The leader of the opposition and the veteran politician Ranil
Wickremesinghe is fully aware that the next Presidential Election is
scheduled to be held in November 2006 as per the existing regulations of
the Constitution introduced by his uncle and the UNP Government of which
Ranil Wickremesinghe was a leading minister.
It is crystal clear that no attempts had been made by the Government
to postpone the Presidential Election and there is no threat to the
sovereignty of the people of Sri Lanka and their right to exercise their
franchise.
The President, Prime Minister, Speaker or the Leader of the
Opposition cannot fix a date for an election, except the Commissioner of
Elections. No doubt, the actual date of the next election will be
announced by him according to the Constitution which is the supreme
authority.
A person who was a member of the seventeen years long UNP Cabinet in
different ministries and as the Prime Minister should know the terms and
conditions of the Constitution much better than the other UNP MPs who
participated in the carnival parade from Matara to Colombo for several
days.
It is not upto a Presidential candidate to mislead the members of the
International Democratic Union in order to support for his own political
agenda. On the other hand, the Australian Prime Minister has no business
to interfere in the internal affairs of other sovereign States. John
Howard should understand that RW is trying his best to establish a
guinness record by losing 13 elections.
If the UNP candidate cannot read and understand the Section 32 (1) of
the 1978 Constitution and Section 2 (d) (1) in the 3rd Amendment to the
Constitution, what can we the Sri Lankans expect from such a person as
the President of his country?
Please do not mislead educated voters who can understand the
Constitution.
MAHINDA NIHAL PERERA, Moratuwa
Many are clamouring for the gallows. They seem to be convinced that
it is the answer to our rocketing crimes. That once we start punishing
people by hanging them, all those murders, rapes and kidnappings will be
no more.
Yet, where is the guarantee of success? Can we give examples of when
and where it has been proved beyond doubt that gallows is a deterrent to
crime? They would say, 'Go back to the times when we hung people. We had
less crime then'.
But aren't we talking about a then and a now that are different in so
many ways from each other. The needs, temptations and the temperament of
our society of those days have changed dramatically. Is it right to
assume that the reintroduction of gallows will solve our problem just
because it supposedly tackled it well sometime ago, though in a much
different environment? Or, was it really the gallows that stopped people
from going to the extreme in a crime?
We should not go by a trial and error strategy here and until we find
answers to all above, it is not wise to bring back the gallows.
In the interim while, the responsible authorities find these answers
(they had better be quick too), something should still be done.
The government should introduce new techniques into the areas of
crime detection and forensics. The people convicted for trafficking in
drugs, rape, planned murder, acts of terrorism, kidnapping and child
molesting must be condemned to life imprisonment accompanied with hard
labour.
Our prison authorities should ensure that people condemned to
punishment of any kind would never be able to make prison cells their
second homes with many amenities and luxuries that are somehow made
available to some of them.
This disgusting, cowardly behaviour of some of our prison officials
is brought up again and again by the concerned public. Yet, the rich and
the powerful criminals still enjoy life even in their prison cells.
Educating the public in certain areas can be an efficient way to stop
some crimes, sexually-related in particular. The national newspapers and
other forms of mass media can play an important role here. The social
stigmas attached to rape victims must be removed, so that they get
sympathy and support from people and not disdain and disgrace, as it
often happens today. This would also encourage these victims to come
forward and help authorities to catch the offenders, fast.
Today, many crimes cannot be solved because of lack of witnesses.
People are afraid to give evidence against offenders. Therefore, an
adequate witness-protection programme must be designed to ensure safety
and if necessary, even anonymity, of key-witnesses to serious crimes.
Furthermore, the law-abiding citizen trying to perform his citizens'
duty by giving evidence becomes a victim himself of Police and legal
bureaucracy, let alone of the offender. This state of affairs must be
changed.
We still have many honest, dedicated policemen. Yet, many of them
cannot do their job because of political interference. The criminals,
who can muster enough political clout not only are committing crimes in
broad daylight, but also are showing the other evil-minded, ways and
means of getting pass the law. Therefore, any politician, who is found
to be intervening in police matters even in the slightest manner, must
be sent home, if not jail.
Unless we take such measures and also find ways to handle the
ever-changing circumstances of our socio-economic environment, we will
never be able to curb our escalating crime, gallows or not.
LAKSIRI WARNAKULA, via email
The decision of Central Bank to increase the minimum capital of a
bank by over 500 per cent to Rs. 2,500 mn is highly questionable to say
the least. Above all, it will lead to a reduction in the number of banks
as many of the smaller banks that have come up during the last few years
would have to close down or team up with another larger bank.
The opening of several smaller banks became a threat to the bigger
private banks and the foreign banks that have been operating a near
cartel in savings accounts, money transfers, personal loans, housing
loans and similar retail banking services.
Even though the new banks have their branches mostly in Colombo and
suburbs, aggressive marketing of their services made it possible even
for outstation customers such as ourselves to enjoy truly personalised
services at very competitive prices, get a sympathetic hearing when we
run into difficulty, get ATM facilities without unnecessary additional
charges and many similar banking services.
Instead of waiting for customers to come to the bank, they sent their
teams of smart reps to our own doorsteps to offer necessary services.
This obnoxious regulation of Central Bank will mean that these new
smaller banks will have to wind up or become a part of a bigger bank
that has no need to go out of their way to please customers.
Any layman will understand this is a harmful thing for everyone
except the bigger banks, their powerful shareholders and their
privileged staff who stand to gain from reduced competition. We can only
question whether the Central Bank is looking after the customers who are
pressed from all sides or the bank owners and employees.
S. JAYASURIYA, Matugama |