against the rich or between the rulers and the helpless poorer citizens. This is also because the weakness of the poor will be forcefully suppressed by those in power if such a rebellion were to occur. In any case, narrowing the gap is not only improving a lot of the poor but also all getting more civilized and building the nation.
SRI LANKA’S RICH AND THE POOR
Life, as it comes, is not fair to everyone in many circumstances. All those who share life as rational human beings, have to make life human, fair, secure and livable for all, especially for the poor and disadvantaged who in their physical incapacity and powerlessness cannot do it on their own. The poor do not have decent houses, nourishing food, proper clothes. They also do not have benevolent and generous friends.
Poverty could bring on a misery that demeans life and makes the whole of society out of joint as it were. Though the able-bodied poor could earn their living by the sweat of their brow, their sweat is accounted of little worth in a society where the better off not only keep the poor man’s work at a low worth but also treat the poor with a certain disdain. The rich cheaply earn their ease by buying the labour of the poor at too low a price. Though this directly offends human dignity, the consciences of people of modern society do not seem to be pricked by it. The whole of society acts unjustly by the thousands of the poor people in it. One wonders what the sensitivity of the conscience is of the so-called leaders of workers, the trade union bosses, ministers of labour and of governments – people who have the power and could indeed usher civilized social reform – are and have been. In a way, they too seem to be socially insensitive as they too live off the poor and in a way to exploit them, even while shouting hoarse about human rights.
Almost three billion people, half of the world’s population, live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty — on less than $1.25 a day. One billion children worldwide are living in poverty.
In Sri Lanka, 6.7% of the population live below the national ‘poverty line’ unable to get what is needed for life. Yet in South Asia, Sri Lanka rates high as its literacy rate, life expectancy and social indicators are nearly equal to those of developed countries. Sri Lanka’s education and health sectors have achieved that and Sri Lanka has reached the medium category in the Human Development Index. Yet due to poverty remaining a major stumbling block 2017 was named the “Poverty Eradication Year” for Sri Lanka and “Millenium Development goals were followed.
October 17th being Word Poverty Day, it is good to pay serious attention to the world unacceptably divided as it is between the Rich and the Poor.
Governments and modern economists of all types all over the world and of various ideologies speak of national economic resurgence and growth and the strategies that lead towards it, envisioning prospects of a wider distribution of growth, prosperity and well-being among the people and indeed of eradicating poverty that humiliates. All do not pay attention to the just and fair management and distribution of the national product but concentrate about the overall growth even when it is weighted as it often happens on the side of those who are already benefitting. Sufficient amounts always do not trickle down from the prosperous to the poor nor do the high earners duly pay their taxes. Indeed, they try every ruse to pay fewer taxes or even evade taxes altogether. Parliamentarians exempting themselves from taxes and earning from the duty-free import of vehicle and selling them and depriving the State of taxes, extending tax-free concessions to certain already privileged classes is the biggest of public scandals. Workers’ trade union bosses are deaf, dumb and blind in this regard.
Very often, the poor are like those who pick the crumbs that fall from the ‘masters’ tables’ and that does not improve their lot. They also do not always get justice for the humble and often menial work they honestly do – work that is very much needed the neglect of which could cause immense inconvenience and harm to everyone. It is work that is often undervalued and unappreciated by the whole of society. If the capitalist, liberal and Marxist socialist expert economists’ and national planners’ understanding of human dignity, human rights, democracy, equality, justice and fairness,
dignity of labour was sufficiently sober and moral and of good human quality, they would assess the quality and worth of human beings far more decently and value their work more in terms of wages. The intervention of public authority is absolutely necessary to bring about the overall right balance.
DIGNITY OF LABOUR
It has to be noted that menial work for which the pay is very low is handsomely paid for in other countries. People who would never think of doing such work here, such as cleaning streets and toilets, readily seek such jobs in Europe as the wages are high. In fact, on a visit to Rome, three years ago, a young Sri Lankan who was engaged doing such work came in his own new car to see my friend and me and took us for dinner to a good restaurant and was generous in his hospitality.
The poor suffer many disadvantages, the foremost of which is their being denied their human dignity and human rights along with a sense of respect and honour due to human beings. Many children of the poor forfeit their childhood by becoming child labourers and breadwinners for the family.
As child labourers, among the other many disadvantages, that they suffer from are their inability to even garner the benefits of free education and health services as well as other social and civic rights along with the manners and courtesies that come with a good upbringing and wholesome education.
All almost unconsciously though not maliciously or wickedly look on and relate to the poor not on a level of equality but at a lesser level. As every material thing and every capability and intellectual property gets measured and valued in terms of money, the capabilities of the poor get less than a value of even a pet dog of the rich. These measurements and attitudes do not enable a poor person to live a dignified human life in today’s society.
ILL-BRED POLITICIANS
Even government departments such as the Department of Education, the Police and the Armed Forces are sometimes used by governments in power to irrationally and unreasonably silence and subjugate the democratic voice of the poor and disadvantaged people. Ministers and bureaucrats have no time and patience to listen to the voice of the poor. In fact, it is the stupid and ill-bred ministers, deputy ministers and politicians wielding power who treat those they think are ‘below’ them in inhuman and indecent ways. Blokes such as those who are indeed the society’s scum. They have grabbed power and are far from bringing on a new civilization in which all people could live in keeping with human dignity, mutual respect and honour.
On the part of political power holders there shouldn’t be a vague desire but a determined will and the capability of improving a lot of the poor by mobilizing the natural, human, material, political and moral resources at their command. But this does not take place because the low education, the self-absorbed selfishness of the political power holders and their craving and greed for bribes and ‘commissions’ prevent them from a wholehearted commitment to not only to any social reformation and improvement project but even in solving the garbage problem for which too they expect bribes,
like in Meehotamulla and in the Uva Province. They direct their main attention to their lazy and unproductive kith and kin to whom they invariably distribute the funds, at their disposal, which belong to the people.
The intellectual poverty of these politicians makes their fragmented view of social reality produce a penury of vision that leads them to become greedy fellows who satisfy their hankering and low personal inclinations and completely ignore the civic dimensions and social responsibility of their mission as elected representatives.
The highly visible and socially unacceptable contrast between the rich and the poor cannot be transformed by the extremely corrupt politicians who have been in power for several decades and who are clever thieves who know how to rob and hide their illegal gains in secret hideouts. They create social tension and animosity by sowing racial and religious prejudice between the poor and the rich and powerful, pander to the addiction to alcohol among the riff-raff of society, sow violence among social classes and fish in troubled waters.
These lead to a spiral of violence and hatred that complicate and do not help solve social problems. Political and economic power is more concentrated than ever before in the hands of those who govern. All need to discover a dispassionate social and civic sense, sit down at a table, discuss what needs to be done and reasonably decide to do the reforms that are needed and execute them without violence and bloodshed. This needs an integrity of character not yet visible in the political, economic and professional fields.
In the corrupt political culture of Sri Lanka, the palatial residences of politicians and businessmen closely connected to every governing class are in no way symbolic of justice, fair play, equality of people, decency and recognition of merit.
Rulers also side with favoured groups and religious high ups who are made a new kind of princely class who create themselves into a newly rich privileged class above other people and even above the rule of law. Rising in importance again but finding its function limited to the slavish service of rulers, the upper bourgeois bureaucrats, shift their loyalty from the workplace, trade union and political party to the autocratic ruler’s palace. For ordinary people, administrative centralization and politically sanctioned half-baked socio-economic ‘reforms’ have the effect of loss of human dignity and freedom and of more rigid controls being imposed over their lives.
Only a determined and honest government of honest individuals could accomplish the desired reforms as man-made problems created by corrupt men and women could only be satisfactorily solved by honest rulers elected by citizens determined about electing persons of integrity to govern.
October 12, 2018, 9:37 pm
Never before in its history of a century and a half has the Sri Lanka Police and the IGP come in for so much criticism and even downright condemnation The President says that Jayasundara is not fit to be the IGP. The Minister in charge of Law and Order and his Deputy do not think so. The nation is confused. The media is having a field day.
(Lanka e News -15.Oct.2018, 4.55AM) It was splashed across the front pages of Weekend newspapers that IGP Poojitha Jayasundara who was the first to be appointed impartially by the Constitutional Council of the good governance government is resigning next week. However we reveal taking full responsibility that this is only another of president Pallewatte Gamarala’s figment of imagination and ‘invention’..
“What yahapalanaya essential aims at is to establish systems so that individual politicians and ordinary citizens are impelled to fall in line. Anyone who violates the laws of the land is automatically booked and hooked by the steel hand of the system.”
“We have all been called upon to do our parts in an age-less process, we have entrances and exits. You are heirs to a great tradition. You are here to do your share and carry the torch forward. May the flame burn bright whilst the torch is in your keeping.”
2018-10-15“The three-decade-long war led to immense human suffering amongst all the ethnic communities. The National Peace Council welcomes the government initiative to establish the Office for Reparations”
“The passage of legislation establishing an Office for Reparations is another significant step forward in the transitional justice”
Monday, 15 October 2018
Sri Lanka’s Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera wrapped up the 2018 budget debate promising to end the country’s ‘nanny state’ approach, and expressed his determination to press ahead with radical liberalisation. He went on to say, “To do this we must be open to global trade, embrace competition and take on the world and win. Whilst the government will not be a nanny state, we do not forget the vulnerable and those who need the support of the State.”
In the 60s and 70s, protection in shipping was the name of the game. Developing countries were eager to develop their national merchant fleets, and their efforts were encouraged and supported by UNCTAD’s Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences, that proposed a cargo split of 40:40:20, with the higher proportion to the respective fleets of the trading partners, and the lower percentage to third flag carriers. It was a radical move.
