Killing and Corruption in Sri Lanka

[lyallben]

Just wanted to mention the often brutal goings on in Sri Lanka. An English Red Cross worker was killed allegedly by a prominent Sri Lankan politician, when he intervened to stop the politician from assaulting his girlfriend.The girlfriend was assaulted and raped. The politician seems to be protected by the President.
Government in Sri Lanka seems little more than a license to steal.Opposition is extremely dangerous.
Sangha and nationalism are a dangerous mixture.
It seems to me that there is little hope for this dangerous, corrupt country. The corruption is so entrenched, cynical and pervasive.

[Nyorai]

Without karma education of past and future as a basis for humanity goal. It is quite difficult for them to enjoy love and peace of themselves and others. What you are seeing is basically the bad fruit of the past life of eating meats. The only solution for them is karma education. Most of the time is beyond sangha in that situation as those nationalic is not educated on the sangha way of life. Unless the sangha themselves arent sangha...

[BlackBird]

Sri Lanka is quite corrupt. I noticed a lot of it when I was there, and a few Singhalese told me some quite heart rending stories resulting from such corruption. Surely the government is run by a pseudo dictator, the cronyism in the government is rife, with Mahinda Rajapaksa putting a variety of his family into power. Rajapaksa along with a number of those both formerly and currently in the armed forces should really be on trial for war crimes for the genocide of Tamil civilians.

Sri Lankan politics is quite fascinating. With a very tragic history.

Without karma education of past and future as a basis for humanity goal. It is quite difficult for them to enjoy love and peace of themselves and others. What you are seeing is basically the bad fruit of the past life of eating meats. The only solution for them is karma education. Most of the time is beyond sangha in that situation as those nationalic is not educated on the sangha way of life. Unless the sangha themselves arent sangha...

Excuse me but murder and corruption are not the result of bad fruit from "the past life of eating meats".
Can you please cease your crusade against eating meat. You are actually making bad kamma for yourself by misrepresenting the teaching of the Buddha.

[Ben]

Without karma education of past and future as a basis for humanity goal. It is quite difficult for them to enjoy love and peace of themselves and others. What you are seeing is basically the bad fruit of the past life of eating meats. The only solution for them is karma education. Most of the time is beyond sangha in that situation as those nationalic is not educated on the sangha way of life. Unless the sangha themselves arent sangha...

Excuse me but murder and corruption are not the result of bad fruit from "the past life of eating meats".
Can you please cease your crusade against eating meat. You are actually making bad kamma for yourself by misrepresenting the teaching of the Buddha.

Well said, Blackbird.

[Cassandra]

Sri Lanka is quite corrupt. I noticed a lot of it when I was there, and a few Singhalese told me some quite heart rending stories resulting from such corruption. Surely the government is run by a pseudo dictator, the cronyism in the government is rife, with Mahinda Rajapaksa putting a variety of his family into power. Rajapaksa along with a number of those both formerly and currently in the armed forces should really be on trial for war crimes for the genocide of Tamil civilians.

Sri Lankan politics is quite fascinating. With a very tragic history.

Without karma education of past and future as a basis for humanity goal. It is quite difficult for them to enjoy love and peace of themselves and others. What you are seeing is basically the bad fruit of the past life of eating meats. The only solution for them is karma education. Most of the time is beyond sangha in that situation as those nationalic is not educated on the sangha way of life. Unless the sangha themselves arent sangha...

Excuse me but murder and corruption are not the result of bad fruit from "the past life of eating meats".
Can you please cease your crusade against eating meat. You are actually making bad kamma for yourself by misrepresenting the teaching of the Buddha.

I agree with your post completely. I am currently visiting Sri Lanka and getting a first hand experience of its many corruptions. I am here only temporarily and I must say the country is going downhill very fast.

There is just so much corruption and even the justice system was recently shattered through political forces. It is sad the state of the people here. There is nothing much here in terms of quality of life. Even the weather is scorching and burning.

I apologize any Sri Lankan friends here in this forum if my words are hurtful in any way but I am just telling my own personal experience. I have travelled to many countries but this is one of the worst places I have been to. I am sorry friends but that is just my opinion. The weather, the living standards and people's hard-core racist attitudes equal this place to a 'living hell'. I don't know if this is a realistic statement but perhaps it is bad kamma to be born in places like these because I see a lot of talented and skilled people here suffering just because they just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[Cassandra]

Are there any others here who are currently in Sri Lanka by the way? Wondering if a meetup is possible for coffee or something.

[BlackBird]

I think calling it a living hell is perhaps a step too far.

Honestly I don't think it's going down hill economically, if anything there are more jobs and opportunities today than ever before in Sri Lanka - Their economy grew a whopping 6.7% IIRC last year - One of the top rates of growth in the whole world. Also, there is a fundamental level of safety for civilians these days. Even during the intermittent years of peace during the Eelam war era there was an instability, and a real feeling that you could leave your house in the morning and not come home in the evening. So really I think there have been some good steps forward in Sri Lanka under Rajapaksa. It's just a shame Rajapaksa and his cronies are squeezing the neck of political and journalistic freedom and instituting their own form of authoritarianism, especially for a nation that has (at least for the Singhalese) actually been a fairly well functioning democracy.

A lot of what you mention is just the way life is outside of the West. It's by no means endemic to Sri Lanka.
I'd love to go back there some day. There are a lot of genuinely good people over there.

[Cassandra]

I think calling it a living hell is perhaps a step too far.

Honestly I don't think it's going down hill economically, if anything there are more jobs and opportunities today than ever before in Sri Lanka - Their economy grew a whopping 6.7% IIRC last year - One of the top rates of growth in the whole world.

I'm sorry I didn't know that. I heard that the rates are tweaked but not sure. All I see here are people struggling to live, streets covered with beggars and very badly clad and unkempt homeless kids, drug addicts etc. Almost everybody I talk to complain about the economy and inflation. Isn't the government under heavy debt and destroying money on poorly-planned, short-sighted investments like air ports and harbors? They are both unsustainable and irrational considering the other projects they can take over which can really help people out.

There are a lot of genuinely good people over there.

I agree. The talent pool is impressive over here. If they had the right kind of resources they would easily take over some of the developed countries. Unfortunately people's minds are muddled by racism.

[Cassandra]

Are you Sri Lankan BlackBird?

I don't see how you think the economy here has grown because a lot of people here struggle to go to the west for better lives. The country cannot even retain its talent pool.

[BlackBird]

No no I'm white. I just spent a few months over there in 2009 when I was considering ordaining.
I only know what I read in the newspapers. There is a lot of poverty in Sri Lanka for sure, always has been (probably always will). Maybe things are not getting better - I don't know. You're there on the ground, I'm not.

I do think things are generally better than they were during the war though.

You mention Sri Lanka's emigration as a reason to doubt the country has grown economically, but you must remember even solid growth isn't going to compare with the West when Sri Lanka is starting out from such a poor position. Things are getting relatively better. You're never going to stop people going to the West to get better jobs... I don't see them conceivably ever having a median income of $30,000 like we do here in NZ, but I imagine it is improving slowly.

[Cassandra]

No no I'm white. I just spent a few months over there in 2009 when I was considering ordaining.
I only know what I read in the newspapers. There is a lot of poverty in Sri Lanka for sure, always has been (probably always will). Maybe things are not getting better - I don't know. You're there on the ground, I'm not.

I do think things are generally better than they were during the war though.

You mention Sri Lanka's emigration as a reason to doubt the country has grown economically, but you must remember even solid growth isn't going to compare with the West when Sri Lanka is starting out from such a poor position. Things are getting relatively better. You're never going to stop people going to the West to get better jobs... I don't see them conceivably ever having a median income of $30,000 like we do here in NZ, but I imagine it is improving slowly.

I don't know man, I am a westerner too but I have been here on and off for a year or so for different reasons. All I see is inflation increasing and quality of life getting worse along with people's attitudes, which are even worse than they used to be during the time of war. The Sinhalese-Buddhist masses seem to tend towards extremist nationalism maybe due to post-war militarization and tyranny. They are increasingly intolerant towards minor races and religions. There have been recent attacks on muslims by a politically motivated Buddhist group of monks. Read http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/17453

But hats off to the current government for ending the war.

[BlackBird]

I know there is some disgusting intolerance in Sri Lanka. But I don't think this is representative of the majority of the population.

I didn't realize inflation was so bad. When I was there it was at an all time low (~5% after a decade of almost double digit annual inflation). I don't have stats for the past couple of years but this website illustrates my point:
http://www.indexmundi.com/sri_lanka/inf ... mer_prices).html

But as I said, you're the one who's on the ground, you're seeing the day to day lives and if you say it's bad - Who am I do doubt you.

I wouldn't say hats off to the Government. Sure, they ended the war, but they slaughtered ~ 100,000 civilians in the process (UN estimate)
http://www.genocidewatch.org/srilanka.html

[Cassandra]

but they slaughtered ~ 100,000 civilians in the process (UN estimate)
http://www.genocidewatch.org/srilanka.html

Majority either denies it or believes it was inevitable. Anyway, I'm glad I'll be out of here soon.

[rowyourboat]

US defence budget for foreign operations: $600 billion.
UK defence budget: £45 billion
Sri Lanka total GDP: $6 billion.
Number of countries destroyed by Sri Lanka: 0
Number of countries made financially dependant by Sri Lanka: 0
Number of countries destabilised by Sri Lanka: 0

Morality, for who? Open your eyes.

[BlackBird]

US defence budget for foreign operations: $600 billion.
UK defence budget: £45 billion
Sri Lanka total GDP: $6 billion.
Number of countries destroyed by Sri Lanka: 0
Number of countries made financially dependant by Sri Lanka: 0
Number of countries destabilised by Sri Lanka: 0

Morality, for who? Open your eyes.

Hi rowyourboat. I think a better reflection might be the Defense budget to GDP ratio. I.e. since Sri Lanka's economy is much smaller than that of the US and UK economies, they will naturally spend much less, but perhaps not much less as a ratio of their total GDP.
During 2008 (at the end of the war) Sri Lanka's defense budget as a percentage of GDP was 3.7% (it's now 2.6%). In the same year - 2008 - The United Kingdom's defense budget as a % was 2.5%

So historically Sri Lanka has actually had a significantly higher expenditure of it's budget on defence than the UK. The USA out of interest sits around 4.8% which is significantly higher still.

Anyway, you're right that Sri Lanka hasn't destabilised any foreign nations. But the government has killed 100,000 civilians during the war, and left many more homeless and displaced. While there's no doubt the LTTE had to be disposed of, the war was not a clean one, it went far beyond collateral damage and resulted in intentional genocide of Tamils. There are without a doubt parties within the army guilty of war crimes, and they should be brought to justice without nationalistic sentiment getting in the way. Just fyi I happen to think George Bush , Cheney & Rumsfeld should also be put on trial, so please do not think my opinion in this matter is biased.

I am afraid that nationalistic pride and sentiment threatens the progress of human rights in Sri Lanka. It's unfortunate that some people (and I'm not suggesting you) have a habit of jumping to the defense of those in power simply in virtue of the fact that they're Sinhalese, this is wrong - It shouldn't matter what race or colour one's skin is - A war crime is a war crime.

[iforgotmyname]

Sri Lankan here ... agree with most things here, and definitely not the part where Cassandra states there are lots of "unkempt homeless kids, drug addicts etc". I think you might have seen things and took some of them out of context. I can assure you that type of thing isn't as bad as you make it sound.

Law and order here has been going down - but the economy going up (partly due to massive investments after the end of a 30 year civil war). But with that there has been a widening of the rich-poor divide because the CoL is going up and the massive investments are mostly enjoyed by people who already had money or are part of the government and are making money because they control all policies. Now there's a little bit of that investment that is trickled down to benefit people (like creation of jobs, infrastructure, which are good things).

Most Sri Lankans don't care about the corrupt-commission based loss of national wealth - because with all the commission grabbing, we do get some infrastructure built (even though they may seem like white elephants, the private sector is working with it instead of being too negative about these development projects - the tourism industry for instance is gaining from it and so are every day Sri Lankans who are now able to go to places in 2 hours or so that used to take 5 or 6).

If any of this surprises you imagine it from the point of view of a people who have been in a 30 year state of conflict and haven't really had anything going for them apart from the usual political crap (which doesn't seem to cease no matter what happens).

But what we do care about is the loss of law and order people are aware of this. Like what the OP mentioned about some guy aligned with the government, an outright thug, who killed a British Aid Worker and assaulted his friend, who were both on Holiday here, or the case where one of our national ministers tied a guy to a tree on national TV (yup, that's right), or how two national politicians shot each other in broad day light with one of them dying on the spot and the other being shot through the middle of his skull, who survived - and is yet to be put on trial properly - who is also a known drug peddler and money launderer, or the numerous people we read about in the newspapers who are aligned with the government who get away with molesting kids, murder etc, or our chief justice being evicted from her post without a fair inquiry and instead at said inquiry she gets ridiculed in a misogynistic manner by government ministers, and the list goes on....

There has also been a sudden surge of anti-islamic fervour coming from a politically backed sangha (I shouldn't be calling them that really). I'm not surprised, when the Brits invaded us they divided and conquered, and I guess that never really went away - only the people conquering changed shades. Even after a 30 year civil war, it seems that our politicians are used to staying in power by giving the majority sinhalese an enemy to fear at home or abroad.

However, that said, there is also a geo-political thing going on with the USA, India and China that doesn't really help things - although one can argue that it can also be a good thing.

But as far as the everyday-sane Sri Lankan of whatever race or creed feels: we just want to live in peace and don't really have any better options at the moment, and everyone who has an interest in us aren't really interested in us - but something else that they want - be it the internal politics of our neighbour India, a rising China or the investment portfolios of some corporation looking for that next investment or our very own who are more interested in being in power for either power itself or simply to line their pockets with more.

Now add to this people being brainwashed left-right and center all over the place for some cause and you have the potential to ignite a very big fire here (again) - which makes some realists think that we might as well be better off with a dictator, or these people just might actually end up killing each and every one of us (in which case I'm out of here). Hopefully, things will improve with time. Oh one last thing - there's only an illusion of a two-party democracy here - as it is, we are moving more and more towards a one-party dictatorship. Hopefully, at the very least, it's not going to be a one family dictatorship.

[BlackBird]

Thank you for the poignant response iforgotmyname. Truly the situation is a very complex one. How was democracy shafted so thoroughly in the space of about 10 years (since Rajapaksa's election)? I hope life is well for you in Lanka and your own situation is good.

ayu bowan
Jack

[iforgotmyname]

Thank you for the poignant response iforgotmyname. Truly the situation is a very complex one. How was democracy shafted so thoroughly in the space of about 10 years (since Rajapaksa's election)? I hope life is well for you in Lanka and your own situation is good.

ayu bowan
Jack

Ayu-bowan

Life isn't so bad for me personally. The communities are more or less at peace (you feel there's less tension), and in all honesty the Muslims here have great patience and great resolve, those of us who like peace stand with them - and I don't think the government will let there be any violence in regards to this latest spate from fringe elements who happen to have a lot of media attention and government blessing. The only ones being violent are people aligned with the government, mostly thugs doing some top brass official's dirty work - which is why they seem to have the ability to get away with certain things (loyalty goes both ways I suppose).

As for your question on democracy - it all started with a majority blinded by the immediate cessation of a long drawn conflict and what followed soon was the 18th amendment to our constitution, which made the executive presidency much stronger.

Things are volatile, but life goes on, and certainly better than being amidst a war.

[Mr Man]

I had the good fortune to be in Sri Lanka in 1982, which I guess could be called the last year of peace. My heart goes out to the people of Sri Lanka.

[iforgotmyname]

Maybe this will cheer some of you up.