The Embilipitiya death, GSP Plus and a challenge for Yahapalanaya

By Harim Peiris, MBA.

 Published in Groundviews on 29.1.2016

Sumith Prassana Jayawardena would not normally be a household name. But his sudden and violent death in Embilipitiya following an altercation and clash between guests and the Police at a social function, has become an issue of national interest and indicates the challenges of implementing Yahapalanaya. The story line in Embilipitiya is not unfamiliar in Sri Lanka. There is a clash between citizens and agents of the state, a citizen (or citizens) dies and life goes on. Occasionally as in Embilipitiya, as with Weliveriya and the Free Trade Zone, before this, there is a social outcry for justice, multiple investigations are launched until public attentions drifts and nothing comes out of it. The “Trinco Five” and the Prageeth Eknaligoda case are different because they seem prima facie to be abduction and murder and both are now before the Magistrates Courts, the former proceeding much slower, than the later.

However these issues come at a time, domestically and internationally when the status quo of a culture of impunity, is being challenged and is due for a change. Domestically the election of President Maithripala Sirisena in January last year and the subsequent election of Ranil Wickramasinghe as Prime Minister on a platform of good governance and state sector (as well as economic) reform means, that there is a serious reconsideration of the nature of governance of the country. Basically post the war, the Mahinda Rajapakse Administration continued to govern Sri Lanka, as if a war was still on, with the same mindset, the same restriction on civil liberties, the same ethnic polarization and the same primacy or mantra of national security above all else. It was a formulae that wore thin among a majority of Sri Lankans, despite heated nationalist rhetoric as the election results of January and August, last year bear out.

Another fundamental difference since August last year, has been the establishment of the Independent Commissions, including the Independent Human Rights and Police Commissions. These two institutions have already started to act genuinely independent of the Executive and the difference from the Rajapakse years, is that there is no overt or covert pressure on them to white wash wrongs and sweep things under the carpet. Accordingly Independent Institutions, often now headed and staffed by civil society actors and those who genuinely believe and are committed to the principles of good governance and institutional reform are holding the executive branch including law enforcement and the security establishment to account. What state agents are finding is that the usual political pressure brought upon independent institutions to back off, beyond the farcical charade required to demonstrate some actions for international and domestic consumption, is missing this time.

Internationally Sri Lanka is making a comeback as a proud and equal member of the community of nations, distancing ourselves from the near pariah status to which the Mahinda Rajapakse foreign policy, managed by Professor GL Peiris and Sajin Vass Gunawardena had led us to. From seeking to regain the GSP Plus status for our exports to the European Union, which is largely dependent on our human rights situation, to the UNHRC process on accountability, Sri Lanka’s foreign policy has a new focus on human rights that would serve our economy and our people well. The world is watching closely to see if the Maithripala / Wickramasinghe Administration is genuinely committed to and implementing the program and policies of reform which it promised the electorate at two elections and which were mandated by the sovereign people of Sri Lanka.

During Sri Lanka’s near three decades of war, there was a near national consensus and a clear governing elite’s consensus that as Cicero argued in the Roman Senate and as quoted by then President JR Jayawardena “in the fight of good against evil, the laws must be silent”. Initially there was the attempt to contain this maxim to the theatre of conflict, but over time it spilled over to the South and was finally used throughout the country. The final targets of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), were Azath Sally and Tissanayagem, one a politician and the other a journalist, both opponents of the then Rajapakse Administration, but never terrorists by any definition, except in the PTA and a pliant Attorney General’s Department.

The Rajapakse’s and their ideologues would argue that human rights is a western concept and that any argument in favor of a citizen or an individual’s right, is not in the national interest. That the primacy of the interest of the state and her agents must be paramount. However as history, including our own has shown us, it is power as much as the individual, who requires laws to contain and to be managed. Unchecked power is always dangerous. As Lord Acton was to famously state, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Absolute and unchecked power to the state only weakens and disempowers the citizen. At a time when we are taking about constitution making and the sovereignty of the people in our Sri Lankan republic, such sovereignty is not only exercised through our collective identity in the State, but also in our fundamental individual rights, including that most basic right to life, a right which was denied to Sumith Prassana Jayawardena, Prageeth Eknaligoda and the Trinco Five among many others. To the extent we hold those responsible accountable and eliminate the culture of impunity or state agents operating above the law, we have come a long way as a nation.

Saturday 9^th January 2016, will mark the completion of one year of the Maithripala Sirisena presidency and it is an opportune time to reflect on the past one year of the Maithri Palanaya.

The first aspect of course about the Maithri presidency is that it occurred at all. Mahinda Rajapakse was deeply entrenched in power and seemingly determined to govern for generations. However the inevitability or unsustainability of a purely mono ethno religious support base, even that of the majority community, caught up with Mahinda Rajapakse. Even the Sinhala people, or at least a significant section of it seems to have tired of their champion, governing Sri Lanka like a personal fiefdom, with family bandyism, rampant corruption and scarce respect for the rule of law.

The inauguration of the Sirisena Presidency created a sharp change in the Sri Lankan presidency and how Sri Lanka was governed, most radically in the area of democratic good governance, the key issue on which the presidential election was fought. Sri Lanka immediately became a freer, tolerant and inclusive society. Roads around Colombo Fort which were blocked off was opened, the country wide deployment of the military under the Public Security Ordinance was discontinued, giving the civilian police force once again the primary responsibility for law and order. Some of the war affected Tamil civilians; living was IDPs in their own country were allowed to return to their hereditary and ancestral lands and the pervasive culture of fear which the Rajapakse’s engendered and exploited was removed. The white van culture was discontinued.

19^th Amendment and Independent Commissions

Sri Lankan voters one year ago, had a clear choice, between Rajapakse’s promise of an economic developmental society and Sirisena’s promise of a democratic society, with the implication that democratic good governance was not mutually exclusive with economic development. A majority of Sri Lankan’s opted for a more democratic, pluralist and well governed society to those desiring even more of Rajapakse rule. Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans have basically received the free or freer society they voted for. Undergirding this change was the 19^th amendment to the Constitution which limited the powers of the executive presidency, reestablished term limits and essentially  repealed the draconian 18^th amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution, which Rajapakse had pushed through to consolidate his iron grip on power. Further subsequent to the 19^th amendment and the subsequent parliamentary elections which saw Rajapakse allies and cronies relegated to a rump in Parliament, the independent Commissions were formed, ensuring that Sri Lanka once again become a society governed  by institutions and laws.

Dramatic improvement in Foreign Relations

The field of foreign relations saw a dramatic change around in Sri Lanka’s international relations as a result of the Sirisena Presidency. Sri Lanka, which had become a near international pariah state, due to the attitude, actions and policies of the Rajapakse Administration, suddenly witnessed a sea change in its relations with the outside world. Whether with the UN, the EU and the Western nations or especially with India, relations improved significantly. Sri Lanka which was facing censure and worse at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, was able to co-opt the process and make what was previously an adversarial process, into a cooperative endeavor between Sri Lanka and her friends. The very difficult relationship with our key donors and trading partners, especially the EU, US, India and other western allies were reversed and repaired due to addressing and dealing with their legitimate concerns regarding Sri Lanka’s international law and treaty obligations on human rights and accountability issues.

End to attacks on Mosques and Churches, while reestablishing rule of law

The consequential departure of the former Defense Secretary and some other changes in the defense establishment witnessed a complete and immediate halt to anti Muslim and anti Christian violence by the organized hate groups, patronized by the previous regime. These hate groups still retain their extremism but cannot indulge in violence with impunity.

A crisis for democracy in Sri Lanka was the low depths to which the rule of law and the justice system had sunk to. The ultimate nadir was surely the purported removal of Chief Justice Bandaranaike through a fatally flawed process and the installation of an interloper as Chief Justice. Ending the farce which was the higher judiciary under an interloper was a significant step towards an impartial judiciary.

Looking ahead to a new constitution

The year 2016, promises a new constitution which abolished the executive presidency, changes the electoral system and reforms the Sri Lankan state, so that it accommodates the full diversity of her society, which through devolution of power together with power sharing at the center and greater and guaranteed fundamental, individual democratic freedoms promises to create the platform for a new Sri Lanka in the decade ahead. While a new constitution may not be a panacea for all our ills, if the supremacy of a  new constitution is adopted with the enforcement through a constitutional court, it will certainly form the foundation for addressing the many other developmental and social challenges which Sri Lanka needs to address, for the shared prosperity of all her peoples.

(The writer is the Chairman of the Resettlement Authority. The views expressed are strictly personal)

President CBK defends January revolution against Rajapakse onslaught

By Harim Peiris

( Published in the Daily News newspaper on the 11th of August, 2015)

Lying to rest any public ambiguity since the general election campaign commenced, former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga came out with a public statement, that she would strive to ensure and safeguard the people’s revolution and popular mandate for change of January 8^th 2015. In doing so, the former president reiterated that the Rajapakse Administration was a corrupt and authoritarian regime, which a majority of the Sri Lankan people, through their ballots had rejected. The January election was a popular rejection of Rajapakse rule and the corruption, nepotism, poor governance and authoritarianism that formed its modus operandi, as well as a popular mandate for change.

A defeated UPFA’s incoherent comeback attempt

One almost pities the UPFA’s spokesmen, such Dilan Perera and Susil Premajayanth, reduced to coming up with daily antics to cover up for the absence of substance at UPFA press conferences, be it vials of  poison offered to rivals, to politicizing the murder investigation of former Thomian, Havies and Sri Lanka ruggerite, Wasim Thajudeen. The public policy aspect of the Wasim Thajudeen investigation should center on whether the evidence coming out with regard to his alleged murder is new, or if there was an official cover up, by state authorities to protect VVIP suspects as alleged by the Deputy Justice Minister Sujeewa Senasinghe.

The SLFP led UPFA has a fundamental problem, it is essentially trying to rerun the January 8^th election, which it lost country wide, but believes that it won in the electorates that matter to its core constituency of the rural Sinhala Buddhist voter, most other constituencies, having deserted them. However, even this strategy has its policy drawbacks and incoherence. Firstly, Rajapakse loyalists led by Mahinda Rajapakse himself, tries the hardest of hard sells, telling a skeptical electorate, that they made the wrong choice in January and that they must chose now for more Rajapakse. One suspects there is a dearth of lunatics among the 6.2 million who voted for Maithripala Sirisena, who would suddenly now be hankering for more of Rajapakse. That six months of the Abhayarama Temple politics is a opinion and game changer in the country.

A Rajapakse inability to accept its errors and defeat 

Mahinda Rajapakse and his political allies still cannot internalize the fact that they lost the presidential election and that they are out of office. He wants to campaign in helicopters and needs the adoring crowds in vindication of his rule and the biggest logistical challenge and expense to the UPFA campaign is bussing in the required crowds for meetings from all over the country. However, the more serious aspect of this denial of reality is that Rajapakse and the UPFA has learnt nothing from the people’s verdict in January this year. There is no regret made about the white van culture, about impeaching the Chief Justice, about the Kangaroo court injustice meted out to the war winning Field Marshal Fonseka, about the unsolicited mega projects granted without tenders, about the world’s costliest high ways per kilometer according to the Moratuwa University research, about nepotism, cronyism, family bandyism, unsolicited mega Chinese white elephants mostly in Hambanthota, land grabs and missing vehicles among a long and non exhaustive list of deplorable aspects of Rajapakse rule. The stock answer is a blanket denial, which must not seem credible even to its core constituency as more and more evidence surfaces regarding the regime’s doings.

A divided SLFP

The reality within the Sri Lanka Freedom party is that it is deeply divided between those interested in a national government under President Maithripala Sirisena and those trying to persist with “more of Rajapakse rule”. Consequently in the UPFA’s grassroots campaign which is very weak in many areas, the Rajapakse cabal leading the general elections, is more interested in trying to marginalize the Sirisena loyalists than anything else. The UPFA grassroots campaign is weak because its leadership is used to commanding and abusing the state resources, including personnel for election work. The absence of using the Samurdhi workers and graduate assistance for election work, means that actual SLFP supporters have to volunteer. The minor UPFA parties of the MEP, NFF, Vasu and Gamanpila do not match the strident, divisive and hate mongering rhetoric with activists on the ground, nationally. SLFP ers, divided and discouraged are not flocking to volunteer. Accordingly the post January swing towards the UNP has become very marked in certain districts most notably in Kandy, Matara and Moneragala, which sees a significant swing towards the UNP led UNFGG. The campaign by a plethora of civil society organizations in favor of the UNF, with the participation of President Kumaratunga including Ven. Sobitha Thera would likely see an increase in the majorities for the January mandate in the Colombo and Gampaha districts.

President Kumaratunga has articulated in her own words the sentiments expressed by President Sirisena, in his address to the nation, right after the close of nominations. The Rajapakse was a corrupt administration which should not be allowed to return, the January people’s verdict was a mandate for change which must be safeguarded and taken forward.  The one hundred days and the post January minority government may not have achieved utopia, but it was a genuine change from what we had before. The January people’s revolution and the mandate must be preserved, strengthened and taken forward.

Does Sri Lanka need a Prime Minister hostile to President Sirisena

By Harim Peiris

(Published in the Daily News and Island of 30^th July 2015)

The general election campaign is in full swing and the UPFA campaign which hit a major road block at its inception, is slowly sputtering to life. The overall low key campaign, sans posters etc, through a tough enforcement of the election laws, by both the Commissioner of Elections and the Inspector General of Police, masks the fact that the UPFA campaign has none of the glamour of state patronage with which the UPFA is used to running its campaigns.

The most significant political development of the post nominations period (when the election campaign is deemed to have really begun) was President Sirisena’s landmark address to the nation in which he (i) declared his neutrality in the election (ii) Made public his political hostility to defeated President Mahinda Rajapakse  and (iii) reiterated his own commitment to his manifesto and requested voters to elect a government which would work towards and partner in the fulfillment of his mandate. The obvious question which arose from that statement has been, how would the UPFA respond to this challenge?

A divided and directionless UPFA

The UPFA response to President Sirisena’s challenge has been compounded confusion. They waffled between taking on a popularly elected President, who is leader of their own party and alliance no less and in trying to side step the issue, merely seem incoherent, divided and confused. Despite a clear message by President Maithripala Sirisena, both within party hierarchies and to the country that Mahinda Rajapakse would be unsuitable, unreliable and unacceptable as a prime ministerial candidate, the UPFA gang of four and their SLFP stooges running the UPFA campaign has been clearly projecting defeated president and Kurunegala District candidate Mahinda Rajapakse, as its prime ministerial nominee.

A Prime Minister hostile to President Sirisena?

The current Sri Lankan election scenario raises, the rather unlikely but nonetheless possible outcome of a Prime Minister Rajapakse hostile to a President Sirisena. The real question as to can Sri Lanka afford and frankly do our people require or deserve, a prime minister and a government hostile to the recently and popularly elected president of the republic? The Sirisena Presidency, the “Maithri Yugaya” that was promised in the January election and the consequent victory of the National Democratic Front (NDF) is much more than the political persona or politics of Maithripala Sirisena. It was a complete repudiation of the policies and governance of the Rajapakse Administration. In no other Sri Lankan election, in recent times, was the election issues centered and based on the governance of the incumbent administration which then historically and unexpectedly lost. The criticism of the Rajapakse Administration was severe and focused on the then ruling Rajapakse family. Accordingly the defeat in January was a people’s mandate for change. During the presidential campaign Mahinda Rajapakse and his allies alleged every manner of evil upon Maithripala Sirisena, there has been no public repudiation of the same by Rajapakse, even if we concede that the UPFA invitation to Maithri to take over the leadership was a concession by the party that they were wrong in January.

A UPFA promise of more of the same

Listening to Kurunegala District candidate Mahinda Rajapakse and his cheer leaders, there is a total absence of anything new in their thinking or their policy programs. It is the same old rhetoric, the same tired slogans and basically promises of more of the same. The biggest problem is that Mahinda Rajapakse and the UPFA make little or no concession that they were wrong at any point in their governance. The cronyism, the kleptocratic corruption, the family bandyism, the assault on independent governance institutions, the unsolicited proposals, the disregard of tender procedures, the disappearance of government vehicles, floating private armories, among a long and non exhaustive list is what was wrong with Rajapakse rule, is what the UPFA promises to the country. Just more of the same.

The myth of retaining the 5.8m losing vote bank

The UPFA in its January defeat was emboldened by its winning more districts outside the North and East, than the NDF and basically counts on two factors. Namely that the NDF alliance will separate for the general election and hence if the UPFA stays together that it will retain the five point eight (5.8 m) million votes it secured in its loosing campaign in the general elections.

Firstly by no stretch of the imagination, does the UPFA believe that they will secure more than the 5.8m it polled in January. Can there be any conceivable reason, why someone who did not vote for more of Mahinda Rajapakse in January 2015, will do so in August 2015? On the contrary there are plenty of reasons why people who might have voted for the UPFA in January, will not do so in August. In January, the UPFA used and abused state resources, including law enforcement and the state media for its own political advantage, that is not a luxury it enjoys at this election. More importantly the rural voter, on whom the UPFA is banking on heavily, is often intimidated to vote for the winner on the pain of losing their Samurdhi benefits to fertilizer subsidies if they are identified as opposition sympathizers. This is not the case in this election. Moreover the UPFA is clearly and publicly politically divided between those advocating a national government and cooperating with the “Maithri vision” and those advocating “Bring back Rajapakse (rule)”. Basically you cannot have a “Maithri Yuagaya” and “Rajapakse rule”, confused SLFPers may vote UNP or JVP or just stay away.

Moreover the winning,  rainbow coalition of the NDF has largely remained intact as the UNP led UNFGG, with only the TNA choosing to contest separately. Correspondingly the EPDP, the UPFA ally in the North has also opted to go it alone. Further the UNFGG has a stated policy of going for a national government which is an inclusive and attractive proposition for the country at large, while a discredited and defeated UPFA is trying hard to turn back the clock and convince voters, that their decision of January 8^th was a big mistake. A tough  and unlikely sell indeed.

(The write is the Chairman of the Resettlement Authority. The views expressed are strictly personal)

President Sirisena repudiates Mahinda Rajapakse as UPFA prepares for a second defeat

By Harim Peiris

(Published in the Island of 17^th July 2015)

In a widely viewed televised address to the nation after the close of nominations for the parliamentary elections, President Maithripala Sirisena, repudiated any political rapprochement or partnership with defeated President Mahinda Rajapakse, whom he probably correctly predicted would lead the UPFA to a second ignoble defeat in six months, having been defeated by President Sirisena, at the start of the year and accordingly needs to be recognized as defeated President Rajapakse, to differentiate from retired President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. Mahinda Rajapakse has the ignominy of being the only executive president of Sri Lanka, who was shown the door, by the sovereign people of Sri Lanka.

The SLFP parliamentary leadership, like puppets on a string, in the hands of the UPFA political lightweight, small party, gang of four, namely Dinesh, Wimal, Vasu and Udaya, whose politically orphaned state and barely concealed racism required, hanging on the scarlet shawl of Rajapakase, misled the SLFP to refuse the opportunity of beginning a new journey with President Sirisena and leaving behind its checked and now discredited past of a corrupt and authoritarian rule.

President Sirisena was scathing in his criticism of defeated President Rajapakse and his misguided attempt at an electoral comeback. He correctly observed that Mahinda Rajapakse had removed term limits on the presidency, so he can rule for life and fortunately, the people of Sri Lanka had other ideas. Now Mahinda Rajapakse refuses to hand over the baton to the next level of SLFP leadership and is instead trying the equivalent of a rematch, hoping for a different result to what was achieved in January.

That fantasy of reversing the January election loss will not happen, as none other than President Maithripala Sirisena confidentially predicted. In January, besides the abuse of the entire state machinery at his disposal, Rajapakse and the UPFA lost. This time around there will be no state resources to abuse, though a portion of alleged ill gotten gains would have to be used for the campaign. Given the estimated size of the loot stash in Dubai, Seychelles and who knows where else, funding the campaign is the least of the Rajapakse worries. But in January a significant part of the floating voters supported Rajapakse, based on the local level propensity to support the likely winner. This time around, not even the Rajapakse astrologers, that discredited bunch of magic diviners, are likely to be predicting his victory.

The politically educated voter will not elect a Prime Minister hostile to President Sirisena   

Sri Lanka, is a highly politicized society. With our high literacy rate, we have also a highly politically literate citizenry, which can and does deal with political issues. It is to the credit of the Sri Lankan voter, in January this year, they opted for a democratic state, over a Chinese style developmental state, sans real democracy. The white vans, the judicial impeachments, the corruption, the nepotism and dynastic project were all rejected by the people, in a quiet, poster less campaign by the National Democratic Front (NDF). Now the political mantle and much of the NDF rainbow coalition is within the UNP led UNFGG or United National Front for Good Governance. The UNFGG is also really an amazing rainbow coalition with the JHU on the one side and the Muslim and other minority parties on the other end with the UNP at the political center. It would have to be a particular glutton for punishment, even in the Sinhala rural electorates, where the UPFA is placing its entire hope on, who would want a return of Rajapakse rule. Actually what one would have if the UPFA wins a majority, is gross political instability, with a Prime Minster hostile to President Sirisena and indeed trying to get rid of him.

President Sirisena’s vision for the future

President Sirisena in his address to the nation, frequently referred to his manifesto, its attendant mandate and his compact with the people. As the President quite correctly observed the reform program in his manifesto was not one limited to one hundred days, but a reform program for five years. This includes the Right to Information Act, which really should begin by televising parliamentary proceedings, another progressive step, stopped by the reactionary UPFA and a complete overhaul of government procument and the tender system, through a proposed National Audit Act. The president promised to be neutral in the parliamentary election and basically requested the country to give him a Parliament that would support his vision and manifesto which had been mandated by the people.

The electorate once again in six months has a stark choice. Does it roll back the clock and retreat to a corrupt and authoritarian past with a Rajapakse led UPFA or does it travel on the journey of state reform and good governance under President Sirisena as advocated and promised by the UNP led United National Front.