A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Sunday, July 16, 2017
Sri Lanka: The vicious political triangle
Blatant Mahinda, Betraying Ranil, and Blame-master Maithri
( July 16, 2017, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) They
are the three corners of Sri Lanka’s vicious political triangle.
Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family are nothing if they are not blatant
about everything. They defeated the LTTE, so they can do no wrong. They
will return to power, they insist, and rule for ever, no matter what. If
and when they do, the blame or credit for it must surely land on the
present government – for its betrayal of the common opposition promises
in the landmark election of January 2015.
The handsome prince of betrayal is of course the cleverly honest Prime
Minister. He keeps clean hands but allows other dirty hands at the table
and under the table. Ranil Wickremesinghe made the greatest possible
political sacrifice before the last presidential election, but has since
undone it by betraying the straightforward promises he made at the same
election: stop Port City; expose and end government corruption; and
rescue the Central Bank and restore its purpose and dignity. There were
plenty of other promises – ranging from constitutional overhaul to
national reconciliation to sweeping good governance. Starts have been
made on almost all of them, but no sense of accomplishment or steady
progress in any of them. On balance, the dim lights of achievements are
blinded by the glare of broken promises.
Maithripala Sirisena is the blame-master of the three. From his corner
of the triangle, he blames Mahinda Rajapaksa with both hands and Ranil
Wickremesinghe with a hidden hand. He promised to abolish the presidency
when he defeated and succeeded Mahinda Rajapaksa as president, but now
seems set on succeeding Mahinda Rajapaksa to be the next SLFP
presidential candidate. Between the two major parties, the UNP has
become unable to pick its own winning presidential candidate, and the
SLFP is stuck on running incumbents who cannot win as presidential
candidates.
Political calculations are considered to be the main reason for the general lack of progress in corruption investigations, even total inaction in some instances.
The political triangle is not suspended in a social vacuum. The three
corner figures and whatever connections there are between any two of
them are linked to the social and political forces that keep them afloat
and spin them around. Political commentaries get more excited at the
triangular connections, or contests, at the top and are less interested
in the linkages between the three leaders and the socio political
constituencies that support them. The base matters only as voting
coalitions or blocs (not ‘blocks’ as in the illegal spelling of a legal
luminary) and political insight is all about discerning the abilities of
the topmost competitors to strike winning permutations and combinations
out of the voting blocs.
For sheer embellishment of commentary, there are plenty of ideological
and adjectival sources: patriotism, sovereignty, security, good
governance and so on. The focus of contention now is whether the present
(good) government is really a non-government, and if the previous
government was strong and effective even if it was bad government. When
the choice is between bad government and no government it means ordinary
people are being stretched to their limits and wits to survive and
nothing much beyond. Humankind has come a long way to fall back to
Hobbes’s state of nature of old, but Sri Lankans have to endure a new
state of nature in mounds of garbage, chaotic traffic, striking doctors,
acres of drought and highways of flood, and universal mismanagement
from hospitals to schools to electricity, to petroleum, to ports, to
airports and aviation, and even cricket. The picture is all too familiar
and all too grim.
The Question
The question is whether Sri Lanka can rely on Mahinda Rajapaksa, Ranil
Wickremesinghe and Maithripala Sirisena to do anything to pull the
country, or at least start pulling the country out of its current
morass? Admittedly, Rajapaksa is not part of the governing partnership
between Wickremesinghe and Sirisena, but his relationship with either of
the two implicates the functioning of the partnership, and even the
government as a whole. That in effect was President Sirisena’s cabinet
complains two weeks ago not just for his ministers to hear but for the
whole country to know. Not that the likelihood of a silent understanding
between the Rajapaksa clan and the higher echelons of the UNP was not
known all along, but the President saying it set off a flurry of
speculations about the relationship between the President and the UNP,
and the future of the unity-government itself.
The President’s complain may not have surprised anyone, but his
disclaimer on corruption investigations convinced no one. His boast at
the cabinet meeting – that if things were left to him he would have done
everything in three months, is just that – a boast. You don’t need a
long memory to remember that only October last year President Sirisena
publicly took to task officials in the CID, FCID and the Bribery
Commission for their allegedly disrespectful handling of Gotabaya
Rajapaksa and Navy Commanders over allegations of abuse of authority and
financial misdemeanours in Avant-Garde enterprise.
Political calculations are considered to be the main reason for the
general lack of progress in corruption investigations, even total
inaction in some instances. As generally understood, the UNP’s
calculation in protecting the Rajapaksas and giving them political space
is to keep the SLFP divided and benefit the UNP electorally. To
President Sirisena, protecting military officials from investigation is
necessary to counter the patriotic claims of the Rajapaksas. The
political hypocrisy in this triangular relationship is quite
transparent. What may not be readily apparent is the cultural common
ground over corruption.
It is the culture of quid pro quo – I will scratch your corrupt back,
and you mine, that seems to be the real roadblock against corruption
investigations. The Central Bank and the Avant-Garde cases are
disturbing illustrations of this culture. To wit, no one in the UNP was
keen on going after the Central Bank shenanigans under the Rajapaksas,
so long as the UNP could carry out its on shenanigans at the bank. The
UNP’s bond scam was a bit too much to escape notice, putting it very,
very mildly, but the point is that the Rajapaksas have pointedly avoided
criticising the UNP leadership over the bond scandal.
While the bond scam has got its comeuppance under a commission of
inquiry, there is nothing to write about the on-again, off-again
investigations into the killings of Lasantha Wickrematunga and Wasim
Thajudeen. In his cabinet outburst, President Sirisena is said to have
specifically referred to the two murder investigations and wanted
results in three months. Three months are a long time- if it is
political interference that is preventing police from proceeding to
trial in these two cases. If the President and the Prime Minister cannot
act to stop political interference in two high profile cases, what else
can they be trusted to act upon? Why are those interfering with police
work not being isolated and exposed? And what will prevent police from
being selective and discretionary in the investigation of other crimes,
if political interference were to succeed in the Wickrematunga and
Thajudeen murder investigations?
So the question whether Sri Lanka can rely on Mahinda Rajapaksa, Ranil
Wickremasinghe and Maithripala Sirisena to do anything to pull the
country out of its current morass, should be reformulated as to whether
any or all of can do anything unless and until they do something about
government corruption and crimes. From Korea to Brazil, politicians in
and out of power are being held accountable for their actions. In Sri
Lanka, we have fallen back from a well-functioning criminal justice
system to one that is compromised by political interference. It says
something of a country’s state of affairs when its president calls out
his ministers in charge of justice and law and order for political
interference, and nothing happens after that. Let us wait for three
months to see if we can say anything different.