That Sri Lanka is at the crossroads is an acknowledged fact. It has to decide which way it must turn in order to overcome the challenges that lie ahead and that decision is now in the hands of the nation’s new Chief Executive. Whichever way he chooses to turn, the road ahead is bound to be a bumpy one. It is in this context that many are wondering as to whether the President has made the right turn, given the events that have unfolded since he assumed office, notwithstanding the ongoing negotiations to form an all-party government.
For starters, he appears to have forgotten that he is a President without a people’s mandate and, in a democratic set up, that usually tends to be problematic. It is therefore even more problematic when such a President decides to be authoritarian – throwing caution, restraint, and circumspection to the wind. The imposition of the draconian Emergency Regulations and the continuing heavy-handed crackdown on dissent continue to cast a cloud on the way forward for the administration as well as the nation.
What is becoming eminently clear is that the President has put Sri Lanka on course for a head-on collision with the powerful global human rights lobby that can potentially derail the best of plans for a quick economic recovery. The huge influence of this lobby on organisations, nations, and trading blocs is beyond question and to rub them up the wrong way at this critical juncture certainly defies logic. The convoluted course of action in hounding protesters based on petty charges will also likely put the nation in the doghouse at the crucial UN Human Rights Council sessions next month, where Sri Lanka is already preoccupied with fighting on many flanks.
Ironically enough, it was Wickremesinghe himself who, less than a year ago – on 9 July 2021, to be precise – cautioned the then administration against the crushing of dissent. He mentioned in particular the anticipated arrest of well-known Trade Union Leader Joseph Stalin, saying he was a figure who was well known to the EU and arresting him would run the risk of “Sri Lanka losing out on the GSP Plus concession”. Now, with power in his hands, his administration has proceeded to do the exact same thing he dissuaded his predecessor from doing. If he can go back on his own word in the space of a year, how on earth does he expect the country to buy into his 25-year plan elaborated in his ceremonial address to Parliament last week?
What is unfathomable is the duplicity involved in the ongoing witch hunt. During Wickremesinghe’s last innings as an all-powerful Prime Minister of the Yahapalanaya administration, empowered by the 19th Amendment, he had the wherewithal to ‘implement the law’ as he is doing today, but for some inexplicable reason chose not to. For starters, he could have docked those MPs who openly destroyed public property in Parliament during the tumultuous days of the constitutional coup that unseated him and his Government for 52 days. He could have taken to task the then President once his presidential immunity ended, for an offence the apex court had already ruled as illegal. He could also have acted on the gang that stormed the State television broadcaster Rupavahini on the night of that presidential coup, demanding that regular programming be halted, resulting in the station going off air, but that too did not warrant any subsequent action on his part.
However, the identical ‘offence’ carried out by a protester last month warranted this individual being dragged off a plane and placed in remand custody. Then there is the case of at least three MPs openly instigating crowds gathered at Temple Trees on 9 May to attack protesters at Galle Face, yet no substantive action has been taken to date in that regard. It must be pointed out that the majority of the peace-loving people have no grouse with the law taking its course in accordance with international conventions to which the country is a signatory. Their grouse is the selective application of the law under the same leader at different periods. It has not only irked people here, but drawn outright condemnation from the global human rights community.
The single biggest demand of the people, even pre-dating the Aragalaya, has been to ensure supremacy of the law and its equitable application. Years of dark experience have shown that as long as politicians, including the President, are in control of the long arm of the law, no equitable application can be expected – as amply proven over the past so many decades and more so in the last fortnight. This is one of the reasons that the 19th Amendment vested such control in independent commissions and also barred the president from holding any ministries other than Defence. But the 22nd Amendment, soon to be presented in Parliament, is conspicuously silent on this important provision.
That being so, there were no solutions offered to the key issues that are essentially the cause for the growing dissent in the President’s 50-minute-long policy statement to Parliament last week. These include the absence of an explanation for continuing with the State of Emergency and not presenting a time-frame for the proposed all-party administration and an eventual time-frame for elections – all of which are critically important for maintaining peace and will also contribute towards confidence building in attracting much-needed funds.
In an unprecedented move, 13 international human rights organisations issued a joint statement yesterday (6) condemning the Government for its dismal human rights record in its short spell so far. The statement goes on to add that the Government’s current course of action to clamp down on dissent is likely to jeopardise the country’s ability to respond to the economic crisis and further, compromise the ability to attract essential international support. Among the signatories are the International Commission of Jurists, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, International Working Group on Sri Lanka, and Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development. The joint statement calls on the Government to immediately halt the persecution of protesters and to take steps to ensure the freedom of expression without fear of arrest or violence.
Human Rights Watch last week sounded the alarm bells on the continuing Emergency and the necessity for it at this juncture. “The authorities have been granted sweeping additional powers of search and arrest and the military has been empowered to detain people for up to a day without disclosing their detention. These provisions increase the risk of torture and enforced disappearance. The State of Emergency also gives the President and the Police broad powers to ban public gatherings, allows the Police or military to order anyone to leave any public place or face arrest, and makes it an offence to cause ‘disaffection’ or to spread ‘rumours’. These provisions are vague, overly broad, and disproportionate in violation of the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association, and movement,” the organisation noted in a press release.
The international human rights community has also highlighted the expectation of the European Union that ‘the new Government work in full compliance’ with its human rights commitments, made in exchange for tariff free access to the EU market under the bloc’s GSP+ programme, while also drawing attention to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee statement that any agreement with the International Monetary Fund “must be contingent on strong anti-corruption measures and promotion of the rule of law”.
If the President is to be taken seriously, then he must necessarily walk the talk on the law being equal to all. The main grouse of the average citizen, the great majority of whom lent a hand to the people’s struggle at some point during its campaign of 100-plus days, is this basic principle. Further highlighting this disparity is Stalin’s arrest, while another individual who took part in the same protests has been given a plum position at the Presidential Secretariat.
One must keep in mind that the cry for system change, the sentiment that all 225 MPs were a lost cause, that corruption needed to be tackled, wastage and over-the-top spending on vanity projects needed to be controlled, and that the rule of law needed to be enforced equitably were very much a part of the public discourse long before the economic constraints pushed the people into what is now known as the Aragalaya or People’s Struggle. It is important to keep this in mind in the face of attempts being made to change the narrative that it was the other way around. The question that arises consequently is, have the fundamental issues that paved the way for the struggle been addressed adequately and solutions found or are the secondary economic issues being portrayed as the only problems that require attention?
It would be foolish to assume that just because Galle Face is cleared or that once gas, fuel, fertiliser, etc., are supplied, things will return to normal. That is unlikely to be the case because all of the 22 million people have suffered irreparable harm due to the buffoonery of an inept leadership – farmers have been reduced to the status of beggars, families have lost loved ones due to the lack of medicines, students have fallen back on their education and thousands have dropped out of school and the education system due to economic reasons, thousands of small businesses have crashed and permanently put up shutters, millions of people have been left jobless as a result of it, and millions more have been driven to poverty. It is estimated that five million people are currently on the wrong side of the national poverty line.
There is also the middle class that has been affected by the soaring cost of living, which has severely compromised their quality of life, while the surviving small and medium businesses continue to struggle due to various reasons, including import controls, high cost of fuel and materials, power cuts, forex crunch, etc. – all of which have been a consequence of poor economic management. Even though the President appears to have glossed over this suffering and expects the people to follow suit, that is unlikely to happen. As far as the people are concerned, these are crimes against humanity that warrant accountability at the very minimum. The question being asked is, if the leadership expects clemency from the people for these high crimes, why is it that the same clemency cannot be extended to the ordinary people who were only protesting against those responsible for these crimes?
By stifling the space for dissent through resorting to draconian Emergency Regulations, the Government is running the risk of providing oxygen for another struggle. The current leadership must acknowledge and come to terms with the fact that there is an Aragalaya already planted in the hearts and minds of the people for the aforementioned reasons. That Aragalaya is not confined to any particular physical space. It is for this reason that the persecution of protesters and the stifling of dissent are self-defeatist and must necessarily be replaced with accountability, empathy, and understanding. It is only then that the closure that both the administration as well as the people are seeking to this dark episode will be within grasp.
Closure or complication?
07 Aug 2022
Closure or complication?
07 Aug 2022
That Sri Lanka is at the crossroads is an acknowledged fact. It has to decide which way it must turn in order to overcome the challenges that lie ahead and that decision is now in the hands of the nation’s new Chief Executive. Whichever way he chooses to turn, the road ahead is bound to be a bumpy one. It is in this context that many are wondering as to whether the President has made the right turn, given the events that have unfolded since he assumed office, notwithstanding the ongoing negotiations to form an all-party government.
For starters, he appears to have forgotten that he is a President without a people’s mandate and, in a democratic set up, that usually tends to be problematic. It is therefore even more problematic when such a President decides to be authoritarian – throwing caution, restraint, and circumspection to the wind. The imposition of the draconian Emergency Regulations and the continuing heavy-handed crackdown on dissent continue to cast a cloud on the way forward for the administration as well as the nation.
What is becoming eminently clear is that the President has put Sri Lanka on course for a head-on collision with the powerful global human rights lobby that can potentially derail the best of plans for a quick economic recovery. The huge influence of this lobby on organisations, nations, and trading blocs is beyond question and to rub them up the wrong way at this critical juncture certainly defies logic. The convoluted course of action in hounding protesters based on petty charges will also likely put the nation in the doghouse at the crucial UN Human Rights Council sessions next month, where Sri Lanka is already preoccupied with fighting on many flanks.
Ironically enough, it was Wickremesinghe himself who, less than a year ago – on 9 July 2021, to be precise – cautioned the then administration against the crushing of dissent. He mentioned in particular the anticipated arrest of well-known Trade Union Leader Joseph Stalin, saying he was a figure who was well known to the EU and arresting him would run the risk of “Sri Lanka losing out on the GSP Plus concession”. Now, with power in his hands, his administration has proceeded to do the exact same thing he dissuaded his predecessor from doing. If he can go back on his own word in the space of a year, how on earth does he expect the country to buy into his 25-year plan elaborated in his ceremonial address to Parliament last week?
What is unfathomable is the duplicity involved in the ongoing witch hunt. During Wickremesinghe’s last innings as an all-powerful Prime Minister of the Yahapalanaya administration, empowered by the 19th Amendment, he had the wherewithal to ‘implement the law’ as he is doing today, but for some inexplicable reason chose not to. For starters, he could have docked those MPs who openly destroyed public property in Parliament during the tumultuous days of the constitutional coup that unseated him and his Government for 52 days. He could have taken to task the then President once his presidential immunity ended, for an offence the apex court had already ruled as illegal. He could also have acted on the gang that stormed the State television broadcaster Rupavahini on the night of that presidential coup, demanding that regular programming be halted, resulting in the station going off air, but that too did not warrant any subsequent action on his part.
However, the identical ‘offence’ carried out by a protester last month warranted this individual being dragged off a plane and placed in remand custody. Then there is the case of at least three MPs openly instigating crowds gathered at Temple Trees on 9 May to attack protesters at Galle Face, yet no substantive action has been taken to date in that regard. It must be pointed out that the majority of the peace-loving people have no grouse with the law taking its course in accordance with international conventions to which the country is a signatory. Their grouse is the selective application of the law under the same leader at different periods. It has not only irked people here, but drawn outright condemnation from the global human rights community.
The single biggest demand of the people, even pre-dating the Aragalaya, has been to ensure supremacy of the law and its equitable application. Years of dark experience have shown that as long as politicians, including the President, are in control of the long arm of the law, no equitable application can be expected – as amply proven over the past so many decades and more so in the last fortnight. This is one of the reasons that the 19th Amendment vested such control in independent commissions and also barred the president from holding any ministries other than Defence. But the 22nd Amendment, soon to be presented in Parliament, is conspicuously silent on this important provision.
That being so, there were no solutions offered to the key issues that are essentially the cause for the growing dissent in the President’s 50-minute-long policy statement to Parliament last week. These include the absence of an explanation for continuing with the State of Emergency and not presenting a time-frame for the proposed all-party administration and an eventual time-frame for elections – all of which are critically important for maintaining peace and will also contribute towards confidence building in attracting much-needed funds.
In an unprecedented move, 13 international human rights organisations issued a joint statement yesterday (6) condemning the Government for its dismal human rights record in its short spell so far. The statement goes on to add that the Government’s current course of action to clamp down on dissent is likely to jeopardise the country’s ability to respond to the economic crisis and further, compromise the ability to attract essential international support. Among the signatories are the International Commission of Jurists, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, International Working Group on Sri Lanka, and Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development. The joint statement calls on the Government to immediately halt the persecution of protesters and to take steps to ensure the freedom of expression without fear of arrest or violence.
Human Rights Watch last week sounded the alarm bells on the continuing Emergency and the necessity for it at this juncture. “The authorities have been granted sweeping additional powers of search and arrest and the military has been empowered to detain people for up to a day without disclosing their detention. These provisions increase the risk of torture and enforced disappearance. The State of Emergency also gives the President and the Police broad powers to ban public gatherings, allows the Police or military to order anyone to leave any public place or face arrest, and makes it an offence to cause ‘disaffection’ or to spread ‘rumours’. These provisions are vague, overly broad, and disproportionate in violation of the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association, and movement,” the organisation noted in a press release.
The international human rights community has also highlighted the expectation of the European Union that ‘the new Government work in full compliance’ with its human rights commitments, made in exchange for tariff free access to the EU market under the bloc’s GSP+ programme, while also drawing attention to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee statement that any agreement with the International Monetary Fund “must be contingent on strong anti-corruption measures and promotion of the rule of law”.
If the President is to be taken seriously, then he must necessarily walk the talk on the law being equal to all. The main grouse of the average citizen, the great majority of whom lent a hand to the people’s struggle at some point during its campaign of 100-plus days, is this basic principle. Further highlighting this disparity is Stalin’s arrest, while another individual who took part in the same protests has been given a plum position at the Presidential Secretariat.
One must keep in mind that the cry for system change, the sentiment that all 225 MPs were a lost cause, that corruption needed to be tackled, wastage and over-the-top spending on vanity projects needed to be controlled, and that the rule of law needed to be enforced equitably were very much a part of the public discourse long before the economic constraints pushed the people into what is now known as the Aragalaya or People’s Struggle. It is important to keep this in mind in the face of attempts being made to change the narrative that it was the other way around. The question that arises consequently is, have the fundamental issues that paved the way for the struggle been addressed adequately and solutions found or are the secondary economic issues being portrayed as the only problems that require attention?
It would be foolish to assume that just because Galle Face is cleared or that once gas, fuel, fertiliser, etc., are supplied, things will return to normal. That is unlikely to be the case because all of the 22 million people have suffered irreparable harm due to the buffoonery of an inept leadership – farmers have been reduced to the status of beggars, families have lost loved ones due to the lack of medicines, students have fallen back on their education and thousands have dropped out of school and the education system due to economic reasons, thousands of small businesses have crashed and permanently put up shutters, millions of people have been left jobless as a result of it, and millions more have been driven to poverty. It is estimated that five million people are currently on the wrong side of the national poverty line.
There is also the middle class that has been affected by the soaring cost of living, which has severely compromised their quality of life, while the surviving small and medium businesses continue to struggle due to various reasons, including import controls, high cost of fuel and materials, power cuts, forex crunch, etc. – all of which have been a consequence of poor economic management. Even though the President appears to have glossed over this suffering and expects the people to follow suit, that is unlikely to happen. As far as the people are concerned, these are crimes against humanity that warrant accountability at the very minimum. The question being asked is, if the leadership expects clemency from the people for these high crimes, why is it that the same clemency cannot be extended to the ordinary people who were only protesting against those responsible for these crimes?
By stifling the space for dissent through resorting to draconian Emergency Regulations, the Government is running the risk of providing oxygen for another struggle. The current leadership must acknowledge and come to terms with the fact that there is an Aragalaya already planted in the hearts and minds of the people for the aforementioned reasons. That Aragalaya is not confined to any particular physical space. It is for this reason that the persecution of protesters and the stifling of dissent are self-defeatist and must necessarily be replaced with accountability, empathy, and understanding. It is only then that the closure that both the administration as well as the people are seeking to this dark episode will be within grasp.
Kapruka
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Discover Kapruka, the leading online shopping platform in Sri Lanka, where you can conveniently send Gifts and Flowers to your loved ones for any event. Explore a wide range of popular Shopping Categories on Kapruka, including Toys, Groceries, Electronics, Birthday Cakes, Fruits, Chocolates, Automobile, Mother and Baby Products, Clothing, and Fashion. Additionally, Kapruka offers unique online services like Money Remittance, Astrology, Medicine Delivery, and access to over 700 Top Brands. Also If you’re interested in selling with Kapruka, Partner Central by Kapruka is the best solution to start with. Moreover, through Kapruka Global Shop, you can also enjoy the convenience of purchasing products from renowned platforms like Amazon and eBay and have them delivered to Sri Lanka.Send love straight to their heart this Valentine's with our thoughtful gifts!