Going Global

reposted

The mainstream media of Sri Lanka has failed to do its job; again and again and again. Absurdity after absurdity of the government’s actions have passed repeatedly into the public limelight only to be cast aside by the media by the means of ridiculous well-quoted statements from top government officials.

Take Dayan Jayathileke for instance. He was reduced from hero to zero when he was quoted in the media implying that the government was realistically considering implementing the 13th amendment. This to the man who according to government propaganda 'rescued us from unanimous defeat' at the hands of the Western pro-human rights anti-Sri Lankan coalition at the UN.

Where is the media outcry? if not against the sacking of DJ, at least against the implications of the actions taken by the government to the very initiation of the 13th amendment; an integral part of our constitution. The upholding of which is the duty of any free media framework in a country.

Other Epic fails include the lack of initiative in the investigating and reporting of all the dead bodies turning up everywhere even after the war, not that I think dead bodies being found while the war was on is any less justifiable, but the war is over now, and there should at least be a more rational base to justify the revelation of the goings on behind such atrocious activities to the general public. Even to a media prepared to convolute the already very bendable set of 'ethics' it is governed by.

Other epic fails include the complete lack of interest in questioning intelligently the apparent lack of power of the Sri Lankan judiciary (which is also an epic fail of its own but I’ll write about that later), the exorbitant and skewed taxing system and questionable economic policies (economic and financial critical analysis is almost unheard of except for a bit on LBO), the questions on the justification behind the implementation behind seemingly irrational laws (do i need to go into porno and mobile phones? its been well harped about in the blogosphere) and the apparent disregard to intimidation and coercion in undemocratic provincial council elections (like Jaffna for instance). And nobody even gives a rat’s behind about discussing the age old 'problem' of the executive presidency.

The media is a meek dog that barks only when the government wants it to. It is the government’s smokescreen, a tyrannical propaganda machine. Perhaps I wax too lyrical maybe? What; am I a paranoid conspiracy theorist then?

There has been an influx of new rules and regulations, mostly seemingly meaningless, imposed upon the general public.

Take new motor traffic regulations. Some of the stuff I’ve heard belies all logic, like the imposition of restrictions on modifications. Let’s not even go near the banning of cell phones in schools which is obviously a badly thought out knee jerk reaction that bears almost no consequence on the actual issue. Even the 'porno rules' strike me as absurd, seeing as only a few locally visited smut sites have been removed.

But what the purpose these outcries are serving, intentionally or not, is to divert the public's attention away from the important issues. Like the political situation; is there any serious reform going to happen? What of the pro devolution and anti executive presidency lobby? It’s turned into a pro-porno one. And let’s not even talk about economic development; we can leave that in the expert hands of the government's mathematicians

What about all the dead bodies turning up, again? Sure we may say that it is a good thing because most of them are apparent gangsters. but do we seriously think that this is an idealistically motivated killing spree? I think it’s just about control. Whoever is instigating these killings, and I’m not accusing anyone, is aiming at consolidating power. The drug industry fills the coffers of a lot of people and, on a completely unrelated note, rumour has it that Potta Naufer is driven by the police to his home every night to enjoy his mothers meals.

Meanwhile, no one in power is going to stop sending their kids to school without phones; neither are they going to stop jerking off to the internet, doing drugs, dealing drugs, driving souped up cars without seatbelts and engaging in other general abuses of power.

Makes this shocking accusation

By establishing a civil administration with its military personnel, under the guise of reconstruction and development the Government is attempting to change the demography of Tamil homelands in favour of the majority Sinhala population.

Like you mean, replace all the Tamils in there with Sinhalese? Or ensure that the 300,000 soldiers we have in the army settle down and marry into the Tamil population there and keep their crotch rockets firing long enough to out-reproduce the Tamils? Or are they planning vast re-movements of the population, moving in people from the South to dilute the concentration of Tamils in one place?

This has a more chilling note;

The Sri Lankan Government is also moving forward with schemes that will disable the socio-economic infrastructure of the Tamil people from being self reliant as one that would be controlled and made dependent on Sri Lanka’s South.

What he's trying to say perhaps, is that the government is trying to proactively restrict economic development in the North. By presumably denying opportunities for the North to prosper socio-economically in its own right through strong industries like tourism, trade and manufacturing.

This is unlikely because if the government were to do this, it would cripple and hold back the whole nation. The North-Eastern areas offer tremendous resources and capability for serious development.

If he is implying that the government, through the imposition of ownership rights and discriminatory laws, will deny the North-Eastern population ownership, property, entreprenurial and cultural rights then this gets more serious. But aside from being completely impractical if the goal is actual development, there is absolutely no evidence that this is going to happen.

KP seems all excited about his new venture

In this advanced cyber era I soon realised that it was possible (sharing of opinions) through a blog posting. This is why have I chosen to out to you using this method.

But he can at least make sense. And have credible statements to back up his claims.

Shadows. That’s all that remain from the riots of 83. at least to me. almost twenty five years now I’ve been a resident in this island and this is the first year in living memory that i do not recall a single person bring up the riots of '83 on or before the anniversary of that fateful day.

Except for Mr Cerno over here. As a matter of fact, i only remembered that black July was a couple of day’s away cos of his post.

Last year, there was uproar on the 23rd of July. From recollections of various people who were old enough to experience it to teachings of 'lessons' to be learned from the whole scenario, the blogosphere was full of it.

And this year? Not a hum. What’s up with that?

Prabhakaran always brought up the July riots to instill angst in the hearts of his troops. To motivate them to more death and destruction. And what did the rest of us do? We brought on the riots and painted them as we would paint a mistake; A grave wrong done to the Tamil people which we could never stop regretting.

Now the terrorist has died. I will not say our regret has died but merely the action of reinforcing it. And with that act we slowly lose the significance of the evil that led to the violent breakouts, allowing it to change into something unrecongizable and perhaps manifest itself in some other form of hate in later years. At least, thats a melodramatics take on it.

They say when you lose; don't lose the lesson. But how about when you win? What lessons can we take home from this war? Proof of the superiority of the Sinhalese race? Lessons of how you crush a rebellion by waging complex guerilla warfare? Or proof of how bad leadership, political imbalance, extreme corruption, plain stupidity and a wanton disregard for justice and equality can lead to the ostracizing of a minority and re-emerge in the form of a devastating conflict?

The key lessons IMO still lie in times, places and incidents during and before the beginning of the war. It's all too easy to forget the dirt under the carpet just because the couch is now clean and the TV is on.

The Americans still remember the day of Pearl Harbor to remind them of the fateful day they were compelled to enter the second world war, but they conveniently forget the day on which Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked.

They remember their victories and harms inflicted upon themselves only, but they deem insignificant their wrongs against others.

Just like in a decade from now, we'll probably remember the 19th of May* as having more significance than July 23.

if we ever remember anything at all that is, we Sri Lankans are a forgetful bunch.

So whats the relationship? Does oppression necessarily result in fundamentalism? This is a theme explored in a book i'm reading right now. As per the authors and evidence put forward there is a clear correlation between the rising of fundamentalist groups and the opression of those classes of a society.

This is plainly obvious generally, one has just got to look at numerous examples all over the world like the Uighurs, the Iraquis, Hezbollah, Christian fundamentalists in the US and not to put too fine a point on it; the LTTE.

Tamils in Sri Lanka are still, if not opressed, a very restricted group in terms of movement in society. Take their representation in the government and public sector for instance, this has spiralled down at an alarming rate since the de-nationalization of the Tamil language since 1956; an act seen by many Tamils as aimed at disowning the Tamil speaking population from Sri Lanka.

Now there is only scant representation of Tamil youth in Sri Lankan governance and none of it can be called particularly strong. Older and more powerful tamil politicians are few and far between.

Language is a major issue here. Its almost impossible to get anything done at most public services if you cannot communicate in Sinhalese or perhaps English. This arguably, is one of the first issues that needs to be addressed, along with the issue of the devolution_of power. (TEDx Colombo will be hosting a talk by Dr. Rohan Samarajiva on language policy for the future, this weekend.)

More power to provincial governments will give them incentive to serve the local population. In turn giving more power to voters in deciding who they want to take office. These are but some of the changes brought on by the 13th ammendment and its many modifications aimed at promoting diversity rather than supressing it; which has seemed to be the general overall trend of politics since independence from the Brits.

Barriers to devolution like strong vested interest in the Executive Presidency continue to bar progress. the EP is almost a tyrannical representation of everything wrong with the current system of governance to some; above the law, all powerful, unquestionable. It throws the concept of a government that 'serves the public' right out the kitchen window.

Change is needed, and it is needed now. Opression at this point will only create outlet to more fundamentalism and resentment among the unfairly treated. The LTTE is down, but not completely out. They still have support from the diaspora who burn from the wounds suffered a long time ago.

If the government avoids making serious long term policy changes to secure equality and yeilds to the easy way out and decides to rule the country with an iron fist-like approach by supressing dissent; perhaps it wouldn't not that far fetched to imagine a re-emeregence of the LTTE or some other similar group in the next few decades, if they manage to raise enough grassroots level support from a group of people that feels 'left out' of Sri Lankan society.

Milinda Moragoda, accused of corruption and mishandling in many corporate scandals leading from Pramuka Bank to the recent Ceylinco and SLIC brouhahas, crossed over to the government (in an effort to escape these allegations?) a while ago.

Today he was appointed the Minister of Justice and Law Reform before the president.

This must herald a new age of disintegration in the Sri Lankan judiciary system, esp the corporate governance area of it. Law reform in his eyes surely must mean the sale of public assets at dirt cheap prices to private interest and surely must facilitate the deterioration of public resources to even greater levels.

Mahinda Rajapakse promised that right after combating the terrorists; he would focus on eradicating corruption. Nice move Mr. President, no irony here at all. Another corrupt minister in an already unnecessarily huge cabinet is just what we need to make this land prosper.

The hot seat

On Saturday i was coming into Colombo from Wattala to attend a wedding with a few friends. There was a major traffic jam and we were consequently stuck on the road for quite some time. The reason being of course that His Excellency the President of Sri Lanka was on his way to receive some rare (read: probably obscure) honor for his efforts for providing us with freedom.

There are talks of new taxes being imposed. Apparently there is also a seatbelt fine. You get fined if you don't wear your seatbelt. From what i heard its somewhere like 2000 rupees per offense and repeat offenders get to go directly to the courts. Sri Lankans are notorious for not wearing seatbelts so this should net the government a handy sum if imposed and acted upon.

Im curious, is it cos i don't know of these things or is there really no mechanism that lets the public be aware of the rationale behind new legislation and policy stances? Ideally there should be reasearch studies out about frequencies and causes of road accidents to support the seatbelt tax. What i think happened was that some smart alec minister came up with a good 'suggestion' to find some fast cash without the public getting too pissed off. I mean hey, we can all keep our seatbelts on if we don't want to pay yeah. And most of the voter base doesn't really own cars anyway.

The Military

The army is expanding. I heard from the Armchair Warrior Grapevine that this is necessary to secure the area. More soldiers are apparently required to secure an area than to fight it. Maybe i can see the sense in that. Seeing as the LTTE seem to be regrouping now, but still it doesn't look like the taxes are going to subside becuse of this. Also, for the suparlative and the trivia fan, the Sri Lankan military apparently will be the 10th largest in the world if the expansion is carried out.

This also ties into the IDP issue; the government is insistent on holding them for at least 2 to 3 years while international pressure, for what its worth, keeps insisting they let them go. Reports of opressive paramilitary activities at IDP camps abounded and were pretty morbid. But living conditions have now improved according to the IDMC. The government insists it needs to 'weed out' possible tiger cadres hiding within around 300,000 IDPs in vaious camps in the North East and they have just released about 2000 people who have been camped for about two years now.

Our GDP may sink. As defense ependiture reduces the contribution of government expenditure. Although development may pick it up. I read in the Times that there is a 50 million dollar resort of a number of boutique hotels coming up. Hopefully more development will happen and help us with our forex problems which brings us to,

The Economy

Economy wise we seem to have reached a firmer footing. According to this LBO article our balance of payments crisis which was formed by the CBs soft peg is somewhat over. It happened when they sold what dollars they had to buy back rupees to keep up the rupee exchange rates, perhaps helping temper the cost of war imports. What they also did though, was to print more rupees at the same time, defeating the purpose of the peg. Thereby needing even more dollars to fund the thing and avoid a major currency collapse.

I guess they were gambling it all on the war being over, and it's paid off. There has been some foreign inflow and the government has even pulled of a US bond sale which was oversubscribed by about a 100%. Assertions that the need for that IMF loan have lessened seem a bit credible now. There is investment coming in and development projects in line for the liberated territories especially. Although i am not clear as to how much corruption and inefficiency will stunt it.

Industry seems to be suffering with a lot of jobs being lost in the recent spate of downsizing that hit the garment field and other industries. Foreign remittances are also on the decline and many workers are having to return home.

There are signs that fuel prices may be on the rise, with LIOC lobbying for a price increase, the government has insisted it is not planning on raising prices but that is a regular government tactic to calm the people before they go ahead and increase the prices overnight. As was seen in the past.

Interest rates need to be lowered. There is a reluctance by most banks to do this, the current environment still being favourable for high interest rates, but lending has frozen somewhat and domestic demand needs to be stimulated. There are already efforts to get this underway.

What next?

Overall, I feel the outlook is lukewarm. Im not by nature an optimist. But i'm not too pessimistic about our future either. The end of the war is widely speculated to stimulate interest in investments especially in the North East and this will have spillover effects on the rest of the country as well.

If i am a little skeptical, it is with regard to the country's leadership and direction, will they handle the redevelopment efficiently? And also the environment of suppression of free expression that is prevailing right now is a cause for concern. We need a more independent media capable of pulling up those in charge without fear of repercussions. Someone needs to monitor the monitors afterall.

This media hallabaloo about Iran seems to be based on nothing but cheap conjecture. No facts were uncovered about actual malpractice occuring with regard to the elections. Accusations were made that there was a shortage of ballot papers, 'pressurizing' of voters to vote for Ahmedinejad and candidate's representatives not being allowed to gain access to events at polling stations.

But none of this atually deals with the final count that emerged, the actual problem. Which showed president Ahmedinajad winning the election by a massive margin. Where are the errors pointed out in the actual counting mechanism? none of the protesters could actualy point out what sort of rigging had taken place. There was just a general consensus among them that some sort of rigging had to have taken place. On the surface, as any sane minded person would deduce, they just appear to be acting like sore losers.

Most of the protests were carried out in Tehran, which has a population of 14 million people. Iran itself has 70 million people in it. So how can the conviction of such a small fraction of a population be made to seem like the general consensus of the whole of its population? It just doesnt make sense.

And thats what these types of news stories are made for. To try and convey shallow messages in an attempt to shake up the basket a bit. They are aimed at the sort of people who just glance at the news and do not check their facts. This was simply a badly organized negative PR campaign against the Iranian leadership carried out by the Western media, if we want to get conspiratorial about it. Or rather, as i see it, it was just an opportunity to 'make some news' and all objectivity was lost as the media got blinded by a preconception that Iran's current leadership is essentially 'evil'.

Polls have shown that Ahmedinejad has secured major victories even in areas thought to be Mousavi strongholds and the margin by which he won (60%) is far too large to have been rigged.

Also, on a side note. Iran only has 35% internet penetration and 60% of its population is based in urban areas. Deduce of this what you will, but how can twitter updates from such a narrow margin of the population signify broad based protests sufficint enought to spark talk of the 'next Iranian revolution'?

the government of Iran does not appear to be completely innocent in this though. Apparently there has been some supression of protest activity and a cut down of media broadcasts from within. Though this may be standard government action to prevent things getting out of hand, as we have seen happen over here in SL, it is still enough to cause widespread speculation and concern about what is really happening inside.

Watch this Al-Jazeera take on it, its an interesting one.

Here are some really great stories that i thought i'd share.

Inflation, a double edged sword? - The Mises Economics Blog explores the inflationary implications of the US's trillion dollar bailout of the banks. It talks of how although pushing the inflation button and increasing the money supply is easy to do, the hard part is reigning it back in. Although its presumtion that contrationary monetary policy after a 'recovery' 'would also reduce bank reserves, reduce credit availability and loans, and increase interest rates' is true, this does not have quite the ominous ring to it as is hoped by the writer. Once the economy is 'recovered' such a reigning in may be necessary to curb inflation and may be the only option available and may not be all that destructive. Their call back to the Gold standard at the end of it though, seems hardly viable. But a great read nonetheless.

Googlenomics - Ever wondered how google manages to make so much of money while giving away most of their products for free? Ads right? Ever wonder how their system of advertising actually works? Its an economy unto itself thats what it is. Google initialy went the traditional way by having salesmen solicit advertising but then they discovered Adwords (toted by some as the greatest business discovery ever). Adwords uses auction theory to have a cost efficient way of selling advertising to bidders. But theres way more to it than this. Google employs a Chief Economist and also has Macro and Micro elements to its operation. This article is a brilliant read. Thanks to Brad De Long for the pointer.

A good time to die - The Adam Smith Institute Blog. The Us has what they call an estate tax where they have this massiv tax imposed on estates over a certain value when the ownder dies. The estate tax has been largely reduced through Bush pressure and is set to come to zero by 2010. But will return in full force (fifty percent) by 2011. This read explores the possibility of more rich people dying in 2010. Its even a bit morbidly funny. If you'll forgive my insensitivity.

China, The US State Department - This account of China is not exactly some obscure study of sensational interest but gives you everything you need to know about the more recent (special emphasis on the last century) Socio-political and economic activity of what will probably become the the worlds biggest economy in ten years. Interesting learning point for me was the Taiwanese political connection and its origins.

Sri Lanka will not accept any conditions on a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the island's president has said.

"We will not pawn or sell our motherland to obtain any monetary aid," said Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The Sri Lankan government is in talks with the IMF about a $1.9bn (£1.4bn) loan to help combat the economic downturn and pay for reconstruction.

The IMF usually insists on conditions for any emergency loans.

No forced measures

These involve taking steps such as cutting public spending or raising interest rates.

But Sri Lanka has made it clear.... (more at BBC)


Hmmm.. no  I have not got many thoughts there. As of late the West seems to have simpered a bit to the war efforts and have indicated a lot more support than they used to. With Hillary Clinton's call to the president and her supposed 'support extended with regard to the 'humanitarian improvements' and the elimination of terrorism etc. I still have the Derana News Alert on my phone.

Except she didn't. Well she did call him but internet news reports seem to deny the fact that she had anything good to say, while some others agree a little more with the Temple Trees version of the tale. This phone conversation and what was really said and implied could play a big role on our future relations with the West and entities such as the IMF and World Bank.

SL is very much an import dependent economy for many of its basic essentials and therefore foreign help in terms of loans, exports tariffs, trade deals etc are essential to its survival. And these rarely come completely devoid of conditions. It seems in a polarized world, the only way to maintain true independence is to have a completely closed economy or be the strongest player around. Since we're nothing of either, it looks as if we will have to go through some changes based on the whims of others soon enough.

But obviously, the government will not make it look like they were 'conditions' when they implement them in the economy oh no. And since we seem to have pretty much of a dormant opposition it looks like the real news of what is going to happen in the in the future may not be too clear till months later. By which time it'll be too late to do anything about it. Not that anything much could be done about it anyway. But at least we'll know.

What really happened? A day after the attacks, speculation is still rife.

The story hit the top of the economist web site today, which followed up with a long account of the incidents and Sri Lanka's gesture of solidarity that ended up in their cricket team getting shot. But then dwindles down into a rather pointless review of religion and the Pakistani cricket team and irrelevant ramblings about Muhammed Yousuf, a 'muslim fundamentalist' whatever that means.

The Economist also goes on to stress on 'Jihadist' attacks by 'Pakistani' militants. I can understand calling them Pakistani militants because they were obviously operating from Pakistan, but Jihadist? No group has taken responsibility yet for the attacks so there is no way of telling for sure if it was a self-proclaimed Jihadist group or not. Dissapointingly presumtuous especially coming from an esteemed source such as the Economist.

We can draw some parallells with the Mumbai attacks here. The attack out of the blue (like thats anything new), first of its kind in many ways, and no group takes responsibility. Instead suspicions are cast, scapegoats are found along with cicumstantial evidence and before you know it BAm! theres all out accusations.

Kinda reminds me of 9/11. Overally though, i think India handled the Mumbai attacks far better than the US handled 9/11. Killing indiscriminately and invading all over the place, UN be damned.

What am i trying to get at here?

im trying to tell you folks to calm down a bit and dont be so quick to judge. The attacks could have been carried out by anyone for any conceivable reason. Pakistan has been the target and location of many meaningless attacks over the past few years. Most gone unclaimed and un accounted for, it has also seemed to be the target of extreme detabilisation post 9/11.

so lets not assume anything.

Former Gitmo Guard Tells All—By Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine): Army Private Brandon Neely served as a prison guard at Guantánamo.... Neely decided to step forward and tell his story. “The stuff I did and the stuff I saw was just wrong,” he told the Associated Press. Neely describes the arrival of detainees in full sensory-deprivation garb, he details their sexual abuse by medical personnel, torture by other medical personnel, brutal beatings out of frustration, fear, and retribution, the first hunger strike and its causes, torturous shackling, positional torture, interference with religious practices and beliefs, verbal abuse, restriction of recreation, the behavior of mentally ill detainees, an isolation regime that was put in place for child-detainees, and his conversations with prisoners David Hicks and Rhuhel Ahmed. It makes for fascinating reading....

Neely and other guards had been trained to the U.S. military’s traditional application of the Geneva Convention rules. They were put under great pressure to get rough with the prisoners and to violate the standards they learned.... Neely discusses at some length the notion of IRF (initial reaction force), a technique devised to brutalize or physically beat a detainee under the pretense that he required being physically subdued.... Neely’s testimony makes clear that IRF was understood by everyone, including the prison guards who applied it, as a subterfuge for beating and mistreating prisoners—and that it had nothing to do with the need to preserve discipline and order in the prison.

Second, there is a good deal of discussion of displays of contempt for Islam by the camp authorities.... Third, the Nelly account shows that health professionals are right in the thick of the torture and abuse of the prisoners—suggesting a systematic collapse of professional ethics driven by the Pentagon itself. He describes body searches undertaken for no legitimate security purpose, simply to sexually invade and humiliate the prisoners. This was a standardized Bush Administration tactic–the importance of which became apparent to me when I participated in some Capitol Hill negotiations with White House representatives relating to legislation creating criminal law accountability for contractors. The Bush White House vehemently objected to provisions of the law dealing with rape by instrumentality. When House negotiators pressed to know why, they were met first with silence and then an embarrassed acknowledgement that a key part of the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality under existing federal and state criminal statutes. While these techniques have long been known, the role of health care professionals in implementing them is shocking.

Neely’s account demonstrates once more how much the Bush team kept secret and how little we still know about their comprehensive program of official cruelty and torture.

I’m sure that if the founding fathers could see it, they would be absolutely sickened.

And of course, it isn’t just the event that is the problem – it’s... (read more)

Who is a soldier? Is he a fighter in a noble cause? Or is he a villain used by the forces that are to channel his blood lust in the direction of who is perceived to be the enemy? Then should he be noble in his actions or should he be as dastardly in his deeds as his conscience provides provision for and his superiors give him leeway?

Talking about Ajantha Mendis, in a post that directed a fair bit of strong points of view in my direction. I became embroiled in this argument/discussion/casual chat with Mr. David Blacker. Though we started off talking about Ajantha Mendis, as all arguments go, this one ended up at a stalemate where there was a hold off on the meaning of one word and its implications.

The word was 'virtue' as it was used by Nicholas Machiavelli in his Art of War.

My argument was that soldiers, in order for war to be truly effective and not beget terror in any other form, have to be essentially 'good' people, and should not mistake going to war with having an opportunity to unleash suppressed animal instincts on innocents met along the way. To make things clearer I'll highlight a couple of exchanges me and David had. The extracts are from our last two comments.

Me: Virtue after all simply put, refers to good qualities doesn’t it?

DB: Over-simply put, I'm afraid. Good, after all, is a subjective term. But I think it's clear that Machiavelli didn't mean "goodness, honesty" etc. He was talking about strength, ambition, manliness.

Alright, let's assume that Machiavelli did mean these things when he spoke about 'virtue'; but then strength, ambition and manliness does not necessarily detract from being 'good' does it? one does not have to be evil to be strong, ambitious or manly. As a matter of fact, it can be argued that true manliness arises from achieving your ambitions in a way where you extract as little unnecessary discomfort on your fellow human beings. One can argue that it is a weakness and not a strength to trample upon the already downtrodden.

So therefore shouldn't soldiers essentially be good people? Shouldn’t they refrain from raping, pillaging, shooting unarmed civilians and leaving the women and children unharmed?

Perhaps it is the rationale behind the war in the first place that makes soldier behave in certain ways. If motives behind the war in question are contrived to seem good and just whereas there were ulterior motives present (take the Iraqi war for instance) then the soldiers will not be fully convinced as to the justifiability of their actions. The hidden truth will permeate down through the ranks and there will be a certain sense of frustration and greed and ambition that will be directed at achieving that ulterior motive in the level of the soldiers themselves. Translating into deeds that are commonly known as 'crimes of war' but pass unnoticed in most cases due to the confusion. Because essentially the actual motive behind the whole war is essentially in currently defined terms a 'crime'.

Iraq was a crime. There were no WMD's found there. Ever. The whole thing was a fisco. Some say the reason behind it was oil. But it was not a battle between good and evil or whatever you may call it. That much was painfully obvious. Here is where we specifically discussed a soldier's behavior;

Me: I beg to differ David. It is goodness that keeps a soldier from stealing from the dead. It is honesty that keeps him from lying to his superior to save his own neck. It is goodness and virtue in its 'modern meaning' that keeps a soldier from not shooting down an unarmed enemy; it is goodness and 'virtue' that would prevent all the war crimes that go unheeded in Iraq and perhaps, in our own land.

DB: That is true, and the fact that such atrocities occur (and have always occured) is in fact because virtue (in its modern sense) does not exist in the military. Virtue would prevent atrocities, yes, but it would also prevent the ruthlessness needed by military leaders which must sacrifice lives for objectives, ignore civilian suffering, and abandon everything but victory. Virtue, in its modern sense, would prevent an individual from even being a soldier who must kill and maim his fellow human beings in order to achieve a political objective. True virtue would prevent war.

But would virtue or being good and honorable actually reduce the effectiveness of a soldier? Or is soldiering just like anything else we humans do? and do we have a choice to choose whether to be honorable or bloodthirsty while doing it? like in Business, Career, Sport etc. can we always be virtuous and still win wars?

The year draws to an end and there is still so much wrong with the world. It may be a pessimistic outlook but sadly the human race seems to be defined by the crises that befall it. We are naturally cynical towards the good things in life. an uncorrupt government? a war to be won? Equality and universal acceptance? Not all of us would meet these statements with complete optimism. We believe in the weaknesses of the human race. We believe in the age old tome of our lives; 'perfection is impossible', 'nothing is and ever will be perfect' we keep telling ourselves. but are we so far away from perfection as we think? I do not know. But there is hope.

After that somewhat soppy start, let me list out the major crises/ happenings of 2008 that will define the following years as i see them off the top of my head. But pertaining to the cynical nature of the race on Earth, i have referred to any significant event as a 'crisis' so you may think it’s a good thing, but somebody somewhere will suffer because of it, perhaps owing to its imperfect nature.

The War - can it be won? how many of us are really dying in Killinocchi? why are they not allowing reporters in there of everything is going our way? What’s really going on.

The Economy - Both local and global. it shifted the world around. Having worked for a US bank involved specifically in the area of lending to subprime customers, I was privileged to see firsthand what was going on. although I left that place sometime before the crisis hit. Greed and capitalism deregulation and irresponsibility plunged the world into darknessssss...

Nigeria - Here is a country absolutely loaded with oil reserves, wealthy as the wealthiest country in the world potentially, whose people are still suffering without basic living conditions. Corruption has reached astronomical heights and practically all the petrodollars are going into the private coffers of government officials.

What’s sad to see is the international community does not do much about it. They're in cahoots with the government of course; it's all about pillage, plunder and take what you can. The less powerful and helpless the people, the better. Nobody cares about the Nigerian people as long as they can get the oil. They are terrorized. and terror begets terror. Therefore arises the MEND. and they are branded terrorist. Kind of like the

FARC - originally a bunch of helpless Columbian farmers, fighting the industrialization of their forests. The loss of their rivers due to the building of dams. The world tried to run over them and they fought back, and another terrorist group was born.

The Middle East - namely Palestine, I do not know if there have ever been a single race of people so downtrodden and treated unfairly as these. I mean the actually cut off electricity and food supplies to the whole nation because o a political fight. This can only occur when the powerful are so vain and corrupt as the forces that instigated the unfortunate humanitarian crisis in the name of 'democracy'. Ironically, it was in protest of Hamas, who gained rule of the Gaza strip in democratic elections as opposed to their opponents who were more friendly to the West.

Global Warming - It wages on and things seem to be improving really slowly. We are beginning to see a major movement emerge in popular culture in support of the environment. But a part of me is cynical, because there really doesn’t seem t be a significant change happening.

Africa - As opposed to the rest of the world, Africa alone as a continent seem to be going through a lot. Inflation in Zimbabwe is reaching unbelievable levels, one wonders why the economy has not simply crashed apart. Aids is spreading like wildfire, one advice to you i'll give, if you're in Africa, feeling horny, and want to get it on, don't. For the love of sweet life, don't.

Obama - The embodiment of change, an end to Bush who incidentally is probably the worse one man crisis to ever hit the world since Satan himself, Obama seems to embody everything opposite. but his rhetoric draws out the cynic inside, is he really all that? Well, we'll see, but don't expect fire crackers right away.

The Balance of Power - We are finally reaching a point where there are clear signs of the beginnings of decentralization in the world's power base. Russia, Iran and China are in the forefront of the challengers to the US followed by India, Brazil and Sri Lanka (not). But fifty years is a long time to build a power base and the US is still by far the most powerful country on Earth. interesting times ahead.

So thats my list of where the world stands in terms of significant happenings as at the end of 2008. Now I'm curious to hear about yours, and what events of the world impacted your view of this year and the years following immediately afterwards. So unfortunately im gonna tag a few of you thinkers out there to ensure your kind response :D sorry. Indi, Dean, Aufidius, My prerogative, Jack Point, Noorie, LD And the Mathawaada crew you're it.

A quick look at the ingredients for a healthy dictatorship.

1) Consolidated power base - Gee, I don't know, like maybe family members holding almost all the positions of real power in the government


3) The Army - Win the war and you've got a highly loyal army standing around doing nothing. Easy peacy job it'll be to use them to counter any public uprisings and to ensure a,


And finally and most importantly

7) A Passive People - we don't give a shit as long as our bellies are full yeah? we're not going to take to the streets if we can just as comfortably sit on our couches and watch other people do it. Like I said, the masses will be taken care of, and if the masses are not angry enough, the revolution wont happen.


Mix it all together with a generous dose of lies and treachery and viola! instant dictatorship. Pretty soon you and me will find ourselves done with the 'war on terror' and fighting a war for democracy. Bon appétit.

Basically Its a form of security, or insurance if you may. The government took out security against the prices of oil increasing and opted for a zero collar hedging base (where there is a sort of a ceiling and a floor to the price of oil, with a gap in between). So if the prices of oil increases above the ceiling or the highest set limit the bank doing the hedging would pay the difference to the government. Meaning that the maximum we'd ever essentially have to pay for oil would be that set price ceiling, no matter how high the prices rose.

Now, at the time the government ventured into this deal prices were skyrocketing and there was talk of $200 oil. So no regrets there right? We were all on the fast track saving a lot of money while the banks bore the burden. But the moment the price of oil started falling and kept falling past the price ceiling, the gap in between and the price floor? It became pretty apparent that the government would have to pay a significant premium on a barrel of oil that was going dirt cheap and getting cheaper by the day.

So we shat in our nappies and started beating our feet on the ground kicking up a fuss crying 'corruption!' at the top of our lungs. It's pathetic really. They got themselves a scapegoat, and no matter what I may have said about Fowzie sacking him was not exactly solving the problem. Its just another example of the bullshit the government resorts to, to try and cover its own ass. If the hedging thing was a bad idea in the first place, then the blame should be on everyone involved, Cabraal, the Chairman and the freaking cabinet. Oh yeah, they've all forgotten about who actually approved of the whole thing.

This Central Bank press statement sheds some light on how the whole thing started off, as well as some basic information on hedging itself.

Specific figures relating to the whole things are suspiciously unavailable so I don’t know as to the exact date when this was implemented and how much of our import volumes were actually hedged. Also no idea as to the price ceiling or the floor that was taken up (please let me know anywhere where some numbers can be found), and why exactly these buggers didn’t complain about corruption when they were getting cheaper oil when it was trading $150 per barrel.

And in the meanwhile, screw the credit ratings and investor confidence. We can probably win them back with our natural charm and a cup of white tea yeah? Long live the Banana Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.

Damn! That was fast. And well, you could say I was an Obama supporter if you like. Personally I don’t think things would have been a lot different in many areas even if Mccain came into power but well Obama was, interesting. The man is full of theatrics and I was kind of expecting a nail biting finish. Instead he just breezes through.

I will not give you a blow by blow of it since you’re probably already plugged in to CNN from morning or something. Still wish I could’ve stayed back at home though. It’s great entertainment. Probably the last bit of drama that we’ll get in a while. And that’s what this race has been so far, super entertainment! I’m sorry it’s over. I guess we can all go home now.

Obama. Huh. He’s got the hype alright. But if people are imagining him to be a Jack Black in high school and shake everything up in the While House then I think we’re all in for a bit of an anticlimax. Nope, now it’s going to be back to the old routine of bill passing and legislation. A bit scarier ‘cos the democrats seem to have an overwhelming majority now. Personally I’m more concerned about the war. Destabilization the Middle East and South West Asia has to stop. Human rights violations in the Gaza strip have to stop. Give me a president who will change that.

I mean what is this place coming to? We have a petroleum corporation that claims it’s making losses no matter how much the Oil price fluctuates in the market and the consumer prices raised nevertheless. They claim the cost of oil is too high and that we barely pay for it with 150 rupees a liter! Well I’ve got news for you my dear Mr. Fowzie, when a corporation such as the PET Corp operates; the costs that are incurred are not just those of purchasing of the forsaken oil barrels. It’s the fixed and operational costs of the petroleum corporations itself. And you have massive inefficiencies on your PET ORG that will probably see you making losses even if oil rises to 500 effing dollars per barrel.

I heard that there are around 600 employees in your so called organization signing and out of every day and peacefully taking home their month end salary without putting in an ounce of work. Chiefly because they are never really physically present to work! I’ve heard about free petrol to hordes of mostly unnecessary top officials and their family members driving massively fuel inefficient SUVs (duty free I might add) which obviously incurs the necessity to transfer the cost of their maintenance upon us, the average Siripala of the Sri Lankan economy.

I’ve heard of fantastically inefficient red taped management cultures, tedious process driven operations, excess staff, yawny HR policies (I don’t even know if you have an HR department) and every single textbook management practice that is typical of a stone age corporation. You Mr. Fowzie need to wake up and smell the garbage under your bed.

Do you think we are fools Mr. Fowzie that we cannot see the idiotic logic behind your argument? Do you think we are brainless? Well apparently you do. And apparently we are. Because the vast majority of us Lankans haven’t actually realized exactly why you are making losses. It has largely nothing to do with the prices of international oil. It has however, a lot to do with a corrupt and staggering government bureaucracy.

What shall we do Mr Fowzie, go out into the streets and riot? Riot against the burden of pampering your useless corporation which eats up reserves like a king having his breakfast? Oh but to do that we’ll need to have the support of the masses at large now wouldn’t we? We’ll need to have the farmers and various artificers and small time traders that make up almost 80% of this country’s economy. And you’ve got them nicely tied up to a coconut tree eating pani rambutan off your hand and believing that your government is actually doing the best it possibly can for the country now haven’t you?

Is that why Mr. Fowzie that you and Mr. Rajapakse’s government are suppressing technological development in the vast rural areas of Sri Lanka? Is that why IT is so restricted in its spread in this country? Is that why the internet is so little used except by us city-slickers with nothing better to do than browse Facebook and surf porn? Is that what you are afraid of? Are you afraid of knowledge?

Is that why u are clamping down on the media? So that you and your cronies can keep milking the country’s masses till the economy is just taut skin on a mass of bones? Are you using the war as an excuse? I must admit, as far as excuses go, it’s a great excuse.

You’ve sold patriotism to everybody; everybody is buying into your definition of it. Well I’ve got news for you, this place is still supposed to be a democracy. And in a democracy patriotism need only be defined as sense of love for your country, and that does NOT necessarily mean Mr. Fowzie that patriots need to support the war or be behind the government in every single thing they do. But you obviously think otherwise don’t you? Oh yes, anyone who speaks out against the administration’s policies is obviously a scourge on society, he deserves to be kidnapped, decapitated and dumped in the Kelani river. And I’m with you on that, like I was with George frigging Bush-eater when he invaded Iraq.