We always knew the Defense Ministry had a slush fund – Now we know why?

The Ministry of Defense like the CIA have slush funds for various controversial projects aimed at reinforcing the defenses of the nation and whether we like it or not most countries in the world have such funds to defend the interests of the country.

It has now come to light  that the money in the Defense Ministry slush fund, is used to fund the Bodu Bala Sena (as if they need any funding from the ilks of GR the defense secretary)  http://lankaenews.rsf.org/English/news1a2d.html?id=13553

I now question if the Defense Ministry is in the business of attacking the nation and not defending it. After all this action directly attacks the country and calls for people to create chaos within Sri Lanka leading to destabilization. So is it a covert ploy by the US by using its most famous citizen in Sri Lanka, the Secretary of the Ministry of Defense to attack Sri Lanka and destabilize and the latest weapon being the divisive Bodu Bala Sena lobby which is trying to make people believe that there is a conspiracy against the Buddhist majority in Sri Lanka to somehow attack it! These kinds of fear mongering breeds, race hate which in turn leads to racial tension and finally to a bloody race based riot.

It is of course in the interests of the Govt. to prevent such action. So is the defense ministry part of the Government or a private army of the Defense Secretary bent on destroying the Sri Lankan state at the instigation of the USA?

I don’t have answers to those questions, but they create questions that require answers. It is therefore imperative that, earlier it was supposed to be foreign funded NGOs that were giving the Bodu Bala the needed juice to function, and now it appears that there is a foreign hand within the Ministry of Defense. Is that one and the same thing? We must destroy this cancer before it becomes Frankenstein.

I appeal to the citizens of the country not to be fooled by these desperate acts of people with agendas outside the interests of Sri Lanka and not to get taken in by their false declarations. We must do all we can to preserve the oneness of our nation along with the Diversity that creates its rich heritage. Those that seek to destroy this great nation for personal ends MUST BE STOPPED at all cost.

If we don’t it is the future of the nation that is at stake. All through this blog it is the integrity of Sri Lanka that I have tried to preserve along with Sri Lanka taking its rightful position amongst the nation states of the world. It is the Govt. that is bent on destroying this goal, and let us not permit these traitors any more mileage.

The President confirms it is a country without laws – by his action!

Think about it! The SMS just came that said the President orders the IGP to perform an immediate investigation into the shooting of a Sunday Leader Journalist today. Consider the statement carefully and realize further that it is the President who is at the back of everything after every event ordering someone or another to do something. It is called micro managing the country or is it called one man rule! To me it forewarns of the latter. Important national issues are ignored.

If there was a proper set rules and regulations in Sri Lanka the SMS would read, "The IGP orders an immediate investigation into the Shooting of a journalist." He would then resign if it is followed by the President saying the same thing, as he would say, Sir, let me run my business and you run yours, but as you wish to run mine, I am resigning so that you can take over my job, as that is what you seem to want. 

It is simple really - There is just NO management of the country by the present Administration and people are just being fooled into believing that there actually is a government.

If there were proper laws in this country, then a shooting of anyone calls for an “immediate investigation” otherwise vital information may disappear or the crime scene becomes contaminated and time is of the essence, if the law enforcement officers are to make headway. So the requirement of the President to order an immediate investigation means in effect that under normal circumstances there will be no such investigation. Considering the number of journalists who have either been killed or maimed to date, there has not been EVEN ONE prosecution and conviction.

Is the Government implying that there have been no harm done to journalists? Well that is the implication of no arrests and no prosecutions, surely no other meaning.

It is quite clear that there is NO rule of law in Sri Lanka today, because if there was all crimes will be investigated and one would not have the President asking the IGP to investigate, as he will normally have procedures in place to immediately take appropriate action if he really is the IGP.

I fail to understand why people in Sri Lanka don’t see the irony in these micro management statements, as they seem to expect the President to keep on making them for every emergency and eventuality. In other countries the head of state only interferes in special instances that require overriding powers in the case of a national emergency situation. This micro management belittles the action of the head of state to just a local busy body interfering in all and sundry issues from a traffic accident to minor flood, whilst ignoring matters of substance such as the discovery of over 100 skeletons in Matale with implications of a massacre of innocents, as one worthy of his intervention attention.

To the rational critic it seems that this action is meant to fool people into a false sense of security where matters of national importance are swept under a carpet and common or garden occurrences receive center stage. The media is also being used as this event will now have the President’s moniker on it when there should be none

The Government in Crisis: Regulation of Private Hospitals

A country, that has values and morals and spends their time lecturing to their detractors, MUST as a first step ensure that there are safeguards in place to protect their citizens. In that respect instead of running shops, and getting the army to take charge of construction projects, they must first have procedures in place to regulate the practices of all businesses to ensure compliance with minimum standards.

Doctors, lawyers, hospitals, schools both in the private and the public sector must conform to standards. So if private vehicles must be subjected to smog checks, so must state ones. Vehicles owned by Forces or SLTB must be subject to the same test. Otherwise it is a mockery. These are responsibilities of the Government.

It is in this vein that I believe the two recent cases of medical negligence in the private sector, should be dealt with. It appears that the hospitals in question have engaged in unethical practices to try and absolve themselves from blame. If there were legal procedures in place for an independent enquiry then there would be an independent report one could rely on to report fairly on an issue, and point the finger at the real cause.

When a system such as ours is so heavily politicized, it is difficult to have faith even in Government Institutions tasked with such. I understand that there is an insurance ombudsman to whom complaints of unprofessional conduct against that industry can be directed. Similarly there must be a health ombudsman to direct complaints relating to the health sector.

ONE MUST REMEMBER that any professional knowing there is an independent body that will review complaints, will ensure that there is due care in his conduct, knowing that if there is an avoidable mistake he would be found liable.

In the US there is a system of medical malpractice insurance to protect doctors from lawsuits, and I am not advocating something as drastic as that as it increases costs of medicine and reduces the numbers in certain specialties that are prone to a higher risk of complications, such as obstetrics.

It is the Government’s responsibility to set up checks and balances and reassure the public that they are fulfilling their duties as elected representatives to protect their electors. These bodies I have referred to above are part of these procedures, and duties of an elected government. It is then up to the elector to choose if they have kept to their end of the bargain and if not, give someone else who is up to the task.

It is important for the reader to realize that these are real issues. Most people ignore them as being unimportant until it is them who get caught up as an innocent victim. Then they discover there is nothing they can do short of appeal to the President and hope for the best.

It is this reliance on the President that has allowed him too much in the way of control. That is wrong. We MUST have a system where there are procedures and mechanisms in place to protect our citizens from being exploited. That includes agreements with foreign countries about the employment of our citizens. These are all credible requests of a civilized society, and are woefully absent. It is up to the people of Sri Lanka to tell their swollen headed Govt. that they just DO NOT cut the muster in terms of quality and are just going through the motions of government for their personal ends leaving the citizens to fend themselves with no one to Govern them in the true sense of the word.

I do not wish to lecture those who seem to run this Government as they are too petty and ignorant to even know that there is a better method of managing a country. It is to the citizens of Sri Lanka that I appeal to take a stand on this topic and agitate for a change. You never know your luck if you try!

Only in SL – MR arrests and MR orders their release to make a media event in his favor

Two days after promising the parents of the Jaffna University students who had been unlawfully arrested that they would be released, the President fulfilled that promise by releasing these two students from Vavuniya where they had been held.

MR got maximum media mileage out of it with no media criticizing his initial policy of taking them into custody in the first place and pointing out the irony of how the man who put them behind bars gets credit for opening the bars and letting them out as if it was a pardon.

It is this sort of blatant media manipulation which is giving the Sri Lanka media a very bad name and if I were a journalist will be embarrassed to work on any paper that does not inform the public of the circumstances of the imprisonment and the release both at the same time for the reader to appreciate the nature of the incident and for him alone to determine who should share the plaudits or the blame or both.

It is important that we educate readers to make up their minds, and to permit the media to be more objective in their reports, without being slavishly sycophantic to a line that borders on threats and intimidations on the media to say it as is the myth of the regime rather than the reality of a reasonable person viewing the incident.

The manipulation of the media is a very common theme in dictatorships, but it is up to the individual newspaper to use their journalist to at least subtly inform their readership of the facts in order for an intelligent and objective assessment to be made of the events.

Incidents that are stage managed and even the timing orchestrated, are now part and parcel of daily life in Sri Lanka. It is important that we bloggers put the record straight on what is happening in the mind games department on how people’s opinions are influenced.

It is then up to the reader to take the side which they wish from their experience and evaluation of the facts. Education is not something that can be done overnight, but getting people to think about what takes place around them, and the influences that people in power have over their lives will make for a better understanding of the undercurrents of society. It is this society that we live in and it is this society that will in future bring leaders who care for the country and make decisions not out of personal motives, but on motives that are far removed with the nation’s long term interests at heart. We wish for the day we may have such a leader.

Don’t confuse “Halal” certification with Islam as it disrespects the religion.

Ask yourself – What were the origins of Islam and when did “Halal certification” begin? The latter is just a man made tool created by some latter day well meaning ‘do gooders’ in the name of religion, to satisfy personal objectives, and have snookered the followers of Islam to believe that one must consume food only if it is so certified, as otherwise the origin of the food or the method of its process is not assured. They use 21^st C food processes as the reason to justify its need to conform with the principal tenets of the religion. As the saying goes we now live in a technological age, where we just sit and get served, so we must have the restaurant also CMC/Organic/Halal Certified, we cannot eat at home because we do not have a kitchen. It is simply for the consumer to determine what certification they want, after understanding what certification means. Namely "only likely to conform to what it represents" NOT ASSURANCE.

There are millions of workers Muslim and not who eat together all over the world in Company Canteens provided by their employers, that are NOT halal certified, not necessarily owned by Muslim bosses who do not believe they are breaking their religious obligations. If you say Muslims should eat separately with food prepared by Muslims and which conform to their religion rules, then you immediately create a sense of alienation, of divisiveness and finally to discrimination. We must be inclusive, integrate, live and work in harmony together as people of one earth, no matter what our personal beliefs are. No one has exclusive rights on earth over any other!

Its association with Islam is only due to the proponents of Certification saying that the food, or whatever is given the certification, conforms to Islamic law, as lawful and so it assures the practitioner that the food they consume is in adherence to their religion. The flip side or the unsaid side is that if such certification is absent no such assurance can be given, and so the person ‘may’ be breaking this law.

Any person with common sense will know that if there is a merciful God he will not damn a person for consuming something that is NOT halal, namely Haram or unlawful, if he unknowingly does so. So for centuries practitioners of the religion consumed Halal and Haram unknowingly and obtained their God’s forgiveness for so doing. A merciful God will not punish people unfairly.

So given that background, one must have one’s common sense wits about one, and a good Muslim, will try and ensure that the meat he consumes is prepared under Halal rules, and if he does not know of the origin, rely on this certification as a means to satisfy his religious beliefs, whilst realizing and understanding that certification itself does not assure him of its fact. No amount of certification of anything can guarantee that the product conforms exactly if the people who are engaged in the business break the rules or practices.

One only requires one scandal to erupt on the misuse of the certification to put ALL CERTIFIED products in doubt, so I appeal to the people to be reasonable in the debate. In this respect I respectfully challenge the expansion of certification to include a “Whole range of products” daily expanding that are becoming certified due to passive pressure to do so even though it is assumed to be voluntary!!

ALL IT TAKES IS ONE SCANDAL BLOW CERTIFICATION IN SMITHEREENS

I would like a business man to proclaim that all his products are conform to Muslim law but he WILL NOT use the “Halal” certification tag on his products. It would be better if he is a Muslim, to show that he conforms to his teachings, and that certification IS NOT an edict from his God, but a clever marketing ploy from man. If that is done, I am sure this whole unnecessary wrap against Islam will disappear. 

For those who misunderstand, I am not questioning Islam, I am questioning 'Certification' and the future fallout, especially in Sri Lanka which will affect religious harmony and tolerance.

The implication being that this certification misuse is bad for Islam.

Police/ Property/ Greed at the base of another killing – Monk in Moratuwa the latest

The Sinhala Sunday papers are full of the gruesome details of the killing of the Chief Incumbent Monk of the Sunandonanda Viharaya in Egodauyana, Moratuwa. So why was he killed, by whom and why were his alleged killers who were arrested, found murdered some distance away in Bandaragama? This creates more questions than answers. So the Police also get protection from the UPFA are appear faultless!

It also appears that both the monk and the killers obtain protection from the same sources, namely the UPFA Government! Let this be a reminder to all who follow the UPFA antics, that all murders have now turned inward, with murders amongst your own each vying for something the other has, namely to be more greedy!!

As I understand it the matter was due to the ownership of a disused strip of land that had been occupied by people after the 2004 Tsunami, which the Monk maintained was Temple property for which he had the deeds.

Let us sincerely hope an independent impartial investigation is held to get to the bottom of the murder, but as has been the case in all murders associated with UPFA politicians there have been NO resolutions to the earlier murders and we rightfully cannot expect any from here.

Here again the Deputy Mayor of Moratuwa was arrested and remanded, more for his personal security than anything else. Will we see a proper investigation and the real culprits apprehended, prosecuted, and imprisoned? I rather think not.

More alarming failures in Law Enforcement also have come to light and added to gravity of the safety of the citizen in Sri Lanka. Despite many complaints of death threats, and even after going to the POLICE, a few hours before the murder to report imminent threat to his life, the Police apparently took NO notice of it.

Fact – the Sri Lankan state cannot protect a citizen who goes to a police station to complain about an imminent threat to his life. The police have become impotent forgetting their main job of protecting the people within its jurisdiction, and have now become lackeys of politicians engaging in scams to benefit themselves. They are no longer POLICE, they are now “Lackeys”.

Fact – the Sri Lankan police kill who they arrest in connection with a crime, as it is the simplest method of disposing of the file, even though there may be a more guilty person who does not get into the net, and therefore gets off scott free.

Fact – the Sri Lankan police have more criminals amongst its ranks as compared with the population at large, but do not get prosecuted due to the age old protection of fellow officers system.

Do people realize that the Govt. miscalculated who will suffer with the VAT?

As usual the policy makers in Govt. made a very bad assumption in their bid to tell their master the President that there was another painless way of raising some taxes without people feeling it. They said we will collect the 12% VAT on vatable sales from large retailers that have a turnover of over Rs500M a quarter, which only accounts for 4 retailers with point of sales systems where the vatable sales can be easily calculated and assessed to a degree of accuracy that is acceptable. The Govt expects to rake in an additional Rs5B per annum from these retailers.

As they explained to their boss, Sir they are rich they can pay and their owners are also rich so they will not feel a small reduction in their profits, which will be an indirect tax that we will raise. So sir your Rs10B that you spend in a year in your personal capacity will be somewhat subsidized from this tax.

So what does our easily praised President say? Son what a superb idea, and for that I will give you a free car permit and permission to collect the bribe of Rs400M for giving the Banking License to Food City for their new bank! You earned it putha!

What is the reality of this VAT imposition? Food City is Mad that the Govt. screwed them after giving a Rs400M bribe to get a Banking License on top of the higher Fees paid officially for this license. The Govt. snookered them royally. So they decided along with the other big boys to take revenge.

They said that there is no way they can increase the MSRP that is on the packaging of their products, as their customers will desert them and go to the smaller shops that do not charge VAT. They proclaimed virtuously that they will absorb the VAT as a cost which will substantially eat into their profits, as that sounds good PR.

What did they do in reality? They demanded that the suppliers, who already offer the lowest prices to Food City to reduce their prices further, submit VAT invoices so that Food City will be able to offset input VAT against their VAT on final sales. At the time of writing the large suppliers such as UNILEVER are balking at this request and they have the muscle to withhold sales to Food City and reach an amicable settlement which will eventually see some sharing of the cost between the two, and now the horse-trading is as to who should share what!!

The small supplier of biscuits, yogurt or chocolates is royally screwed. They have been forced to reduce their prices as they sell a large percentage of their products through these large chains, and the President is blissfully unaware of the damage!

The people of Sri Lanka will eventually foot the bill as there are NO special offers of value at Food City or other chains such as Keells like there were in December. So for example the Nestomalt that was reduced to Rs225 for three months to 31st December is now at Rs255 forcing the customer to pay more for that brand which is the MSRP anyway and is the same as the corner store now. That is an example of the Customer indirectly paying for the VAT imposition.

It must be remembered that the big retailers due to their clout of bulk purchases has been able to force suppliers to give bigger discounts to them. The international classic bully boy tactics by big retailers throughout the world. Worse they ask for 60 to 90 day credit and often sell products at zero profit, to keep their machines running at capacity and make profits on sales to other customers.

It is these very same struggling small companies who have been asked to reduce prices further, something that is GOING to increase losses, lead to JOB LOSSES, stop further investment and expansion of EMPLOYMENT and generally DEPRESS the economy. Thanks to the pundits in the Sri Lankan Government and Treasury trying to IMPRESS.

In life there is no free lunch except of course to people in power. The poorest people eventually pay the highest price for these schemes. So the VAT imposition is another TAX ON THE POOR.

When will the 1500 cronies created by the Govt. and who have made Billions begin to pay taxes? That is what the people of Sri Lanka must ask the President. The problem is they are the Government!