Sri Lanka government

Sri Lanka to Restrict Fuel Imports For Next 12 Months

Sri Lanka has a severe shortage of foreign exchange, its energy minister said.

Colombo: Sri Lanka will restrict fuel imports for the next 12 months because of a severe shortage of foreign exchange, its energy minister said on Monday, as the island nation’s new government seeks to find a way out of a crippling economic crisis.

The country of 22 million has been grappling with a lack of essentials, including fuel and medicines, for months, after its foreign exchange reserves ran dry because of economic mismanagement and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Due to Forex issues, Fuel imports has to be restricted in the next 12 months,” Sri Lanka’s Minister for Power and Energy, Kanchana Wijesekera, said in a tweet, explaining the rationale behind a fuel rationing system that will be implemented this week.

Also watch | If Ranil Doesn’t Take Tough Steps, Sri Lanka Economy Could Fall into Abyss: Former Central Bank Head

The rationing system is among the first steps that Sri Lanka’s new President Ranil Wickremesinghe will take to ease the impact of the crisis after taking office last week following a victory in a parliament vote.

His predecessor, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, fled the country and then resigned earlier this month after mass protests against his mishandling of the economy, with protesters storming his official residence and office.

Sri Lanka also reopened its schools on Monday after severe fuel shortages and political unrest kept them closed for nearly a month.

However, public sector employees have been asked to continue working from home for one more month, the government said in a circular issued on Sunday.

Lanka IOC, the country’s second largest fuel retailer, will import two fuel shipments of around 30,000 tonnes each in August, its managing director Manoj Gupta said.

“We are working collectively with the government to reduce the pain and our priority is to supply to industries,” Gupta told Reuters.

Sri Lanka is in talks with the International Monetary Fund about a bailout package worth up to $3 billion, while it also seeks help from allies, including neighbouring India and China.

(Reuters)

Seething Anger and Digital Mobilisation: How a Group of Activists Brought Down Lanka’s Govt

‘Sri Lanka has around 5 million households and 8 million active Facebook accounts, making online outreach an extremely effective way to reach demonstrators,’ said one of the activists.

Colombo: In June, a few dozen activists started meeting regularly at a seaside tented camp in Colombo for hours-long sessions to think up ways to revive Sri Lanka’s flagging protest movement.

The group, which included a Catholic priest, a digital strategist and a popular playwright, succeeded beyond their wildest hopes.

Within weeks, hundreds of thousands of people descended on Colombo. After initially clashing with police, protesters occupied key government buildings and residences, forcing President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his prime minister to promise to step down.

“I’m still trying to process it,” said Chameera Dedduwage, a digital strategist at a major advertising firm who became part of the team that helped organise the uprising.

“It was 50% premeditation and coordination, another 30% willingness of the people and 20% luck.”

In interviews, veterans of those small meetings described how they agreed on a multi-pronged campaign to inject new life into the movement widely known as ‘Aragalaya’ (‘struggle’ in Sinhala).

The movement had begun in March, when thousands took to the streets to vent their anger at lengthy power cuts and spiralling prices, and to call for the Rajapaksa family that had dominated the country’s politics for much of the last 20 years, to leave power.

On May 9, Rajapaksa’s elder brother Mahinda – president from 2005-2015 and at that time, serving as prime minister – had stepped down. On June 9, his younger brother Basil had quit as a lawmaker.

So, the Aragalaya activists targeted July 9 as the day they hoped to unseat the president himself.

A plan emerged to combine online agitation, meetings with political parties, labour unions and student groups and door-to-door campaigning to get enough people back on the streets for a final push, according to the three attendees.

Public frustration at ongoing shortages, which has brought the economy to a standstill, and the president’s stubborn refusal to step aside, had been simmering for weeks.

Riding on trains, buses, lorries and bicycles, or simply walking, huge crowds converged on Colombo on Saturday, outnumbering security forces deployed to protect government buildings and upending Sri Lankan politics.

“Gota Go Home!” the crowds chanted in Colombo’s Fort area, seething over the country’s worst economic crisis since independence.

Pairs of underwear are placed by protestors on a temporary metal barrier made to block them at the main entrance to the parliament during the trade unions’ nationwide Harthal demanding the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his cabinet and blaming them for creating the country’s worst economic crisis in decades, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, May 6, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Dinuka Liyanawatte

They quickly broke into the president’s colonial-era house, before storming a portion of the presidential office and entering the prime minister’s official residence 2.5 km (1.6 miles) away.

Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had been moved to undisclosed safe locations, and within hours they separately announced they would resign to allow an all-party interim government to take over.

Also Read: Sri Lanka: Basil Rajapaksa Stopped From Leaving Country; Immigration Officers Close VIP Lounge

If he resigns on Wednesday as promised, Rajapaksa, once a war hero who was both revered and feared, will become the first sitting Sri Lankan president to quit.

“I think it is the most unprecedented gathering in this country. Full stop,” Ruwanthie de Chickera, a playwright who is part of the core group of Aragalaya activists, told Reuters.

Representatives of the president and prime minister did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the protests and why they stepped aside. Their whereabouts have not been made public.

Sri Lanka has around 5 million households and 8 million active Facebook accounts, making online outreach an extremely effective way to reach demonstrators, said Dedduwage, the digital strategist.

“Which means basically through Facebook, we can practically reach every corner of the country at no cost,” Dedduwage told Reuters, sitting at a tent at ‘Gota Go Village’, the main Colombo protest site that mockingly refers to the president.

In early July, one of those who received the group’s social media messages was Sathya Charith Amaratunge, a marketing professional living in Moratuwa, some 20 km from Colombo, who had taken part in earlier anti-government protests.

The 35-year-old took a poster he received via WhatsApp on July 2 that read “The Country to Colombo, July 9” in Sinhala, and uploaded it on his personal Facebook page.

That night he began preparing a campaign that would eventually see tens of thousands of people join him on a march to Colombo.

Other Aragalaya members reached out directly to opposition political parties, trade unions and student unions, including the influential Inter University Students’ Federation (IUSF), in order to bolster support, according to Dedduwage.

One of Sri Lanka’s largest student groups, the IUSF has a reputation for its political agitation and clashed with security forces during recent protests, dismantling police barricades amid teargas and water cannon.

The Aragalaya group also asked volunteers to visit thousands of homes across parts of Colombo, including middle-class government housing estates, some within walking distance of the main protest site.

To bring people in from outside the city, activists appealed to more than 30 ‘Gota Go Village’ sites that had sprung up in towns and cities across the country.

Late on July 8, police declared a curfew in several districts around Colombo, which activists said was aimed at stalling the planned protest. Police said the move was to maintain public order. Some core group members swiftly moved to safe houses, fearing arrest.

Jeevanth Peiris, a Catholic priest who is part of the activist group, worried that only a few thousand people would turn up the next day because of the restrictions. Fuel shortages had curtailed transport options for weeks.

“We honestly expected only 10,000 with all these restrictions, all this intimidation,” he told Reuters, dressed in a white cassock. “We thought 5,000 to 10,000.”

Early on July 9, marketing professional Amaratunge said he started off on foot from Moratuwa with around 2,000 fellow protesters, about the size of group he had expected after a week of sharing posts on Facebook and WhatsApp.

It was only when he left his hometown that Amaratunge said he realised how many people wanted to go to Colombo. Many had been angered by the curfew, which the police withdrew early on Saturday.

In multiple Facebook livestreams posted by Amaratunge on Saturday, several hundred people can be seen strolling down the main road to Colombo, some holding the national flag.

By Amaratunge’s estimate, tens of thousands eventually joined the march he was on, and reached Colombo’s fort area. According to a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity, the crowd there swelled to at least 200,000 people.

Also Read: Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to Resign on July 13, Confirms PMO

Members of the Aragalaya core group said several times that huge numbers took part, as wave upon wave of people arrived in Colombo and marched towards the main protest site.

Organisers had roughly calculated that it would take around 10,000 people to overpower personnel guarding each of the four entry points to the president’s house, Dedduwage said.

In the early afternoon, after dismantling police barricades and commandeering water cannon, protesters took apart the tall gates guarding the president’s house and overwhelmed a large deployment of security forces.

By night, Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe’s official residences were occupied by protesters, who uprooted fences outside the presidential secretariat and took over a part of it. Wickremesinghe’s personal residence was attacked and a section of it set alight.

Within hours, the leaders were ready to go.

“There were so many elderly, teenagers, youth, women,” recalled Peiris, the priest, who said he was part of clashes with police.

“People didn’t want to give up, didn’t want to withdraw.”

(Reuters)

Watch Out for Mobs at the Gate

Our clever Chanakyas are deluding themselves by thinking they can control and calibrate the religious madness they have unleashed.

On Saturday, a mob in Colombo stormed the offices of the prime minister and the president, a signal not just of a breakdown of order but also of a complete defeat of the constitutional processes at work in Sri Lanka. The denouement was an inevitable byproduct of decades of a politics that was predicated on majoritarian triumphalism. Economic mismanagement and chaos are a mere reflection of a polity that long ago abandoned any kind of notion of equilibrium in its governing arrangements.

Just about the time mobs were gathering in Colombo, another crowd was snaking its way from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. The crowd was summoned by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) but the Delhi BJP leadership was also in attendance. The New Delhi mob did not cause any kind of disorder but it did serve notice, as per the headline in the Indian Express: “Chorus at march by Hindu outfits: India will be run as per Constitution, not Sharia.”

This, of course, is from the same corner that not long ago used to argue that a “dharma sansad” of revered saints and sadhus carried greater weightage than a “sansad” elected by the sovereign people of India. Maybe the unstated theme of the so-called “Sankalp March” was to express disapproval of the recent comments two sitting judges of the Supreme Court had made on the now-suspended BJP spokesperson, Nupur Sharma.

The show of street power was a continuation of a much larger but much more subtle assault underway on the Supreme Court. Only a few days earlier, it may be recalled, as many as 117 former judges, ex-bureaucrats, and retired military generals felt agitated enough to go hammer and tongs at the two sitting judges of the Supreme Court for their comments from the bench on the enormity of the BJP functionary’s rhetorical excesses. This exertion was yet another reminder that in the aftermath of the Udaipur killing, our collective sanity is on the verge of becoming unhinged.

The statement from these “concerned citizens” clearly carries the imprimatur and the inspiration of the higher echelons of the governing cabal. And the people who have consented to append their names and signatures to this statement will not object if they are to be described as establishment men. It is an expression of the increasing impatience among the ruling elites with any individual or institution that does not fall in line with the official orthodoxy. This kind of ideologically-determined righteousness is, of course, a familiar failing in all authoritarian or quasi-authoritarian systems.

The central concern of all democratic forces and constitutional voices ought to be to avoid a Sri Lanka-style breakdown in our country; in other words, how do we prevent an ultra-aggressive executive from tipping over from the weight of its arrogance and megalomania?

The ruling coterie is entitled to think that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s presumed charisma and manufactured popularity elevate him and his government above the constitutionally-mandated structure of restraints and constraints. Yet, the primary legitimacy any prime minister in India enjoys can only be located firmly within the four walls of the constitution, and what that constitution permits or does not permit can only be decided by the Supreme Court. And, it is hardly secret that in recent years the authority of the apex court has been qualitatively mauled – partly because our judicial leadership had allowed itself to become too overawed by the political momentum of the day. Can the lost judicial authority be retrieved?

The question has acquired an urgency because ever since the US Supreme Court has, in the Dobbs case, provided so much comfort and joy to the conservative forces in that deeply divided country, the (essentially copy-cat) right-wing in India is itching to bend the apex court to its partisan passions and prejudices. These over-driven right-wingers would like to overhaul the constitution and the Supreme Court and make them instruments of their narrow agenda.

The other day, Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana had bemoaned the fact that both government and opposition find fault with the judiciary for not helping them carry on their partisan politics. The lament is not without merit. No judge or judiciary should get involved in the politicians’ quarrels; after all. It is not the judiciary’s job to make up for the opposition’s inadequacies nor should it ever take lightly its role as a bulwark of constitutional reasonableness, especially if the government insists on being politically contemptuous of the opposition’s space and privileges in our parliamentary system.

The Supreme Court. In the foreground is Lakhimpur Kheri, a day after eight people were killed in October 2021. Photos: PTI

More than playing an intrepid third umpire between government and opposition, the higher judiciary in a democratic nation ought to be a sensitive guardian of the citizen and her rights and liberties against an increasingly insensitive and overweening executive. If India has continued and prospered as a substantive democracy it is because the Supreme Court, from the very beginning, did not allow a runaway government to trample over the fundamental rights of citizens guaranteed by the constitution. Post-2014, sadly, the court has been less than vigilant on behalf of the citizen and too solicitous of the concerns and arguments of a political executive that is gently nudging the nation towards deeply debilitating divisions. This failing has had harmful consequences.

Politically instigated, electorally driven grandstanding has become all too consuming in the age of social media. The Nupur Sharma virus has infected our body politic and extreme elements in all religious communities are pushing out saner and sober voices. Our clever Chanakyas may delude themselves that they can control and calibrate the religious madness they have unleashed. But when a political crowd starts feeling and acting as if it has all the country’s institutions lined up behind it, the only corrective is provided by the mobs of the kind that have taken over Colombo. That is why it is in everybody’s interest that the Supreme Court retrieve its lost judicial authority, and do so quickly.

Sri Lanka’s Unseen Future

If the ongoing protests diminish through fatigue and fail to monitor Wickremasinghe, Lanka’s fall into the abyss will not only be inevitable but extremely painful as well.

For over four weeks, people across Sri Lanka, united under the slogan “Gota Go Home”, have been protesting openly demanding that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa must resign.

Rajapaksa, elected in 2019 in a massive electoral victory, promised a clean, technocratic rule and competence in governance ushering in prosperity to Lanka. But it took only two years to dismantle his larger than himself image, mostly created by his role as the secretary of defence who successfully oversaw the conclusion of Lanka’s civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam and the relentless mythmaking by a network of private media outlets led by Derana TV that created an image of himself as a “doer” based on this military success. That euphoria is already a distant memory.

Now, the country’s food and energy security has been decidedly compromised; hospitals have run out of medicines and most non-essential surgeries have been postponed indefinitely; tourist arrivals have plummeted; the country’s foreign exchange reserves have reached a dangerous low and daily life of citizens is typified by waiting in long queues for cooking gas, fuel and milk powder while most essential items are in short supply. And there are island-wide lengthy power cuts daily, impacting both industry and day to day life. Lankans have not experienced this kind of deprivations on an island-wide scale even in the worst years of its civil war.

A family matter

The conditions that led to the country’s present chaos have been going on for a long time and its most obvious roots go back to previous phases of Rajapaksa rule. A major part of the problem is linked to irrational borrowing for white elephant projects without putting in place pragmatic plans for repayment. These projects include the Rajapaksa International Airport in Mattala which has been dubbed by some as ‘the world’s emptiest airport’, the Hambantota Harbour which has now been leased to a state-owned Chinese company for 99 years and the Lotus Tower in Colombo which was supposed to be South Asia’s tallest structure that now remains empty. All of these have been constructed with Chinese loans.

Along with these wasteful projects from a planning and developmental perspective, a lingering popular perception has been that they have also financially enriched the ruling family and their political allies. Though several well-documented exposés by international media have been circulating for some time, identifying some individuals in the Rajapaksa clan and their inner circle by name in corruption allegations, none of these have been challenged in courts by the Rajapaksas. And much of the Rajapaksas’ and their political supporters’ rather obvious wealth is undocumented, undeclared and unexplained.

Moreover, most court cases implicating the Rajapaksas and their political allies have been routinely thrown out by courts since President Rajapaksa took office. One of the most powerful slogans in the protests, “Give us our money back”, comes from this situation.

Another issue that has occupied the public imagination and has manifested in the ongoing protests is the problem of extreme nepotism in governance. The president’s elder brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, was the prime minister until his resignation recently under extreme public pressure. Another brother, Chamal Rajapaksa, was a senior minister as was yet another brother, Basil Rajapaksa, until their recent resignations and the dissolution of the cabinet consequent to the exit of the prime minister. Mahinda’s elder son was a powerful minister too, while his second son was his chief of staff.

Also read: The Fall of the House of Rajapaksa: How Unbridled Nepotism Let Sri Lanka Down

This is only at the pinnacle of state power. Many Rajapaksa offspring and other relatives are parliamentarians or occupy crucial government positions. Some estimates suggest that nearly 70% of the national budget was under the direct purview of politicians linked to the Rajapaksa family via kinship links. Even when compared to South Asia’s rather notorious standards of nepotism in politics, Sri Lanka’s case is truly mind boggling.

Beyond all this, the president’s rather inexplicable fiscal management with needless tax cuts had drained essential income to state coffers and the decision to ban imports of chemical fertiliser supposedly to promote organic agriculture has negatively impacted productivity in the agricultural sector. The latter has led to the escalation of prices even in locally produced food.

‘Go Home Gota’ protests

It is in this background and particularly fuelled by the lack of essential items that the protests began about a month ago, initially as small vigils in intersections in urban centres, which have now spread across the country. But the main centre for agitations has been in front of the Presidential Secretariat and the neighbouring Galle Face Green in Colombo, ensuring that the president does not have access to his office.

The protestors have named the site ‘Gota Go Gama’ (Get Lost Gota Village) that has literally emerged as a thriving community with a movie theatre called Tear Gas Cinema, library, medical centre, legal aid centre, an art space, a speaker’s corner called People’s University, a community kitchen, public toilet, regular musical and theatrical performances, and so on. Obviously, the protestors are there for the long haul and there has been continuous public support going by the way the site was supplied by well-wishers.

Demonstrators gather as they take part in a protest against Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, amid the country’s economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, April 24, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar/File Photo

The protest site and by default other similar sites that have since sprung up across the country are sustained by three core political positions: non-violent protest; non-affiliation with existing political parties; and sustaining protests until the president and prime minister are gone and a new government capable of handling the country’s debilitating economic problems is installed. It was also a place of equality where Christian, Buddhist, Muslim and Hindu public worship as well as the open mingling of people of these faiths stood out as it was unusual by the standards of Lanka’s divisive politics.

This was a microcosm of the future Lanka many of the mostly youthful protestors imagined should be their future. That imagination itself was an important manifestation, given Lanka’s ethnic and religious strife in the recent past and divisive politics more generally. Equally as importantly, the protest, despite the crowds it generated in Colombo and beyond, remained remarkably peaceful, civilised and often extremely creative in expression.

May 9, 2022 and after

Just before May 9, 2022, the president had asked his brother, the prime minister, to resign during a ruling party meeting. But the prime minster and his supporters publicly claimed that he would not do so unless his supporters asked him to. In this context, he asked his supporters to come and meet him to discuss their views.

On May 9, hundreds of them came to his official residence, The Temple Trees in Colombo, from all over the country accompanied by well-known party mob leaders. After demanding from the prime minister that he did not resign, they stepped out of Temple Trees armed with large sticks and proceeded to assault the protestors peacefully agitating outside the premises and burnt their tents and other makeshift structures. All this took place in a high security zone and under a state of emergency declared by the president on May 6.

Encouraged by the inaction of the large police and military presence, Rajapaksa supporters marched to nearby Galle Face Green, the main protest site. There too, under military and police non-intervention, they burnt the library, art space and many other iconic protest structures that had come up organically over the previous four weeks. This unprovoked and orchestrated violence emanating directly from the prime minister’s official residence was in stark contrast with the four weeks of non-violent anti-government protests.

People gather at the main bus stand to catch a bus before curfew starts, after a clash between anti-government demonstrators and Sri Lanka’s ruling party supporters, amid the country’s economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, May 12, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Dinuka Liyanawatte

But things changed within half an hour. In addition to belated police action to push the marauders away, residents from nearby Colombo 2 and workers in construction sites in the vicinity came to the rescue of the protesters, alerted by WhatsApp messages asking for help and live social media and television coverage of the assault. Before the end of the day, the hitherto peaceful demonstrations had taken a decisively different turn and moved away from the non-violent ideals of the young protestors who had so far maintained the centre stage of agitations: many of the vehicles that ferried Rajapaksa gangs were burnt or severely damaged, and some were driven into the nearby Beira Lake while the captured culprits were also dumped in the same body of water while others were stripped, publicly shamed and photographed and these images circulated on social media.

Also read: Drawing Strength From Solidarity, Sri Lankans Refuse to Bear More Indignities

By nightfall, nine people were dead across the country and about 65 houses belonging to ruling party politicians, including the ancestral home of the Rajapaksas, were burnt. As a consequence, the man who instigated this violence, the prime minister, resigned in the evening, and fled with his family to the highly protected naval base in Trincomalee on May 10.

Resurrection of Ranil Wickremasinghe and what’s next

Among the most vociferous slogans in the ongoing agitations was “We don’t want all 225”, referring to the protestors’ lack of trust with all the parliamentarians representing different shades of politics from the left to the right. It was a clear indictment of the polity’s dissatisfaction with the nature of Lankan politics in general.

In this context, President Rajapaksa’s appointment of former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe as the new prime minister on May 12 shows that neither he nor his new prime minister have any interest in listening to the rather vociferous demands for total political change demanded by people. Wickremasinghe in his previous three incarnations as prime minister never completed a full term. Moreover, the United National Partly led by him failed to secure a single seat in parliament in the last Sri Lankan general election in 2020. Wickremasinghe lost his own seat. Thanks to the benefits of the system of proportional representation, he appointed himself to parliament based on the overall votes his party had acquired. But in doing so, he overlooked many other party members who had acquired much more votes than him. To put it more bluntly, Wickremasinghe has been soundly rejected by the voters as late as 2020.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, newly appointed prime minister, arrives at a Buddhist temple after his swearing-in ceremony amid the country’s economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, May 12, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Dinuka Liyanawatte/File Photo

In this context, appointing him as prime minster at a crucial time like the present is not only illegitimate and antidemocratic, but is also a decision popularly despised. However, already the ambassador of the United States has congratulated him, while the Indian High Commission in Colombo tweeted a welcoming tweet. This seeming ‘international’ recognition comes so rapidly, even when he is yet to establish his majority in parliament, given his well-established neoliberal and pro-Western credentials. And in so doing, the global as well as local well-wishers conveniently forget Wickremasinghe’s implication in political violence in the 1990s as well as his shielding of political allies from corruption investigations and litigation in the short-lived 2015 government in which he was the prime minister.

Moreover, Wickremasinghe is perhaps the greatest protector of the Rajapaksas. In the 2015 government, Wickremasinghe played a crucial role in ensuring that a number of critical cases involving the Rajapaksas never went to court ensuring they could quickly reestablish themselves and emerge victorious in the 2020 general election and pave the way for the present crisis. So, by picking Wickremasinghe as prime minster, the president was not looking at the long-term survival or recovery of the country, but the survival of himself and his family. Sadly, the first committee Wickremasinghe appointed to take charge of crucial day to day services does not have any experts, but merely a group of close political allies with dubious track records.

Lanka’s greatest misfortune is that it does not have any serious political options. Even if the exit of the Rajapaksas is somehow completed, it does not necessarily mean there is competent leadership within the present parliament capable of democratic governance and not tainted by corruption, criminality or engagement in political violence. So, with the economic crisis still unresolved, the exit of Mahinda Rajapaksa and the appointment of Wickremasinghe is not a solution. It is merely the enactment of yet another political drama no one wanted and distracting attention from the pain the polity continues to feel.

If the ongoing protests diminish through fatigue and fail to monitor Wickremasinghe in the same way the Rajapaksas have been monitored and publicly reprimanded over the last four weeks with many important victories, Lanka’s fall into the abyss will not only be inevitable but extremely painful as well.

Sasanka Perera is Professor of Sociology and Dean of Social Sciences at South Asian University, New Delhi.

Can Sri Lanka Turn Around its Corrupted Democracy?

The Rajapaksa family has drastically weakened democracy in Sri Lanka, but now faces a stirring civilian resistance that is picking up momentum.

Once feared by the country’s most powerful, the Rajapaksa family that rule Sri Lanka now see their effigies hit and burned in the street, by many who once voted for them. Although their ethno-nationalist government sits securely in power, there is mounting resistance to a regime that has driven Sri Lanka into economic crisis, amid continuous corruption.

And they will not be aided by the United States – who did not even extend Sri Lanka an invitation to its upcoming online ‘Summit for Democracy’.

The summit aims to challenge authoritarianism, address corruption and advance human rights – all difficult goals for Sri Lanka, since the majoritarian politics that led to the civil war and grotesque human rights violations still live on.

The war ended in 2009, but corruption and authoritarianism have reached new heights under the rule of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa from 2005 – 2015 and his brother – President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, elected in 2019.

Yet while Sri Lanka’s backsliding democracy stands out, so too does the resilience of its civilians.

Most Sri Lankans may reject pluralism and justify the prevailing majoritarian milieu, but they make abundantly clear that they value the right to protest and vote. If the former contributes to democratic backsliding, the latter at least allows for electoral democracy.

Also read: ‘Hold Provincial Elections at the Earliest’: India Tells Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa

How democracy fell into a backslide

The ethnocentric policies that rule Sri Lanka efficiently took hold within a decade of its independence. Sinhalese Buddhists rose to completely dominate state-associated institutions. This has benefitted many powerful sectors – government servants, security, Buddhist clergy and corrupt entrepreneurs – that completely reversing course is an almost impossible challenge.

To grow and keep power, nationalists need enemies, real or manufactured. In the civil war, the terrorist tactics of separatist Tamil rebels energised Buddhist nationalists. Post war, these forces have targeted Muslims.

The extremist group the Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force or ‘BBS’) spread the anti-Muslim sentiment most forcefully, abetted by the Mahinda Rajapaksa government. While Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s election to the Presidency in 2019 prompted fears that anti-Muslim rioting would ramp up, the health and economic crises created by COVID-19 seemed to stymie the anti-Muslim forces.

The pandemic, however, did not completely prevent the government from tormenting the Muslim community. Congested Muslim areas in Colombo were among the first to register cases of COVID-19 and some claimed Muslims were spreading the virus.

Also read: Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 Response Is Proof That Demonisation of Minorities Has Been Normalised

The government’s requirement that all who died from COVID-19 be cremated was especially traumatic for Muslims, whose religion mandates burial. The government persisted with a blanket cremation policy, despite the World Health Organization’s declaration that burying coronavirus victims was safe.

The government only reversed course in February, 2021, when it required Muslim-majority states in the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UHRC) to vote against a resolution brought against the country for its treatment of Muslims.

Rampant corruption is another major factor undermining the rule of law in Sri Lanka. Family, friends and allies of the Rajapaksas have profited by receiving lofty, well-paying, state-funded positions that require little work.

Today Gotabaya, Mahinda, their two other brothers and Mahinda’s son oversee departments and agencies that collectively control nearly 70% of the island’s budget.

This takes place while the Presidential Commission of Inquiry on Political Victimisation, created by Rajapaksa’s Government, absolves the family and their allies of criminal charges.

Officials from the previous government’s Attorney General’s Office and Criminal Investigation Department who filed the charges are now being prosecuted for allegedly fabricating evidence.

Chinese-funded projects have played a large role in promoting Rajapaksa, just as Chinese state support for the family has aided their authoritarianism.

The no-revenue generating, non-concessionary, non-transparent and unsolicited “blingfrastructure” projects have lined Rajapaksa pockets, but also have saddled Sri Lanka with massive unpayable debts and led to a dire economic climate.

Also read: Sri Lanka Declares Food Emergency as Country Runs Out of Forex Reserves to Finance Imports

Sri Lankans have revolted against resultant scarcities, showing the island’s resilience as a democracy.

Sri Lanka was pushed into debt by the civil war, but war-related corruption has seen this debt increase. Repaying China for exorbitant infrastructural projects, debts owed to non-Chinese entities and corruption that persisted through the pandemic have all contributed to a severe balance of payments crisis.

Government coffers contain only around $1.5 billion in reserves as of November, 2021, while debt payments for 2022 amount to around $4.3 billion. The foreign currency shortage has prevented banks from providing importers with lines of credit, which has caused long queues for essential items like petrol and milk powder.

The government banned chemical fertilisers, saving around US$400 million and appealing to nationalist sentiment by claiming locally-produced organic fertiliser was better. But the decision led to widespread protests from farmers. Teachers also went on strike, citing rampaging inflation, made worse by the government recklessly printing money.

Also read: Does China Want an Unstable Sri Lanka?

Protests have been led by grassroots civil society groups. Previously, village-level groups may have avoided challenging Rajapaksa governments given their mutual commitment to Sinhalese Buddhist supremacy. Their now-vociferous demands show the strength of civil society, and resilience of democracy in Sri Lanka.

It seems illiberal democracy stands to dominate the world in the years ahead and this will certainly be the case in Sri Lanka, where majoritarianism is here to stay. But an illiberal democracy can be improved faster than a mature autocracy.

The trick is to craft an ethnoreligious compact where majoritarianism coexists in a peaceful and diverse setting. While Sri Lanka’s leaders should be pushed to reconcile with minorities, reject ethno-religious violence and promote a more pluralistic setting, one must be realistic about what to expect.

Pro-democracy advocates should continue to engage with the government while advocating for democratic reforms. Less engagement will push the country’s leaders to further lean on autocratic states and exacerbate democratic backsliding.

There’s also an opportunity to leverage the island’s dependence on western export markets to push for pro-democracy policies.

The Elections Commission and anti-corruption bodies remain important for promoting transparency, and sanctions remain a live option to stimie individuals and their families who violate human rights and thrive on corruption.

This article was originally published under Creative Commons by 360info.

Neil DeVotta is Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University.

The Absent Moral Dimension in Sri Lanka’s Constitution

The 20th amendment to the constitution depicts the new Sri Lanka, and few dare to challenge it.

Sri Lanka’s 1978 constitution kept the existing immoral foremost position for Buddhism and introduced a strong presidency that every government promised to abolish – but once elected, never did. It allowed the Rajapaksa family – Mahinda, son Namal, brothers Basil and Gotabaya – to do egregious wrongs.

Mahinda had a deal with the separatist Tamil Tigers to prohibit Tamils from voting in the 2005 presidential elections. The then Election Department under a commissioner failed to declare the low-turnout elections in Tamil areas void. Mahinda became president. His family held most key offices in 2005-2015.

By the civil war’s end in 2009, the UN estimated that 40,000 minority Tamils had disappeared. White vanning made the Sinhalese opposition disappear, too. Looting of state coffers and disappearances increased. The tired people turned away the Rajapaksas in the 2015 elections, with the help of Tamils and Muslims.

The Constitution was amended through the 19th amendment introducing independent commissions, including the three-person Election Commission (EC) replacing the election commissioner. The removal of EC members was made difficult, requiring the same process as removing a Supreme Court justice. Presidential term limits were restored, preventing Mahinda from contesting. The age limit was increased to 35, preventing Namal from succeeding Mahinda. Dual citizens could not be president or MP, stopping the two brothers.

Also read: India-Sri Lanka Talks: Amidst Constitution Concern, Modi Calls for Safeguarding Tamils’ Rights

The new government also agreed at the UNHRC to prosecute soldiers for war crimes. However, because of what the ICJ calls Sri Lanka’s “Crisis of Impunity,” underscored by the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (chaired by Justice P.N. Bhagwati) withdrawing from observing Sri Lankan human rights trials citing “lack of political will from the Government of Sri Lanka to support a search for the truth,” international participation in war crime prosecutions was agreed to.

However, the new government was weak and riven by rivalry between the president – Maithripala Sirisena, a former Rajapaksa minister – and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. It feared taking on Sinhalese communalism as Buddhists targeted Muslims and Christians. Corrupt practices continued.

The Rajapaksas, working with the president, dissolved parliament in October 2018. The EC by majority decision agreed to hold the illegal elections to a new parliament. My fundamental rights petition, joined by others, was key in getting a unanimous verdict nullifying dissolution from the full-bench Supreme Court. It was a rare high moment for our judiciary.

Gotabaya was elected president in November 2019 after renouncing his US citizenship. Tamils districts gave him barely 20% of the vote. President Gotabaya wanted early parliamentary elections despite COVID-19 as the economy was sinking. Two of us on the EC held that it was dangerous because of COVID-19 to hold elections on April 25, 2020, Gotabaya’s date. The Supreme Court allowed us to set a new date, August 5, 2020. As the campaign raged, Rajapaksa ministers publicly threatened to remove me once elected. State newspapers created interviews with the EC chairman that he never gave, saying I should be removed.

The Sinhalese, seeing the Rajapaksas and the Army as saviours for routing the Tigers despite the carnage of Tamil civilians, returned the Rajapaksas with nearly two-thirds of the seats. The government withdrew from the UNHRC Resolution promising war crimes prosecutions. Crossovers ensured the necessary two-thirds to change the constitution, concentrating more powers in the president through the 20th amendment. Commissions, the chief justice, Supreme Court justices, the Attorney General and others would be appointed directly by him; no more through compulsory recommendations from a politically neutral Constitutional Council. The Audit Commission and the Procurement Commission were abolished, readying us for looting again.

I went to court again. There were 38 other petitions. But by now the 20th amendment was a certainty. The government had two-thirds majority, and 50%+1 at a referendum was easy for a government seen as the saviour of the Sinhalese. It was not surprising that court allowed all the proposed changes except removing the president’s duty to create conditions for free and fair elections, removing the right of citizens to sue the president, giving the president the power to dissolve parliament after one year, and making it no longer an offence to violate regulations set by the EC. That was tokenism.

Also read: Explainer: Why India Is Worried About the Implications of Sri Lanka’s 20th Amendment

After saying that EC appointments and appointments to the judiciary could be made directly by the president, it is pointless to argue that we can sue the president for abusive discretion. Few judges will rule against a man who will appoint future judges and determine their own promotion to chief justice. He has already made many illegal appointments outside his purview – for example before the 20th amendment, the president could not hold a ministry but Gotabaya appointed the defence secretary and ran the ministry.

The apex court’s determination was announced to parliament on October 20. With committee-stage amendments purportedly addressing court concerns, the Bill was passed on October 22. There was no time to study the decisions or seek the court’s opinion on the amendments. It is the new Sri Lanka.

However, can fundamental rights be removed by the majority, by two-thirds or two-thirds plus a mere 50% +1 vote? The right to life, and the rights of 40,000 executed or disappeared, cannot be derogated by a referendum. Even without the amendment, the EC has been already asked by the army for voters’ lists, which we have refused. The next Commission might not be so serious about privacy. Every general refused a US visa for war crimes, is now a high Sri Lankan official.

The EC chairman broke tradition, meeting the prime minister in his home (instead of in parliament) without the other two. The president quietly pardoned a soldier convicted of killing a Tamil child. I can be removed for pressing charges – as I have – against the minister of justice for threatening Muslims with a thrashing if they did not vote for Gotabaya. The Attorney General is not moving on EC’s cases on election offences.

Also read: What Gotabaya’s Presidency Will Mean for Tamil Politics and Development in Sri Lanka

To cite just one example, a case has been stuck because the AG called for the file from court and has not returned it for a year for the case to proceed. The EC wrote many times to the AG, with no reply. Another example is that even after the 20th amendment, by the Interpretation Ordinance, Commissions go on till their original terms end – we on November 12 but others for a year. The government has said we go out of office as soon as the 20th amendment is certified and new members appointed. Unfortunately, few dare to challenge that. These two examples depict the new Sri Lanka.

Laws must be moral, not just approved by the majority. Or the slaves who were lawfully owned would not be free today. No referendum can justify immoral laws. The world should not save a government through loans to tide over debts when it reneges on its UNHRC commitment after murdering its own citizens. The world must not help kill an old democracy.

S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole is on the Election Commission of Sri Lanka. Among his books is Ethics for Professionals:A Human Rights, Internationalist Perspective, Cognella, San Diego, CA, 2019.

Sri Lankan President Names Brother PM After Wickremesinghe Resigns

The two brothers led a decisive campaign that helped end the island nation’s three-decade civil war against LTTE.

Colombo: Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa on Wednesday named his elder brother and former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa as the new prime minister after incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe announced his resignation from the post following the election debacle.

Mahinda, the main opposition leader, will be appointed as Prime Minister after incumbent Wickremesinghe steps down formally on Thursday, his spokesman Rohan Weliwita was quoted as saying by Times Online.

The former President, who will function as Prime Minister of the caretaker cabinet until the general election, is expected to be sworn in at 1 pm before assuming office at around 3 pm, it added.

Mahinda was appointed the Prime Minister on October 26, 2018 by the then President Maithripala Sirisena, who sacked Wickremesinghe in a controversial move that plunged the country into an unprecedented constitutional crisis.

He resigned in December as two crucial Supreme Court decisions made the former strongman’s efforts to cling to premiership untenable.

The apex court later unanimously declared that the dissolution of Parliament by Sirisena was “illegal”.

Mahinda won power in 2005 and went on to become South Asia’s longest-serving leader. He became the country’s youngest ever parliamentarian in 1970 at the age of 24.

The two brothers led a decisive campaign that helped end the island nation’s three decade long civil war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe announced his resignation, days after the ruling party’s candidate lost the presidential election to Rajapaksa.

Rajapaksa defeated Wickremesinghe’s deputy Sajith Premadasa.

In a special statement in Sinhala language, the Prime Minister said that he had met President Rajapaksa on Tuesday and discussed the future of Sri Lanka’s Parliament, Colombo Gazette newspaper reported.

He said that while his Government still has the majority in Parliament it was decided to respect the mandate given to Rajapaksa at the Presidential election and step down.

Also Read: Sri Lanka: Gotabaya’s Triumph Is Constrained by Circumstances Beyond His Control

“I will step down to allow the new president to establish a new government. I will officially inform him of my decision tomorrow,” Wickremesinghe said.

He has been the leader of the United National Party (UNP) since 1994 and served as Sri Lanka’s prime minister for a total of three terms.

He was under pressure to quit and handover the government to the opposite camp after Rajapaksa won the presidential election on Saturday.

The UNP leader faced a revolt since Premadasa’s defeat, a regular occurrence during the last 25 years whenever the UNP lost a major election.

Harin Fernando, a minister from the party’s younger brigade, told reporters that they want Wickremesinghe to quit the party leadership and name Premadasa his successor for both the party leadership and the post of the main opposition leader.

“We will form our own party if he did not make the necessary changes this time,” Fernando told reporters.

There will be a caretaker cabinet of 15 members to run the government until Rajapaksa will be constitutionally able to dissolve parliament after February 2020.

UNHRC Resolution, Guided by India, to Give Breather to Sri Lankan Government

The Geneva-based body will adopt a new resolution that will give time till 2021 for the Sri Lankan government to fully implement commitments it made four years ago on transitional justice and accountability.

New Delhi: India’s desire to give some breathing space to Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe found a sympathetic ear in the international community. His government is to be granted a further extension of two years to carry out key pledges on transitional justice and accountability.

Just before the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) session ends mid-week, the Geneva-based body will adopt by consensus a new resolution – proposed by the UK, Canada and Germany – that will give time till 2021 for the Sri Lankan government to fully implement commitments it made four years ago.

Sources said that India had been kept informed “at every stage” about the drafting of the resolution by the UK. This is the first time that the US is not taking the lead, since it withdrew from the HRC last year.

This is the first regular session that India will participate as a member of UNHRC, after a mandatory gap in 2018 of one year following two consecutive terms.

According to sources, various countries were aware of the very recent turbulent political history and the fraught ties between President Maithripala Sirisena and Wickremesinghe.

“It was felt that the government required a break and this was not the right time to impose any stringent strictures,” said an Indian government official.

However, some Nordic countries with large Sri Lankan Tamil diasporas, had tried to introduce stronger language in the text. This was when India intervened to “remind” the international community about the current circumstances in Sri Lankan polity, sources noted.

However, officials said that there was largely not much intervention required, as there was consensus among the international community about the need to give the government some breathing space. “We didn’t have to do too much,” said the official.

Also read | India’s Dismissal of the UN Report on Kashmir Is Short-Sighted

This will certainly be good news for Wickremesinghe, who has been embattled domestically, with presidential election due in Sri Lanka within a year.

This agreement came despite Sri Lanka not having a good record of meeting its assurances on reconciliation and transitional justice.

According to a Sri Lankan think-tank, Verite Research, Colombo has fully implemented only six out of 36 commitments made by the government in resolution 30/1. There has been no progress on the creation of a judicial mechanism with foreign elements, but the Office of Missing Persons was set up last year in February.

The UN human rights commissioner’s report on Sri Lanka, which will be discussed on March 20, has acknowledged some of the steps taken by the government, but continued to be critical about the pace of accountability reforms.

However, with Sri Lanka co-sponsoring the resolution, as it had done with two previous iterations, officials said that the text would be adopted without the need for a vote.

After the adoption, India’s statement will include references to the need to take into account the sentiments of the Tamil population. There could also be a rare public mention of the full implementation of the 13th amendment that decentralises power to provincial councils. India had been a key advocate for the 13th amendment, but it has largely been absent from recent statements.

The scenario would have been different if President Sirisena had gone ahead with his proposal to send a separate delegation on his behalf to the Palais de Nations in Geneva.

On March 6, Sirisena informed heads of media organisations that he will be sending a three-member team his behalf, led by former foreign minister Mahinda Samarasinghe. He also indicated that Sri Lanka will not co-sponsor the resolution and would instead ask the international community to abandon plans for investigation into alleged atrocities. “I want to tell them [the UN] not to pressure us…What I want to tell them is don’t dig the past and reopen old wounds,” he said.

Maithripala Sirisena. Credit: Reuters

Observers had felt that Sirisena, who has been unable to convince the joint opposition to field him as their presidential candidate, had been hoping to earn some brownie points by advocating a Sinhala nationalist position against the prosecution of security personnel over alleged incidents of war crimes during the civil war. Leader of opposition Mahinda Rajapaksa has been opposed to Sri Lanka co-sponsoring the resolution.

A few hours later on the same day, a two-page joint press release was issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of Government Information and the Prime Minister’s Office that Sri Lanka would be co-sponsoring the resolution. In effect, there would have been two separate delegations from Sri Lanka at UNHRC’s 40th session.

Taking a dig at Sirisena, the press release stated, “The allegations made against the co- sponsoring of the roll-over resolution by the GOSL is part of the campaign to mislead the public and gain undue political advantage.” It also blamed the “infamous constitutional coup of 26th October, 2018” for the delay in bringing in some of the required legislation to implement commitments.

After months of estrangement, Sirisena had removed Wickremesinghe and made Rajapaksa as the prime minister in a surprise move last October. Wickremesinghe was restored as prime minister after the Supreme Court deemed the presidential orders to be unconstitutional.

Eventually, Sirisena climbed down after a week. According to the Sri Lankan media, Samarasinghe told President Sirisena that it would be embarrassing to go to Geneva and advocate a position at the UNHRC that was directly opposite to his previous commitments.

In October 2015, UNHRC had agreed to a resolution – co-sponsored by Sri Lanka and backed by India – that called for a domestic judicial mechanism with foreign judges and lawyers. With Sirisena defeating Mahinda Rajapaksa in a shock upset at the January 2015 presidential elections, the new government in Colombo was basking in the glow of the international community’s approval.

A year earlier in March 2014, India had abstained on the resolution that called for an international probe into human rights violations that occurred in the last stages of the civil war. In 2013 and 2012, the UPA government – under coalition pressure – had voted in favour of US-sponsored resolutions that criticised the Mahinda Rajapaksa government for not taking enough steps to ensure accountability.

Sources told The Wire that the Sri Lankan president had also been discretely informed by India and other members of the international community that if Colombo didn’t co-sponsor the resolution, it was highly likely than a vote would have been called on March 21. “If that had happened, then all bets were off,” said a highly-placed official.

Sri Lanka PM Wickremesinghe’s Reinstatement Calms Markets; Cabinet in Focus

The Sri Lankan rupee strengthened on Monday while bond yields dropped as a seven-week political crisis appeared to ebb.

Colombo: The Sri Lankan rupee strengthened on Monday while bond yields dropped as a seven-week political crisis appeared to ebb after President Maithripala Sirisena reinstated the premier he had initially sacked in a widely criticised move.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was sworn into office on Sunday, held discussions with Sirisena about forming a cabinet and restoring stability in the island nation of 21 million people just off the southern coast of India.

Wickremesinghe’s reinstatement, which is expected to end a political crisis that began in late October when he was surprisingly sacked, is seen as an embarrassment for the president.

Yields on Sri Lanka‘s dollar bonds due in 2022, which had risen more than 1 percent since the crisis started in October, fell 40 basis points to 7.6 percent. The rupee edged up to 179.60 per dollar from Friday’s close of 179.90/180.10.

“The market has taken Wickremesinghe’s appointment positively. But investors will have to wait and watch whether the president and prime minister will get along with each other,” a currency dealer said, requesting anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to media.

Sirisena had replaced Wickremesinghe with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa following differences over policy matters and other issues. However, Rajapaksa failed to win a parliamentary majority and resigned on Saturday as a government shutdown loomed.

Also Read: Sri Lanka’s Wickremesinghe Sworn in as Prime Minister

Sirisena had repeatedly said he would not reappoint Wickremesinghe as prime minister. However, he had to change his stance to gain parliamentary approval for a temporary budget that is required by Jan. 1.

Preparations for a vote on account will begin as soon as Wickremesinghe names a finance minister, treasury secretary SR Attygala said.

The vote on account has become mandatory after parliament approval for the budget for 2019 (Jan-Dec) was derailed following Wickremesinghe’s ouster in October.

Sri Lanka‘s stock market index held steady at 0800 GMT, while analysts said cautious investors were buying risky assets before the cabinet appointments are announced.

(Reuters)

Mahinda Rajapaksa Resigns as Sri Lanka’s PM

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay a court order restraining Rajapaksa, 73, from holding the office until it fully heard the case next month. Ranil Wickremesinghe is expected to take oath as Sri Lanka’s prime minister on Sunday.

Colombo: Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was appointed as Sri Lanka’s prime minister by President Maithripala Sirisena in a controversial move, resigned on Saturday as two crucial Supreme Court decisions made the embattled former strongman’s efforts to cling to premiership untenable.

Rajapaksa informed the lawmakers of United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) that he has resigned from the post, MP Shehan Semasinghe told reporters.

Rajapaksa was appointed as the prime minister on October 26 by President Sirisena in a controversial move after sacking Ranil Wickremesinghe, which plunged the country into an unprecedented constitutional crisis.

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay a court order restraining Rajapaksa, 73, from holding the office of prime minister until it fully heard the case next month.

Also Read: Wickremesinghe Likely to Take Oath as Sri Lanka’s PM on Sunday

The apex court on Thursday unanimously declared that the dissolution of parliament by Sirisena was “illegal”.

Pro-Rajapaksa lawmaker, Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena, had told reporters that Rajapaksa decided in a meeting on Friday with President Sirisena to resign to allow the President to appoint a new government.

Wickremesinghe is expected to take oath as Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister on Sunday.

President Maithripala Sirisena has reportedly agreed to reinstate ousted Prime Minister Wickremesinghe in the post after a discussion with him over the phone on Friday.