Author: TELO Admin

At a time when there is a discussion in the country with regard to the need to review the provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), the circumstances surrounding the arrest, indictment and acquittal of former Western Province Governor Azath Salley provides an insight into the dangers prevalent in the PTA.

One of the features of the PTA that has been heavily criticised is the fact that by invoking the provisions of the PTA any suspect can be detained for a long time without being subject to judicial scrutiny.

The PTA lends itself to easy abuse by facilitating investigators, if they are so inclined, to invoke the provisions of the PTA to deprive suspects of applying for bail. Experience shows that this is often resorted to cover up for lethargic investigations as well as for political and other extraneous reasons.

Of recent the Police simply invoke the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Act together with the PTA in the B report filed in Court thus ensuring that the suspect’s chances of obtaining bail are rendered almost impossible.

Thereafter the Police burdened by their other multifarious duties take their own time in pursuing the investigations.The approach in these cases seems to be “arrest now, investigate later.”

The deprivation of a suspect’s personal liberty in such circumstances not only impacts on him but also on his family and dependents that may be relying on him for material and emotional support.

There are countless such ‘forgotten’ people languishing in custody while the administration of justice moves, if at all, at its lethargic pace.

The Azath Salley case brings to the surface a few of the dangers and injustices caused by the use and abuse of the PTA. In the Azath Salley case the issues were kept alive and constantly in the public eye because of the high profile of the suspect.

However there are many lesser known ordinary citizens who have been detained under the PTA and are languishing in custody for extensive periods of time. They remain mere statistics in files or B reports while investigations move at a snail’s pace thus condemning them to custody indefinitely.

Azath Salley was arrested on March 9, 2021 and subsequently indicted in the Colombo High Court for committing offences under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Act.

At the time the arrest was made, leading Government spokespeople said the decision to arrest was made because evidence had been discovered connecting Mr. Salley to the damages caused to Buddhist statues in Mawanella and implicating him in the Easter Sunday attacks. However when the Attorney General decided to indict him there were no charges framed against him for these two incidents.

Clearly upon examination of the investigation, the Attorney General had not found any evidence linked to these two attacks and therefore did not frame any charges in respect of these two incidents.

Thus the original basis on which Mr. Salley was arrested and kept in custody for eight months invoking the PTA and ICCPR was disproved.

However apart from Mr. Salley being deprived of his freedom on a false premise, the damage to his reputation was immeasurable and the media blitz carried out suggesting that he was involved in these two incidents is likely to remain etched in the minds of the undiscerning people.

This column of October 10, 2021 posed the question whether a travesty of justice was being played out against former Western Province Governor Azath Salley, citing the proceedings before the Colombo Chief Magistrate Buddhika C. Ragala. The Magistrate had delivered an order drawing attention to a strong discrepancy between the views expressed by Azath Salley during the media conference which was at the heart of the indictment against him and the content of the edited version published by the media. It was on the edited version that the indictment against Mr. Salley had been based.

The Chief Magistrate had observed that if the entire unedited version of the media conference had been published, it would have been clear that the suspect had expressed an idea of building peace among the people and to rise up as one nation.

This column pointed out that if the findings of the Chief Magistrate were upheld it would be an uphill task to establish the prosecution’s case against Azath Salley.

This column also urged that in view of the order by the Colombo Chief Magistrate it was incumbent on the Attorney General to review the indictment against Mr. Salley and take appropriate action.

Unfortunately the Attorney General did not do so but continued to lead evidence. At the conclusion of the prosecution’s case, upon an application made by President’s Counsel Maithri Gunaratne who appeared for the defence, High Court Judge Amal Ranaraja acquitted Mr. Salley without calling for his defence.

Grave injustice is being caused to so many as a result of the PTA and it is time that remedial measures are taken quickly. Until the Government takes a final decision with regard to the PTA, in the interest of justice a few interim measures may be taken.

Firstly, a moratorium on the use of the PTA should be imposed. Secondly, high ranking Police officials and the Attorney General’s Department should rigorously examine the facts of every case in which the provisions of the PTA and ICCPR are sought to be used and ensure that no injustice is caused to any citizens. (javidyusuf@gmail.com)

The three-judge bench of the Colombo High Court Friday adjourned the hearing of the case against former Navy Commander Admiral of the Fleet Wasantha Karannagoda until January 7 as he has challenged the charges filed by the Attorney General against him for abducting and disappearing 11 youths in Colombo and suburbs between 2008 and 2009.

The court announced this when the case against Karannagoda and 14 others was taken up before the Colombo High Court Trial-at-Bar bench comprising Colombo High Court Judges Champa Janaki Rajaratne, Amal Ranaraja and Navaratne Marasinghe, Friday (03).

State Counsel U. Abeywickrema told the court that the Court of Appeal is scheduled to issue its order on the writ petition filed by Mr. Karannagoda in the Court of Appeal on the 8th.

Former Navy Commander Wasantha Karannagoda has been named as the 14th accused in a case filed by the Attorney General on 667 charges in connection with the abduction, torture, extortion and conspiracy to murder eleven youth in 2008 and 2009.

Mr. Karannagoda filed a writ petition against being named as a defendant in the case filed by the Attorney General, stating that the officers who had been investigating the case for ten years had not found enough evidence to make him a suspect.

However, President’s Counsel Romesh de Silva, appearing for Karannagoda, has told the Court of Appeal in detail that the investigation was diverted after the appointment of the government of good governance in 2015.

The Attorney General filed the case on 667 charges including conspiracy to assassinate 11 youth namely, Kasthuru Arachchige Joe Reit, Rajiv Naganathan, Pradeep Vishwanathan, Thilageshwaran Ramalingam, Mohamed Sajith, Jamaldeen Dylan, Amanon Leone, Roshan Leone, Anthony Kasthuruarachchi, Theagarajah Jegan and Mohammed Ali Anwar, their abduction, imprisonment,, taking their property by force and concealing evidence related to the disappearance of the young men.

Apart from Karannagoda, the other accused in the case Nilantha Sampath Munasinghe, Sumith Ranasinghe, Sanjith Nilanga Senaratne, Nalin Prasanna Wickramasuriya, Anton Fernando and former Navy Spokesman DKP Dasanayake, Rajapaksa Pathirehanlage Kithsiri, Aruna Thushara Mendis, K. Gamini, Chandana Prasad Hettiarachchi, Upul Chaminda, Nandapriya Hettihandi and Sampath Janaka Kumara appeared in court.

Former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe says the devastation of Covid-19 on human health and well-being have been compounded by the adverse effects of climate change in the Indian Ocean region.

In fact, the erratic monsoons, increasing droughts, and reduction of fish stocks arising from the changes to ocean water is poised to bring about food scarcity in the coming year, he warned speaking during a special plenary at the 5th Indian Ocean Conference in Abu Dhabi today (05).

“And of course, the strain on Health Systems and Public Finances are and will be endless given the persistent mutation of the virus. The total global economic effects continue to mount,” he said.

“We are all aware of how the recurrent lockdowns have driven large numbers of people into poverty and many others who were on the threshold of middle class to subsistence levels.”

He said the overloaded Health systems are neglecting the treatment of other illnesses and diseases. Therefore, most countries are increasingly vulnerable to other epidemics, that easily become pandemics. The National Education systems are disrupted, he pointed out.

Furthermore, the resources for Education in some countries are being reduced to increase the allocations for health, he said, adding that it is also disrupting the social fabric of all countries including an increase in reports of addiction and domestic violence.

There will be an accrual of these, and further costs, given the culmination of the destructive impact of the pandemic in escalating social and political tension, Wickremesinghe cautioned.

He also said that the loss to Asia from climate change is 5 to 6 times greater than our western counterparts.

The ensuring human displacement, migration and construction of new human habitation caused by the ecological changes will be an intolerable burden on the affected countries in a region given their limited resources to combat climate change, the MP said.

“Depressing as it is, we need to understand that a further downturn of our economies will reduce the resources for development already being eaten up by the increasing ecological and pandemic costs in an intersecting, downward spiral.”

“Yet, we cannot discuss the IOR without accounting for another intersection – that of geopolitics – the simmering power rivalries between US and China in the IOR,” the former prime minister added.

He said this picture becomes even more complicated by the addition of the AUKUS military alliance which also covers the Indian Ocean. “These developments in an increasingly multipolar world order will bring about regional instability in the Indian Ocean.”

The entanglement of great power rivalry in the Indian Ocean risks removing the focus on the public health shortfalls, digital inequalities, education disparities, unemployment and social fragmentation in some of our countries. The end result will be a further de-stabilisation of the IOR, he warned.

He said the intersecting economic setbacks from Covid-19 and impediments from accelerated climate change as well as the US – China rivalry have a potential to become a critical drag on this region that could prevent its potential to be the next global economic growth pole.

In such a scenario, the growing presence of advanced economies of Europe as outside players in the region could result in a throwback to the 17th and 18th Century Indian Ocean scenario – with more powerful outside powers dominating the weakened Indian Ocean states, he said.

“This is a wake-up call for our region – for effective regional cooperation,” Wickremesinghe said.

Months into the worst inflation in decades, a new round of food price hikes is ratcheting up pressure on governments around the world. Figures released Thursday by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization show a barometer of food commodity prices in November at its loftiest since June 2011 and 27.3% higher on the year.

Some of the starkest numbers out of Asia come from Turkey and Sri Lanka, where inflation is racing and governments are responding with dramatic measures that defy economic orthodoxy.

“The price of vegetables is exorbitant,” said Shamla Naleer, a resident of Matale in central Sri Lanka. Her family, though middle-class, is still struggling.

“It’s at the point where we question, ‘Do we need to eat a vegetable today?’” she said. Her father’s small grocery store used to be able to offer discounts for family and close friends. That is out of the question now.

“No one budgets for their price of food to double in a year,” said Aritha Wickramasinghe, who lives between the capital of Colombo and a small village in the south.

“We’re managing by eating differently,” he said. “Portions are different.”

The FAO’s monthly food price index measures the average increase in global prices across a basket of food commodities. The organization has issued a high-alert warning for Sri Lanka, where it says rice and wheat flour prices hit record highs in October. Annual inflation, measured by the central bank’s Colombo Consumer Price Index, came to 9.9% in November.

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has attempted to fight rising costs with controversial price control measures, most recently with a September cap covering such items as white rice and sugar. The move backfired: Many food retailers refused to sell at the lower prices, shortages ensued, and much selling migrated to the black market. Images went viral of Sri Lankans in long food lines.

Rajapaksa walked the measure back in October. Prices immediately shot up; rice increased almost 30% in Colombo from September to November, according to the FAO. Malathy Knight, a competition policy expert and research associate at Colombo’s Verite Research, called the flip-flopping “political theater.”

“A price control is a feel-good policy to seem that you’re doing something,” she said.

“It undermines the way markets have to work and has the opposite effect on consumers in the long term,” Knight said. “In the informal sector it’s really a token regulation. They don’t comply.”

READ: Sri Lanka gears up for double threat – Dengue and Omicron

Sri Lanka’s fiscal problems include roughly $1.5 billion in debt owed by next July and diminishing international reserves — $2.27 billion as of October — that led the government to restrict imports. The central bank has been printing many billions of rupees, further increasing inflation.

Meanwhile, food supplies are shrinking. Sri Lanka’s main annual harvest will not reach the market until the spring. “They are currently in the tight period,” said Cristina Coslet, who monitors Asian countries’ food prices for the FAO.

“They will need to import … but also support the most vulnerable households with subsidized food,” she said. Sri Lanka is more closed off to imports now than at any point since the 1970s.

Inflation is also sky-high in Turkey, where the lira has been setting new record lows against the dollar for weeks — reaching nearly 14 to the dollar on Tuesday. A dollar bought about 7.8 lira last December and around 3.5 five years ago. Annual inflation in the “food and nonalcoholic beverages” category came to 27.4% for October, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute.

“Everything we need is very expensive and difficult to get,” said Guray Bilginoglu, a resident of Hatay in the southeastern part of the country.

“Lines for cheap bread have started to form,” he said. “We are trying to save on everything.”

In October, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan drew international attention for suddenly slapping heavy fines on top supermarket chains for alleged price fixing.

The supermarkets are contesting the claims. The leader of Turkey’s Food Retailers Association said they were being “scapegoated” for rising prices that actually stem from increasing production costs.

Erdogan has looked at supermarkets with suspicion for years, saying stores that hike prices commit “food terrorism.” He recently ordered the creation of 1,000 or so shops run by the national agricultural cooperative.

At the same time, his continued pressure on the central bank to lower interest rates — to stimulate growth, he says — is baffling mainstream economists.

“Turkey has a long history of high inflation rates,” FAO economist Monika Tothova said via email.

“In a standard macroeconomic situation, a central bank usually responds to increasing inflation by increasing interest rate, although the central bank in Turkey seems to be taking a different approach,” she wrote.

Turkey and Sri Lanka are far from alone; fast-paced inflation is hitting most of the world. In the U.S. — where the Labor Department reported 5.3% annual food inflation for October, the highest since January 2009 — the costs are assumed to be at least partially behind President Joe Biden’s sinking approval rating, which he is under pressure to improve before the 2022 midterm elections. In November, he took the dramatic step of asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether oil and gas companies are illegally fixing prices.

The FAO has also issued a price warning for Pakistan, where wheat flour prices in most of its markets were at record or near-record levels in October, as well as for Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Uganda, Sudan and South Sudan.

With presidential elections coming up in 2023 and 2024, Turks and Sri Lankans will be able to express their discontent at the ballot box before long.

Erdogan’s approval rating sank under 40% in Ankara-based MetroPoll’s latest survey from Nov. 25. In a poll from Sri Lanka’s Institute for Health Policy released last month, a third of respondents who said they voted for Rajapaksa in 2019 or his camp in 2020 said they would not do so today.

“Sri Lanka’s a society that’s used to price controls,” Wickramasinghe said. “There’s always been this sentiment that it’s part of the government’s job to regulate the price of essentials.” But in the last few months, he has felt public opinion start to shift.

“I think people saw that actually, these are useless,” Wickramasinghe said.

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Seetharaman and External Affairs Minister S.K. Jayashankar had informed Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa that India would officially announce the economic relief package given to Sri Lanka to overcome the country’s economic crisis, next January.

The Indian ministers added that the economic package would apply to the strengthening of foreign reserves, the supply of food and medicine, the promotion of the energy sector and investment.

The economic package for Sri Lanka, which has already been approved by the Indian Ministry of Finance, will be approved by the Indian Cabinet in January.

Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksaand Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to India Milinda Moragoda had informed the Government of India of the relevant proposals.

Basil Rajapaksa and Secretary to the Ministry of Finance SR. Attygalle and High Commissioner Milinda Moragoda met the Indian Finance Minister and External Affairs Minister twice recently.

Meanwhile, ‘The Hindu’ reports that “President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s request for a $1 billion swap, made directly to PM Modi during a telephone conversation in May 2020, has not yet materialised.”

“India has also delayed a decision on a request PM Mahinda made directly to PM Narendra Modi during a meeting in February 2020 for a debt moratorium waiver to help Sri Lanka tide over its economic problems that have been exacerbated by the pandemic,” it adds.