{"id":122228,"date":"2014-03-27T01:22:16","date_gmt":"2014-03-26T19:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=122228"},"modified":"2014-04-03T01:58:09","modified_gmt":"2014-04-02T20:28:09","slug":"champions-of-the-democracy-deficit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/champions-of-the-democracy-deficit\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions Of The Democracy Deficit"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Malinda Seneviratne<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Malinda<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

It is pathetic, to say the least, when media rights advocates stretch and strain to scratch out some logic when they come out to defend their friends.\u00a0 The Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association, the Free Media Movement<\/span><\/a>, and the Federation of Media Employees\u2019 Trade Unions are up in arms about the arrest of two persons who have nothing to do with the media, except the media exposure they seek for the organizations and politics they represent and embody.<\/p>\n

\n

It is good to stand up for friends.\u00a0 Nothing wrong in that. The problem is that that HR (human rights) labels don\u2019t give immunity to anyone, especially when it comes to ensuring the security of a country that has suffered 30 years of terrorism, not forgetting that in this case hardcore LTTE<\/span><\/a> operatives are involved.\u00a0\u00a0 Pertinent also is the fact that media rights is peripheral at best in this case.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, no one need to be surprised about media right advocates who have a long history of being swayed by cash and prompted by political preferences firing off media releases (only) when fellow-travelers get into a spot of bother.<\/p>\n

But what of Ruki Fernando and Fr Praveen<\/span><\/a>, the two \u2018human rights activists\u2019 we are talking about?\u00a0 The usual \u2018rights\u2019 suspects, Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Sudharshan Gunawardena and J.C. Weliamuna were quick to air their horror.\u00a0 So too was Groundviews, the website powered by Saravanamuttu\u2019s NGO, Centre for Policy Alternatives.\u00a0 They are all upset about the arrest. \u00a0They are upset also that Jeyakumari Balendran<\/span><\/a>, another \u2018activist\u2019 was arrested.\u00a0 They are not upset about Jeyakumari\u2019s connections with \u2018Gobi\u2019, a known terrorist with a criminal record.\u00a0 They are not upset that Gobi<\/span><\/a>, previously an understudy to the LTTE\u2019s intelligence chief, Pottu Amman, has been involved in a network that has robbed demining equipment belonging to another NGO and has used these to look for weapons buried as the LTTE fled the advancing security forces in 2009.<\/p>\n

They find a contradiction between what the government is saying in Geneva and what is happening on the ground here in Sri Lanka.\u00a0 This is strange.\u00a0 Do they think that commitment to upholding human rights equals a license to drop guard and let terrorists roam about regrouping, re-arming, recruiting and in other ways preparing ground for another bloodbath?<\/p>\n

They are upset by the Prevention of Terrorism Act, under which their friends have been arrested.\u00a0 That\u2019s easy to say, because they are not in charge of national security.\u00a0 In an ideal world we wouldn\u2019t need a PTA.\u00a0 In an ideal world, let us not forget, we won\u2019t have the LTTE and its NGO sympathizers, an LTTE rump and their \u2018media advocacy friends\u2019, priests who use cross and cassock to give respectability to criminals.<\/p>\n

It is silly to think that these lovely gentlemen are unaware of what the Jeyakumaris and Gobis of this world are up to; after all they are also friends or else friends of friends of key individuals in the GTE, TGTE, TCC, HQGP and other would-be successors to the LTTE.\u00a0 If they indeed were that ignorant, by now they would know who is who and what is what.\u00a0 Even if they continue to feign ignorance, there is no hiding the fact that Jeyakumari is two-faced and that her activism was cover for activity that is of serious concern to those responsible for national security.\u00a0 They would love the security establishment to look the other way, it seems. Fortunately it has not.<\/p>\n

Groundviews is right in one thing.\u00a0 There is a democracy deficit in this country.\u00a0 That deficit is enshrined in the constitution and made more pronounced by beneficiaries of that same deficit who do little or nothing to bridge it.\u00a0 On the other hand, you can also say goodbye to opportunities to close to gap if you are openly supporting moves to make for an LTTE resurrection.\u00a0 That\u2019s what Jeyakumari is about.\u00a0 That\u2019s what those who are championing her \u2018cause\u2019 are about.<\/p>\n

It is no wonder that both the USA and UK, the key movers and shakers against Sri Lanka in Geneva, appear to have swallowed their proverbial tongues with respect to Jeyakumari.\u00a0 They are focusing on Ruki and his priest friend.\u00a0 The reason is simple. They are interested in regime-change. They are not gung ho about an LTTE reincarnation.\u00a0 What all these people are missing is that such a rebirth requires midwives, facilitators such as Ruki and Fr Praveen, and a veritable army of attendants, mostly donor-dependent nobodies who are forced therefore to call themselves \u2018civil society\u2019.<\/p>\n

It would lovely if this country didn\u2019t have a PTA.\u00a0 It would be lovely if people who believe they have been wronged can protest at will.\u00a0 It is sad that there are people wearing multiple hats, just like LTTE cadres who switched from military fatigues to sarongs, just like suicide bombers who dressed up as pregnant women, just like the LTTE\u2019s propagandists who went around with Media IDs.\u00a0 We don\u2019t live in a happy world.\u00a0 But if we are to aspire to any reasonable degree of happiness, we need to be alert.\u00a0 We cannot afford another thirty years of bloodshed.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a case being made for strengthening the PTA.\u00a0 That case is being made by a lot of people.\u00a0 Let us name some. We have Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, J.C. Weliamuna and Sudharshan Gunawardena.\u00a0 We have The Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association, the Free Media Movement, and the Federation of Media Employees\u2019 Trade Unions.\u00a0 We can\u2019t really say \u2018Thank you gentlemen for the sustained development of the democracy deficit\u2019.<\/p>\n

*Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of \u2018The Nation\u2019\u00a0and his articles can be found at\u00a0www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":105560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nChampions Of The Democracy Deficit - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/champions-of-the-democracy-deficit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Champions Of The Democracy Deficit - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/champions-of-the-democracy-deficit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-03-26T19:52:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-04-02T20:28:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Malinda-Seneviratne-150x150.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"130\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"135\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/champions-of-the-democracy-deficit\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/champions-of-the-democracy-deficit\/\",\"name\":\"Champions Of The Democracy Deficit - 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