Col R Hariharan
Sirisena government’s positive vibes
President Sirisena’s government has taken a few small, but important,
actions to show it is sincere in its efforts to fulfil the electoral promises
on good governance and reconciliation. The actions include: introduction of the
Right to Information (RTI) bill in parliament,
vacation of the Sampoor naval base created in 2007 to return the land to
the original owners and the appointment of a Secretary General for the
secretariat for Coordinating Reconciliation Mechanism created in the prime
minister’s office in December 2015.
During the month the RTI Bill was introduced in parliament.
The Bill seeks to confer the right to its citizen to seek access to information
held by the government or any public body. Though the Bill was originally
presented in parliament in January, the Northern, the North Central and the
Sabaragamuwa provincial councils had suggested amendments to the Bill before
getting parliamentary approval.
To facilitate the implementation of RTI, a five-member RTI
commission would be set up and an information officer would be appointed in
every public institution. However, the Bill has indicated matters affecting the
state’s interest in national security, foreign relations, trade and commerce
and finance and fiscal security as well as private information of individuals
including medical information have been declared as “No Go areas” for RTI.
Sri Lanka Navy has vacated the Sampoor naval training base
established in 237 acres of private land in eastern province soon after the
defeat of the Tamil Tigers in 2007, for restoring them to the owners. The creation of the base and the navy’s
continued occupation of private land even after six years since the end the
war had been one of the longstanding grievances of Tamils in the province. Navy handed over 177 acres to the eastern
province governor in a ceremony attended by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA)
leader Sampanthan and other Tamil ministers.
President Sirirsena has already handed over 60 acres to the owners in a
token gesture in August 2015. The navy has established a bigger camp close to
the abandoned camp in Sampoor.
In yet another move to show it is serious about acting on
its promises, the government has announced that the parliament would be
convened on April 5 as a constitutional assembly to trigger the constitution making process.
These measures have not gone unnoticed. The US Assistant
Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal had singled
out Sri Lanka to praise it for consolidating its democratic gains in the past
two elections to put the country on a path of reconciliation. Speaking
at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, Ms Biswal further
added, “Both Secretary Kerry and Ambassador Power visited last year -and I
myself visited [Sri Lanka] four time in
2015 – this year we launched our first-ever Partnership Dialogue.”
Mending relations with China
Sri Lanka seemed to have taken some key decisions to mend its
relations with China before Prime Minister Wickremesinghe visits Beijing in
April. Relations between the two countries had developed cracks after Sirisena
government rolled back some of the Chinese-aided projects
for suspected corruption and absence of due process in finalizing them, soon after coming to power.
Obviously, it was trying to correct the skewed pro-Chinese tilt adopted during
the Rajapaksa regime which had irked India.
Rishad Bathiudeen, Minister for Industries and Commerce, has
announced a high level delegation would be visiting China in April to sign the
Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The FTA negotiations between the countries had been
going on for nearly two years and its finalization is expected to give a boost
to not only bilateral trade between the two countries, but also their relations as a
whole. Sri Lanka expects greater inflow
of Chinese investment after the signing of the FTA which would give a boost to its
flagging economy and generate employment opportunities for the people.
While
meeting an official delegation from Yunnan Province which handed over an
official invitation for the 24th Kunming Fair to be held in June,
the Minister said, President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe are very keen on the FTA.” According to the Minister Sri Lanka’s
trade with China in 2015 was $4 billion. Imports from China accounted for $3.7
billion in the bilateral trade. Trade with China grew by 12 per cent since
2014, while Sri Lanka’s exports to China went up by 69 per cent.
The government has also informed the China Harbor Engineering Corporation
Port City Colombo Ltd (CHEC), the Chinese developers of the $1.4
billion Colombo Port City project, that they could resume the work on the
project. The project was suspended in March 2015 to investigate allegations of
corruption and aberrations in the finalization of the project, ignoring
environmental safeguards.
China has not taken kindly to the suspension of
the prestigious project launched on September 17, 2014 by President Mahinda
Rajapaksa and Chinese President Xi Jinping. It was to be completed in 39 months.
It was well underway when President Sirisena came to power; so its suspension
came as a shock to China.
The project aims at reclaiming 233 hectares of
land from the sea adjacent to the Galle Face Green a popular beach front of
Colombo to build offices, hotels and shopping centres. India which is the
largest user of Colombo port and has close maritime security relations with Sri Lanka had expressed its concerns at the project as the original agreement
envisaged giving China the outright ownership to part of the reclaimed land. Sri
Lanka has now reduced the land allocated to the Chinese which would now be given on
99 year-lease instead of ownership.
The CHEC is a subsidiary of the China
Communications Construction Company (CCCC) which is underwriting the project
with 30 per cent capital and 70 percent in the form of land.
In fact, even after the announcement the project
developers sounded bitter. In a statement the CHEC regretted “the
suspension and the lengthy process taken to resume work have resulted in
significant losses to the company and Sri Lanka.” The developers estimate the
losses at $380,000 a day. The company claimed the contractual obligations
for obtaining the permits for the project were with the Sri Lanka government
and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority; and it started the work on the project only
after they informed that these contractual obligations have been fulfilled. In
an e-mail to the Nation, Colombo, the company said “the Project Company
has a legal right for compensation by the Government for losses suffered due to
the suspension.”
Moreover, the Coast Conservation and Coastal
Resource Management Department in its conditional permit issued to the
developers has stipulated very stiff environmental norms to be observed while
executing the project.
Perhaps these are some of the
reasons why the developers have not yet signed a long term deal with Sri Lanka.
The issue is likely to be on the agenda of Prime Minister Wickremesinghe’s
talks with Chinese leadership when he visits Beijing.
Written on March 31,
2016
[Col
R Hariharan, a retired MI officer, served as the head of intelligence of the
Indian Peace Keeping Force from 1987 to 90. E-mail: haridirect@gmail.com Blog: http://col.hariharan.info ]
Courtesy:
South Asia Security Trends, April 2016 issue www.security-risks.com
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