Paradise squandered – what really happened to Sri Lanka’s economy

By Yolani Fernando.-By Sri Lanka Brief-31/03/2022

 

Sri Lanka is often held up as poster child for the dangers of Chinese ‘debt trap diplomacy’, even though Chinese debt is just one element in a complexity of structural problems. If we take a decades-long view, Sri Lanka’s current economic trajectory was obvious, and its impending sovereign default a foregone conclusion. As high external debt repayments, a forex crisis, and the pandemic push the country to the brink of an unprecedented default in 2022, decades of strong performance on social indicators are now at serious risk.

Domestic authorities, including the Central Bank Governor, have resisted increasing national and international calls for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreement and debt restructuring, insisting that Sri Lanka will service its debt and keep the interests of foreign creditors ‘at heart’. The President, however, recently signalled the government’s intention to restructure its debt with the assistance of its allies and the IMF. Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan public bears the brunt of the crisis, with daily power cuts, fuel shortages, and skyrocketing prices for essential goods becoming the ‘new normal’.

From the 1950s through to the 1980s, high revenue collection supported generous expenditure on food subsidies, health and education. Sri Lanka consistently outperformed peers on social indicators. Since the early 1990s, the tax-to-GDP ratio has declined from an average of 18.4% (1990-92) to one of 12.7% (2017-19), reaching a low of 8.4% in 2020. Interestingly, the revenue decline started after Sri Lanka’s civil war ended in 2009. Governments began spending substantially less on social goods than they did in the past, with average health and education spending in 2010-19 amounting to 1.8% and 1.4% of GDP, respectively.

Three cardinal sins

Since the 1990s, successive Sri Lankan governments committed three cardinal sins, which may be forgivable on their own, but together form an unholy trinity of economic disaster: heavy reliance on commercial borrowings to finance the budget deficit since the mid-2000s; failure to widen the tax net and thereby shrinking government revenue; and missing opportunities to diversify and grow the export market, which in turn led to reliance on a few sources for most forex earnings. The current forex crisis was triggered by the decline in exports and tourism in 2020 and foreign remittances in 2021. The first two sins highlight the weak foundation of an economy that is now collapsing in on itself.

The country’s current crisis has roots in the surge of aid inflows after the economy opened in 1977. This allowed successive governments to run large fiscal deficits while neglecting revenue collection. Aid and avenues for concessionary borrowing dried up as Sri Lanka upgraded to lower middle income status. This led to a heavy reliance on commercial borrowings to finance the national budget.

These loans, unlike concessionary loans from multilateral institutions, had no strings attached. Most of this debt took the form of International Sovereign Bonds (ISBs). But this ‘quick and dirty’ solution came at a price – high interest rates, shorter maturity periods, and higher risks. By 2019, commercial borrowings, which were a mere 2.5% of foreign debt in 2004, had ballooned to 56%.

 

In comparison, Chinese-owned debt (including public debt and publicly guaranteed debt) represented only 17.2% of foreign debt in 2019. But the real devil lies in the effective interest rates of the ISBs, which are more than double those of Chinese loans. Sri Lanka’s interest payments alone took up 95.4% of government revenue in 2021. For comparison, its credit rating peers Ethiopia and Laos have rates of 11.8% and 6.6%, respectively.

Indirect taxation: 80-82% of revenue

While Sri Lanka’s higher development status should have resulted in greater direct taxation and growth of the tax-to-GDP ratio, its tax system is highly inequitable, with indirect taxation accounting for an estimated 80-82% of revenue. The falling tax ratio is due in part to failing to expand the tax net, reliance on indirect taxation, tax policy instability, and a plethora of tax concessions and reliefs.

Import duties are Sri Lanka’s preferred form of revenue collection, with more than half of government revenue being raised this way. Rich and poor are taxed equally on consumption of essential food imports, cooking fuel, and even sanitary pads. Heavy taxes on consumer goods have created a regressive taxation system which struggles to collect sufficient revenue to finance public spending. In contrast, progressive taxation failed to grow since the 1990s, with the number of individual taxpayers not keeping up with economic expansion.

These unsound policy decisions can be attributed in part to the expansion of the Executive Presidency’s influence over the Treasury and the absence of powerful finance ministers. This was demonstrated in November 2019, when President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fulfilled a campaign promise to slash taxes that ultimately compounded the revenue loss due to the pandemic.

The pandemic: ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’

The pandemic can be seen as the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’ rather than the cause of Sri Lanka’s woes. The situation spiralled out of control when tourism earnings and other sources of foreign exchange took a hit. While worker remittances actually increased in 2020, they reached a ten-year low in 2021 as the fixed exchange rate led to the increased use of informal channels to repatriate earnings.

After sweeping tax cuts in 2019 led to a credit rating downgrade in 2020, Sri Lanka lost access to international financial markets and, subsequently, its ability to roll over the ISBs. While some of the repayments were supplemented with increased multilateral and bilateral borrowing, Sri Lanka started dipping into its foreign reserves to meet its debt obligations. This resulted in foreign reserves plummeting from a healthy level of USD8,864 million in June 2019 to USD2,361 million in January 2022 (of this, usable reserves are in fact only USD792 million). Unable to bring its foreign earnings back to pre-pandemic levels, Sri Lanka now faces a dire forex crisis. Again, the pandemic merely exposed the country’s vulnerabilities rather than precipitating its crisis.

Sri Lanka has a globally unique problem of consistently outperforming its peers on development indicators while contending with dangerously low levels of government revenue. Its economic decline presents a cautionary tale of weak public finance management and short-sighted policies. Rather than being a victim of pervasive lending practices, Sri Lanka is a victim of its own crumbling and politicised institutional foundations. Its trifecta of sins has brought it to the brink of a default and could undo decades of progress and post-conflict stability. The government insists that “Sri Lanka always pays its debts”, and while this seems like an admirable stance, how long will the Sri Lankan people bear the cost of that stance?

This post is part of a collaborative series with The Asia Foundation. (https://devpolicy.org)

  A journey in search of Suwandadari ‘සුවඳාදරී’...!

-Prof. Praneeth Abhayasundara writes

(Lanka-e-News-29.March.2022, 10.25 pm) ‘Love’ is a word that can convey different meanings. But in practice love is often used to describe the psycho-physical relationships that occur between men and women.

Libido…

This scope is scientifically defined as libido and, it extends to different directions, such as love, affection, endearment, lust, lust for sex, and so on. Libido is the primary force that contributes to worldly existence and is described as a set of biological and psychological impulses common to all animals, or as a process relates to the biochemical and neurological structures that exist in the body.

Under all these circumstances, the subject of love is interpreted in a variety of practical, theoretical as well as conceptual terms around the world. Love is one of the most widely used art forms in the world ever since. As it is the central factor in the biological existence of all living things, it is not surprising that even artists pay special attention to it.

“Not ageing, and charming”

This subject, love,  is repeatedly interpreted in all forms of art in Sri Lanka. We can imagine how wide and vast a range within this scope, given that it has always been in the state of "not ageing, and charming". But that innovation always depends on the innovative and diversified forms in which it is used in art media.

I was interested in writing the above foreword after listening to a song called 'Suwandadari' online. The song is written by Sandaruwan Senadheera, a veteran alternative media personality who expresses a unique identity of our generation and, composed by Navarathna Gamage, one of our most talented musicians, and sung by a talented singer Lesley Thomas.

"සුවඳාදරී  සුවඳාදරී සුවඳාදරී සුවඳාදරී........
අපි හමුවෙච්චි සඳ රෑ
ඔබ නාව නම් ...
මං නොහිටියා නම් ...
ඒ හමුව සඳ නොදකින්න තිබුණා ...
තිබුණා .............." 

The word "Suwandadari" we hear at the beginning adds to our ears an unfamiliar strangeness. I think it must be a latest concept  created by combining the two most common words, “Suwanda” and “Adaraya”. In the field of linguistics, such output gives new impetus to the literary genre concerned.

For a lassie who is far away emotionally…

The main feature I see in this lyric, which can be interpreted as a love breakup song, is that it is an address to a lassie called "Suwandadari" who is far away emotionally. There is a clear difference between one’s  emotional address and normal address to another. Although the latter is merely a saying, the emotional one is a set of emotions that generate within the person. Therefore, when composing a lyric, the writer has the full potential not to be interested in the use of accepted word types and patterns. 

Contrary to world standard in anyway…

The lyric is based on a love affair that is not any way matching to world standard, and a bereavement thereafter. But the lyricist has "roamed freely" in his work, not allowing us feel that the encounter was merely centered on the above said libido. The lyric slowly extends to a range of "worship farewell" as well as a reminder of a mother's virtues, so that libido or lust does not come to the fore. It is felt that the lyric transcends the boundaries of a couple's meeting and separation and, touches on various aspects of love such as father-daughter, employer-employee, teacher-student, etc.

Even if it gives a subtle hint …

Lyrics  are not simply a 'news bulletin' similar to most contemporary songs; hence if it gives merely a subtle hint to the listener, it is more than enough. Further, a lyric is not a perfect composition like a poem. Its perfection can only be experienced if it is accompanied by a melody, orchestra, and voice suited to the lyric. 

Accordingly, the lyricist who aspires to present a song full of the above to the listener should also pay special attention to the space available to the composer, music director and singer to make it a perfect creation. If this is not possible then it should be presented directly to the reader as a poem.

Finding new ways benefited to the society…

All the arts have an existence that is parallel to contemporary socio-economic, and political structure. Needless to say, today's society is extremely crisis-ridden. Due to that crisis, it is natural for people to focus on alternatives, innovations and diversity in everything related to themselves and the world around them. In the face of contemporary social, economic and political instability, the cultural characteristics of that society also change very naturally.

It will also be the social duty and responsibility of the artists to identify those social variables and find new ways that are conducive to society through their field of disciplines.

Accordingly, I would like to conclude by saying that the said lyric  emotionally and sensitively expresses a love breakup caused by the existing social discontent; the music composer has managed to get  out of a mere monotonous traditional melody and orchestral harmony, and to pass into the listener's mind in a unique way; Secondly, the singer has been able to express his talent in an optimal manner, keeping in mind the importance and responsibility of the work. 

Prof. Praneeth Abhayasundara

Faculty of Anthropology, University of Sri Jayewardenepura

You can listen the song here 

---------------------------
by     (2022-03-29 17:04:29)

 

Contestations over Land in Northern Sri Lanka

Rethinking hegemony and resistance in land conflicts in the post-civil war Sri Lankan North.

Villagers from Vasavilan and Palali in Jaffna, attempting to view the 197 acres of land that was occupied by the Sri Lankan military in early 2015. Image: Tamil Guardian

Mahendran Thiruvarangan-Mar 30, 2022

In Northern Sri Lanka, unequal access to land has been a centuries-old problem. The major reasons for the conflicts and contestations over land in this region include: the long history of casteism and its role in denying Panchamar (an umbrella term for five caste-based communities historically subjected to oppression and exploitation in the North) ownership of land; the protracted ethnic conflict accompanied by heavy militarization by the Sri Lankan state (and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during the civil war); the state’s attempts to give a Sinhala-Buddhist character to the territories in the North under the pretext of archaeological research; the multiple displacements suffered by the Tamil and Muslim communities during the war; and finally the land grabs done in the guise of preserving the ecosystem and development. To understand these contestations and inequalities, we must pay attention to the hierarchies of caste, class, ethnicity, nation and gender that produce landlessness as a form of social exclusion, political marginalization, and economic dispossession.

Panchamar

In the North, due to caste and ethnic hierarchies, the Panchamar, Malaiyaha Tamil communities, and the Muslims who were evicted from the North in 1990 by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), face severe landlessness today. Jaffna’s caste system was built around the region’s agrarian economy. The Vellalar caste became socially and economically powerful because of their historical control over land. For them, land ownership was a form of primitive accumulation of capital which subsequently strengthened their dominance over other caste groups in the spheres of culture, education, politics and economy. Colonial powers, Christian missionaries, and even Tamil nationalist movements that proclaimed to build a Tamil nation free of caste oppression were unable to disrupt in any significant way the long-lasting hegemony of the Vellalar as the most dominant land-owning caste in the North. Instead, they all had to negotiate their relationship  with the Vellalar elite carefully and even make compromises, to win over the latter’s  support to their agendas and programs. 

Today, the Panchamar caste communities in the North articulate their demand for land in different ways. Sometimes their struggles for land involve acts of occupation and insubordination. For example, in 2017, a Panchamar community in Jaffna defended their right to live on land they had occupied near a disused cemetery against attempts to revive that cemetery. Other members of the Panchamar communities, who were displaced from areas brought under the control of the military during the civil war, are now demanding land rights in the places where they now live. This is to ensure access to proper transportation, health care facilities and good educational opportunities for their children. Many of them have no lands to return to in areas presently controlled by the military, nor do they want lands there because of the lack of physical infrastructure and social and economic development.

In 2017, villagers from several oppressed castes defended their right to live on land they had occupied near a disused cemetery in Puttur, Jaffna. Image: Daily News

Malaiyaha Tamils and Returning Northern Muslims

In Kilinochi District, many members of the Malaiyaha Tamil communities lack agricultural land even though many of them have lived there for more than forty years. Bureaucrats responsible for land affairs in the North treat these communities with disdain, as if they are outsiders without any legitimate claims over the region. Conversations with members of the community reveal that they face discrimination when they apply for land grants or deeds. In Panamkandy, Kilinochchi district, the LTTE had distributed land (that previously belonged to those who had out-migrated) to Malaiyaha Tamil families. However, following the end of the war, the previous owners returned and threatened the new inhabitants with evictions or forced them to buy the land at exorbitant prices.

“A racially motivated environmentalist discourse portrays the returning Muslims as a profit-seeking community that does not care for the environment.”

When the Muslims in Silvathurai, Mannar district, who were evicted by the LTTE in 1990, returned to the North, they found that their lands had already been acquired by the military, as had happened to the Tamils in neighboring Mullikulam. Many of the returning Muslim families lost access to land in the Musali South region in Mannar that they had historically used for their livelihood and everyday needs when the government suddenly declared a portion of their neighborhood a forest reserve. This severing of Muslims from their land was accompanied by a racially motivated environmentalist discourse which portrays the returning Muslims as a profit-seeking community that does not care for the environment. 

Returning Muslims in all districts in the North face a shortage of land as their families have expanded since their displacement in 1990. In areas like Mulliyawalai, the returning communities face the additional burden of establishing proof of ownership of land that they had historically used for agriculture when applying for government grants or support for wells and electricity. The authorities in the North deny or prevent renewal of permits to these communities. Tamil bureaucrats in the North, on the one hand, complain that the Sinhala-Buddhist state poses a threat to the cultural and social existence of the Tamil community. On the other, they use the same state apparatus to deny Muslims and Malaiyaha Tamils their right to live on and use lands they have historical connections to. That is, it is not just the Sinhala-Buddhist state and its majoritarian nationalism, but also dominant, exclusivist forces within the Tamil community that contribute to the landlessness and land-related problems facing the returning Muslims and Malaiyaha Tamils.

The State and Its Apparatuses

“...hegemonic archaeological initiatives are a threat to both cultural pluralism and the livelihoods of neighboring communities. ”

Since the end of the war, governments that have come to power have used the Department of Archaeology, Department of Wildlife Conservation and the Forest Department to dispossess the Tamil and Muslim communities of their land in the North. For example, politically motivated archaeological excavations are currently underway amidst heavy military presence, seeking to establish Sinhala-Buddhist claims over the cultural landscape of the North. Several religious sites and indigenous shrines, especially those that are currently worshiped by Hindus, have been reclaimed as ancient Buddhist sites without any substantial evidence. Even if these sites were once associated with Buddhism in the past, the authoritarian and militaristic manner in which the Department of Archaeology conducts its excavation projects without any regard for the opinion of the local communities turns these projects into hegemonic exercises of majoritarian chauvinism. These actions sever communities from sites of worship which are culturally meaningful to them. Such hegemonic archaeological initiatives ignore the religious and cultural fluidity of these sites in that they have taken on different and overlapping identities over the centuries due to social, economic, and political developments. Instead, they further polarize communities along ethnic and religious lines, posing a serious challenge to cultural coexistence. 

Chauvinistic colonization schemes which use the rhetoric of social justice and welfarism alongside the state’s attempts to re-demarcate district boundaries without consulting minority communities have created inter-ethnic tensions in the North. Recently, Tamil groups protested a move to annex two Sinhala-majority villages in Anuradhapura district in the North-Central province to the Tamil-majority Vavuniya district. The protesters saw this as a chauvinistic attempt to weaken the political strength of Tamils in Vavuniya district and the Northern Province. In the 1980s, in Weli-Oya, previously known by its Tamil name Manal-Aru, the military evicted Tamils from their land and gave it to Sinhalese from the Southern parts of the country. To date, Tamils who lost their lands have neither been given alternative lands nor compensation for the land they lost. To be clear, while allocating land for landless Sinhalese is a welcome step, the process must address the tensions that come with settling Sinhalese in areas predominantly inhabited by minorities in a political context where the centralized state remains majoritarian in character. Using the military apparatuses of the state to initiate and sustain these land allocation processes, and not involving the minorities in developing inclusive land distribution policies, is majoritarian and chauvinistic. 

In April 2021, boards which read 'unnecessary intrusions into this army controlled area are prohibited', appeared overnight at properties belonging to ten different families in Kankesanthurai, Jaffna. Image: Tamil Guardian

The military continues to occupy land in several parts of the North that once belonged to Tamil and Muslim communities including Valikamam North in Jaffna, Mullikulam and Silavathurai in Mannar, and Kepapulavu in Mullaitivu. It is also acquiring new land in the post-war years. Almost every week, there are protests by local communities against the military’s attempts to acquire land under the pretext of national security or archaeological excavation. A powerful protest led by Tamil women who had been evicted from their lands in Keppapulavu by the military drew the attention of the entire country and the international community a few years ago. However, the state did not take any appropriate steps to meet the women’s demand to return their land. The protestors’ demands highlighted the fact that the community relates to land not just in terms of ethnicity—for the women who participated in this protest, land was also a material site that provided livelihood and an intimate space of security.

Land, Identity and Livelihood

In the North, contestations over land are tied to, and inflected by, questions of both identity and livelihood. Many Tamils and Muslims view the state’s attempts to start excavation projects as a threat to sites associated with their cultures and traditions in the region. However, land is not just a cultural symbol, it is also a material site that is a primary source of livelihood for many. When there is shortage of land, or when the land owned and used by the people is abruptly alienated by the state without proper alternatives, people’s livelihoods are adversely affected. This is especially the case for those engaged in agriculture and small-scale production that requires land as a primary resource. Recently, in Mullaitivu district, a Buddhist priest (based at the archaeological site at Kurundurmalai and the Department of Archaeology) claimed that lands in the neighborhood that were historically cultivated by Tamil farmers for several generations belong to a Buddhist site that the Department of Archaeology is now in the process of ‘recovering’. Historically, many Hindus from the Tamil community worshipped the Aiyanar shrine at this site. The Buddhist priest, under the pretext of carrying out excavation work, has obstructed Tamil farmers from engaging in agricultural activities on the adjoining land. The seven Tamil families that own this land amounting to 36 acres are no longer able to use it for cultivation. This is a clear example of how hegemonic archaeological initiatives are a threat to both cultural pluralism and the livelihoods of neighboring communities. 

“In over-emphasizing the role of ethnicity in contemporary land struggles, some Tamil nationalist narratives fail to bring to light the ways in which landlessness is experienced as a form of inequality within the Tamil community along lines of caste, class, and gender”

Furthermore, people’s relationship to land through livelihood can be articulated in gendered terms. For example, at a recent discussion, a group of Muslim women in Mannar, many of whom had lost their land to militarization following their eviction in 1990, expressed the need for more land to engage in poultry farming, net-weaving or small-scale food production in their own compounds. They note that having a bigger compound around their houses allows them to easily engage in production while attending to their domestic responsibilities as mothers and care-givers. Thus, our evaluations of the impact of land grabs need to look beyond identity and culture, to consider the related economic and gendered processes that shape people’s relationship to land.

With aid from the Archaeology Department, Sinhala Buddhist monk, Galgamuwa Chandabothi Nayaka Thera, blocked seven Tamil families from cultivating 36 acres their land. Image: Tamil Guardian

While ethnicity occupies a central place in many land-related contestations in the North, ethnicity as an analytical category can be of limited use in understanding land-based inequalities in the region. For instance, those who live in camps for war-displaced come predominantly from Panchamar communities. While the war turned them into a displaced population, centuries of caste-based oppression had already made them a landless community, long before the onset of the war. Unlike well-to-do Vellalar Tamils who were able to purchase land and houses in other parts of the North, or migrate to the Southern part of Sri Lanka, or to Europe, North America and Australia, some Panchamar families have been stuck in camps for nearly three decades. This is mainly because of the economic dispossession their community has historically faced on account of their caste. Therefore, ethnicity alone is not a sufficient category to explain the predicament of these camp-dwellers as a landless and displaced population. In over-emphasizing the role of ethnicity in contemporary land struggles, some Tamil nationalist narratives fail to bring to light the ways in which landlessness is experienced as a form of inequality within the Tamil community along lines of caste, class, and gender. This flaw has serious social and economic ramifications for people on the peripheries, and their struggles for land, housing, livelihood and dignity. 

Jaffna’s Muslim villages remain destroyed 25 years since the eviction of 75,000 Muslims by the Tamil Tigers from Sri Lanka’s North. Image: Sri Lanka Brief

Resistance

Land-related problems in the North stem from complex, interlocking layers of power and dominance. Hence, the solutions to these problems cannot be linear, singular, or piecemeal. The state uses welfarist, environmentalist, cultural, and national security discourses to justify its attempts to alienate land. The workings of the state cannot be reduced to frameworks of Sinhala majoritarianism, because dominant Tamil actors also use the structures of the state to deny Muslims, Malaiyaha Tamils, and Panchamar access to land. Similarly, ethnicity cannot be the sole framework to understand and find solutions to land-related contestations and land-based inequalities in the North, as communities’ access to land is shaped by long histories of casteism, class, and gender-based social hierarchies. Resistance should be cognizant of all these processes. 

Even as the state and other dominant actors engage in land grabs, communities on the margins continue to demand land for housing, agriculture, and other economic activities by way of protests and public campaigns. When a land commission initiated by the People’s Alliance for Right to Land conducted its hearings in the North in 2019, members of these communities spoke about how land matters to them, their families and children, and how they have fought for access to land. Those who were displaced and evicted from their land demand the return of the land they lost during the war and new land in places where their expanding families can easily access education and transportation. In so doing, they frame their demand for land not as restoration of the status quo that existed prior to their displacement but as a larger quest for social equality, economic justice, and a more egalitarian society. It is noteworthy that in some of these initiatives, like the ones at Sencholai and Kepapulavu, women are at the forefront of these struggles.  

“Due to ethnic polarization caused by divisive nationalist politics in the North, the Tamil and Muslim communities find it difficult to come together even when it comes to challenging land grabs by the military.”

While this resistance and resilience to state and other forms of authoritarianism generate hope among the communities that face dispossession and exclusion, there is a need to reflect on how our resistance can be made more inclusive in ethnic and cultural terms. We also need to think about why resistance should rise above the narrow territorial claims made in the name of nationalism. The eviction of the Muslims en masse from their lands in the North in 1990 by the LTTE should be seen not as incidental in the larger context of the civil war, but as ideological, and as an outcome of exclusivist sovereign claims made by a state in the making—Tamil Eelam (the separate Tamil state the LTTE sought to build in northeast Sri Lanka). Due to ethnic polarization caused by divisive nationalist politics in the North, the Tamil and Muslim communities find it difficult to come together even when it comes to challenging land grabs by the military. 

Furthermore, when challenging hegemonic archaeological initiatives, we should ensure that our objective is not to build counternarratives that are at the service of another identitarian, nationalist project seeking to validate cultural purism and ethno-religious homogeneity across time. This means that we need to historicize and contextualize the identities associated with sites under excavation in order to chart the shifts in cultural practices. We also need to recognize instances where cultures and religious traditions have coexisted around these sites and re-imagine archaeology as an exercise that also concerns the present so that it does not alienate communities who are presently associated with the sites under contestation regardless of what the past reveals.

Resistance initiatives should recognize the symbiotic relationship between the environment and human communities by not allowing chauvinistic discourses to dominate our attempts to engage with the environment in processes of resettlement and development. We need a sustained conversation on how communities can build solidarity across divisions created by the majoritarian state, Tamil nationalism, and caste-based hierarchies. While land struggles in the North have their specific histories and contexts, the North cannot isolate itself from land struggles in the rest of the country and more widely in South Asia. Initiating conversations and building alliances that cut across regional and national borders is a vital process that can help us conceive, democratize and advance our land struggles in the future.      

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Mahendran Thiruvarangan has a PhD in English from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is interested in postcolonialism, decolonization, literature, land and radical democracy. In 2019, he served on a land commission set up by the People's Alliance for Right to Land.

 

Federal police blame ‘oversight’ for delay in Australian review of Sri Lankan war crime allegations

AFP not aware of ‘administrative oversight’ until letter from justice groups seeking update on 2019 complaint about Jagath Jayasuriya

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Retired Sri Lankan general Jagath Jayasuriya is accused in multiple lawsuits of overseeing war crimes against separatist Tamils in the country’s civil war. Photograph: Ishara S Kodikara/AFP/Getty Images

Christopher Knaus @knausc-Wed 30 Mar 2022

Federal police blamed an “administrative oversight” for huge delays in reviewing war crime allegations against a Sri Lankan man as he travelled to and from Australia, documents show.

In 2019, human rights groups wrote to the Australian federal police warning that Jagath Jayasuriya, a retired Sri Lankan general, “has entered Australia and may still be in the jurisdiction”.

Jayasuriya is accused in multiple lawsuits of overseeing war crimes against separatist Tamils in the last stages of the country’s bloody civil war in 2009 – allegations which the Sri Lankan military rejects.

The war crimes lawsuits, based on evidence gathered by the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP), said he was in charge of troops in Sri Lanka’s north-east who allegedly abducted, tortured and killed civilians, attacked hospitals and committed acts of sexual violence.

The AFP received detailed evidence from the Australian Centre for International Justice (ACIJ) in 2019 and told the group it took “such matters seriously” but would require the consent of then attorney general Christian Porter to investigate. Porter’s office later told the ACIJ it was not appropriate for the attorney general to get involved in a decision on whether a prosecution should take place.

In August last year, the two human rights groups wrote to the AFP, seeking an update and pointing to a recent UN report which found Sri Lanka was allowing impunity for those suspected of atrocities in the civil war.

In reply, the AFP said there had been an “administrative oversight” that meant the matter was “not allocated to an investigations team for review”.

The AFP said it had not been aware of the oversight “until receipt of your recent letter”. “I can advise, however, that … your original report has been assigned for review by the special investigations team, counter-terrorism and special investigations command,” the AFP said.

Last month, the AFP wrote to the two human rights groups to tell them it had decided not to commence an investigation, partly because “general Jagath Jayasuriya is not in Australia”.

The AFP said the Sri Lankan government had set up internal investigations into the war crimes allegations and that the Australian government had previously endorsed that process.

The human rights groups, along with the Tamil Refugee Council, are calling for an inquiry into the AFP’s handling of the complaint.

“The AFP must answer for their abject failure in the handling of a serious criminal referral and our warning that an accused war criminal was roaming freely in Australia,” the ACIJ executive director, Rawan Arraf, said.

The groups have also called for Australia to use the new Magnitsky-style sanctions against Jayasuriya.

The ITJP executive director, Yasmin Sooka, said Australia must not allow itself to become a “haven for alleged war criminals from Sri Lanka” given its large Tamil community.

“Magnitsky sanctions are an important tool for the international community to assert the truth for victims in situations when the country itself is unwilling to act,” Sooka said.

The Guardian sought a response from Jayasuriya, via the Sri Lankan government through the country’s boxing selection committee – which he has served on – and via his Facebook page.

No response was received. But both the Sri Lankan military and former Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena have strongly denied the allegations.

After the lawsuits in South America, Sirisena told a convention of his Sri Lanka Freedom party that he would protect Jayasuriya.

“I state very clearly that I will not allow anyone in the world to touch Jagath Jayasuriya or any other military chief or any war hero in this country,” he said.

Also speaking after the lawsuits, brigadier Roshan Seneviratne, a military spokesperson, said the accusations against Jayasuriya were false.

“We maintain that these allegations are false,” Seneviratne said. “Although the LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] was defeated by the military, their ideology is still alive and that is what we see in these allegations.”

The UN estimates up to 70,000 people died in the final phase of the 30-year civil war, when the LTTE were defeated.

 Sri Lanka abstains again as UN demands aid access for Ukraine

 30 March 2022

Sri Lankan decided once more not to back a UN General Assembly resolution demanding civilian protection and humanitarian access in Ukraine last week, in yet another vote at the global body.

During the emergency special session, the resolution entitled ‘Humanitarian consequences of the aggression against Ukraine’ was passed with 140 votes in favour.

38 countries, including Sri Lanka decided to abstain. Just five countries voted against the resolution – Russia, Syria, North Korea, Eritrea and Belarus.

The vote marked the second time that Sri Lanka had abstained at the General Assembly on a resolution discussing Ukraine.

It comes despite the heads of 14 embassies to Sri Lanka urging Colombo to call “on Russia to end its hostilities immediately” and join in “vocal support for Ukraine and international law” last month.

As Russia invaded Ukraine, Sri Lanka’s foreign secretary declared his government would not “take sides” and instead claimed that “each can have their own reasons”. Days later, Sri Lanka sought a US$ 300 million Credit Line from Moscow, as prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa met with a visiting Russian delegation.

Sri Lanka remains a tourist destination for many Russians, including oligarchs who have been known to dock their luxury yachts on the island.

Sri Lanka’s relationship with Russia was highlighted by protestors in London this week, with demonstrators calling Colombo ““Russia’s blood money partner”.

Read more below:

‘Sanction Russia’s friends – Isolate Sri Lanka’: British Tamils demonstrate London Stock Exchange

‘Overwhelming support for Sri Lanka’ – Colombo claims success at United Nations

Russia and Belarus rush to Sri Lanka’s defence at UN Human Rights Council

Russian tourists lead the way in Sri Lanka, including an oligarch or two

Sri Lanka abstains as UN overwhelming condemns Russian invasion of Ukraine

What are thermobaric and cluster bombs? A look at their use by the Sri Lankan army

As world slaps sanctions on Russia, Sri Lanka looks to deepen trade with Moscow

Sri Lanka ‘won’t take sides’ on Russia and Ukraine, as conflict intensifies

Putin and Rajapaksa exchange letters to celebrate ‘abiding friendship’