The Embilipitiya death, GSP Plus and a challenge for Yahapalanaya

Photo courtesy News1st

• by Harim Peiris 
• - on 01/29/2016 

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

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

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

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