We are a battered people battered by a variety of Covid-19 strains, by the RAT racketeer, PCR hucksters and quarantine hotel sharks, by Ali Baba and the 225 colour-washed thieves hand in glove with some rotten civil administrators assisted by their scoundrels in the local governments, by the daylight robbers of essential goods like rice, sugar, coconut oil, garlic, gas and what not. Battered by suicide terrorist attacks. Battered by people who steal the wealth of the nation and hide it in off-shore companies. The revelation of Rajapakse-Nadesan financial cesspit by the Pandora Papers is only the tip of the iceberg. The unimaginable accumulated loot from Helping Hambantota to Pandora Papers boggles our minds. We are a battered people without hope and without a future.
Seventy three years of the rule of Ali Baba and the 225 thieves must be stopped. The only option left, the only worthwhile alternative, for the battered citizens of this sad and unfortunate country is the indeginous or Autochthonous Constitution (AC) of Nagananda Kodituwakku and a complete break with the present corrupt politico-economic dispensation. It is the only way to defeat and destroy the deceitful national burden; “Thattu Maru” trap of a fraudulent democracy. It is the only way to save the country from being sold off to world powers and the only way to safeguard its sovereignty. It is the only hope for a decent future for our children.
Minutes before the terrible Easter tragedy I had written about the AC and it got published. But it must have got eclipsed by the gory news of the Easter Sunday barbarity. Let me present it to you again updated and with some changes.
The immunity granted to the president is such that whatever crime he may commit nobody can take him before the law. It is an open invitation to venality. Therefore in Sri Lanka, all are not equal before the law. When a candidate is rejected by the people at the polls he is able to get back into the parliament through the backdoor, called the national list, and become even a minister; the constitution is on the side of the crooks and against the people
This is a reflection on an AC; what it is, the need for it and what caused such a need. I am neither a student of political science nor an expert in constitution making. As an ordinary layman, given the present sorry state of the country, I am humbly sharing with my countrymen and women ways and means to redeem the country from the grip of the Ali Baba and the 225 colour-washed thieves to hand over to the future generations a corruption free, debt free, globally respected, eco-rich, beautiful and a prosperous Sri Lanka.
A constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles and laws that a particular group of people adopts as an expression of their character, identity, values, goals, dreams and binds them together as a nation. It is the primary law of the country that every citizen proudly promises to uphold and live by. There are various forms of constitutions; unwritten and written, in one book or in several books. The majority of the constitutions in the world are written republican constitutions. The longest is the Indian Constitution and the shortest is that of the United States of America. In Sri Lanka, we have a republican constitution with an Executive President and a parliament with a cabinet. It has been amended 20 times. The three pillars of democratic governance are the legislature, the Executive, and the judiciary.
Anomalies in the present constitution
The immunity granted to the president is such that whatever crime he may commit nobody can take him before the law. It is an open invitation to venality. Therefore in Sri Lanka, all are not equal before the law. When a candidate is rejected by the people at the polls he is able to get back into the parliament through the backdoor, called the national list, and become even a minister; the constitution is on the side of the crooks and against the people. If the constitution allows the MPs to get down luxury vehicles sans import tax, and sell them for millions depriving the national treasury of the customs income, isn’t the constitution anti-people? If the constitution turns a blind eye to the Ministers selling permits, for petrol sheds, bus routes, pharmacies, wine shops, etc., and earn millions of dirty lucre, isn’t the constitution in collusion with the rogues? If the present constitution allows an elected Member of Parliament from a certain party, chosen by the people for the ideology and manifesto of that party, to change sides (99% of the time for dirty pelf) and betrays the intentions and ideals of his voters, of what use is the constitution to the people? Is there any difference between a woman going behind a bush with a man for 500 rupees and an MP switching sides for 500 million rupees? Yes, there is a difference. The poor woman did it as a last resort to feed her hungry children, but the MP did it out of sheer, intractable greed. Compared to the MP that poor woman is a saint.
When the legislature and the executive have been high jacked by a set of robbers and murderers and when the judiciary has been turned into their cat’s paw, what do we do? When the 225 crooks and scoundrels play at parliament for the benefit of the public, some in the government and some pretending to be in the opposition but in actual fact are a tightly knit pack of thieves helping one another and protecting one another, what do we do? Thus, they have built a system where they are always in power, or always in parliament and people have no alternative but to choose them again and again; then what do we do? When the law of the country does not apply to the lawmakers and the president of the country who take huge bribes and commissions and only the small fry get caught for tiny amounts what do we do? Ali Baba and the 225 thieves have fiddled and diddled so much with the present constitution, especially after 20A, that it is now more a liability to the country than a guardian of its law, order, civility, and freedom. What is the use of a constitution, crookedly amended like the present one, by a parliament of baboons? There is no point in amending it again and again. It is now trash and it must be thrown in the garbage bin.
What caused the need for an AC?
Every year when the dry season comes not only the people in the arid and the dry zone but even in some areas of the wet zone are crying for water. Like the air, we breathe and the food we eat water is essential for supporting life. These are the bare necessities of life. When people went on the road demanding clean water at Rathupaswela, instead of life-giving water they received death dealing bullets. We are a small country with just 20 odd million people. Seventy-three years have passed and none of the UNP and the SLFP led governments have been able to give potable water to the whole population. The same goes for electricity; they still cannot give us cheap, uninterrupted power. For the people and their basic needs is not a priority at all. Their only interest is in planning when and how to steal and rob the country and the people again and again.
Look at the situation in which we find the country today. By the end of April 2021, the total outstanding external debt of the Government was US$ 35.1billion. In 1948 when we received independence we did not owe the world a red cent. Now we cannot even pay the repayment tranche for this year without taking another loan. We are in a deadly debt trap. This is what the UNP and the SLFP, their alliances and off-shoots like Pohottuwa and SJB have done to the country after 73 years of their rule. Look around you, what have these rogues got to show for US$ 35.1 Billion? Have they got work done to show for even half that amount? Then what happened to the rest of the loan? Is it in the Virgin Islands? In Seychelles? In Panama? Or in Swiss banks?
Look at the health sector. When poor people go to the government hospital they are given a chit to go to the pharmacy and buy the medicine and go to the private medical labs and pay for tests. Both rotten politicians and business scoundrels made millions selling Rapid Antigen Test kits when other counties gave it for free or for a nominal price. The pharmaceutical mafia, international and local, make a killing while the poor man becomes poorer and weaker and needs to go to hospital again and again till he either goes bankrupt or drops dead. Look at the education sector. Free education is a farce. It is the tuition ‘maduwa’ that gives some knowledge to the children. God alone knows what they are doing in schools. Again the poor children who cannot afford tuition are sidelined and left out. Sadaranathwaya! Samanathmathawaya! My foot!
They are cold-bloodedly, deliberately, and with premeditation killing Mother Lanka. Agriculture is the life-blood of this country. They usually hide behind some pious façade like religion, democracy, justice and commit their crimes. Now they are hiding behind “Organic Agriculture” and bleeding our agriculture to death without fertilizer. Farmers will give up farming and abandon their lands. Then they can sell the land to multinationals and pocket huge commissions.
All the governments which ruled the country after ’77 consist of pimps. Pimps sell women for a living. These governments not only sell our women to Saudi Arabia and other West Asian countries for slavery, euphemistically called housemaids, they even have a ministry for this human trafficking. In one month alone, during the second Rajapakse regime, 41 bodies of these women were brought back to the country. That is more than one murder a day. And our lawmakers behave like the notorious three monkeys; they see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing. Shame!
What is worse; the dependence-culture and the beggar-mentality they have brought into our social behaviour. You have to go behind these scoundrels, calling them Sir and ‘Thumeni’, grinning, bowing and kowtowing to them to get a school for the child, find a job for the daughter, get a permit for a pharmacy, petrol shed, a wine shop, etc. And everything has a price. I know for certain it is four million for a petrol shed permit. They are stinking and reeking with the rot, the corruption. There is a FELT need for a complete renewal, a complete upheaval. Can we achieve that bloodless revolution within the current political framework?
To be continued next Saturday
