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The political history of Sri Lanka changed for the worse after 2000 due to intense rivalry between the UNP and SLFP-led coalitions. The two major parties failed to co-habit under President Chandrika Bandaranaike Cumaratunga in 2001, due to politicians of the UNF and UPFA failing to prioritizee the interests of the country over their own. With it failed a grand opportunity to build on the Ceasefire Agreement signed with the LTTE between 2001 and 2003 by the UNF government, assisted by the international community.
With it Sri Lanka lost tremendous goodwill that would have enabled developing the country including the war torn areas. Reconciliation and ethnic peace had a positive vibration, when the SLFP led UPFA government and the opposition UNP braced to face the December 2004 Tsunami disaster that killed about 45,000 people and destroyed their homes. Thereafter, the MOU signed by the LTTE and the UPFA Government in 2004 to start the Post Tsunami Operational Structure (PT-OMS) for reconstruction of the North and East, was scuttled by the Sinhala nationalists within the UPFA government.
The Supreme Court ruled against P-TOMS decreeing it as against the constitution. As a result, the possible resolution to the country’s ethnic relations did not receive a political solution. Activities of power hungry, short sighted politicians resulted in the poor and the marginalized people of both communities suffering death and destruction by a prolonging war.
In political and ideological terms, the new UPFA regime elected in 2005 under the Mahinda Rajapaksa Presidency, represented a nationalist coalition that was hostile to the internationally backed political engagement between the government and the LTTE. The clever use of religious and ethnic propaganda to win over the Sinhala majority by using men dressed in yellow robes by Mahinda Rajapaksa between 2005 and 2014 and thereafter by the Gotabaya Rajapaksa regime after 2019 using men in robes and in uniform, resulted in a lack of direction, a breakdown of administration and rampant corruption.
In fact, the war victory in 2009 precipitated unmitigated greed for power, family bandyism, blatant acts of corruption and authoritarianism. Communal reconciliation was abandoned. A combination of all these factors weakened the already fragile democratic fabric.
The powerful Mahinda Rajapaksa government was defeated in the presidential and parliamentary elections of 2015 by a coalition led by the UNP running a senior SLFP defector for president. Rajapaksa and the SLFP were defeated by a common opposition. There was much goodwill and support of the minority parties in politics in achieving this objective. The mandate to punish the corrupt, killers, abductors for ransom in the north and east and the promise to bring back democratic institutions abolished by the 18th amendment, was partly fulfilled.
But an inexplicable lack of political will to successfully prosecute the guilty became a major setback for the Yahapalana government when the presidential election of 2019 came round in November. This together with the planned Easter Sunday attack of April 2019 enabled Rajapaksa Inc. of Mahinda and Gotabaya to return to power decimating the UNP to a single National List seat in parliament.
Corruption in Sri Lanka is crime without identifiable criminals. It occurs from top to bottom at various levels. It is a vast subject that needs a separate discussion. But it will not be out of place to mention the Mafia in the power generating sector, tax concessions given to cronies, 16 controversial transactions revealed by COPE in 2007 and half-hearted efforts of the Bribery Commission to prosecute the revelations to date together with the withdrawal of cases by the AG such as that of misappropriation of Rs 200 m of Treasury funds by RADA- to mention a few only.
Corruption is one the main reasons for the worst ever economic and political crisis that has hit the people after 1948. The country is in turmoil and the people are forced to spend their day looking for gas, fuel, kerosene, milk, drugs while being clobbered daily by galloping food prices and power cuts.
The future of democracy in Sri Lanka
Democracy is built on four pillars – the Executive, Legislature, Judiciary and Free Media. If one of these pillars collapse, we will face the consequences democratic countries like Nicaragua and Brazil were confronted with.
The UN’s ‘International Day of Democracy’ (September 15 ) gives us an opportunity to review the state of democracy in Sri Lanka. The values of freedom, respect for human rights, holding periodic free and fair elections by universal suffrage – are essential elements of a democracy. In turn, democracy provides the natural environment for the protection and effective realization of human rights.
In Sri Lanka, civil rights activists and the opposition fear a trend towards dictatorship and military rule under the retired Lt. Col. and later President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
These concerns surfaced particularly after the 20th Amendment which gave unlimited power to the president by engineering a two thirds parliamentary majority by questionable means. Arrogance of power made the president appoint retired military commanders to high administrative positions, bring a dual citizen to parliament and replace the aiya with the malli as finance minister – neither having any credentials to hold the post. This ensured 70% control of the national budget within the Rajapaksa family.
The IMF Chief lamented that mismanagement created the worst ever economic crisis since independence. It brought all people down to their knees in despair, including those racists who loved Sinhala Buddhist Rajapaksa regimes. One is reminded of John F Kennedy’s famous saying : “A Nation which is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market economy, is afraid of its people”.
A glorious future envisaged by our enterprising youth who created a strong movement towards the much awaited System Change and a new political culture, has already given birth to racial unity and made inroads into the hearts and minds of all Lankans from GotaGoGama in Colombo, Kandy and Galle. .
These Pro- Democracy advocates have begun the second phase of democracy after the first phase ended in disaster despite 74 years of independence. Sri Lanka’s ‘flawed deocracy’ should not be weighed down by the legendary curse of Kuveni, the Easter Sunday murders of the innocent or the misfortunes of Muslims who were forced to cremate and not bury their dead in accordance with their religion due to racist ideology, the rule of incompetent politicians or the assault on the dignity of Tamils .
Our recent past should remind us all, how in 1933, Germany transited from a democracy to a dictatorship and how it caused mayhem throughout the world. Hitler’s autocratic dictatorship caused the unforgivable holocaust of about six million m Jews before the second world war ended in 1945.
Sri Lanka’s Parliament should recall, how Hitler got the “Enabling Act” passed in parliament on March 23, 1933 by physically intimidating MPs in Nazi controlled camps and persecuting remaining MPs in order to obtain a two thirds majority. Only the Social Democrats voted against Hitler who succeeded in achieving his rand design and began to pass laws without the approval of Parliament or the President and violating the Wiemar Constitution.
A mad man’s dream of cleansing Germany saw Nazis targeting Germans with physical and mental disabilities, Soviet prisoners of war, Poles, homosexuals and Jehovah’s witnesses. Unfortunately, contributions to this ethnic cleansing were made by professioals like doctors, lawyers, teachers and civil servants who believed in Hitler’s policies.
The role of the legal profession and judges was critical. After new laws were passed between February and July 1933 and after all state officials were asked to take an oath of loyalty (we saw this being done after Gotabaya Rajapakse came to power), lawyers helped the Nazis to oust Jewish lawyers from courts and law firms while permitting a mere 35 lawyers to apply to practice.
Although Hitler promised to restore judicial authority, he instituted re-education programs cleverly designed to indoctrinate Jurists in ideological goals of the Nazi Party. In the guise of protecting the State, Nazis hold on power was developed by passing several laws to consolidate the power of a dictator accompanied by military expansion and racial justification. A Judiciary steeped in the values of respect for judicial independence, equality and fair trial, shamelessly rendered verdicts to justify principles of Nazism and wishes of the Fuhrer.
The overwhelming majority of judges failed to challenge Hitler’s laws that restricted political freedoms, security of property, freedom of speech and association and instead interpreted laws in broad language that facilitated Nazi’s ability to carry out their diabolical agenda.
After the end of World War 2, pressures faced by individual Judges with intense personal and ethical dilemmas, became a fascinating study all over the world. But the damage done to grieving families could not be compensated or corrected.
Sri Lankan leaders in the latter years, implemented no political structural reforms to meet four decades of rebellion or corrupt practices at all levels of government. After 73 years of independence, Sri Lanka is careering down the slope into an abyss where its citizens are facing increasing militarization at the expense of the legitimate administration of Sri Lanka. Today, the country has had to declare that it is unable to pay its debts until the IMF assists in restructuring its massive debts.
US President Franklin D Roosewelt said , “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely.” This is the “democratic paradox” of Sri Lanka.
It is gratifying to note that a struggle has erupted spontaneously all over Sri Lanka led by Youth, for Constitutional reform to restore the citizen’s faith in quality, integrity and efficacy in representative democracy. Liberal Democracy will dominate the world in the years to come. Sri Lanka will need to design an ethno religious system of governance where majoritarianism will coexist in a peaceful and diverse setting.
The famous definition for democracy was enunciated by US President Abraham Lincoln as “A GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE AND BY THE PEOPLE”. He gave the leadership to the civil war (1861 to 1865 ) to liberate the colored American people from slavery from white racists extremists. Fortunately for America and the world, US President and business tycoon Donald Trump ( 2016 to 2020 ) failed in his attempt to revive white populist extremism.
Sri Lanka’s ageing and unprofessional leaders, who quote Abraham Lincoln ad nauseam, do not think innovatively, are rigid and unresponsive to reason and lack innovative ideas. Instead they play cheap politics to win the votes of gullible voters on the guise of enacting development projects.
The youth have shaken the mindset of rural villages who effectively avoided challenging Rajapakse regimes, given their mutual commitment to Sinhala Buddhist supremacy. Their discipline, innovative presentation of well-articulated demands that the Rajapakse family which has hitherto controlled 70% of the National budget and Chairmanships of many State Institutions, must leave politics, have won Sri Lanka much admiration worldwide for the country’s resilience towards Democracy. Time has come for future leaders of Sri Lanka to give up the elitist tradition of Constitution making and jump out of the box to build into the 3rd Republican Constitution ‘The right to recall’ corrupt officials in Government, Parliament, the police and the legal services.
Perversions of the Justice System
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Those who saw the newspapers today may heave a cautious sigh of relief, based on Central Bank Governor Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe’s assurances. The Governor is optimistic that the inflation of Sri Lanka may not go as high as 70% as feared. Also, the view has been expressed that the dire shortage of foreign exchange also has eased, to be able to import our essentials, such as food, medicine and fuel.
In this context, while being thankful for the glimmer of hope for the future of Sri Lanka, I hope that this message will not be considered as a signal to go back to our wasteful and profligate practices of the past, which reduced Sri Lanka to the beggar status. As such, it is important for Dr Weerasinghe, and the Central Bank, to remain cautious, and vigilant, and not release any foreign exchange expenditure for import of any thing that cannot be recognized, strictly, as essential, and for which there is no ready indigenous alternative. He is also wisely considering limiting the recently introduced open account imports, as well, which he feels is not the reason for the recent positive signs of improved supplies of food items, and some reduction of prices.
It is the unfortunate reality, that there is no short-term option but to remain nearly 100% dependent on fossil fuel for our transport needs. The nation’s gratitude is due to the Hon. Kanchana Wijesekera, Minister for Power and Energy, for the near miracle he performed by getting rid of the miles long fuel queues, all over the country, with the introduction of the QR system. There may be some improvements, and changes necessary, to address the sectors, such as fuels supplies for agricultural machinery, the fishery sector, and the construction equipment, which are strictly not transport related, but are equally important for the economy, in no small measure. I am sure he would address these improvements needed, if not already in place. He has also taken the important step to ensure the operation of the refinery, at full capacity, which is a most important decision to further reduce the expenditure of the inescapable draining of the foreign expenditure.
It is heartening to read that the monthly drain has already been halved from the predicted $ 500 million to $ 235 Million per month. Those who use the limited quantities of fuel, issued, will now be compelled to be frugal in their usage, which is now forced on Sri Lankans, who were driven in the direction of living way beyond their means, by successive governments.
However, I would like to bring to the kind attention of the Governor that uncontrolled import of LPG, which costs $ 350 million in 2020 as per the CBSL data and now likely to exceed $ 400 million, if allowed the freedom, does not in anyway fall into the category of essential imports merely for the purpose of cooking. This is due to fact that unlike in the case of transport fuels, we do have acceptable indigenous alternatives. I have previously tried to get this message across to the authorities, and people of Sri Lanka, which appears to have fallen on deaf years, considering the recent action to use borrowed Dollars to import large quantities of LPG.
Obviously, the government would have considered this being necessary for political expediency, instead of recognizing the emerging trends of innovative Sri Lankans, introducing very acceptable alternatives, both for the domestic sector and the restaurant sector.
But this unwise and short-sighted action, has all but destroyed the nascent industry of manufacture of wood and wood charcoal-based cooking stoves, which were being readily accepted by the consumers. The authorities failed to recognize this trend, evidenced by the fact that while there were queues of empty LPG cylinders at all outlets, people had decided to go back home and adopt alternatives when absolutely no LPG was available for nearly two months.
The present practice of trying to get back to the use of LPG, using dollars borrowed for consumption, for which we do have a viable alternative, and the daily news items that Sri Lanka is defaulting on payments of all the past loans, and is considered unsustainable, is nothing short of deception of the public. The consumer themselves, if not the authorities, should recognise the following to which they contribute with every purchase of the LPG Cylinder…
* The import of LPG is possible, only through loans which will have to be paid by our children and grandchildren
* Continued dependence on LPG is a never-ending problem and will need more and more loans, with no chance of the LPG usage leading to any foreign exchange earnings
* The loans taken have to be re paid by the entire country, while the benefit is enjoyed by only a limited section of the society, which is morally unacceptable
* For those fortunate to get even a cylinder of LPG, adopting the already available options of stoves, using either charcoal or wood for the cooking of the main meals, would substantially reduce the monthly expenditure (as shown). This would preserve the LPG cylinder, bought with difficulty, to be available for any limited usage, in between, and for any emergencies, for many months.
Therefore, it is no sacrifice by the consumers, as they stand to gain substantially by at least halving the annual cost of cooking energy, for accepting perhaps a minor inconvenience. (See graph).The consumers can be the drivers of the change which would reduce the demand for LPG and thus save the country millions of dollars year after year.
This would create a significant indigenous industry whereby the millions of dollars sent out would flow to the local industrialists and rural communities,supplying the charcoal and wood. Even a 50% reduction of the imports could result in a local industry worth over Rs 80 billion annually.
Our appeal to you, as the Governor of Central Bank, who has taken on the Herculean task of salvaging the economy, and the pride of the Sri Lanka nation, is to demand at least a 50% reduction of the drain of dollars for this non-essential import which had been foisted on unsuspecting consumers by aggressive and fraudulent promotions for commercial interests alone. The potential of a very vibrant industry with majority of the benefits flowing to the rural economy of over Rs 80 billion annually cannot be ignored any more.
Sometimes, we can learn important lessons from the humblest people. That is what I did when I met Neelasiri, a few days ago. Actually, I didn’t meet him, physically. I only saw him on TV. Yet, I managed to learn an important lesson from him. He is one of those people who collect waste, in his case plastic waste, for a living. And, last month, he handed over 600 kilograms of plastic waste, to a recycling company, and earned 42,000 rupees. Even with a highly depreciated rupee, it is a good income for a person like Neelasiri. In addition to that, Neelasiri also helps to protect Sri Lanka’s environment as he collects discarded plastic waste that litters our roads, waterways, and beaches. If not for people like him, more plastic waste would end up in huge garbage dumps across the country.
To get a better insight into what I learned from Neelasiri, I spoke to the company, to which he supplies his plastic waste collection. That company has a few collection centres to which people like Neelasiri supply their daily collections. They informed me that they pay around rupees 45,000 per metric tonne of plastic waste. The company process around 250 metric tonnes of plastic waste, a month, and turn them into brushes, or other plastic products, and those even include yarn that is used by our apparel industry to produce Sri Lankan Cricket T-shirts. The recycling companies, like these, provide employment for thousands of people, like Neelasiri, and help to reduce environmental degradation.
But then I am aware Sri Lanka also imports plastic waste and have written a number of articles on the subject. According to the data available on the International Trade Centre website, in 2021 Sri Lanka imported 6,813 tons of plastic waste (HS3915) and had paid US$ 3.7 million. That is, on average, US$ 555, or Sri Lankan rupees 200,000 per ton! Neelasiri could have supplied it for rupees 70,000, or less! In addition, freight charges also add up to the import price! We also know in many countries the exporters are paid handsomely for recycling waste and some of it is also passed on to the importers! It is clear that something is terribly wrong in this operation. Not only do we import garbage, but do so at an exorbitant cost. In the process, Sri Lanka is getting fleeced.
Interestingly, it is not easy to import plastic waste into Sri Lanka. You need a license from Sri Lanka’s Central Environmental Authority (CEA), the government institution that is responsible for protecting our environment! The CEA has a responsibility to consider environmental impact before issuing a license! Then there are other agencies involved in this business, including the customs, the BOI, Trade and Finance Ministries, and the Department of Commerce. Remember, until recently, there was a clandestine garbage dump, to store imported garbage, within the Katunayake EPZ! So it is clear that some of the imported plastic waste ends up in local garbage dumps. The imports also take away job opportunities from some of the poorest people of the country.
More interestingly, 40 percent of Sri Lanka’s imports of plastic waste, that is around 3000 tons, came from China! Before 2017, China was the major importer of foreign garbage. In 2016, it imported 7.3 million tonnes of plastic waste, accounting for 56 percent of world imports. In 2017, China banned the import of plastic waste and, by 2021, its imports had stopped totally. China’s notification to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), on the ban, stated that China would stop accepting shipments of rubbish, such as waste plastic, as part of a campaign against “foreign garbage” as China “… found that large amounts of dirty wastes, or even hazardous wastes, are mixed in the solid waste that can be used as raw materials. This polluted China’s environment seriously. To protect China’s environmental interests, and people’s health, we urgently adjust the imported solid wastes list, and forbid the import of solid wastes that are highly polluted.” Unfortunately, those concerns do not apply to China’s exports of plastic waste to countries, like Sri Lanka!
Of course, the protection of Sri Lanka’s environmental interests and people’s health is not China’s responsibility. The government of Sri Lanka is responsible for those things. But the relevant government agencies, including the Central Environmental Authority, and the customs, are silently cooperating to promote the imports of “foreign garbage.” Since, China announced an unprecedented ban on its import of most plastic waste, in 2017, recycling processors, in countries like Singapore, are scrambling to find new markets, or garbage dumps, for plastic waste. And Sri Lanka, slowly but surely, is emerging as a potential prime destination, because it is a very lucrative way to make money and also to siphon out black money through over-invoiced imports!
(The writer can be contacted at senadhiragomi@gmail.com)
If you are suffering with chronic pain, diabetes, heart problems or any other condition, you want to be confident that your doctor will offer you an effective treatment. You certainly don’t want to waste time, or money, on something that won’t work, or take something that could do you harm. The best source of information, to guide treatment, is medical research. But how do you know when that information is reliable and evidence-based? And how can you tell the difference between shoddy research findings and those that have merit? There’s a long journey to the publication of research findings.
Scientists design experiments and studies to investigate questions about treatment, or prevention, and follow certain scientific principles and standards. Then the finding is submitted for publication in a research journal. Editors and other people in the researchers’ field, called peer-reviewers, make suggestions to improve the research. When the study is deemed acceptable, it is published as a research journal article. But a lot can go wrong on this long journey that could make a research journal article unreliable.
And peer review is not designed to catch fake or misleading data. Unreliable scientific studies can be hard to spot – whether by reviewers or the generaleightpublic – but by asking the right questions, it can be done. While most research has been conducted, according to rigorous standards, studies, with fake or fatally flawed findings, are sometimes published in the scientific literature. It is hard to get an exact estimate of the number of fraudulent studies because the scientific publication process catches some of them, before they are published.
One study of 526 patient trials, in anesthesiology, found that eight percent had fake data and 26 percent were critically flawed. As a professor in medicine and public health, I have been studying bias in the design, conduct and publication of scientific research for 30 years. I’ve been developing ways to prevent and detect research integrity problems so the best possible evidence can be synthesized and used for decisions about health.
Sleuthing out data that cannot be trusted, whether this is due to intentional fraud or just bad research practices, is key to using the most reliable evidence for decisions. The most reliable evidence of all comes when researchers pull the results of several studies together in what is known as a systematic review. Researchers who conduct systematic reviews identify, evaluate and summarize all studies on a particular topic.
They not only sift through and combine results on perhaps tens of thousands of patients, but can use an extra filter to catch potentially fraudulent studies and ensure they do not feed into recommendations. This means that the more rigorous studies have the most weight in a systematic review and bad studies are excluded based on strict inclusion and exclusion criteria that are applied by the reviewers. To better understand how systematic reviewers and other researchers can identify unreliable studies, my research team interviewed a group of 30 international experts from 12 countries.
They explained to us that a shoddy study can be hard to detect because, as one expert explained, it is “designed to pass muster on first glance.” As our recently published study reports, some studies look like their data has been massaged, some studies are not as well designed as they claim to be, and some may even be completely fabricated. Our study provides some important ideas about how to spot medical research that is deeply flawed or fake and should not be trusted.
The experts, we interviewed, suggested some key questions that reviewers should ask about a study: For instance, did it have ethics approval? Was the clinical trial registered? Do the results seem plausible? Was the study funded by an independent source and not the company whose product is being tested? If the answers to any of these questions is no, then further investigation of the study is needed. In particular, my colleagues and I found that it’s possible for researchers who review and synthesize evidence to create a checklist of warning signs.
These signs don’t categorically prove that research is fraudulent, but they do show researchers as well as the general public which studies need to be looked at more carefully. We used these warning signs to create a screening tool – a set of questions to ask about how a study is done and reported – that provide clues about whether a study is real or not. Signs include important information that’s missing, like details of ethical approval or where the study was carried out, and data that seems too good to be true.
One example might be if the number of patients in a study exceeds the number of people with the disease in the whole country. It’s important to note that our new study does not mean all research can’t be trusted. The Covid-19 pandemic offers examples of how systematic review ultimately filtered out fake research that had been published in the medical literature and disseminated by the media. Early in the pandemic, when the pace of medical research was accelerating, robust and well-run patient trials – and the systematic reviews that followed – helped the public learn which interventions work well and which were not supported by science.
For example, ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug that is typically used in veterinary medicine and that was promoted by some without evidence as a treatment for Covid-19, was widely embraced in some parts of the world. However, after ruling out fake or flawed studies, a systematic review of research on ivermectin found that it had “no beneficial effects for people with Covid- 19.” On the other hand, a systematic review of corticosteroid drugs like dexamethasone found that the drugs help prevent death when used as a treatment for Covid-19. There are efforts underway across the globe to ensure that the highest standards of medical research are upheld.
Research funders are asking scientists to publish all of their data so it can be fully scrutinized, and medical journals that publish new studies are beginning to screen for suspect data. But everyone involved in research funding, production and publication should be aware that fake data and studies are out there. The screening tool proposed in our new research is designed for systematic reviewers of scientific studies, so a certain level of expertise is needed to apply it. However, using some of the questions from the tool, both researchers and the general public can be better equipped to read about the latest research with an informed and critical eye.
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