The March of Folly 17 – The urgent need of an independent public service

The National Human Resources Development Council has recently set up a Committee to look at new ways of working in the Public Sector. I have been appointed to chair this, which makes sense because I have been writing for some time now about the need for radical reform in this field, and suggesting ways in which things should change. This is essential if the country is not to continue to decline irrevocably.

But I am obviously not the only person who senses a deep malaise in the country as a whole. Recent comments by Prof Siri Hettige, who had been appointed to chair the Police Commission after the passing of the 19^th Amendment, are depressing to read, for he thinks that ‘The government seems to have lost direction’ and that ‘We have run out of viable political options’.

There is little doubt that this government is on its last legs but, as he suggests, a reversion to what we had before will not help matters. The recent catastrophe with regard to Uma Oya, and revelations about the manner in which a disastrous project was thrust upon the nation, make clear that the last government also allowed corruption to inflict irreparable damage upon us. We knew this and that was why, even though it had achieved a great success with regard to the gravest problem facing the country, it was rejected at the polls. But given that this government has proved even more corrupt, and wasteful, and ‘is not making any headway’, as Prof Hettige puts it, with regard to development, clearly many people are beginning to feel that those in charge previously would do a better job than those making decisions now.

I think so too and, as I put it two years ago, even though I think Maithripala Sirisena was the right choice for the Presidency, a government under him led by Mahinda Rajapaksa was a better option than one led by Ranil Wickremesinghe. The President too seemed to think this was the case, when he gave Mahinda Rajapaksa nomination, but then panic set in. The problem was that those around Maithripala who had failed to support him at a time of difficulty poisoned his mind about Mahinda, while those around Mahinda kept declaring that Maithri would be got rid of, which exacerbated the latter’s fears. So we ended up with Ranil, even though he is disliked intensely by a majority of the people in the country, and indeed several leading lights in the UNP who see him as a Pied Piper, leading them into disaster for the third time.

While I find Ranil’s hypocrisy and incompetence, combined with a serene belief in his own capacities, quite abhorrent, I think however that we must look beyond individuals to the structural changes that the country needs. The last government made several commitments in this regard in its manifesto, but nothing has been done about these save a few cosmetic changes through the 19^th amendment.

I have noted previously that the failure to change the electoral system was perhaps the worst blunder the government made. The President has declared recently that it breeds corruption, so it is sad that he did not abide by his commitment to ensure that it was changed before the last General Election. It is still not too late for him to ensure change in this regard, but he must realize that nothing will be done if he continues with Ranil as Prime Minister.

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The March of Folly 16 – Dealing with British duplicity

I am very sorry for what Britain is going through at the moment, and even sadder, to be parochial, that this should be happening when its leadership is more decent and straightforward than at any time in the last two decades. But poor Theresa is suffering now for the sins of her predecessors, who took Britain into wars that privileged extremists.

Britain may be shocked now about the revelations about the Libyan connection to the terrorism in Manchester. But its people should – as Corbyn as tried to point out – make the connection between that and the vicious manner in which Gaddafi was removed, making use of extremists who are obviously motivated by hate and see violence as a ready answer to whatever they think alien.

With India also now blindly following a Western line – as some of its rulers did a few hundred years back because of their fear of neighbours, only to find the British more ruthless taskmasters when they had established their hegemony – it is left only to a few brave Latin American countries to point out the wickedness as well as the absurdity of what the West is up to (as when Trump responded violently, as jihadists to, to yet another allegation of chemical warfare – which more objective observers attribute to the chosen instruments of the West, whether spurred on by them or not remaining uncertain).

I regret then the days when Dayan was in Geneva, and made common cause with the brilliant Indian diplomats there, as well as others representing a neutral perspective. Now, forbidden to intervene except to kowtow to the West, we will no longer enjoy the influence we had in those days, when for instance we were invited to take on a lead role in the Group of Fifteen (which Mangala proceeded to entrust to Gihan Indragupta, who had been attacking our forces even when he was being recruited to the Foreign Ministry).

It is a pity that we have been silenced, for recently, courtesy of one of the few Britishers to stand up for principle, we have been provided with evidence of the duplicity of the British in their efforts to convict our decent soldiery of war crimes. We have now received, although with some important areas blacked out, the reports of the then British Defence Attache, Lt Col Anton Gash, during the last period of the war. Amongst his observations was stress on the ‘compassion, respect and concern’ shown by the soldiers for those being evacuated – and mention of the fact that these had ‘release’ passes issued by the LTTE.

The March of Folly – 15. Propaganda against Sri Lanka : The Ministry of own goals

I referred last week to the manner in which Chandrika and her cohorts were promoting Reconciliation. In the nineties she and Mangala had embarked on the Sudu Nelum movement, which did not win hearts and minds but at least that functioned in areas which were supposed to have a majority mindset that was to be changed.

In time however the idea of Reconciliation through cultural activity became the preserve of the elite. As I noted when I took over the Peace Secretariat, vast amounts of money were given to those with good connections to produce propaganda supposed to promote peace. I used to call this the Dancing Butterflies syndrome, different coloured youngsters moving together so as, in theory at any rate, to encourage ethnic binding. Not entirely coincidentally, those who governed the funds awarded money to each other, Uyangoda being a principal culprit in this regard through the Social Scientists’ Association, while Young Asia Television was by far the largest beneficiary.  No one bothered to measure the impact of all this work, or rather of all this money for very little work.

Now the practice has begun again, and the elite have produced what is termed ‘A Conversation across Generations’, targeted at ‘bridging a gap between the generations – a gap of comprehension, a gap of empathy, of knowledge or perspective’. The technique employed was, it seems, to interview older people and create monologues from their memoirs.

I was invited to a performance of four monologues, and am very glad I went, since a couple were most entertaining. The most entertaining told us little about the past though, one being a wryly amusing account of an old lady trying to cope with the modern technology through which her children, now living abroad, try to maintain contact. Pia Hatch, daughter of two memorable stage stars of the seventies, Graham and Michelle Leembruggen, was delightful as an old lady not sure what buttons to push or how to deal with a Skype call.

The second lively performance was in fact a dialogue, between a lady who had been great friends with those who plotted the 1962 coup and her devoted manservant. His asides were most amusing, while Ranmali Mirchandani captured superbly the cocooned life of ladies of leisure in those distant days. I suspect nothing much has changed, except that they now have to jostle with those whose wealth is more recent to exercise influence with decision makers.

The March of Folly – 14. The uses and instruments of disinformation

I was sent recently a link to a bizarre article headlined ‘Retired MI5 Agent Confesses On Deathbed: “I Killed Princess Diana”’. It appeared on a site called ‘YourNewsWire.com’ and was supposed to be written by someone called Baxter Dmitry – about whom there seems to be some controversy, in that there are claims that he is the same person as writes under other names too.

The article itself is not very plausible, though it is accompanied by a splendid photograph of an old man in a hospital bed. And another website called ‘www.snopes.com’ claimed ‘There was no truth to the story, which originated with YourNewsWire, a fake news site. As is often the case with fake news, the article lacked critical details such as when and where the confession occurred or how the purported assassination took place, and no other credible news outlet (or even tabloid) reported the story.’

This last is not quite true in that the ‘Daily Star’, a tabloid founded to match the ‘Daily Mirror’ and ‘The Sun’, did report the story though it claimed that the story was found to be fake. But it gave no reason for this last assertion save stating that Snopes had said so.

All this is of a piece with the manner in which news is manufactured, not just for sensation and denigration of individuals, but for political purposes. We are all now aware of the lies that Tony Blair perpetrated so that he could support George Bush over the Iraq war. We are aware of the way in which Gaddafi was vilified with false allegations that he was planning a bloodbath in Libya, a pack of lies that was used by the West to perpetrate its own continuing bloodbath all over the Islamic world. We know of the false claims about Assad using chemical weapons some years back, when the UN made it clear that the likelihood was that these weapons had been used by the rebels the West was then backing.

More recently there was another allegation against Assad which led to Trump bombing Syria – even though now it is clear that it is the rebels who have access to chemical weapons, as a very recent article on the BBC makes clear. Quentin Sommerville records notes by a fighter in which ‘in the munitions section and in his own handwriting, he lists “chemical munitions” as a weapon. There’s been much debate over whether IS has used chemical weapons in Mosul. Here at least, we know they are trained and prepared to use them.’

But there has been no demand for accountability with regard to the public lies that have created so much mayhem in the world.

The March of Folly – 13. Personalization and the pursuit of perks

In the more than a month that passed two years ago between my resigning as State Minister of Higher Education and crossing over to the opposition, I realized how utterly Ranil despised the concepts of good governance that had been a cornerstone of President Sirisena’s manifesto. The failure to amend Standing Orders as promised, the omission of Ministry Secretaries from the purview of the Public Service Commission, the frivolous way in which the Cabinet was appointed and functions distributed, all indicated that he thought it best to muddle along, so long as he was doing the muddling.

But the concepts he brought to bear were also deeply destructive, as I saw in particular with regard to the issue that prompted my resignation. Both he and Kabir Hashim lied like Trojans throughout the problem period, but I detected a difference in the way they thought truth of little importance. Hashim tended to lie about the future, in that he obviously thought any commitment he made a trifling matter, and did nothing to live up to promises (or perhaps he believed that commitments were not promises, and what had to be honoured was the sort of commitment made in the course of bargaining to Rauff Hakeem and Rishard Bathiudeen to win them over, as declared by the leader of his party).

With regard to what happened however I think he was more reliable than Ranil. Hashim told me on several occasions that he had asked the UGC Chairman to resign because of pressures he could not withstand (though here too his letter contained an untruth in that he claimed he made the request on the instructions of the President, which the President denied absolutely).

That there were pressures I knew because I had been sent the minutes of the meeting with FUTA conducted by the Prime Minister, which made it clear that Ranil would do what FUTA wanted. This I should note was in the honeymoon period with Ranjith Devasiri, who was thereafter sacked himself from the Board of the NIE (though to his credit it should be said that that apparently was because he was trying, albeit in his usual blundering way where his personal interests are not involved, to limit abuses there).

Ranil however lied in telling me that the dismissal was nothing to do with pressures, it was in accordance with a principal he claimed he had laid down, that all appointees should accept their appointments from the government in power. What this meant was that he was determined that all those in authority should see themselves as political creatures. Indeed he went so far as to say that, after the UGC was got rid of, I could reappoint whom I wanted (though Hashim I think it was introduced the limitation that I should make these appointments from lists in the Prime Minister’s office). What was important was that those in positions of authority should owe their position to this government rather than the previous one.

The March of Folly – 12. Kabir Hashim’s selfish sense of dignity

I must confess to a sense of déjà vu in reading about the disappointment Kabir Hashim has expressed about the recent changes in Ministries. Two articles on the subject present very different perspectives, which together suggest that he is being the classic spoilt child, upset about his own powers and dignity – since he ‘cannot suffer the ‘indignity’ of an emaciated Ministry’. Typically, he lies like a Trojan about his situation, claiming indeed that, when Sirisena’s first Cabinet was appointed, ‘Ranil Wickremesinghe thought that he could be more useful in Skills Development’.

That Kabir Hashim tells lies with no shame has been clear to me, from the time he demanded that Kshanika Himburuwegama resign as Chairman of the UGC with the claim that the President had instructed this. Sirisena assured me that he had done nothing of the sort, but he did nothing to undo the damage that had been done.

Contrary to his current grand claim about why he was given Skills Development, Hashim told me when he was made Cabinet Minister that he knew I was the expert on education, and he would leave everything to me – since in any case, as both Chairman and Secretary then of the party, he had to concentrate on the forthcoming election. And in fact making him Cabinet Minister of Higher Education was an afterthought, since initially he had only been made Minister of Highways – which was of course where he could work on the election, given the manner in which his Prime Minister awarded contracts for unsolicited bids at much higher rates than those paid during the Rajapaksa days.

Hashim was made Minister of Higher Education – along then with Highways, a ludicrous combination that still continues, with an even more incompetent though perhaps less deceitful Minister in charge – after Chandrika Kumaratunga threatened me when I refused to summarily dismiss Kshanika Himburuwegama as she demanded. She told me to wait and see who would be put on top of me, a metaphor that accords with her assumption that government is about power rather than productivity.

Initially Hashim pledged not to interfere, but soon enough he started pushing the envelope, beginning with trying to collect evidence against S B Dissanayake. I suspect that was not his idea, but rather thrust upon him by Chandrika and possibly Ranil, given their technique of trying to ensure submission by threatening prosecution. Of course, once S B joined the government, he was let off scot free, and typically the first thing Kabir did after I resigned was requisition some of the 14 vehicles S B had used (of which I had returned 12 to the pool).

The March of Folly – 11. Silver linings amongst the cabinet clouds

I wrote last week, in rather sad vein, about the Cabinet reshuffle. But I did suggest that there might be a silver lining in the cloud, in that Ravi Karunanayake was less likely than Mangala to pursue the emasculation of our armed forces, and indeed the nullification of our victory over terrorism. I also argued that, absurd though Mangala was at representing the country internationally, he was supposed to be honest, and was also aware that he knew nothing about Finance.

It had been claimed previously that he had wanted Eran Wickramaratne to be his Deputy, and this has now happened. Indeed things are even better than expected in that Eran is now a Minister of State. Ministers of State are a preposterous concept when there is also a Cabinet Minister. This became clear when Kabeer Hashim was suddenly made Minister of Higher Education, after Chandrika told me I should watch out for who would be above me when I refused to summarily dismiss the UGC Chairman, and then, having assured me that he would not interfere, sacked the Chairman while I was away, lying to her in claiming that the President had ordered this.

In those days the President was wimpish and, let alone asserting himself when his Ministers lied about his instructions, could do nothing whatsoever to control the UNP or to work on fulfilling the promises in his manifesto. But, beginning with his finally getting rid of Arjuna Mahendran, he has begun to act a little bit like a President, and the reshuffle suggests that he is coming into his own. I believe Ranil was not entirely happy about what happened, and indeed Harsha’s tweet about Anoma Gamage waiting for a change of portfolio suggests that Ranil did want to place another unthinking acolyte in a position of responsibility.

The Gamages, a wonderfully Dickensian couple, are I should note nice enough in themselves, but they are an integral component of Ranil’s efforts to make himself Master of the Universe. Hence Daya Gamage’s elevation in the past to a position of great influence in the party so as to cut down more able people, and then Anoma’s being put into Parliament when Daya failed to get elected in 2010. Now they are both there, one a Minister and another a Deputy, but neither really with anything substantial to do except work on raising the profile of the party and its leader.

The March of Folly – 10. Sirisena’s damp squib?

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper

 

Eliot’s conclusion to ‘The Hollow Men’ seems to sum up the general reaction to the Cabinet reshuffle that took place last week. To call it a Cabinet reshuffle is perhaps a misnomer, since there were very few changes.The most significant shuffle was that Ravi Karunanayake and Mangala Samaraweera changed places, the former moving to the Foreign Ministry about which he knows little, and the latter moving to the Ministry of Finance, about which he knows nothing.

As though to prove this, he also takes with him to that Ministry the control of Mass Media. This means that the main loser, as it were, of the reshuffle is the amiable Gayantha Karunatilleke, but to compensate for this he has been given Lands. It was not mentioned in the reports of the reshuffle that John Amaratunga had in fact been deprived of Lands, but this is understandable since it would seem that he did not know this was in his charge, and did nothing about it.

But while the sheer absurdity of, not just the whole exercise, but the previous allocation of responsibilities, is made crystal clear by last week’s gamesmanship, I should note that, if one uses rose coloured spectacles, one can discern something positive about what happened. Though the common view is that the President lost out completely, and has made manifest his weakness, I can argue in his defence that he got his way as to the main reasons for his wanting a change.

First and foremost it was clear that he was dead worried about the way in which Mangala was selling not just the armed forces but the whole country down the river. In that regard, he can feel that Ravi Karunatilleke will not be so callous. Ravi after all believes he has a political future – unlike Mangala who is so firmly tied to the Ranil-Chandrika mast that this is necessarily an Endgame for him – and will make sure that he cannot be characterized as a traitor to the nation. Unlike Mahinda Samarasinghe, whose experience would have allowed him to steer the nation out of the net Mangala had thrown, Ravi will not find his path easy, but I believe he will try.

The March of Folly – 9. Indian Involvements

I was away during the visit of the Indian Prime Minister and, with internet limited in Turkmenistan, could not follow what happened nor what was said. But enough came through to remind me of what happened 30 years ago, at the time of the Indo-Lankan Accord.

The recently founded Liberal Party found itself in a unique position on that occasion, since we welcomed the Accord but regretted three elements in it. One was the proposed merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces, which we predicted would prove divisive. That regret is not my subject here, but it may be worth noting that, in addition to the practical problems we saw, we bewailed the fact that the whole concept of devolution was being perverted.

We had long promoted devolution on the grounds that government should be closer to the people. That is why we would have preferred District Councils, and why even recently we extolled the virtues of Divisional Secretariats for practical support to the people, given that Provincial Councils cannot now be abolished. In passing, I should note that the failure of the President to push through the commitment in his manifesto about Divisional Secretariats is another example of the sidelining of the structural changes this country so badly needs.

In 1987, President Jayewardene squandered the opportunity to streamline administration and, by proposing a merger, promoted the idea that devolution was about ethnic enclaves. That was a sure recipe for further dissension. Indeed what happened in the world afterwards has proved that. In the early eighties one could think of Federalism as a mechanism to bind different parts of a country closer together while allowing independent initiatives based on local needs (as with for instance the United States or Germany), But now it is seen as a precursor to separation, as has happened in the former Soviet Union or Yugoslavia – and which is why India needs to be careful, not least with regard to one of the largest of its component states to still remain undivided.

But all that is another story. More relevant here is another of our caveats about the 1987 Accord, namely the elements in the Annexures which placed Sri Lanka firmly under Indian suzerainty. We had previously argued that the adventurism of the Jayewardene government with regard to India was potentially disastrous, and the manner in which India responded – which included strong condemnation using Argentina at the then equivalent in Geneva of the Human Rights Council – ensured our subjugation.

The Liberal Party had no quarrel at all with the actual restraints put upon Sri Lanka, for Jayewardene’s games with Trincomalee (including leasing the oil tanks to a Singapore based company, having cancelled the tender which an Indian company had won on good grounds), and the setting up of a Voice of America station at Iranawila, were unnecessary provocations. Given the then unremitting hostility of America to India, seen as a Soviet ally – and hence fair game for the terrorists being trained in Pakistan to attack not just the Soviets in Afghanistan – our getting involved in this latest version of the Great Game was idiotic.

The March of Folly – 8. Hamfisted Educational Reforms

I mentioned last week the lack of intelligent policy formulation in areas where new initiatives are urgently needed. One of these is industry, where we do not have any clear policy. This has come home to me through the pronouncements of our Manufacturing Sector Council, which notes that it is difficult to develop training plans with regard to production since no one has any idea when sudden shifts in tariffs will destroy investments. They have therefore had to confine themselves thus far to trying to streamline service sectors in their sphere of expertise, modernizing training for vehicle operators and welders and electricians and so on.

Interestingly enough, the ADB understood what they meant when it was explained to them that swift action in that area was difficult, unlike say in Construction or IT where our Sector Councils have done so much in so short a period. But even though the point seemed to be understood when I brought it up at the committee set up by the Prime Minister, nothing further has been done about it. I did ask the committee to give us reports on what it had actually achieved, but this seemed beyond it, at least in the period before I decided there was no point in listening to a plethora of platitudes with no action.

It is possible though that, since both the Chairman, the delightful Ken Balendra, and I like to hear the sound of our own voices, and he ran the show, I jumped ship because he insisted on pontificating and would not allow me to do so. But since I have actually studied the subject, whereas he was thrown into it without proper briefing – I had to tell him some weeks into his tenure that the previous government had actually introduced a Technology Stream in school – I got tired of endless reports that repeated what everyone knew, with no steps to expedite remedial action. In that regard, working with Mahinda Samarasinghe was much more productive, because he at least studies his briefs and is able to pinpoint what is needed.

Unfortunately, though Mahinda is supposed to be in charge of the subject, the Prime Minister continues on his merry way with no proper consultation. This was the case with regard to the bright idea he conceived of making 13 years of education compulsory for everyone. He decided for this purpose to introduce vocational subjects in schools after the Ordinary Level, but did not think of consulting other stakeholders in the field. The National Education Commission tried to find out what was happening, but it turned out that the then Secretary to the Ministry of Education was also clueless about what was happening, and it was in fact only through the ADB that I saw the first proposals with regard to reform, which the ADB rightly pointed out were incoherent and did not properly address the relevant issues.