People of the Year

By Nikhil Mustaffa
December 28, 2006
The Daily Mirror

One more calendar year draws to a close on us.

The Galle Road reportedly is closed for three hours today outside of Galle in view of ceremonies commemorating those who perished on the train on the 26th morning in 2004. A child was heard to say that he had not eaten for three days, another had lost her mother in a river crossing, another was looking for his father, a mother was looking for her son. This, in the East.

A regional TV channel reported that parties in Sri Lanka were engaged in artillery duels in preparation for the showdown on Christmas Eve. Others were fixing their hair and beauty care appointments in addition to dry cleaning suits ,having the required garments ready for 31st evening with their tailors and seamstresses.

Some arranged their travel schedules to relax overseas. Beans reportedly cost over 100 rupees a kilo. Jaffna received 18 tons of mosquito coils to prevent all sorts of fevers whilst the country needed only 22 tons. All pretty normal in every day life in the country this time of the year.

J.C. Weliamuna plugged away on his central theme of corruption and need for transparency. He, with TI, which essentially was an interest group of upright individuals until recently has highlighted the need for improved accountability and rewarded publicly those who have served these interests well.

As an individual he continues to be a voice of integrity, including on issues which trouble him constantly in his vocation.

Pakiasothy Sara who has had stoically battle a few physical discomforts lately wrote in the most explicit and courageous terms on the subject of recruitment, albeit unwillingly of boys. Of all the reports and writings on the subject post Rock, his could not have been more explicit. The contents of which remain unanswered convincingly to date.

Ravi Algama who evidently put in close upon 25 years into the work of the Environmental Foundation retired with little fuss. The EFL was the front runner on issues connected to the environment in areas of policy and advocacy.

Jehan Perera of the NPC and a fellow columnist and articulator regularly of peace who has consistently analyzed events and people in the context war and peace in the country notwithstanding much publicity generated by a bevy of critics who attribute to him many a strange and hitherto unknown virtue to his work.

The Catholic Bishops Conference consisting of wise men and women all of whom search with sincerity the answers to their respective congregations desires for peace and harmony. An activity which has at times attracted the attention of security minded sleuths.

Bishop Duleep Chickera, who has raised his voice a few decibels, written effectively and piously calling for the inherent goodness in men and women to come forward to conquer the pain and suffering of fellow beings. He has not missed an opportunity to speak with a conscience and has given moral leadership. One waits to see if all these prayers and exhortations will finally ever slowly turn key people around to different paths of actions.

Following in the same religious vein, three sisters who worked in the Wanni, battling heart ailments, dengue, malaria, war etc found themselves barred from reentering the Wanni even though they were resident there. To add to the misery two of them were carrying vegetables such as leeks etc. which were promptly disallowed from proceeding by an unintelligent individual! Such are ignominies they battle but there resolve to tend remains undiminished.

Many a widow lies awake remembering their missing and the dead. They stoically carry on with times looking after children with all the stresses and strains which life brings to single parenting.

Former President Clinton as special envoy of the SG of the UN relinquishes his work at the end of this month. President Clinton presents ten propositions that capture some of the key lessons from the recovery efforts of tsunami, a disaster which shocked everyone globally and drew an unparalleled response and made it one of the most global responses ever.

The report seeks to address a number of leading questions related to the 2004 tsunami and other large scale disasters: How can the underlying quality of the recovery process be improved? How can the number of casualties be decreased when disasters strike? Are we doing our best to improve the safety and economic vitality of communities and help them on their path to development? How can we transition better and faster from relief to reconstruction? The report also notes that in the tsunami recovery process, as in every reconstruction effort, there will be innovations worth replicating and achievements to highlight, as well as flawed assumptions and decisions that do not result in progress. President Clinton emphasizes that it is critical “that we pass on such lessons to actors in future recovery processes.”

The Special Envoy offers the following ten propositions:

Governments, donors and aid agencies must recognize that families and communities drive their own recovery.
Recovery must promote fairness and equity.
Governments must enhance preparedness for future disasters.
Local governments must be empowered to manage recovery efforts, and donors must devote greater resources to strengthening government recovery institutions, especially at a local level.
Good recovery planning and effective coordination depend on good information.
The UN, World Bank and other multilateral agencies must clarify their roles and relationships, especially in the early stages of a recovery process.
The expanding role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement carries greater responsibilities for quality in recovery efforts.
From the start of recovery operations, governments and aid agencies must create conditions for entrepreneurs to flourish.
Beneficiaries deserve the kind of agency partnerships that move beyond rivalry and unhealthy competition.
Good recovery must leave communities safer by reducing risks and building resilience.

The report states that it is vital that recovery plans identify the mechanisms to substantially reduce risk of future disasters, and that the resources for implementing such plans must be included from the outset. It notes that successful risk reduction pays for itself many times over in reduced impacts from disasters and lives saved. It also points out, however, that systematic progress on risk reduction, remains elusive. While the report welcomes progress that tsunami affected governments have made on this issue, it notes that “time will tell whether we have learned the key lessons about the implications of disaster risk for development planning.

Ambitious legislation needs to be followed by equally ambitious long-term financial investment and training as well as a broader mainstreaming of risk reduction in recovery and development strategies.”

President Clinton states that it is his hope that the observations and recommendations in this report help enhance the quality of ongoing responses in the affected region, as well as promote more effective recovery in future operations across the globe. According to the Special Envoy, “That would be the most fitting way to honor the memory of more than 200,000 people who lost their lives in the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004.”

Departing Secretary General, Kofi Annan in his farewell address had these contributions to make: Playing by the rules can sometimes be inconvenient, but ultimately what matters is not convenience. It is doing the right thing. No community anywhere suffers from too much rule of law; many do suffer from too little – and the international community is among them. This we must change.

No state can make its own actions legitimate in the eyes of others. When power, especially military force, is used, the world at large will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose – for broadly shared aims – in accordance with broadly accepted norms.

Harry Truman was very blunt about this. “We all have to recognize,” he said, “no matter how great our strength, that we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please.”

It is of course the basic principle of democracy that governments should be accountable to those they govern. But today the actions of one state can often have a decisive effect on the lives of people in other states. So does it not owe some account to those other states and their citizens, as well as to its own? I believe it does.

As things stand, accountability between states is highly skewed. Poor and weak states can fairly easily be held to account, because they need foreign aid, and can get it only on conditions set by outsiders. But large and powerful states, which have the greatest impact on the fate of the world, can be constrained only by their own people, working through their domestic institutions.

I think that gives the people and institutions of such powerful states a special responsibility to take account of global views and interests, as well as national ones, when making decisions. And I believe they should take account into account the views not only of other states but also of what, in UN jargon, we call “non-state actors”. I mean commercial corporations, charities and pressure groups, labour unions, philanthropic foundations, universities and think tanks — all the myriad forms in which people come together voluntarily to think about, or try to change, the world.

None of these should be allowed to substitute itself for the state, or for the democratic process by which citizens choose their governments and decide policy. But they all have the capacity to influence political processes, on the international as well as the national level. Frankly, states are hiding their heads in the sand if they ignore this.

These are but a sample catalogue of persons and groups to whom this column pays tribute in remembering their contributions and the hopes and aspirations of many.