No Regrets Despite Many Concerns – Champika

by Camelia Nathaniel

“The society has not changed and we have to look ahead positively,”  he said.   He regretted however, that some of the promises that were made to the people have  yet to be fulfilled, but said that he is glad that the country is at least moving in the right direction.  He added that some people do not understand the difference is governing single handedly, and within a democratic coalition.”

He said the people gave their mandate to the new government not just because they felt that corruption had spread through every sphere of governance. Hence the people had a burning desire to change the government, but the new government was elected with the expectation that corruption would be stopped and that justice will be served, and a proper legal framework would be implemented to ensure that corruption would not be possible in the future, expectations that the executive presidency would be abolished and electoral reforms would be implemented and the country would be brought to a position where the world would accept us, and proper economic mechanisms would be implemented. However, although some of these promises were fulfilled to a certain extent, the new government too has failed to meet the expectations of the people.

 

Two leaders

When asked about the speculation of many that there are two leaders in the new government, who are tugging from two different directions and the possibility of terrorism taking root once again, he said that most people do not understand that certain parties are still governed by dictatorial principals.

“However, the fact that the two main political parties in the country have joined hands in a bid to take the country forward, is a huge victory. Hence people have to be able to look beyond party politics, and put a stop to family bandism,” he said.

Ranawaka vehemently rejected claims that the national government has failed to bring to book the crooks of the previous regime, stating that much has been done, such as setting up many commissions to investigate crimes and look into alleged misuse of public funds.

When asked if these commissions would simply be a place to accommodate retired government officials, he said that it was not the case and that these commissions were established by calling for applications. 441 applications were received and after evaluating their professional skills, they were graded. “Only then were they recruited and a main feature that we considered were their health efficiency, honesty and track record, gender representation and age,” he said.

Responding to speculations that the LTTE is regrouping and would pose a threat to the country in the future, Ranawaka said that he does not believe that terrorism can raise its head again in the country, but said that terrorism in general has become a huge menace to the entire world. “In 2001 only, about 1200 terrorism related incidents were reported around the world, yet today it has increased to 17,000. Globally there is an increase in terrorism related activities. This situation can affect Sri Lanka too, and therefore we need to be militarily prepared to face any situation effectively,” he added.

 

Political prisoners

Commenting on the release of the political prisoners he said that although there are many extreme ideas being put out into the open, there are political prisoners of two categories. The first being that there is a considerable number of security personnel who are in prison over certain crimes. Some have not even been charged yet.

He went on to say that on the other hand there are around 213 prisoners who are in prison over LTTE related activities. Of this number around 54 of them have been charged and proven guilty, and they are in jail. Others are in the process of being charged but there is also a set of political prisoners who have been lamenting in prison without being charged of anything yet. Hence, it is unfair to ask for a general pardon for all unless the government takes a decision to pardon all political prisoners under a general amnesty.

 

13,000 granted pardon

However, under the previous regime, around 13,000 Tamil detainees were granted pardon and released after rehabilitation. Through Geneva they are also trying to introduce a new mechanism for their release as well. Therefore, trying to get only the Tamil political prisoners released is certainly not a step in the right direction and will not ensure reconciliation. “However, if there are some Tamil prisoners who are being held without any charge and even those who are charged for minor offences and are in prison as no one has posted bail on behalf of them, then I think they should be released. But it is not acceptable to ask for all Tamil political prisoners to be released,” said Ranawaka.

He said that when an act of terrorism is carried out against the western nations, they are quick to brand them as terrorists, but when smaller countries are affected by these terrorists, they support them instead. “They are not political prisoners, they have committed acts of terrorism and that is why they were jailed as terrorists. When Paris was attacked, the French President clearly stated that it was an act of terrorism and he was going to act in a ruthless manner against these terrorists. They can now experience what we have gone through for the past 30 years,” Ranawaka said. With regard to the allegations that the national government is trying to meddle with the EPF and ETF, he said that unlike the previous regime they will not simply implement their ideas, but this issue will be open to debate in parliament and all views will be taken into consideration before a final decision is made with the consent of all parties concerned.

 

Privatising state institutions

However, Ranawaka said that on the issue of privatising state institutions, his views are quite different to the others. “These state institutions which should be protected by the government and in this process these institutions should be made productive and should be managed properly.

Otherwise what will happen is that the corruption will continue. These state institutions are the birthplace of corruption. For example, if the construction of a road or rail track is given to a private institution, they will not do it at a loss. However, because these are handled by the state institutions, it has paved the way for massive corruption and misuse of funds to take place.

“Holcim was given the contract to construct a stretch of rail track, and then there was a big commotion that the railway department was to be privatised.  However, what Holcim did was to utilise the local engineers and other manpower to construct this rail track. Now, the Railway department is handling the construction of railway tracks and bringing in foreign expertise and the cost has increased to around 15 times more than what Holcim did it for.

“We must analyse the situation properly and in doing so we will clearly see that the projects handled by the state institutions are the most corrupt and the most expensive. By this I am not saying that the state institutions should all be privatised, but the functioning of these institutions should be transparent so that it leaves no room for corruption. Competitiveness will encourage these institutions to function better and the skills of the employees should be constantly evaluated for better productivity.

In the recruitment process too prominence should be given to the candidates’ skills and to proven track records. Currently what happens is that appointments are made based on the connections to powerful politicians. This should stop,” he said.

Commenting on the Avant Garde issue, Ranawaka said that in 2009 an American company made a request from Sri Lanka  to get the Navy’s assistance to counter the threat of pirates in the region. “As the Navy cannot engage in business, they only provided the required facilities for their floating armories.

There were 70 companies that functioned within the country for this purpose. Through this the Navy earned around 180 million dollars monthly. But, in October 2012, suddenly a decision was made to hand over all these operations to Rakna Lanka. Accordingly all 70 companies had to hand over their operations to Rakna Lanka. They acquired around 3200 weapons of the tri forces. Then Rakna Lanka operations were handed over to Avant Garde.

They took around 813 weapons from Rakna and started their operations. They claim that they brought in foreign exchange and provided jobs etc but what actually happened was that what was made by 70 companies were given to one man and the Navy income was reduced to 50 million.

“When handling weapons, this should be done under three categories such as the firearms ordinance, the explosives ordinance, and the prevention of terrorism act. It is indicated in these that a security force member does not need a license to operate a firearm as the Sri Lankan government has the license. However, if anyone else is to use these weapons they should obtain that proper license.

 

Avant Garde

But Avant Garde has not been given such a license and this has been highlighted even by the attorney general. I challenge them to produce a license according to the requirements of the firearms ordinance if they have one. The other factor is that even the defence secretary does not have the right to store weapons belonging to international organisations within the country. These weapons should be in international waters. But these weapons were stored at the Galle harbour within Sri Lanka’s territory”, he said.

“Even when the second ship was detected, it was clearly stated that 43 weapons on board were tampered with which is a clear violation of the firearms ordinance. Moreover there was an excess stock of 130,000 ammunition which did not have the proper documentation which is a clear violation of the explosives ordinance.

The second ship had even entered the country by switching off the GPS system. My argument is if a farmer is in the possession of a local firearm to protect his crop he is arrested without bail.

Yet those who are handling thousands of sophisticated weapons are freely going about their business. This is because the laws of this country is weak, he said adding that all transactions were conducted in dollars and these transactions should have been done through the Central bank but it was not which is also an offence.”

When asked if the new government had renewed the agreement with Avant Garde, Ranawaka said that the agreement was signed with Rakna Lanka last year in October and the new government had only renewed the contact.