Our Movement was formed in the year 2002 as a voluntary, non-political, non-profit, civil society organisation and was formally incorporated in the year 2004 under the Companies Act of 1972. It came into being largely due to the vision and enthusiasm of Mr Elmore Perera, who, as most of you know, is now in an involuntary state of suspended animation.

At the outset, he worked jointly with Dr Susantha Goonetilleke and Messrs

W.B.A.Jayasekera and A. Denis N. Fernando to get this Movement going. These pioneers were of the view that, as there was no organisation at that time which had as its principal object the fostering of good governance and the Rule of Law, it was time to form one. About one hundred and fifty interested citizens, including myself, were invited by them to the initial meeting called for this purpose. At this gathering, it was unanimously agreed to form an association to mobilise Sri Lankan citizens for the purpose of building a truly democratic society in which the sovereign will of the People would be respected and all citizens would be able to live in harmony with each other, united in their diversity, under the Rule of Law, and in which all public office is held in trust for the People.

It is our current aim to achieve our objects by properly informing, and thereby empowering, the ordinary citizens of Sri Lanka without regard to race, religion, language, caste, gender, political beliefs, and those differences which demagogues rely on to divide society for their own ends.

CIMOGG does not receive any funding at all from outside and has been dependent solely on the small subscriptions paid by its members and some generous ad hoc donations from a few of these very same members. It has no infrastructure facilities of its own and relies on those belonging to others to keep functioning. The poverty of our resources acts as a powerful constraint on our effectiveness but we are determined to expand our capacity during the coming year.

From the start, we recognised that the electoral system in this country is such that it is mostly those with a lot of black money, a highly pliable conscience and other more questionable advantages and resources who could get into the seats of power. Consequently, we spent almost two years developing a new electoral system which would help to put in public office honest and dedicated persons, irrespective of their access to money and other connections, to represent the People, to be accountable to the People, and to whom the People could reliably delegate their legislative, executive and judicial powers. Our system was designed on the principle of subsidiarity so as to restore to the People their lost sovereignty, starting at the Grama Niladhari Division or similar unit and to permit the delegation of only a certain specified share of the People(s powers to the other units of government such as the Pradeshiya Sabhas, Districts Councils, Provincial Councils and Parliament. We made representations on these lines in 2005, in Parliament itself, before the Dinesh Goonewardene Committee, whose reaction turned out to be far from warm. We deduced that our proposal was not given a welcome because its adoption would have required Parliament to give back to the People some of the powers, privileges and perquisites that Parliament had wrongfully misappropriated to itself, especially after 1972. We came away empty-handed.

We then decided to attack the problem in a different way - namely, by endeavouring to call to account the President of Sri Lanka, the Prime Minister, the Speaker and the Leader of the Opposition before our highest Courts for failing to take meaningful steps to implement the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, which was passed unanimously in Parliament in 2001 to limit to some extent the arbitrary exercise of executive power. Our position was that, despite their oaths to obey and safeguard the Constitution, the persons holding these four high offices were all party to its gross violation.

Discouragingly, our first attempt was stymied in the Court of Appeal which told us that the President, the virtual Principal Respondent, was not in Court because he was immune to action in the Courts during his term of office and, in any case, we had not produced the letters of appointment given by the President to create the Public Service Commission, the National Police Commission, and so on. Although the whole world was aware that these spurious appointments had been made and that these functionaries were wielding executive power unconstitutionally, the Court wanted us to produce authenticated official documentation to establish these facts, which, obviously, we were not in a position to do. We were told that, in any event, if there were shortcomings in the law, which led to any form of injustice, it was up to the Legislature and not for the Courts to put them right.

In a second attempt, this time in the Supreme Court, where we challenged the constitutionality of the appointment of two judges to the Court of Appeal and two judges to the Supreme Court itself, leave to proceed was summarily refused, with no reasons given. Instead, to our dismay, the Attorney General was directed to ascertain whether our Honorary Secretary and I should not be charged, ostensibly criminally, for wasting the time of the Court and abusing the process of law! Eventually, the Supreme Court, on its own, decided not to pursue the matter.

Even while all this was going on, we started on a press campaign of gentle persuasion, and followed it up later by naming and trying to shame those involved in unlawful acts or corruption. We are greatly beholden to a few independent editors of the English language press who gave, and continue to give, generously of space in their journals in support of our efforts. We have found, however, that naming and shaming does not work in Sri Lanka because those who hold the reins of power in this misruled land do not know what the word ‘shame’ means.

If we had had the necessary financial resources, without strings attached, we would have reached out directly, a long time ago, to the people at the grass-roots of Sri Lankan society to get their help to put concerted pressure on the People(s representatives to change their ways. We would have communicated with the public directly in Sinhala and Tamil, without relying solely on the limited goodwill, coverage and courage of the English language press alone, which, like the rest of the media, is, in any case, under increasing threat. Taking all these factors into consideration, we are now in the process of trying to mobilise Sri Lankans, especially expatriate Sri Lankans, to join hands and fund us to get on with our recently-formulated People Empowerment Programme. We do not expect to see sixty years of poor governance corrected in year or two but are confident that, with unremitting perseverance, we shall succeed eventually in making a positive impact.

Finally, I need to mention that some members of CIMOGG felt, in the early part of 2004, that there should be a parallel organisation with the same objects but designed to intervene politically in order to make a more forceful impact. This group formed the Swarajya Foundation, independently of CIMOGG, in the first half of 2004 and was making steady progress when the unmerciful tsunami attacked our fellow citizens who live by the sea. Swarajya was keen to go into action immediately but was not geared to offer any emergency assistance. However, Swarajya was rich in professional resources which could make a useful impact in the area of housing and it was decided to concentrate on this. At this point, both CIMOGG and the Sama Foundation, which is a peace-oriented grouping, joined hands under the leadership of the Swarajya Foundation and formed an action group called the Help Sri Lanka Consortium.

Architect Navin Gooneratne and retired Major-General Kamal Fernando, with the help and advice of their colleagues, issued a worldwide appeal and were able to mobilise funds amounting to Rs210 Million to build 542 houses in the Eastern, Southern and Western Provinces. While this work got under way, the Educate a Child Trust sought the services of the Help Sri Lanka Consortium for comprehensive project management and construction supervision services on its Rs96 Million tsunami-related project at Kalutara. For both projects, Kamal Fernando acted as the Chief Executive Officer. In a few months, he will be publishing a full report on these jobs, in the form of a book, once a kind publisher is identified.

None of the members of Swarajya Foundation, Sama Foundation or CIMOGG sought or received any payment for the professional services they rendered, the value of which could conservatively be estimated at Rs20 Million or so.

In August 2006, we made a 17-page submission to the APRC covering subjects such as subsidiarity, making minorities proud to be Sri Lankan, the power to recall ineffective or corrupt People(s representatives, a comprehensive Bill of Rights, a less political way of appointing members to the Constitutional Council, provision for including distinguished laymen in an expanded Judicial Services Commission, a Right to Information Law, a clear Public Interest Litigation Act, simplifying the language problem, and so on.