When Sri Lanka vied for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, there was a telling photograph taken at one of the bashes the regime threw in the Caribbean, the culminating event of a labour intensive, extravagant self-indulgent exercise. The photograph has Hon Namal Rajapaksha MP leading a conga line followed by the Governor of the Central Bank. They both seem…well, happy. However, though a good time was had by all no doubt, that conga line led nowhere. We did not win the bid to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games; agnostics and atheists alike were put on notice about the existence of the divine. The country was saved. Yet the conga line as both a metaphor and description of the structure of power and the ruling regime remains. Into 2012, where will it head?

The old year 2011 like all others before was interesting in the sense of the Chinese curse. It saw the steady decline of governance and the Rule of Law, the steady rise of militarization and the interminable decline of the opposition; more attacks on the freedom of expression and association and the re-emergence of disappearances; grease yakkas, plastic crates and the fatal private pension plan; an unnecessary, yet revealing controversy over the national anthem; the release of a COPE report confirming losses by state enterprises running into billions of rupees and at the same time legislation deemed urgent in the national interest to take over underperforming and under utilised private sector enterprises. Sarath Fonseka continued to be harassed and is now to be written out of the history books Soviet-style, including the revamped version of the Mahavamsa; monitoring MPs and presidential advisors fought to the death and probable permanent disability, High Noon style, and in the dying days of the year, a Pradeshiya Sabha chairman alleged to have engaged in fatal political violence during the last presidential election, is now implicated in the murder and serious assault of tourists. There is of course the fiasco of the release of exam results and the sham/e of Sri Lanka Cricket.

Significantly, some 40 years on from the last pre-war election in 1977, one party was overwhelmingly returned in the south and another likewise in the north in local government elections. The regime – TNA talks are more and more reminiscent of the lines from Macbeth – tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow… it is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

On a positive note, the economy is supposed to be booming. Every index is up – number of tourists, remittances, exports, and foreign direct investment (FDI). Inflation, indebtedness and the cost of living too! The trade deficit remains in billions of dollars despite the increase in remittances, exports, tourists and FDI. The capital city is being beautified – a direct boon of the pairing of defence and urban development we are told and many believe, irrespective of the number of city dwellers who have paid the cost in eviction. There is a highway to the south and an aptly though controversially named Mahinda Rajapaksha Performing Arts Centre with state of the art facilities, as well as night racing to boot.

And there is the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) Report, the document, which, the regime has maintained, will answer its critics and lay to rest the charge of war crimes and the call for accountability in respect of them. This the Report does not do, thereby lending credence to the criticisms leveled at it in terms of mandate and composition and most importantly, thereby reinforcing the call for international investigation. The LLRC concludes that there was no deliberate targeting of civilians by the armed forces or use of siege tactics by the regime with regard to the provision of food and medicine to civilians in the Vanni. It acknowledges that, “…material points towards the implication of the Security Forces for the resulting death and injury to civilians, even though this may not have been with the intent to cause harm”.

This is largely based on the testimonies of the security hierarchy and suffers from the lack of witness protection, which would have facilitated a more comprehensive account of what transpired. The LLRC makes reference to the technical difficulties in reconstructing what happened and notes the near impossibility of doing so, now. On the key issue of war crimes and violation of international humanitarian law, the report is a whitewash of the regime. This is very disappointing given the urgent need for accountability at the community level in particular, as demonstrated by the number of civilians who testified before the LLRC despite the difficulties and subsequent dangers they faced in doing so.

It is a curate’s egg, however. Its conclusions on reconciliation, the atrocities of the LTTE, militarization, a political and constitutional settlement based on devolution, the politicization of governance, the erosion of the rule of law, the naming of para-militaries and the call for further action on this and on disappearances and detainees as well as the Channel Four documentary, on right to information legislation, are all to be welcomed. All of this begs the question of how any “independent’ or “proper” investigation the LLRC recommends can be done nationally. None of this is new; most of this has been championed by civil society for quite some time. That a regime appointed commission reiterates all of this, underscores both the scale and nature of the challenge the regime faces and accordingly, the scale and nature of the paradigm shift it has to undertake if it is to, as it must, implement these recommendations without delay.

Quo Vadis, the Conga line in 2012? Can the tiger change it stripes; the leopard its spots?

Can pigs fly?

• The LLRC report and ‘accountability’ in Sri Lanka
• Sri Lanka’s Dirty War
• The Final Report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission: A Response
• The verdict sans representation
• THE LLRC AND COMPLAINTS OF DISAPPEARANCES OF PERSONS

Photo courtesy of Media Centre for National Development of Sri Lanka (www.development.lk)

“The existing constitution is more than enough for us to live together. I don’t think there is any issue on this more than that.

“I mean this was given as a solution for the whole thing with the discussion of these people. I mean now the LTTE is gone, I don’t think there is any requirement.

“I mean what can you do more than this? … Devolution wise I think we have done enough, I don’t think there is a necessity to go beyond that.”

Thus spake the Defence Secretary to the Indian media organ Headlines Today. The significance of these remarks lies in their utterance by arguably the most powerful man in the country on the most important issue facing the country, if it is to move from a post-war to a post – conflict situation.

Gotabaya Rajapaksha is the secretary to a ministry.  Ministry secretaries are not supposed to pronounce on policy in public.  Moreover, in this instance, the pronouncements of this Mr Rajapaksha are at variance with those of another Mr Rajapaksha who happens to be his minister and the President of the Republic.  In another era and in this country, Secretary Rajapaksha would be sent packing for stepping so egregiously out of line.  This Mr Rajapaksha however is different. He is a key member of the brotherhood that runs the country and the key architect of the military victory that has brought about the post-war situation. I have called for his resignation or sacking on more than one occasion. This is yet another.

The propriety of his pronouncements notwithstanding, Mr Rajapaksha has provided a candid and authoritative insight into the mindset of the regime.  He has confirmed what some of us have always suspected and in this respect, his pronouncements serve as a catalyst for honest appraisal of the prospects for a post conflict Sri Lanka.  Explicit reiteration of his opposition to the devolution of land and police powers to the provinces, would have settled the matter beyond doubt and dispute.  However when he says, “I mean what can you do more than this? Devolution wise we have done enough, I don’t think there is a necessity for us to go beyond that”, he is defending the prevailing status quo – Thirteenth Amendment Minus.  Is there any reason to assume that the parliamentary select committee will not come to the same conclusion?

By digging in its heels, the regime poses a serious challenge to Tamil and Muslim political representation in acquiescing or rejecting the current constitutional dispensation.  The TNA in particular has to think about what it can and should do when the parliamentary select committee reaches its foregone conclusion.  Likewise, Delhi, which has consistently called for a political settlement.  The key factor here could be Tamil Nadu and the extent to which Jeyalalitha’s interest in Sri Lanka and importance to the ruling coalition parallels and outlasts the playing out of the select committee charade in Colombo and the announcement of its foregone conclusion.  The satisfaction of Indian economic interests by Colombo is yet another factor which could defuse any pressure regarding a political settlement.

Countering Indian and Western pressure through Chinese protection and loans, the Rajapaksha regime believes it can get away with it – military victory trumping political settlement, its brand of economic development blunting political grievances and aspirations.  On a political settlement it intends to be unyielding – the farcical placating of sections of international opinion aside; on human rights and war crimes accountability that allegedly reach into the very heart of the regime, it will engage to combat.

The glitzy launch of the Defence Ministry’s film and report “Lies Agreed Upon” is an illustration of the latter. Whilst not explicitly presented as such, the Defence Ministry productions are a response to the Panel Report and Channel Four.   The objective, one would have thought, was to lay the allegations to rest to the extent possible, rather than sustain the controversy. Both the Ministry Report and film, however, preach to the converted.  The overwhelming objective is to establish how horrendous and horrific the LTTE were.  Only a very selective reading of the Panel Report and Channel Four would conclude that they need convincing or disagree on the LTTE.  In both cases the LTTE too is accused of war crimes.

Much has been made of the admission that there were civilian casualties – despite the incredible denials of the past. There is no mention of the murder of the 17 ACF workers or of the alleged attacks on hospitals.  In the film, allegations are refuted through the five doctors who, maintaining that they were subjected to LTTE intimidation, retracted what they said during the war in a subsequent press conference.  Tamilchlevam’s widow is interviewed along with George Master and a number of ex-LTTE female cadres who pay tribute to the way in which they have been treated by the forces.  Whilst Karuna was in the audience, one waited in vain to see KP on screen.

The Rajapaksha regime seems unable to grasp the challenge and promise of reconciliation and unity, of moving from post-war to post –conflict. Most disturbing, it doesn’t seem to care.

Gotabaya has spoken and it looks like we are going back to the future.

• The Offensive Defence Secretary Must GO!
• Interview with Austin Fernando, a Peacetime Secretary of Defence in Sri Lanka
• Going beyond the 13th Amendment: Newspaper coverage of the Sri Lankan’s President’s assurance to India
• A circus has come to town
• Defence Secretary: The epitome of bad governance

[Editors' note: An edited version of this article appeared in the Daily Mirror on the 26th of May 2011.]

4. Both sides agreed that the end of armed conflict in Sri Lanka created a historic opportunity to address all outstanding issues in a spirit of understanding and mutual accommodation imbued with political vision to work towards genuine national reconciliation. In this context, the External Affairs Minister of Sri Lanka affirmed his Government’s commitment to ensuring expeditious and concrete progress in the ongoing dialogue between the Government of Sri Lanka and representatives of Tamil parties. A devolution package, building upon the 13th Amendment, would contribute towards creating the necessary conditions for such reconciliation.

5. In response, The External Affairs Minister of India urged the expeditious implementation of measures by the Government of Sri Lanka, to ensure resettlement and genuine reconciliation, including early return of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) to their respective homes, early withdrawal of emergency regulations, investigations into allegations of human rights violations, restoration of normalcy in affected areas and redress of humanitarian concerns of affected families.

The above two extracts from the Joint Communique issued by the External Affairs Ministers of India and Sri Lanka following the recent visit of the latter are especially significant for Sri Lanka in this postwar, post –Panel period and into the future as well.  They underscore what at times is obscured in the din of sloganeering and propaganda. The most important bilateral relationship for Sri Lanka is that with India, whether some of us like it or not.  China is very important; but India is pivotal. And at this time too, when we needs friends in the global South who will look to India and take their cue from Delhi when it comes to Sri Lanka in any international fora.

Consequently, the communiqué needs careful reading, not so much for what the GOSL indicated it has done and would do, but more in terms of what Delhi felt important to emphasize and include. Note there is no reference to the Panel Report or to accountability. Yet there is reference to “investigations into allegations of human
rights violations”. Delhi “urges the expeditious implementation of measures” in this regard. Note too, that is it is inconceivable that Minister Peiris would have agreed to anything in the communiqué without first getting the go-ahead from the President.  Consequently, the President is surely as responsible for what is contained in this communiqué as his minister. Indeed it would not be an exaggeration to say that the joint communiqué contains the measures the regime should take in order to neutralize any adverse consequences of the Panel Report.

2011 is not 2009. In 2009, India proactively lobbied on behalf of Sri Lanka in the Human Rights Council and backed the Rajapaksha regime to the hilt in defeating the LTTE. In 2011, Delhi has awoken to a Sri Lanka situation in which the Chinese are popularly seen as the closest friends of Sri Lanka and accordingly Chinese assistance is given greater prominence and publicity than the steady flow of assistance Delhi continues to send our way. Especially galling, may well be the simple fact that whilst Delhi gives us grants and the Chinese loans, the latter seem to get the greater share of praise and thanks. Furthermore, as the joint communiqué reveals there are a number of outstanding issues ranging from the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) to the Sampur coal power plant, a number of other development projects and the violence meted out to Indian fishermen.

An underlying thread in all of these issues is the political commitment to expedite movement. In the case of CEPA though, the issue is as much about political commitment as it is about the ideological bias underpinning that lack of commitment.  Procrastination over CEPA is more about the regime subscribing to the primordial fears of the Sinhala nationalist lobby with regard to Sri Lanka being swallowed up by the big brother to the north than it is about anything substantive.  It is indeed a shame that those within and around the regime who recognize the benefits of CEPA for this country, keep quiet – a measure perhaps of their own insecurity within the existing power structure?

Delhi’s perspective on Colombo will now be coloured by its relationship with the Jayalalitha government in Chennai. As has always been the case, the Tamil Nadu factor in the Indo- Sri Lanka equation gets activated when Tamil Nadu sees utility in using Sri Lanka as a source of leverage in its relations with Delhi and to a lesser extent vice versa. In this respect there is probably a period of six months maximum in which Jayalalitha will also beat the human rights accountability drum in respect of Sri Lanka and therefore Delhi’s position on Sri Lanka could be expected to reflect this, though not in the fullest measure of Tamil nationalist fantasies and Sinhala nationalists fears. Whilst Delhi will be sensitive to Tamil Nadu, South Block is not going to allow policy to be dictated by a state government.

Delhi’s position seems to be that there is a historic opportunity for Sri Lanka to move into a post-conflict phase. The responsibility for this lies, as indeed it must, with Sri Lankan actors who should take national initiatives and measures to achieve meaningful unity with reconciliation. Consequently, Sri Lanka must be given time to do this. However, whilst there is no deadline to be imposed, this should not be interpreted to be an indefinite and elastic period. Moreover, there has to be demonstrable progress to assure that the trajectory of change is within the framework of meaningful reconciliation and unity. Were this not to be the case, there are options to be exercised including at the international level.

This point could well be reinforced at present by action or the lack of it, calculated not to stymie momentum, such as there is, vis-a-vis the Panel Report. No proactive, explicit endorsement of its findings and recommendations or proactive involvement in the expediting of action in respect of them. The mention of human rights violations is significant and not mere window dressing as is the omission of any explicit mention of the Panel Report and accountability. The Rajapaksha regime has a window of opportunity to come good on what the international community and local human rights organizations have been asking of it as a basic minimum.

Human Rights violations and the Panel Report aside, there is the pivotal issue of a political settlement, which Delhi has consistently championed.  In this context, the phrase “building on the Thirteenth Amendment” holds out hope that the Thirteenth Amendment Plus formula will still be in play and with it those unimplemented sections relating to land and police powers to boot. “ Building on”, in this context, also presumably means that the “Plus” relates to the powers devolved to the provinces and that the proposal for a second chamber is in this respect, essentially extraneous to the principal task at hand, though complementary to it at the margins. The message is surely that of getting real and down to brass tacks.  Placating and distracting attention with elaborate and protracted sideshows like the APRC, will only result in the regime fooling itself, and its “urumaya” fellow travellers.

The Panel Report underpins the joint communiqué. It should be seen as a catalyst, a sharp reminder to the regime that whilst bread and circuses and shrill pronouncements about a nation besieged may keep the masses relatively docile and supportive, governance in the globalized world of the twenty –first century requires mature policy making and tough decisions.

As for national sovereignty, it surely must depend on more than the national interest and benevolence of Russia and China?

• Making Foreign Policy on the Street
• An elephantine gestation: UN Panel’s report on accountability in Sri Lanka released
• India “Punishing Sri Lanka”: Myth or Reality?
• Thus Spake Gothabaya
• Reconciliation without Truth in Sri Lanka?

Avishai Margalit the Israeli philosopher wrote a treatise on the Decent Society from which I have quoted often. In it he defines a civilized society as one in which people do not humiliate each other and a decent society as one in which institutions do not humiliate people.  My reason for frequently citing this is that throughout the yet to be resolved conflict in Sri Lanka and in parts of the country that were not direct theatres of armed conflict, issues of human dignity and decency abounded and yet do so be it on the basis of ethnicity, religion, class and dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy.  Now as we are faced with the challenge of moving beyond the post-war to the post-conflict and with it an unprecedented opportunity to forge reconciliation and unity, Margalit’s treatise assumes a crucial importance and pertinence.

In response to international and national criticism of the inability and/or unwillingness on the one hand or the tardiness and lack of priority on the other to commence this process of reconciliation and unity, the regime points to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) as proof of its commitment to effect reconciliation and unity.   The shortcomings of the LLRC process apart, there are incidents that continue, are allowed to continue or are committed, that fly in the face of the declared commitment to reconcile and unite and which negate the spirit and raison d’etre of the LLRC.  Moreover, attesting to and augmenting the cancer of impunity, nothing is done to prevent, deter and punish these acts of hate, of hurt and of harm.

The controversy over the national anthem is one.  As reported, the rank ignorance and prejudice as well as the servility and silence of those who do know better that was paraded at the cabinet meeting which addressed the issue notwithstanding, the Deputy Director of Education in Jaffna who spoke out on the issue was murdered in cold blood on Boxing Day.  More recently, the cremation site of the mother of Vellupillai Prabhakaran was desecrated with the carcasses of three dogs. This egregious insult and repudiation of out millennia of civilization and of the great religions that are practiced in this country was barely reported in the non-Tamil media.

The headquarters of the Army in Jaffna is to be relocated to the LTTE War Memorial in Kopay. The debate, such as there is on this issue is on the web. It is littered with arguments about whether LTTE cadre were actually buried in the grounds, the LTTE being beyond the pale, the legality of the LTTE”s use of the land in the first place and Allied treatment of Nazi memorials.  What is missing is the simple issue of the families of slain LTTE cadre treating the memorial as a space to remember and to mourn their loved ones, and the surely obvious question as to what this represents in terms of a demonstrable commitment to reconcile and unite?

It also begs the question of as to whether the denizens of the LLRC should take up these issues and remonstrate with the regime that incidents such as these – and there are many others which go unreported because of the fear of the victims and the fear and apathy of the media – undermine their work, impede reconciliation and send out the message that lessons are not being learned.

There is also a new Human Rights Commission, an institution one would expect to turn to in these circumstances.  It is the first of its kind post 18^th Amendment and therefore sadly not one in accordance with the international standard of the Paris Principles pertaining to such commissions or one that could reverse the demotion of our national Human Rights Commission by the international coordinating committee for such bodies.  The collective expertise in human rights and record of the members of the commission may not be helpful in this respect, either.  Will they, can they, speak out and act to protect human rights in this country?  Will they, can they, speak out and act against such acts and ensure that the National Human Rights Action Plan will deter and deal with, acts of this nature?

All these nasty things- hurtful, hateful and harmful – stand. The hurt and harm and hate that spawned them unchecked become integral elements of public standards, ethics, morals, culture and sensibilities or yet more egregious examples of the lack of them.  Anything goes as long as it is does not contest but uphold triumphalism and majoritarianism in praise of the dynasty and its consolidation power.

Consider for example the Prime Minister’s remarks in the parliamentary debate on the extension of the Emergency.  Leave aside the farcical explanations of the source of his information, the message seems to be that the reason for extending the Emergency is that the LTTE though defeated is still around and still around as a security threat. The victory celebrations that we’ve had have clearly been premature and of the wishful thinking variety.  It seems that the LTTE will be around as long as the Rajapakshas are and with them the Emergency as the standard operating procedure for regime security.

Consider the report about the political appointments to the Foreign Service.  Those being appointed are friends and relations of the regime and with, on all accounts, little or no particular educational attainment or experience befitting a member of a once proud and professional service. It is indeed a national tragedy that the highly educated minister appears to be presiding over the disintegration of our foreign service.  With these appointments along with a pet Poo-Bah to oversee the ministry and the sidelining of the service professionals by the Bells and Bates’, Pottingers and Potts at lavish cost and little success, our foreign policy has been reduced to knee-jerk jingoistic reaction, ill-informed, indiscreet statement in the interests of self-preservation and some bordering at times on paranoia.

Indeed we are at a point at which in any healthy, vibrant functioning democracy both the prime minister and the foreign minister would have had to go, nay, would have gone them-selves without prompting because their position in office was untenable.

Not at this court; not in this country.  Perhaps it is the case that under this dispensation and equality of sorts applies. Margalit’s point about humiliation holds for citizens, be they average, ordinary or extraordinary. Be they even ministers.

• Archive of Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) submissions and media reports
• A slumbering LLRC: The image of reconciliation in Sri Lanka?
• On Commission and Omission
• Recommendations for ICT and Research Supported Enhancement of the Effectiveness of the LLRC
• On the government’s political solution and ‘Southern Suaveness’

Original photo from Business Today

The headline story of the Sunday Times of 12 December 2010 was deeply disturbing.  According to it the Cabinet has made a decision that henceforth the national anthem will only be sung in Sinhala.  Subsequent reports confirmed that the issue was discussed in cabinet but that no final decision had been taken. In the meantime the status quo was to be maintained.

At a time when the principal challenge facing the country is to move beyond a post –war situation to a post-conflict one, where the sources of conflict are not sustained or reproduced and at a time in which much is made of the regime’s commitment to reconciliation by way of the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission raising this issue at cabinet level, the lack of clarity with regard to what transpired and the suggestion that a decision may have been deferred, all constitute a chilling rebuke to efforts at reconciliation and a blatant, unbridled assertion of majoritarianism.  This must be seen in the context of reports alleging that the security forces have forced participants to sing the national anthem in Sinhala at recent events in the north.

The report of the cabinet discussion is illustrative, nay instructive of the cabinet’s collective thinking of the kind of country we are and should be?

The Sunday Times report did point out that the new minister for Social Integration and Official Languages, a veteran politician of the old left with a past record of championing rights Vasudeva Nanayakkara and Minister Rajitha Senaratne had stated that they thought “this move would not be a suitable one”.  The Sunday Times report also states that the President had stated that in no other country was the national anthem sung in more than one language.  Minister Weerawansa is also cited as pointing to the Indian example in support of the President’s statement.  In a later pronouncement to the media, Minister Weerawansa declared that the singing of the national anthem in Tamil is a joke.

It is surprising, given the expertise and experience around the table, that no one pointed out the Canadian practice of using both English and French and that the South African national anthem is made up of lyrics in the five most spoken languages of the country – Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans and English.  There are also the Swiss and New Zealand examples amongst others.  Furthermore the Indian National anthem is sung in classical Bengali. Given that MP Karu Jayasuriya was castigated for “insulting” our Asian allies for his remarks on their attitude to human rights, will Minister Weerawansa be asked to apologize to the Indians, South Africans and Canadians, Swiss and New Zealanders amongst others or are we to conclude that he is just loose mouthed and ignorant? Assuming Weerawansa was well-informed, it is disappointing that no one other than the two dissenting ministers cited in the report, thought it fit that Sri Lanka should set a precedent, given the challenge of reconciliation the country is faced with.

Do instances like this tell us as much and more of the regime’s thinking in the first month of its second term as the mega development projects and the 18^th amendment?

Take the announcement of a payment of one lakh rupees to the family of a war hero on the birth of a third child.  Does war hero in this context translate into a member of the security forces and pray how many of them will be Muslim and Tamil?  Is this a case of gratitude at loggerheads with reconciliation or as a camouflage for the crudest majoritarianism? What for example does the appointment of Mervyn Silva as a minister for publicity and public relations tell us of the regime’s attitude to governance?  A light- hearted joke or a bad one and at our considerable expense? What does the roughing up of Dr Wickremabahu Karunaratne at the airport or the reported duty free shopping spree of members of the president’s security detail tell us about the Rule of Law?  What does the JHU’s position on the casino bill tell us of their raison d’etre for entering electoral politics?  What indeed does the bill tell us about the highfalutin moral rhetoric of the regime? Follow the rationale for the bill and what will follow?  A bill along the same lines for commercial sex?  What about mathata titha? Clearly, in the collective imagination of the regime is a vision of an alcohol free casino amongst other anomalies.

More recently additionally disturbing news came to light concerning an event to be held on the campus of Colombo University and co-hosted by the Law Faculty and the University’s Human Rights Centre in collaboration with the UNDP and UNFPA.  The event was to be held on 10 December – World Human Rights Day- and was on the theme of Women Human Rights Defenders.  The UN organizations pulled out of the event relocating it to another location when they were informed that the Vice Chancellor had refused permission for a internationally renowned Sri Lankan human rights defender and a recipient of the 1998 Human Rights Award in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to speak.

Most recently, a discussion on development in the north to be held in Jaffna and involving mostly academics from the university there had to be cancelled at the last minute on the grounds that the venue, booked well in advance, was no longer available. Clearly development in Jaffna cannot be discussed in Jaffna!

Clearly our universities are not to be spaces for the freedom of speech and expression, a plurality of views and diverse perspectives and our university students are not to be exposed to ideas and opinions that will inform and enrich their knowledge and understanding of the world and of the society they are invaluable members of.   Perhaps those who were part of the crescendo of righteous indignation at the indignity our beloved president was subjected to by the University of Oxford, will do likewise in respect to an affront to fundamental freedoms back at home?  Perhaps, perhaps……

Especially worrying is the pervasiveness and penetration of the patriots/traitors dichotomy in the public discourse.  It extends to quarters one would least expect and in the example to be quoted gives lie to the argument that making money is a fundamentally apolitical activity.

In October a routine “Technical Analytical and Economic/Political Outlook” by Capital Trust Research, called for the immediate identification and early elimination of disruptive elements. It noted that the war against saboteurs, traitors and subversive elements continues even though the war against the terrorists has been won.

All of this profiles our country today.  It makes for a disturbing, intolerant and even ugly picture.  Those who agree must stand up and voice their concern. Pastor Niemoeller has been quoted too often; his words have yet to be heeded.

• Is the Tamil version of our national anthem a joke?
• Peace and Reconciliation in Sri Lanka
• Making Foreign Policy on the Street
• O country, Thy National Anthem…
• Mobiles Working Again

The key features of the 18^th Amendment sent to the Supreme Court for its scrutiny as urgent in the national interest are the removal of the term restrictions on an incumbent contesting the presidency and the abandonment of the Seventeenth Amendment.  The former means that we now move from two terms to any number of times for the incumbent for as long as we need him and the latter means that he will have more powers and no independent commissions to act as checks and balances on the exercise of his powers.  He will be required to come to Parliament every three months.  The Constitutional Council of the Seventeenth will be replaced by a consultative body in the 18^th Amendment to be called the Parliamentary Council comprising the Prime Minister, the Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition and two MPs nominated by the last two from communities other than that to which they belong. This body can send the President its observations on his appointments.  The police are to come under the Public Service Commission and the Election Commissioner will not have the powers of the Election Commission under the 17^th Amendment like for example the power to appoint a Competent Authority to named media institutions should they flout his guidelines.

The rationale for this is the old one trotted out by J.R.Jayewardene.  Economic development is the priority and economic development requires a strong and stable executive.  At that time we got the executive presidency and two insurgencies.  Mahinda Rajapaksha has finished the unfinished business of defeating the outstanding insurgency and wants more power than J.R.Jayewardene.  He probably argues that without this Amendment he will effectively become a lame duck president once he takes the oath of office for his second presidential term in November of this year.  He probably will argue that his power and authority will not inspire the awe that it should when lesser mortals realize that he is on his way out.  The real fear is of a succession fight, even close to home and possibly within the family.

The process of constitutional reform that has produced this amendment is instructive of the measure of democratic governance in the country, any semblance of which could disappear once this amendment is passed.  The Seventeenth Amendment has been subjected to intentional violation for sometime, the removal of the term bar surfaced after the elections, went into abeyance and then was obscured by Weerawansa’s antics and the emergence of idiosyncratic and hybrid notion of an executive prime minister.  The opposition out of desperation and/or naivete and wishful thinking engaged the president on this only to now find out that this was a cover to secure the desired objective of removing the term bar and depleting opposition ranks to secure the two -thirds majority in parliament to see it through.

This is not the first time that constitutional reform is being enacted for executive convenience.  Content aside, the way it is being done demonstrates the scant disregard of the regime for the norms and procedures of democratic governance.  It could all happen in the bat of an eye -lid.  No one who voted for the great champion of parliamentary democracy and opponent of the executive presidency, Mahinda Rajapaksha were told that this is what he intended within nine months of his considerable if though contested presidential victory.  Nor are they being given any time to discuss and digest the implications of this.  Compounding the crisis are other political parties and their leaders who instead of being drowned in their private woes should be out there giving leadership to all those who want a robust, functioning democracy in Sri Lanka.

The old left is on record as opposing the executive presidency.  What will it do now?  Will its two cabinet ministers oppose and walk out of government with honour if necessary?  What of the SLMC?  It is reported that it will support the amendment and yet remain in the opposition.  One can only speculate that underlying this is the fear of a fatal party split.  Notwithstanding this, the public position of the SLMC incredibly is of support for the amendment! One awaits their advocacy and defence of this obnoxious amendment on the floor of the House or elsewhere in public.

The Tamil parties are silent.  Gone are the days, it seems, when the stalwarts of the Tamil Congress and Federal Party brought their considerable intellect and energies to denounce the erosion of the democratic rights of all of the peoples of this country.  Are they not part of this country and part of the Sri Lankan polity, which is in peril?  It is not time they are heard in defence of the democratic rights of all Sri Lankans?  As for the UNP, are there any leaders in that party who can see a national issue for the priority and emergency issue it is, put aside their petty internal squabbles and demonstrate the leadership of democratic forces in the country it claims to possess?  Apart from any other consideration, is this not the basic function, nay duty, of an opposition in a democracy?  Only the JVP, so far, has shown that it sees the issue for what it is and despite diminished capacity is exerting itself to do something about it.

This does not absolve the rest of us from our democratic duty of standing up against the erosion of democratic governance. However dispiriting and challenging it may be, we too need to exert ourselves in lobbying MPs to vote against the amendment and our fellow citizens too, if the Court determines that a referendum is required. Leaders of the community, especially religious leaders who are held in high regard should stand up, in this respect, and be counted.

This column warned that Weerawansa alone and “fasting” could be the metaphor for Sri Lanka in the international community.  This amendment and the conclusion of the SLFP disciplinary inquiry into the Mervyn Silva tree tying violation of the Rule of Law, soon to be followed no doubt by his reinstatement to deputy ministerial rank, could well turn out to be the metaphor for governance and constitutionalism in the country.

We will never know if we can save democratic governance in this country until and unless we try to do so.

• A brief response to Dr G.L. Pieris
• Content digest: Full coverage of the 18th Amendment, 1 – 9 September 2010
• Exclusive video: Parliamentary debate and objections to 18th Amendment
• The pathetic capitulation of the organised Left in Sri Lanka (Updated with statement from Leftist leaders)
• Hansard on 18th Amendment debate, 8 September 2010

Wimal Weerawansa announced that he would call upon his supporters to surround the UN office until the UN Secretary General disbanded the advisory panel he has set up on alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka.  It was reported that the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) had informed the UN that these were the views of an individual and not that of the GOSL.  Days later, Weerawansa, a cabinet minister and key supporter of the president and regime, leads a demonstration of hundreds to the UN office, blocks the entrances and exits to the building, declaring that they will not move until the panel is disbanded.

It has also been reported that the police attempted to disperse the demonstrators but were withdrawn, according to one report on the instructions of the Defence Secretary, and that a senior police officer was man-handled by the protestors.   The Foreign Secretary subsequently visited the office along with NFF representatives and managed to ensure that the besieged UN staff could be evacuated with police protection.   In a subsequent press conference, Weerawansa declared that unless the panel was not disbanded within a day, his supporters would embark on a fast unto death.  It is understood that the GOSL maintains that it will provide security to the UN staff at the same time as it respects the right of the NFF to demonstrate. UN staff, were instructed to work from home following the demonstration and attempted siege. Later, essential staff were allowed to return to work in the building and Weerawansa commenced his fast.

Weerawansa and his supporters were effectively placing the UN office under siege.  No one disputes their right to demonstrate, but to besiege the UN office surely raises questions about collective cabinet responsibility, our international obligations and policy –making?  Can a cabinet minister and indeed one who is known to be so close to the president of the republic, mouth off, bluster and threaten in this way on an issue which the regime has placed such overwhelming importance and can the government stand by and say he is acting in his individual capacity?  Can a cabinet minister unilaterally engage in such egregious action with possibly grave policy implications? Is collective cabinet responsibility so far removed from all of this? Indeed if he was acting without the consent and/or support of the president, will any action be taken against him for encroaching on the turf of what surely should be that of the minister of external affairs and for bringing the country into disrepute by besieging the office of the United Nations?  He is reported to have said that he is prepared to lose his cabinet position if the powers that be disagree with his action.

Mr Moon’s panel, pilloried by the regime, is the object of Mr Weerawansa’s “patriotic” ire.  Is this populist politics way out of control answering to the needs of a regime pathologically in need of an enemy and hyper sensitive to the war crimes charge or is this an excess of righteous enthusiasm in defence of our sovereignty?

The regime has gone to great lengths in a) insisting that Mr Moon has exceeded his powers under the Charter in appointing this panel and b) in insisting that there is no need for one since no such alleged crimes were committed by the security forces and that in any event as per the joint communique issued by Mr Moon and the president, the regime has set up its own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).

On a) there appears to be difference of opinion.  Whilst a number of member countries of the NAM and Russia and China agree with the regime, others, mainly from the West do not and have urged the regime to call upon the expertise of the panel, seeing it as complementing the LLRC. The panel – incidentally headed by a former Indonesian attorney –general Darusman who the regime chose to appoint to the Independent International Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) attached to the Commission of Inquiry (COI) whose report nothing has been heard of since – is an advisory panel to the Secretary General.  It will make recommendations to him.  Any further action by the UN can only be pursuant to a Security Council resolution, which in turn will be vetoed by the Chinese and Russians, unless of course they are too embarrassed and/or appalled by the siege.

On b) were the panel to conclude that no war crimes were committed by members of the security forces the matter would effectively be laid to rest on the word of an international panel.  Likewise, were the panel to conclude that such crimes were committed by the LTTE, it would dispel the attempts to keep alive the “atrocities” of May 2009 as a means of galvanizing support for the secessionist cause.

In this context it should also be noted that the LLRC does not deal with accountability in respect of allegations of war crimes but rather into the causes of terrorism. It does not have investigative powers. Nor is it empowered by a victim and witness protection mechanism.  Neither does it meet the criteria enunciated by the US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice for such commissions, which were endorsed by the minister of external affairs.  Corresponding to the regime’s imputation of Darusman and other panel members’ bona fides is the point that the head of the LLRC was the former attorney general with whom the IIGEP had many problems.  There is also a committee that was appointed in response to the State Department report to the US Senate Appropriations Committee on allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka. Some LLRC members sit on this committee. This committee was to have reported in December last year. Its deadline was then extended to April 2010 and now to July 2010.  Note, the LLRC has a mandate for four months.

Most worrying is the state of our foreign policy.  Both the GSP+ issue and the Moon Panel have been badly mismanaged.  The regime has misled the public over GSP+ form the outset-making it out to be a negotiation when it was an agreement with stated obligations and eminently amenable to a win-win outcome whereby the concession would have been extended and human rights protection strengthened.  The regime insisted too that it was politically motivated and the subject of a conspiracy hatched by local traitors and the international community bent on avenging the military defeat of the LTTE.  Whilst the final letter from the European Commission could definitely have been better drafted – a point reportedly made by some of the member states- it is relevant to ask as to whether the 15 conditions laid down in it were in response to eventual entreaties from the regime as to what it needed to do to secure extension of the concession or as to whether it was an unacceptable and unilateral ultimatum from the Commission to a sovereign state – as the regime insists it is.

Mr Moon’s panel has been blown out of proportion as the thin edge of the wedge in respect of an international war crimes probe.  As a consequence, the regime has invited speculation of the “ she doth protest too much” variety and it will have to fight the panel tooth and nail and probably not much else.  Yet another zero-sum situation that could have been avoided.  The regime wants to present a picture of political stability, peace and reconciliation but cannot resist confrontation, bombast and turbulence.   Their brand of populist politics and pseudo-patriotism leads them to dig policy holes for themselves and destroys the goodwill this country has earned over the years as a respected member of the international community.

Foreign policy cannot be made on the street and God forbid that Weerawansa alone on a tiny stage, except for a motley crew of cohorts, fasting to death outside the UN building should be emblematic of Sri Lanka in the international community.

• A tragi-comedy? The UN Advisory Panel and war crimes in Sri Lanka
• The protest by Wimal Weerawansa against the UN in Sri Lanka: Condoned by government?
• Reconciliation without Truth in Sri Lanka?
• The Duplicitous Disclaimer: GOSL, the UN and Accountability
• Sri Lankan Minister continues farce

Many readers may have seen if not read about Defence Secretary Gothabhaya Rajapaksa’s interview with Stephen Sackur of the BBC HardTalk programme in which he calls Sarath Fonseka a liar and threatens to hang him for his position on a war crimes investigation. Local opinion, not surprisingly, given the current political context, has been divided on the propriety of Mr Rajapaksa’s outburst and the damage it could do to the image of the regime and of the country internationally.  There are the shocked and perturbed, albeit mostly in private, on the one hand and on the other, the hallelujah chorus of the apparatchiks. According to them, Mr Rajapaksa showed Sackur what’s what and saw off the smug arrogant, hostile Occidental propagandist with panache!

My concern here is to inquire into what this interview and the response to it tells us about the state of governance in our country, post –war and once more on the verge of constitutional reform.

Let us be clear at the outset as to what we are inquiring into – an interview given by a public servant in which he delivers threats and accusations against a former army commander and defeated presidential candidate who is currently in detention and who is – and this is important – a Member of Parliament.  The public servant is the defence secretary and an architect of the historic military defeat of the LTTE.  He is also a former army officer and of course, this is important too, the president’s brother.  Furthermore – this is important as well – the public servant’s minister is the president, his brother.

Were such an event to have occurred in India, the world’s largest democracy or in Britain from where our parliamentary traditions and conventions of governance hail, the public servant would have had to resign and if he did not, he would have been sacked.  Were the latter action not taken, the government of the day would be in jeopardy.  Public opinion and the media would bay for its blood.  The rationale for all of this being that in functioning democracies, public servants are not supposed to make policy pronouncements of their own, voice their personal opinions to the international or local media or make statements that are tantamount to the grossest interference in an issue, which is the subject of an ongoing judicial process.

Was Mr Rajapajsa merely expressing government policy, the policy of his brother, his minister and president? Or, since no action has been taken, is it the case that this a case, not of Yes Minister but of Yes Secretary?

It is indeed sad that Mr Fonseka apart, members of parliament have not seen it fit to raise what is surely a privilege issue.  A secretary to a ministry has in effect called a MP a liar and traitor on international television and pronounced that he should be hanged.  It is also sad that there has been little comment or observation of the insight this affords us on the state of governance in the land.  Is Gothabaya Rajapaksa a one man deterrent to discussion and dissent – the lifeblood of democracy?  Does one decisive military victory and two thumping electoral mandates to his brother and by extension his family, give him the licence to mouth off maliciously in flagrant violation of the dignity and propriety of the office he holds?

Given the impending revocation of the Seventeenth Amendment and the jettisoning of the Constitutional Council and independent commissions it provides for and the removal of the term limit on the presidency, the structure of power and government in the country will be shoved further away from the structure of power and government that characterizes democratic governance.  Those who railed against the executive presidency and promised loudly to abolish it are to entrench it instead and with it no doubt, the arbitrariness and caprice of a monarchy and dynastic rule.

The nature of the regime and its rule are profiled by the defence secretary’s vituperative interview, the priorities for constitutional reform in the current context of limbo between the post war situation we are in and the post-conflict one we should aspire to and the reported appointment of who is now frequently referred to as the First Son, 24 year old fresher MP Namal Rajapaksa to head the District Development Committee for Kilinochchi!  More Crown Prince perhaps than First Son, being given war ravaged Killi to dabble in development?  Is there a precedent here of Killinochchi becoming the local Duchy of Cornwall?

The gratitude and appreciation of the citizenry for the defeat of the LTTE and expressed in two thumping mandates for the Rajapaksa family should not blind the citizenry to the dangers of authoritarianism and the corrosion of governance.  Nor should we allow fear to silence protest and resistance to this and then wallow in regret for our complicity and appeasement at a later, god forbid, much later date.  Whoever rules, whoever governs and for how long is not the issue. There must always be, as a basic minimum, checks and balances, the rule of law, due process, best practices and standards adhered to, rights protected and duties fulfilled.

And public servants should be public servants, irrespective of who their siblings are.  Or else they should go and if they do not, they should be sacked.  This is surely the way of a functioning democracy.

[Editors note: An outrageously edited version of this article was published in the Daily Mirror on 23 June. Even post-war, the obsequiousness of mainstream media towards the Rajapaksa triumvirate in general, and the Defence Secretary in particular is a stark reminder of sustained self-censorship and a Fourth Estate - out of fear or seeking favour - unable and unwilling to bear witness to the systemic breakdown of democratic governance.

24 June: It turns out that yesterday's fiasco over the partial publication of this article in the Daily Mirror was down to gross editorial negligence. Bordering on the tragi-comic, that this article was published in an appallingly edited form was only known to senior editorial staff after Groundviews pointed it out. One wonders what the Daily Mirror would have done if we did not flag the issue, or what impression readers of the truncated article in online and print versions of the paper would have been left with, were it not published on this site. Thankfully, the article in full appears in the paper today. However, there is still no mention in yesterday's version published online that the article is an incomplete version, or a link provided to the full version that is published today. Inexcusably bad editorial policies exacerbate government censorship and control of media. If one must be the change one wants to see, mainstream media has a very long way to go.]

• The Offensive Defence Secretary Must GO!
• Interview with Austin Fernando, a Peacetime Secretary of Defence in Sri Lanka
• Defence Secretary: The epitome of bad governance
• Visualising key speeches and submissions of Sarath Fonseka
• Prabakaran’s Role in Tamil National Struggle: Interview with Shanthi Sachithanandan

The first anniversary of the end of the war approaches and we are into a celebratory heroes’ week.  Whilst the regime will not fail to remind us ad infinitum of the great service it did us in defeating the fascist and ferocious LTTE and continue to accrue political capital on account of it, there is no denying the widespread relief felt over the defeat of the LTTE and the end of the war.  There is no denying either, that this was achieved through military victory by the armed forces and accordingly, there will be gratitude and appreciation expressed to the armed forces and the political leadership for this and the celebration of victory, year in and year out.

It was a bloody, costly war.  Soldiers and civilians alike lost their lives, their limbs and livelihoods. Not every one gave them voluntarily for the unity or unitary status of the country or out of unbridled patriotism.  Many civilians had no choice and many of them who signed up to the forces may well have done so because of economic necessity.  Yet their sacrifice has played its part in the post-war situation we now find ourselves in.  Is the triumphal pomp and circumstance of the march past the fitting memorial to them too?  Is there not a crying need to pay tribute to their sacrifice, that of the civilians in particular, through acts of remembrance that do not require displays of military hardware and re-enactments of battle in this our blessed land of all the great religions of the world?  Will there be a call from on high for a minute’s silence and for the believers, at least, will religious leaders hold an inter-faith service of remembrance at Independence Square?

Perhaps, not.  Perhaps the regime believes that reconciliation and healing is to be pursued through economic development and the latest commission to be announced – that on Post- Conflict Study and Reconciliation.  The terms of reference of the Commission are yet to be announced –likewise the members. From what has been made public, it will also look at allegations of violations of international standards and will be comprised of eminent Sri Lankans at home and abroad.

Sadly, commissions and committees are a dime a dozen in Sri Lanka. Set up with much fanfare, they deliberate, recommend and report, only to be consigned to the dustbin of history or some locked drawer in the presidential secretariat.  Take the last commission on human rights entitled the Presidential Commission to Investigate and Inquire into Allegations of Serious Abuses of Human Rights, popularly known as the COI to which was the attached the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP).  The IIGEP left in frustration and despair, the COI soldiered on and reported to the President and was disbanded in 2009.  Apart from what could only have been selected leaks of its findings to the kept press, victims, witnesses and the citizens of this country are yet to be informed of its recommendations and conclusions.  Or take the All Party Representatives Committee, the APRC. It has reported. Apparently, end of story.

The international community bought the APRC and COI as evidence of the regime’s bona fides – in the first instance with regard to a political settlement of the ethnic conflict and in the second with regard to reversing the culture of impunity in respect of human rights violations.  The settlement is yet to be mooted and the constitutional reform reported to be imminent, is about the electoral process, removing the time bar on the presidential term and a second chamber. The latter may well have some tangential connection to the APRC deliberations, but as sure as night follows day, it is unlikely to be anything beyond a token gesture to power sharing at the centre.   As for the culture of impunity, it is very much in place. What of the brutal slaying of the Trincomalee Five and the ACF atrocity?  More recently, why is there no police action on the disappearance of journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda or on the alleged PSD assault of a journalist of this newspaper?

Given this record, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that this commission along with the Tissanayagam pardon at this point, and the lifting of certain emergency regulations whilst other draconian ones are reinforced to remain in place, amount to yet another attempt to placate the international community, especially those pompous hypocrites from the West and even across the Palk Straits, who harp on rights and governance and other such irrelevant drivel!  National sovereignty and the tenets of the “We did it our way” and “Go to hell” foreign policy aside, salvaging GSP+ and not through litigation as well as staving off Mr Moon’s Panel of Experts, have everything to do with this ostensibly human rights friendly, change of face and heart, by the regime.

Whatever the reason, these developments are to be welcomed if they are serious and sincere.  Human Rights Watch has referred to the regime’s game of smoke and mirrors to describe its penchant for procrastination amounting to prevarication on this score.  Will the regime pull out of its hat, a “home –grown”- much beloved adjective of regime- speak – plucky, sturdy rabbit of a refutation of this charge?  There is some hope and one hopes it lies with the eminent Sri Lankans who will be appointed to the commission and on whose eminence and credibility, the credibility of the commission itself, in large part rests.

Is it too much to ask of them to refuse to serve unless the findings of the COI, for one, are made public and demonstrable action taken to reverse the culture of impunity in respect of, at least, the cases that came before that commission?

This may well be seen as an act of defiance. Yet on this first anniversary of the end of the war and with the post-conflict challenge of peace, reconciliation and unity still ahead of us, this may be all that the ordinary victims and witnesses of human rights abuse have – the courage of the eminent -in the absence of official acknowledgement and effective action in respect of their pain and suffering.  What remains is to look beyond our shores for relief, truth and justice and risk the charge of undermining national sovereignty – a crime the Defence Secretary is on record as saying, deserves capital punishment.

• Human Rights and a Political Settlement: Regime Defences Wearing Thin
• Going for the Kill in More Ways than One
• The latest Commission of Inquiry in Sri Lanka: Another Exercise in Deception
• A Continuation of War by Other Means?
• Coming Back Home to a Truth more Dangerous than Fiction

Writing about Chanaka is not easy for me.  We were each other’s oldest friends – a continuous friendship, unbroken by political differences, of almost four decades.   Our friendship spanned St Thomas’ Prep to College to university – he at Oxford and I at the LSE, which he too later joined to do his doctorate – to Liberal International conferences in Europe and North America, countless evenings that melted into morning at his flat, at mine, at the Oxford and Cambridge Club, numerous restaurants and at home. We talked, he mostly, about politics in Sri Lanka and elsewhere, philosophy, literature, films, theatre, classical music and rank gossip and yes, too many excellent and some indifferent dinners, bottles of claret, port, cognac and champagne, hunks of cheese and kilos of chocolate were consumed with as much discrimination as to their quality and particular properties as undiscriminating relish in respect of their sheer, sensory pleasure.

I have yet to meet someone who could get so thoroughly involved in an idea as well as in a person and talk about that subject endlessly, literally endlessly and knowledgeably when it came to ideas.  In this respect he had boundless energy.  One interesting and particularly pertinent aspect as it later turned out, was that whilst he was certain and confident about ideas he was more curious than confident about judging character and people.  Especially endearing personal qualities of Chanaka were his generosity and his love of being teased – which he was endlessly by all of us who were his friends.  He adored the attention and lapped up the affection.

It is difficult to disentangle the personal from the political, the Chanaka I knew as my oldest friend and the Chanaka I knew as the aspiring politician.  Entangled too within all of this is Chanaka the liberal in thought and deed.   I parted company with the Liberal Party because I was convinced that his desire to get into Parliament through the National List of the Premadasa UNP was a negation of the liberal idea and too sordid an entry of the Liberal Party into the national legislature.   We would not have agreed about an alliance with the SLMC either.  As time went by the Chanaka who had left the Jayawardene UNP over the referendum was willing to enter into Faustian bargains with whoever was willing to put him on the National List.  This was sad – he always said to me that he needed to get into Parliament to raise the profile of the Liberal Party; I always responded that the end did not justify the means and that if this were the case the party should be disbanded and turned into his campaign organization.  The question of him ever standing for election never arose.

He believed that he was grappling with the moral dilemmas of practical politics as framed by his ideas and popular appeal or lack thereof, and that I was being too idealistic.  We never resolved this.  After I resigned and he cheated out of his Nationalist List seat by a trusted lieutenant, our conversations ceased to be about the political.  That betrayal broke him in many ways and in that period his passion focused elsewhere.

Chanaka was as much a Tory as he was a Whig and right up to the end.  He defined himself very much in terms of British politics, the Westminster tradition of parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy.  A monarchist through and through, and at the same time, a passionate individualist, he deeply abhorred totalitarianism of any form but was perfectly willing to forgive and even condone the excesses of a Haile Selassie or the Shah of Iran at the same time as he would be scathing in his denunciation of a Stalin, Mao, Castro or Pol Pot.  His near religious commitment to individual liberty led him to champion the virtues of the Premadasa regime, the Thatcher government and the Reagan administration.  He loathed the LTTE, JVP and the soviets; had nothing but contempt for the Labour Party of Foot, Benn and Kinnock.  A great proponent of proportional representation, he veered towards the Social Democrats in British politics, largely I suspect because they had left the Labour Party and because of his great admiration and respect for Roy Jenkins.

In the Sri Lankan context, the politician he truly admired was Dudley Senanayake and the one he was fondest of was Anura Bandaranaike.  They were in his book, true democrats, unfettered by unfettered ambition or greed for power, gentleman who would reform the status quo if it needed to be reformed.   They like he, knew of a world outside of this island and they like he, would never be given to a shrieking nationalism.  They did not have to.  They were born to rule, but never harshly.

In the Sri Lankan context Chanaka was a staunch federalist and determined opponent of the executive presidency.  He wanted to see the German electoral system adopted here and a second chamber.  He was ambivalent on the North-East merger and convinced that the LTTE had to be defeated.  Implicit faith in the Rule of Law and constitutionalism, he wanted a strong bill of rights, although the practical defence of human rights and association with the vulnerable and victimized did not come naturally to him or arouse great passion within him.  His consuming interest was in the architecture of a liberal democracy; not in the citizen.  As for the economy, it was a subject that he was least interested in except for absolute devotion to capitalism.

It is tempting to think as to where he would have stood in these times of the chinthanaya, allegations of war crimes, the culture of impunity, majoritarianism and amidst all of this new opportunities and political firmament.  For my part, when I think of Chanaka and the liberal idea he so loved, the words from Tennyson’s Ulysees that I quoted at his funeral always come to mind:

We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are,
we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

###

The 19th of April was the 52nd birthday of Dr. Chanaka Amaratunga, the founder of the Liberal Party of Sri Lanka. Groundviews invited leading political commentators to contribute to a special edition commemorating Chanaka’s role in politics and the liberal movement in Sri Lanka.

Other essays in this series include:

• TWO CONCEPTS OF THE CONSTITUTION: AN ESSAY IN MEMORY OF CHANAKA AMARATUNGA by Publius
• IN MEMORIAM DR. CHANAKA AMARATUNGA by Tissa Jayatilaka, Executive Director, United States-Sri Lanka Fulbright Commission
• A Liberal Dilemma by Dr. Devanesan Nesiah
• THE TRAGIC TRAJECTORY OF CHANAKA’S LIBERAL PROJECT by Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

• The legacy of Chanaka Amaratunga and the future of liberalism in Sri Lanka
• In conversation with Tissa Jayatilaka
• IN MEMORIAM DR. CHANAKA AMARATUNGA
• THE TRAGIC TRAJECTORY OF CHANAKA’S LIBERAL PROJECT
• TWO CONCEPTS OF THE CONSTITUTION: AN ESSAY IN MEMORY OF CHANAKA AMARATUNGA

Ekneligoda’s disappearance is yet another statistic of shame in the long list of disappearances, abductions and extra-judicial killings that have targeted the media in particular over the last four years.  His disappearance, it should be noted, took place in the course of a presidential election campaign the first post –war island-wide electoral contest in this country for two decades.  The war – the one that it between the GOSL and the LTTE is over and cannot be cited as it has been in the past and continues to be cited, shamelessly and unthinkingly by some as an alibi, justification or explanation for human rights violations.  There appears to be another war, a persisting, menacing violence that perpetuates human rights abuses with impunity.

Should the Ekneligoda disappearance be treated as a clear sign along with others of a sure and steady slide into authoritarianism?

The arrest of Fonseka – no paragon of virtue for sure, its motivation and manner, indicates that either fear and paranoia or seething revenge have replaced respect for the rule of law and the norms and procedures of democratic governance.  The charges to be framed against him notwithstanding, Fonseka’s fate, probably hinges on what he has, might or will reveal on the issue of war crimes.  Whilst the debate may rage about whether justice is being done and seen to be done, assurance will be made doubly sure to deny him any opportunity to make such allegations again or elaborate on those he has made already.

Add to the Fonseka arrest and impending court martial the attempt to seal the Lanka newspaper, the arrest and subsequent release of its editor Chandana Sirimalwatte, the allegations of moves afoot to block access to certain websites and the suspension of the Tissamaharama Pradeshiya Sabha.

Most alarming in this series of events must surely be the convening and subsequent postponement of the meeting of the Sangha Council to discuss the state of governance in the land. That such an event was to take place was in itself an unprecedented and historic move by the clergy who have been conspicuous by their silence over the treatment of IDPs and the state of human rights in general.  That the momentous event was postponed on the grounds of the security of the monks and of the Tooth Relic is nothing short of shocking.   Whose responsibility is it to provide security?  How come if security could have been provided for the Independence Day celebrations in Kandy, it was not forthcoming for the Sangha Convention?  We are in a post-war situation after all. According to our constitution Buddhism has the foremost place and there is a cabinet ministry to deal with these affairs.  Is the state admitting, conceding that it cannot provide security to the venerable monks?  Who would dare threaten them and even begin to hope that they could get away with it?

The answer is the regime itself as reported by some of the monks involved in convening the Council. It has been reported that monks supportive of the regime were dispatched to warn that if the Council went ahead the Sangha would be further divided and that bombs could even be exploded in the vicinity of the Temple of the Tooth!  A clear triumph of unfettered secular thuggery!

What is the regime after? – the steam rolling of all dissent and criticism? And what use will the two third’s majority sought be put to?  Do we not have a right to know and what better occasion than the general election?

There is the danger as some have warned of further unrest, even violent unrest outside of the north and east if the regime persists with these tactics.  It is time it took comfort and security from its electoral majorities and got on with the task of seizing upon the opportunity provided by its defeat of the LTTE to move the country from a post –war to a post conflict situation in which the challenges of peace, reconciliation and unity are addressed in earnest.  This is essential for good governance and economic take off.

The 18^th of February was the 20^th anniversary of the murder of Richard de Zoysa.   There was a theatrical tribute to mark the event comprising entirely of the work of Nobel Prize winning playwright, essayist and political activist Harold Pinter.  This columnist took part in the proceedings as the Minister of Culture in Pinter’s short 2002 sketch entitled The Press Conference. At the press conference, the Minister has this to say:

Let me make myself clear. We need critical dissent because it keeps us on our toes.  We do not want to see it in the marketplace or on the avenues and piazzas of our great cities. We do not want to see it in the houses of our great institutions. We are happy for it to be kept at home so that we can drop in at any time, read what is under the bed, discuss it with the writer, pat him on the head, shake him by his hand and perhaps give him a minor kick up the arse or in the balls and set fire to the whole shebang.  By this method we keep our society free of infection.  There is always, however, room for confession, retraction and redemption.

Have we come or are we coming to this?

The Bar Association election was a glimmer of hope.  Not every professional association and civil society body will succumb to the dispensation of the day.  The general election offers all of us an opportunity to play our part in ensuring that the bases for good governance and economic take off are firmly laid within a solid democratic framework of effective checks and balances on the exercise of executive power.  It must not be yet another exercise of going back to the future.

• General Fonseka and the interview
• The transformation of Buddhism in Sri Lanka
• THE DEEPEST DIVISION IN SRI LANKA
• Presidential hopefuls and escape-routes for the ‘hopeless’
• ‘Sarath Fonseka’: the Grand Plaything of Sri Lanka’s Politicians

Contests in themselves are good.  Elections being the principal mechanism for choice and change in a functioning democracy, the lack of a contest could breed a lack of interest in elections on the part of the electorate, which in turn is not healthy for participatory and representative democracy.  The Fonseka candidacy ensures that the Rajapaksa dynasty is not assured.  They will have to fight and fight they will, to turn appreciation and gratitude for the defeat of the LTTE under their watch into a mandate for government into the next decade.  Yet, challenging the Rajapaksas or indeed defeating them is not a guarantee for a functioning democracy in Sri Lanka, anymore than defeating the LTTE in the way in which it was done is a guarantee for lasting democratic peace, reconciliation and national unity.

The Fonseka candidacy on the face of it is in the nature of the curate’s egg – some part good in ensuring a contest and other parts bad given the stink the general brings with him on human rights protection and the essential pluralism of the peoples he wants to be president of.   Moreover, what is the Sri Lanka that can be expected to emerge and evolve out of this contest, which some may characterize as one between war heroes and others as a pan Sinhala majoritarian fight fuelled by personal animosity between two individuals who should be held accountable for military excesses at least, war crimes at worst?  As it stands it is not unreasonable to assume that the minority communities in the country and what remains of liberal opinion are left effectively stranded by this choice before them – between the devil and the deep blue sea or between the frying pan and the fire are some of the remarks that this choice has elicited from these constituencies.  Oscar Wilde’s remarks about fox hunting – the unspeakable going after the uneatable – have also been used to describe this contest.

There is of course the possibility already identified by some, that both candidates will have to court the minorities and liberals to win the election – a pan Sinhala nationalist fight within the pan Sinhala nationalist community being insufficient to produce a clear winner.  Already, there is ostensible relief for the IDPs – screening and demining notwithstanding – and the general in some public pronouncements is sounding like a determined and enthusiastic aspirant for a human rights award!   Yet the ethnic conflict and bad governance in this country were not produced by promises made and kept, but by broken promises and the widening gap between promise, performance and delivery.  The minorities and liberals will be voting if they do, in an act of desperation, with hope trumping experience.  Can either candidate be reincarnated into being the president of all Sri Lankans?

There are those who have steadfastly maintained that Mahinda  Rajapaksa in a second term would be the model of national unity and reconciliation and the architect of a new and truly plural Sri Lanka in terms of constitutional design and political culture.   Pragmatist that he is, he will forge a new coalition of forces to embrace and institutionalize unity in diversity.  To this is now added the argument that he is the only bulwark against the militarization of our politics.  This is yet another leap of faith and trumping of hope over experience.  One need only look at the north and east, to identify the number of appointments in civilian governance that have gone to ex-military personnel.  And as for embracing unity in diversity, need one look beyond the protracted farce of the APRC, the absence of proposals from the regime for a political settlement and the cunning focus of debate in this respect on the Thirteenth Amendment, thereby making Thirteenth Amendment Minus a higher probability than Plus?

And General Fonseka?  The immediate political arguments for his candidacy are that it will stop the Rajapaksas in their dynastic tracks and deliver political reform as per the agenda set out by the opposition.  Fonseka is to stand as the common candidate of the opposition because they cannot field anyone from within their ranks with a ghost of a chance of defeating Rajapaksa and once elected to the executive presidency, Fonseka is to abolish that office and turn over government to the opposition, staying on however as minister of defence!  Truth is stranger than fiction and even more the case in politics.  Will the general agree to this?  Would you?

The story about two resignation letters suggests that he has every intention of being his own man and not one subject to the conditions and priorities of the joint opposition.  In any event, were he to be elected the executive president, the opposition will have no hold over him.  It is surely highly unlikely that General Fonseka will agree to be the presidential candidate who in effect will be campaigning to make Mr Wickremasinghe the Prime Minister and chief executive of the country?  Even if he agrees to do so, will the electorate accept this candidacy by proxy?

In either event – on his own or on behalf of – General Fonseka, like the incumbent owes the country honest and clear explanations on the culture of impunity in respect of human rights violations and the allegations of actions that could be tantamount to war crimes.  General Fonseka in particular, needs to, if he sincerely thinks it warranted, explain his remarks to the Canadian National Post and in his Ambalangoda speech, which is cited in the US State Department Report to the US Senate Appropriations Committee.   We must know what is on offer; we must know what we are getting or indeed getting into.  And we must know the real difference between the two candidates.

Is there any difference between them on a vision for a future Sri Lanka, on governance, the economy, the 13^th and 17^th Amendments, corruption, media freedom and human rights?

It looks like the choice is increasingly going to be between the incumbent and the general.  Bar some unforeseen, fortuitous and pleasant surprises, what if anything recommends this contest is the contest itself.  As such, it is important that we the peoples of this country ensure that there is a debate about the future of the country and that the result we deliver will facilitate a continuing dialogue on this most crucial of subjects beyond the contest.

However daunting the task may be, there are especially compelling arguments for effective checks and balances on the exercise of executive power in the event of either of these candidates winning the presidency.

• Presidential hopefuls and escape-routes for the ‘hopeless’
• Visualising key speeches and submissions of Sarath Fonseka
• Sarath Fonseka and the Role of the Opposition: Will Sanity Prevail?
• Believable Change or Promises Delivered? Sarath Fonseka vs. Mahinda Rajapaksa
• In defense of the JVP campaign to support Sarath Fonseka

All elections are important and these will be no exception. It is worth reminding that we are still in a post-war situation and far from the post-conflict one we ought to be in. What this requires is the prioritization of peace, reconciliation and unity and the firm commitment to ensure that the causes of ethnic conflict are not reproduced and sustained.  This means at least the rights of the IDPs as the litmus test for all else, a political settlement of the conflict and a reversal of the culture of impunity in respect of human rights along with facing up to the questions of whether there can be unity without reconciliation and reconciliation without accountability.  This is not all.  There are serious questions to be considered on the economic front with regard to employment and indebtedness – the real consequences of the fate of GSP Plus and the IMF loan – and most importantly in light of recent demonstrations, the ability of the system of education to meet the requirements of the economy.  And given Angulana, what happened to Nipuna Ratnayake and the Bambalapitiya drowning, the overarching issues of the Rule of Law, the supremacy of Constitution and the intentional violation of the Seventeenth Amendment.

Constitutional reform, at least in terms of the abolition or reform of the executive presidency will be on the agenda, as a consequence not so much of the requirements of governance but the emerging imperatives of regime survival and stability.  There is the danger that on this score, what is in store is the abolition of the form and title of the executive presidency with the transfer of its substantive powers to an “executive prime minister”.   The electoral system too, could be up for debate with the virtues of the ‘first-past –the post’ system and constituency MPs being eulogized to discredit proportional representation.

There is a crying need for a national debate on the future of the country and the issues on which the next presidential and general elections are to be fought.  The challenges ahead are far too serious to treat these elections merely as opportunities to register electoral approval, appreciation, admiration and gratitude for the defeat of the LTTE.  There has to be a tomorrow and a time when the war is truly behind us.  We need a plan to move towards that time and in order to design one, as many of us as willing and able must be part of that process.  An agenda for change and reform is critically needed and it will not come from the politicians who are trapped in fighting yesterday’s battles.

The island wide debate, discussion or conversation on change and reform is a vital and integral part of this.  Where however, through or on what medium or channel or site can it be conducted?

The obvious answer is the mainstream print and electronic media.  For a variety of reasons, very real and crucial constraints ranging from official displeasure, threat and sanction to self censorship, ideological disposition, market demands and problems of professionalism, the robust exchange of ideas called for will not happen here and not beyond the efforts of a persistent few, as required.  Moreover, since it is an exchange of ideas – a discussion, debate or conversation- that is called for, many voices need to he heard.  This is not about letters to the editor, about comment and observation alone but about participation and engagement with passion and conviction about the Sri Lanka of the future, we desire and deserve.

Citizens’ journalism and given its record as a forum for quality debate, Groundviews is ideally positioned to make a major contribution to this exercise in national rejuvenation and renaissance.  Is it not possible in the lead up to the elections that citizens use Groundviews to canvass their ideas for constitutional reform, governance, human rights and the economy and whatever else they see as constituting essential elements of an agenda for change and reform? The exchange could, but need not be time bound. As in the nature of a conversation it should be ongoing and active.

This would be a convincing demonstration of the strength and value of citizens’ journalism and its substantial utility in empowerment for peace, governance and human rights – An enabling facility for a functioning democracy.

• Abolition or reform of Executive Presidency in Sri Lanka?
• In conversation with Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu
• In conversation with Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu
• 1,000 posts on Groundviews: Bearing witness, shaping peace
• Strange proposals and broken promises: Constitutional reform in Sri Lanka

According to the statement released by Lutz Gullner, the spokesperson of the European Commission:

The Commission has completed a thorough investigation into the human rights situation in Sri Lanka and in particular whether Sri Lanka is living up to the commitments it made to respect international human rights standards when it became a beneficiary of the European Union’s GSP+ trade incentive scheme which provides for additional trade benefits.

The report comes to the conclusion that there are significant shortcomings in this area and the Sri Lanka is in breach of its GSP commitments.

The crucial significance of the concession has been underscored on numerous occasions by politicians, officials, diplomats and the media. Whilst some have on record downplayed the consequences of losing the concession – most recently the Central Bank is reported to have opined that “…..a potential withdrawal of the GSP plus facility is not expected to have an adverse impact on Sri Lanka’s exports”- the consensus of opinion and conventional wisdom is that it is of pivotal importance in terms of exports and employment.  What then needs to be done to ensure that the concession is retained?

Understandably, given the potential consequences of losing the concession and the euphoria over winning the war, there is a lot of emotion and heat and even anger and disappointment ventilated publicly over the issue.  Some have alleged that the EU intends to punish the GOSL for its conduct of the war; others even suggest that the EU intends to use the concession as a weapon to punish the GOSL for its victory in the war.  Wild accusations have abounded in the context of the patriot/traitor definition of public discourse about sovereignty, imperialism and colonialism.  Given the generation, wittingly or otherwise, of more heat than light on the issue and the crucial importance of ensuring that the concession is retained, it is prudent to remind that the terms of the concession including the possibility of an “investigation” were known and voluntarily entered into by the GOSL.  The issue of sovereignty should have been dealt with at the outset.  Failure to done so may well be attributable to a number of reasons, but we signed and these conditions were in place at the time when we signed.

Thereafter, the arguments of a similar nature were employed in respect of the investigation. The GOSL took the position that it would not cooperate with what was effectively termed an affront to national sovereignty and pride.  Notwithstanding this robust, macho position which no doubt must have made all patriots deliriously happy, the GOSL is now in a position of having to respond to the contents of the report to salvage the concession.  Matters, did not have to come to this sorry pass.

The  investigation was launched into the implementation of human rights conventions and the conventions identified in the Sri Lankan case were the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). In the “Report on the findings of the investigation with respect to the effective implementation of certain human rights conventions in Sri Lanka” released by the European Commission together with the Final Report of the investigation, under the subheading “scope and objectives of the investigation”, it is clearly stated that:

Human rights obligations only bind the State and its agents. The State is required to protect individuals within its jurisdiction from violations, including violations at the hands of third parties such as forces over which it exercises or could exercise effective or actual control. The State is under an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights obligations and to implement those obligations. Implementation includes legislative enactment. It also includes administrative policies and measures to give effect to the commitments. The State is required not only positively to deliver the rights but also to put in place measures to guard against the risk of abuse. This includes, but is not limited to, an effective system of investigation in the event of alleged violations. Only in such a case can implementation be called effective. (Emphasis added).

It goes on to say that whilst the human rights violations of the LTTE and groups not under government control are not dealt with:

The focus on the government’s actions must not be understood as disregarding or minimizing in any way the significance of human rights violations committed by the LTTE or any other group outside government control.

……..the State may also be held responsible or accountable for any other forces over which they exercise or could exercise effective or actual control. Accordingly the acts of the forces under “Colonel” Karuna ( the “Karuna group”), who defected to the government side in 2004, are in general attributable to the State from the start of the period under investigation.  This also applies to other armed groups operating in government controlled areas.

To return to the question of what needs to be done to retain the concession, it is clear that this deals directly with the human rights situation in Sri Lanka and that appeals on compassionate grounds alone may just not work, national hopes and prayers, notwithstanding. The EU spokesperson has been quoted as saying that the Commission, in respect of Sri Lanka’s human rights situation, will be looking for improvement that was:

…sufficiently serious, rapid and verifiable.

What will the regime do? What can it and what should it?  The responsibility for the retention of the concession has always been the responsibility of the regime.

The situation of the IDPs springs to mind immediately.  They are citizens of Sri Lanka who are being deprived of their fundamental rights. They are not being held under any law of the land and in violation of international human rights norms and standards.  Colonel Karuna, non-cabinet minister and vice president of the leading party of the regime and whose actions are also dealt with in the EU report, has been quoted as saying that the IDPs have been screened.  Does this mean they can exercise their right to freedom of movement?  Perhaps they could go and GSP Plus should stay.

And what of the Seventeenth Amendment? Can the constitution be implemented?

GSP Plus is too serious an issue for silence and no public debate on what needs to be done to retain it.   In place of shrill invective there need to be constructive suggestions by the armies of opinion makers and leaders and mature debate over them in respect of what the regime needs to do to retain it. It cannot be allowed to be botched further and it is our business.

• Focus on Human Rights
• Making Foreign Policy on the Street
• Human Rights and a Political Settlement: Regime Defences Wearing Thin
• Taking note of the Lisbon Treaty
• Going for the Kill in More Ways than One

This is not the first time this information has been reported in the media.  Since the source of this information is a senior Police officer, we can assume that the information is reliable and accurate.  Given the detention of over 250,000 IDPs in Menik Farm and many more in other camps on the grounds of their security and safety, this is indeed shocking.  Tens of thousands, most of who are believed to be LTTE cadres escape whilst ten times as many remain confined in camps to be screened for LTTE membership and sympathies!  Is this a case of locking the stable door once the horse has bolted?  How could this have happened?  Who is involved?  Security forces? Para-militaries? Surely not?  The former are supposed to be outside the camps and beyond reproach; the latter are supposed to be nowhere near the camps, leave aside inside them.

It is information such as this, which truly informs the average citizen about what is really happening in respect of the most important and pressing issues facing the country – the situation of the IDPs and national security.  Hopefully, as would be the case in a vibrant functioning democracy, this would lead to greater public awareness and debate about the situation of the IDPs and the need to address it as the urgent national priority it is as well as the state of national security.  Furthermore, since the question of accountability is much in the news these days, accountability for what is clearly an egregious security lapse must surely follow.  The prospect of thousands of LTTE cadre at large is indeed a horrific prospect in the aftermath of a decisive military victory and a country on the cusp of a post-conflict phase of peace and reconciliation and unity.

What is also revealing is that the bulk of the nearly 20,000 who have escaped from IDP centres are “believed” to be LTTE cadres.  That this could be the case after the decisive military defeat of the LTTE is quite frankly mind boggling, particularly since the figures put out by the defence hierarchy of LTTE cadre strength over the years and in the course of the war, did not lead one to believe that it ran into anywhere near tens of thousands.  Be that as it may, no doubt the regime with its proven expertise in security matters and heightened security consciousness will get to the bottom of what appears to be an uncharacteristically egregious lapse on its watch.

In the meantime, the fate of the over two hundred thousand IDPs detained in camps remains to be decided.

The statement of the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative on the Human Rights of the IDPs Walter Kaelin is instructive in this context and worth quoting at length.  Walter Kaelin recently concluded a visit to Sri Lanka, soon after that of the UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Lyn Pascoe.  Kaelin in a press release of 29 September states that he is:

…..impressed by the Government’s massive demining and reconstruction efforts that I witnessed in the Mannar rice bowl.

He goes on to say:

The IDPs should be allowed to leave these camps in Northern Sri Lanka with their difficult and risky living conditions. The IDPs should be allowed to leave these camps and return voluntarily and in freedom, safety and dignity to their homes. If this is not possible in the near future, the displaced shuld be allowed to stay with host families or in open transit sites.

He notes that the camps were not set up to deal with heavy rains and the approaching monsoon and “whilst appreciating that his interlocutors in the Government shared these goals, called upon the Government to translate its commitments into action without further delay”.

According to Walter Kaelin:

Restoration of the freedom of movement is important to gain the confidence of the Tamil community and enable the building of a sustainable peace. ….  In this context an incident reported by the Sri Lankan Army on 26 September involving the use of firearms to control a group of internally displaced persons trying to move from camp zone to another that resulted in injuries to two persons raises serious human rights issues.  It also underscores how interning people in large overcrowded camps not built for prolonged stays is in itself a factor detrimental to security.

On internment he points out that:

According to international law, legitimate and imperative security concerns may justify the internment of civilians during the height of a conflict, but it must not last longer than absolutely necessary to respond to these security concerns. Internment decisions must further be made on an individual rather than a group basis. Those who are not released must be informed about the reasons on an individual basis and be given a genuine opportunity to have the decision reviewed by an independent body.

Whilst noting that there have been vast improvements in the security situation, Kaelin emphasized that:

…immediate and substantial progress in restoring freedom of movement for the displaced is imperative if Sri Lanka is to respect the rights of its citizens and comply with its commitments and obligations under international law.

In the press release, Walter Kaelin makes a number of suggestions including improvements in the screening process in the direction of greater transparency and against  “renewed confinement and screening in districts of return”.  Furthermore he suggests parallel options of return to homes, to host families and open relief centres in transit areas.  He also points out the importance of information regarding the modalities of return, relatives and family members as well as the access of humanitarian actors to information. Kaelin also draws attention to the Muslim IDPs who have been displaced for over two decades and calls for their inclusion in reconstruction programmes.

We are now at the beginning of October and the monsoon approaches, thousands have escaped, ten times that are still in detention, some have been shot at, others relocated and there has been a foretaste of what the rains will do.  And peace, reconciliation and unity awaits.

• An “unpatriotic” appeal for a UN mechanism to protect civilians
• Doing the Right Thing: Freedom for Vanni IDPs
• Unending End Game
• Situation in Vakarai
• Forgotten IDPs from the North

A English language broadsheet during the week quoted the Minister of Transport and leading light of the current regime as saying this and in doing so making a link between the Channel 4 video and the fate of the GSP Plus extension.  Whilst the regime’s argument is that the sole purpose of this purported conspiracy is to destabilize and replace it, the question does arise as to whether the airing of such allegations in the first instance without substantiation with hard facts, is not destabilizing in itself?  Is there a conspiracy abroad as alleged or, is there a most disturbing paranoia and over-exaggeration of threats to national security at the heart of the regime?  Are we in a post-war situation heading steadily towards a post conflict one, as we should, or are we in a situation of a continuation of war by other means?

It is clear that the central issue here is human rights and the record of the regime on this score.  This is what GSP Plus revolves around. Likewise, the Chanel 4 video. Human rights is at the very core of the plight of the IDPs – the unquestionably central and urgent issue impacting on our future and the litmus test for peace, reconciliation and unity.  Demonstrable progress on this issue is surely possible and to no one’s detriment?  On the contrary, it is centrally and self –evidently in the national interest.

Argument and assurance are surely insufficient without action embodying sincerity of purpose and commitment.   Were it to be the case that the regime is feeling the “heat” internationally on account of GSP Plus, the Pasocoe visit, the Tissanayagam verdict and the impending war crimes report to the US Senate, is it not both prudent and politic to address the overarching issue of human rights accountability and the culture of impunity in a mature and sensible fashion aimed at strengthening protection and accountability?

Is this the real problem?  An unwillingness and/or inability to deal with the human rights challenge.  Conspiracy theories, denunciations and allegations cannot be a substitute for sincere and concerted action.  A rights based approach on the IDP issue in particular is long overdue.  As this columnist amongst others has argued many times, freedom of movement of the IDPs is of paramount importance.  The regime has announced its willingness to allow relatives to take in IDPs in the event the latter are willing to go to host families.  This has yet to be expedited.  There are reports that IDPs have been let out of the Menik Farm complex only to be relocated in other “transit” camps.  It would seem that the onset of the monsoon and international concern is being translated into a prioritization of decongestion of the Menik Farm complex as opposed to the prioritization of the freedom of movement of citizens of this country who happen in this instance to be Tamil – monsoon or no monsoon, international concern or silence.

There is yet another serious concern.  Is every criticism of the regime, even of the mildest variety, every alternative perspective on public affairs and national priorities to be treated as products of a conspiracy for regime destabilization and change?  I have written about the politics of hate and hurt and harm and of fear and insecurity.  It appears to be still with us; firmly entrenched and corroding our prospects for democratic governance.  This is the time for a vigorous and robust national debate and discussion on how to move forward.  This is the time to be the functioning democracy we claim to be.

The widespread expectation is of presidential and parliamentary elections in the course of the next six months.  Were this to be the case, these elections will come at a crucial juncture in our history at which the opportunity presented for peace, reconciliation and national unity is tremendous.  The mandate of the people at these elections will in addition to registering their appreciation of the military defeat of the LTTE also be one for rejuvenating the potential of this country for peace and prosperity.  The current trend of conspiracy and insecurity will not merely obscure this promise but effectively obliterate it in a frenzy of recrimination, allegation and abuse.  Is the country going to have to choose on the basis of conspiracy theories, allegations and counter – allegations?

We cannot keep going back to the future.  The war ended. The LTTE was defeated.  If it must be the case, that war alone sustains and underpins our current governance, can it be waged against the culture of impunity in respect of human rights violations?  And can the weapons be the Rule of Law and international human rights standards.

• Human rights: Hackneyed or heightened in post-war Sri Lanka?
• IDPs: Detainees and Escapees
• Monsoons: Another western conspiracy against Sri Lanka?
• The shame of Menik Farm
• First images: The flooding in Menik Camp and the increasingly dire situation for IDPs

The results of the elections to the Jaffna Municipality and Vavuniya Urban Council are an instructive measure of the distance to be traveled for peace, reconciliation and national unity. In both cases voter turn out was relatively low, though in the case of the Jaffna Municipality not as low as some commentators have made out. This is because the turn out figure has been calculated on the voter registry of some 104,000 electors, when in actual some 41,000 polling cards could not be distributed on account of the absence of voters from the municipality. They have either come south, joined the diaspora or are languishing in camps unaware of the procedures required for the exercise of their franchise or just not interested in doing so. Consequently, the turn out figure of 20% should be doubled and will effectively stand at something like 40% – some 7% lower than in the 2004 election during the ceasefire period when the LTTE got proactively involved in any number of bad practices to manufacture an electoral result to its liking.

Either way, what is interesting is that in both cases many people who could vote did not, and this in turn was not because they did not possess the relevant voter identification documents, but because they were not interested in doing so. They were interested it appears, in making a point by not doing so. The point they wished to make by staying away from the polling booth was about the inappropriateness of these elections at this time when numerous relations and friends are being detained in camps. They also wanted to register their disdain for elections that had little or nothing to do with their priorities.

This begs the question of what the regime hoped to achieve by calling elections to these local bodies at this point in time. Was it to demonstrate to the international community that a political process was in train in the north and that no time was being lost in mainstreaming democracy there? Was it also aimed at ascertaining opinion in the north in the confident hope that the people there would express their gratitude to the regime for liberating them from the cruel and stultifying yoke of the LTTE? The results confirm that regime expectations along these lines have not been fulfilled. They also indicate that the Tamil nationalist project is alive and that it probably does not look to the Thirteenth Amendment for life support or salvation. No ringing endorsement of the EPDP and/or UPFA. And despite the spin of many a commentator, Mr Devananda is a savvy enough politician to know this. Not surprisingly he is reported to be very disappointed.

Over half the people who were able to vote did not. Of those who did in Jaffna for example, the EPDP/UPFA polled just over 2,000 more votes than the TNA. A significant number of EPDP/UPFA votes were from the Muslim community. As some commentators have pointed out, the combined TNA/TULF vote amongst the Tamil community probably exceeds that of the EPDP/UPFA. Moreover, the vast majority of the Tamils who were able to vote were from the fishing community – a community the regime has cultivated and one whose substantial support it expected on account of its easing the restrictions imposed on fishing. Remedias, a human rights lawyer and TNA mayoral candidate secured the highest number of preferences overall. The EPDP/UPFA candidate could not secure enough preferences to get elected. The much hyped release of some 3,000 IDPs does not seem to have provided the electoral bounce, this blatantly opportunistic act was surely intended to achieve.

Mr Devananda’s disappointment may well be compounded by the growing realization of a very real political dilemma that has been in the making for some time. He may well be wondering if he would have done better had he run on his own symbol and not given in to regime pressure to run on theirs. After all his political profile is characrterized by his unrelenting resistance of the LTTE and unwavering fidelity to the Thirteenth Amendment? Will it now have to be characterized by helplessness in the face of regime force majeure as well as its longest running farce on devolution? As one commentator has pointed out, Douglas’s debacle on the UPFA ticket coincided with newspaper reports of regime plans to pass legislation against ethnically based parties. It would seem that the regime is enamoured with the Malaysian UMNO formula and wants no track with the Unity in Diversity principle. Douglas Devananda, to his credit, does not want to be a Northern Karuna, and after 8 August should make this very clear to the regime.

Neither do the results give the TNA cause for complacency even if they do provide some cause for comfort. If the TNA is to retain the stewardship of the Tamil nationalist project it will have to re fashion it within the parametres of a united Sri Lanka. It also must come out with proposals on IDP return and resettlement and on economic recovery and development of the north. It should not forget that people stayed away from the polls on their own accord and not because the TNA asked them to do so. There is a democratic deficit and the TNA should address itself to bridging it or else they too could encounter diminishing electoral returns into the future.

An unequivocal message from the election results is the centrality of the IDP issue in the hearts and minds of the northern voter. The message the international community too should take from these results is that the prospects for peace, reconciliation and unity will be significantly retarded if there is no demonstrable progress on letting these poor people go. Furthermore, when the results of elections in the north are contrasted with that in Uva and other provinces that have polled in the rest of the country, a stark division of opinion with regard to the regime is abundantly clear. We are still divided and polarized with the need of the hour being peace, reconciliation and unity.

In order to move on these with the urgency they demand and deserve, there should be a time-table for return with priority given and public services restored to those areas, which are not mined or which are least mined. Do we have to wait for another election for another handful of IDPs to be released? On the political front, if the regime is serious about a settlement, it should bring the APRC process to a conclusion and publish its recommendations. The country needs to know as to whether the Thirteenth Amendment will be implemented in full and/or as to whether it will be expanded upon. Does the status quo stay intact, or is to be reformed? And as for human rights is this regime willing and/or able to reverse the culture of impunity in respect of violations. Consider the fate of the COI, its report and the items on the MOD website. As for the Rule of Law, consider the assault on Nipuna Ramanayake.

The first indications of post –war opinion in the north have been received. They need to be heeded if the country is to be healed.

• Analysis of how Jaffna voted and why the EPDP feels defeated in Sri Lanka’s first post-war elections
• The loud and clear message from the voter turnout and the voters in the North and East
• Alliance Of Parties In The East?
• Rajapaksa vs Fonseka: Tweedledum vs Tweedledee?
• Surveys with conflicting outcomes

The number of casualties from the fighting, among whom we believe are many civilians, cannot be verified in the absence of independent sources, since humanitarian agencies and the media have no access to the area, but we believe dozens of people per day at least are being killed and many more wounded. (Emphasis added)

In recent days the international community has repeated its calls for a pause in the hostilities to allow for the evacuation of civilians.  This requires the agreement of both sides and is not forthcoming.  The Government will deal with the LTTE on the basis of surrender and the LTTE adamantly refuses to do so even though it is abundantly clear that they have suffered a devastating conventional military defeat.   The grim and despicable logic of the LTTE seems to be one of simply raising the costs of war even though the outcome in military terms is a foregone conclusion.  That the civilians are being used as human shields and that some have been shot and killed for attempting to escape is beyond dispute from all the accounts that have eked out of this otherwise “hermetically sealed” conflict in terms of information and reportage.  The entrapment of the civilians at present is tantamount to the LTTE serving them up as human sacrifices in order to reinforce the argument internationally, of war crimes by the Sri Lankan government and of humanitarian catastrophe.

The argument will still be made that there are civilians in the Vanni who are there on their own volition and will not move out for a variety of reasons including support of the LTTE and a “Masada type” last stand, the desire to stay with their family members who are LTTE cadres and fear of the reception they will be accorded by the government if they do leave.  Whatever credence is given to this argument and it cannot be dismissed out of hand, the point is that even it is a minority of those trapped in the Vanni who want to move out and escape the horrific suffering they are being subjected to, they must be allowed to do so.  The charge of crimes against humanity cuts both ways and the LTTE leadership must realize that they cannot escape it.

The violations of international humanitarian law and the laws of war are by no means one sided.  Whilst it is necessary, correct and safer and non-controversial to slam the LTTE for its barbaric excesses, the GOSL has yet to convincingly rebut the charges that its artillery has hit medical facilities, civilians within and outside the no fire zone and that its strategy in the face of the humanitarian catastrophe in the Vanni is driven by military considerations to the point that it is better described as one of elimination of the LTTE and its support base, rather than one of containment which accords civilian protection the priority it deserves and demands in these and all other circumstances.  The argument that the forces have to respond to LTTE firing surely does not hold when it is known that such a response will result in civilian deaths and injuries, given the space and the number of people trapped within it?  Sir John Holmes in his statement to the Security Council pointed out:

The Government has assured me at every level that they have virtually stopped using heavy weapons because of their recognition of the need to spare the civilian population, who are of course their own citizens.  It remains unclear how far this is the case in reality. (Emphasis added).

And surely any strategy of maintaining the level of hostilities and the inadequacy of food and essential supplies to the point that the civilians will be compelled to “make a dash” of it en masse, is an egregious affront to the noblest traditions of the land and to universal norms and standards of civilized behaviour in this day and age?

How the end game ends will have lasting consequences for peace, unity and reconciliation in Sri Lanka.  It must already scar the memory of the civilians trapped there as an unimaginably awful collective punishment.  The Government and the LTTE must hold back from slaughter and civilian sacrifice and let the people come out into safety and security. The latter responsibility rests with the government and here the assurances given to Sir John Holmes in respect of minimum international and national standards must be upheld. Independent monitoring of this is essential and crucial in this respect is the unrestricted access of the international humanitarian actors to the civilians.

Assurances were given to Sir John Holmes on these and other issues.  He told the Security Council:

…I urged the Government to move swiftly to eliminate progressively the military presence inside the IDP sites, and to ensure increasing freedom of movement for the IDPs.  I also raised specific concerns with the Government about the transparency of the initial security processes and about cases of family separation, and stressed the need for enhanced monitoring by the ICRC and the UNHCR.  I was assured by the Government that UNHCR can be present during the screening as displaced leave the Vanni area, and that the Government will soon complete the registration of existing IDPs  and distribute temporary ID cards, which will help allow increasing freedom of movement.  I understand that IDPs over 60 years of age  have already been allowed to move out of the IDP sites to stay with relatives outside the camps where possible.

Sir John also raised the issue and was assured by the GOSL that IDPs would be allowed to return to their places of origin as soon as possible – a goal of return of 80% of the IDPs by the end of the year was identified, once de-mining was completed.

How much of this has commenced and what is the demonstrable progress that can be recorded?
Bad faith in respect of all of this will guarantee protracted conflict.  The absolutely urgent and pressing need is to end the horror of entrapment in the Vanni.

• The cynical manipulation of international law: Murdering civilians in No Fire Zones and other war crimes allegations
• An “unpatriotic” appeal for a UN mechanism to protect civilians
• Invading Sri Lanka! An intrapolitical imagination
• Civilian displacements in the Vanni
• Debating numbers, killing lives: UN and Government differences emerge

The sheer chutzpah and audacity of the attackers is a further reminder of the culture of impunity.  Who would dare to perpetrate such a dastardly deed in this vicinity at this time if they were not “cock sure” of being able to get away with it?  How will the array of apparatchiks and flunkeys in the regime spin this  one?   And how will the new IGP and the Cabinet Sub – committee on threats to the media, acquit themselves?  After all, if the regime is not responsible for the attack they are responsible for ensuring that the perpetrators of the attack are speedily brought to justice.  As the Free Media Movement (FMM) statement points out, investigation of the attack, indictment and conviction of the perpetrators, will be a “litmus test” of the commitment and effectiveness of the Cabinet sub -committee.   

Indeed, all media and human rights organizations must ensure that this is the case in respect of this sub-committee.  The tendency of the regime to move from denial to “offence as the best form of defence” and then to the appointment of commissions and committees whose work disappears into the ether, must be stopped if we as a society are serious about democratic rights and human dignity.  

Given the gravity of the issue, we need to know as to whether it is the case that at the heart of the regime is an individual or group of individuals who are running amok and who cannot be controlled by those elected to run our government.  Be it ignorance or helplessness, or command or complicity, these attacks against the media in particular, constitute an incriminating trail that leads back to the regime and to the heart of darkness within it.   The vicious antics of the Defence Secretary ranging from the chilling threats and warnings spewed out to a newspaper editor and then to the Lake House journalists, following the horrific attack on Keith Noyarh, are known.   Nothing has been done about any of this,  except for the Cabinet sub committee.   It would be a sad day indeed if it turns out to be the case that the media were duped by this act of apparent solicitousness in the way that the international community, despite warnings, were either taken or willingly went along for the ride as far as the Commission of Inquiry (COI) and the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) was concerned.   There is good reason too, to add the All Party Representatives Conference (APRC) to this list.

At a time when the GSP Plus concession could be on the line because of the attitude towards key human rights instruments and their implementation, one would have thought that the deterrence, prevention, investigation, indictment and conviction of human rights violations and perpetrators should be given the highest priority.   We are treated instead to the demeaning and despicable spectacle of brutal assaults, vicious tongue  lashings, the tear gassing of monks and prolonged detentions without charge.  The second part of the Army Commander’s statement, where he is quoted as saying that in the war against the LTTE, the regime is not going after territory but going for the kill, could well be the epitaph of the regime as far as democratic rights are concerned as well.

There has to be a way to get through to this regime that it has a fundamental responsibility for the human rights protection of all of its citizens that extends beyond the artful spin of apparatchiks and hypocritical rhetoric of its front men. There can be no denying a growing belief that there is an element within the security establishment that is nasty and brutish and which cannot even begin to comprehend the role and responsibility of the security forces within a functioning democracy.  And given the “Ranaviruvan rhetoric” extolling the bravery, patrioticism and heroism of the armed forces, this rotten cabal should be read the riot act in no uncertain terms.  What they are doing is a rank disservice and a slap in the face to their colleagues on the battlefront extolled as heroes.  Will the patriotic movements, movements against terrorism, freedom fronts, national and otherwise, take this up in earnest, please ?

We have just gone through the Universal Peer Review Process at the Geneva Human Rights Council and lost our re-election bid to it.  The IIGEP has gone, the Witness and Victim Protection Bill is in limbo and the ACF request to the French government to consider taking the murder of its humanitarian workers before an international tribunal is being considered.  GSP Plus comes up for renewal in October.

Going for the kill, literally or metaphorically in this context, is not the answer.

• Defence Secretary: The epitome of bad governance
• R2P: The Chinthanaya Version
• The Sham of Independence Without Human Rights Protection
• Focus on Human Rights
• Mr. Minister, my name is Sunanda Deshapriya. I am not a terrorist.

What began as a internal problem of succession and transition within that organisation took on quite sensational and sordid proportions in the ways in which it was handled and in the way in which an internal problem within a premier and long standing civil society institution in this country of international repute, culminated in an alleged threat to national security associated with the concept of the Responsibility to Protect or R2P.

The internal problems of the ICES are not of concern here, except for the way in which they were dealt with, demonstrating the manifest incivility lurking in the bosom of what prides itself as the community of the sensitive. Be it greed or maladministration, it seems as if the prize of institutional capture has obscured the imperative of institutional salvation.

Those who agree with this observation – peer and partner alike – must surely communicate their distaste in no uncertain terms to all those embroiled; puppets and puppeteers, predators and prey.

The association and support for civil society strengthening, governance, peace and democracy, must not countenance the negation of all these values in a grubby power struggle. There was a lot of this that was nasty and low and there should be no hesitation in calling it such.

Of greater interest and concern though is the use of R2P to turn Dr. Mani into a national security threat, involving the CID in her case and an assurance from the Prime Minister in parliament that she would not be granted an extension of her visa.

Under Dr. Mani’s stewardship, the ICES was to be associated with the R2P Centre to be established in New York as a southern organisation committed to human rights protection, democracy and governance.

Dr Mani presided at the Neelan Tiruchelvam lecture given by Gareth Evans, the architect of R2P, in which Evans pointed out that Sri Lanka could, if human rights protection and humanitarian standards were not met and the situation in respect of them continued to deteriorate, become a case where R2P arguments could be applied.

The point though was that the international community was obliged to assist governments to ensure that such a situation did not arise in the first place. The Responsibility to Prevent preceded the Responsibility to Protect and certainly any right of intervention on humanitarian or other grounds.

Dr. Mani’s interest in associating herself and her institution with R2P, has been enough to lead the defence and security establishment into the firm belief that she should be banished from our shores. Hard evidence though of this has not been made public and probably never will. I suspect that this is because it does not exist beyond the paranoia of the current dispensation.

Or is this yet another instance where the visa has been used as a weapon, to rid our pure paradise isle of alternative perspectives to the militaristic, majoritarian Chinthanaya?

It seems that in this war against the absolute enemy, the visa is a weapon as effective as the Kfir. It takes out the hostile, the humanitarian and the humanist. We are in the throes of an island-wide purge and those who cannot be purged in toto, like the Tamil citizens of this island, will most likely be given additional documentation from that which they have to now carry, for their own “protection,” a la the most recent policy prescription from that homegrown outfit totally committed to R2P – the JHU!

All those who breathed a sigh of relief with Dr. Mani’s departure and chalked it up as yet another advance in the certain and imminent victory against terrorism, are silent when the local version of R2P has nothing to do with protection and everything to do with punishment ! From papers and more papers to be carried at all times to eviction to mass arrests and detention, R2P is thriving in Sri Lanka irrespective of the purported machinations of Dr. Mani.

And in a Chinthanaya celebration of diversity no doubt, there is another version of R2P and it is the protection of perpetrators of human rights violations, more commonly known as the culture of impunity.

What would augment our sovereignty more – kicking out Dr. Mani or a single indictment against a member of the security forces allegedly responsible for one of the egregious violations of human rights before the Commission of Inquiry (COI) and the Independent International Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP)?

Or effective action against paramilitaries turned electoral allies on the issue of child conscription? Or indictments against the high and mighty of yesterday, on the basis of the Justice Shiranee Thilaka-wardene Report? That in particular, would be the acid test for the argument that indictments undermine the morale of the security forces.

We are being turned into a silly and vicious little country by silly and vicious little men. They are mean and dangerous and have no compunction in playing dirty.

When the LTTE killed Dr. Neelan Tiruchelvam, I had the honour of speaking at his funeral. I remember saying that those of us who count ourselves amongst the community of the sensitive have many miles to go before we can sleep.

It is ironic that this message has to be repeated, nay reiterated and reinforced, on the likely demise of the organisation he founded and led to international recognition. It is time now, for this message to be heeded.

• The Attacks on Civil Society Organizations
• Review of “Ethnic Warfare in Sri Lanka and the UN Crisis” by William Clarance
• The Responsibility to Protect
• Double standards?
• Going for the Kill in More Ways than One