Highlights
- Judiciary and parliament are on a collision course after the parliament took up a motion to impeach the Chief Justice of Supreme Court for misconduct.
- President Rajapaksa has highlighted the need for changing the present provincial council set. This would indicate that 13th amendment to the constitution was likely to be replaced or amended.
- Indian business in Sri Lanka heading for tough competition from China and Japan.
- Sri Lanka’s woes at the UN Human Rights Council(UNHRC) continued when the UNHRC discussed the nation’s universal periodic review of human rights.
- Miscellaneous: Sri Lanka army recruits Tamil women for its women’s wing for the first time.
Stung by the ruling of
the Supreme Court Chief Justice Mrs Shirani Bandaranayake that the Divi Neguma
Bill which seeks to centralize rural savings assistance schemes required the
approval of all the provincial councils, ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance
(UPFA) coalition has moved the parliament to impeach her. Charges of her
misconduct include alleged corruption charges against her husband. The
impeachment move has triggered a lot of protests from the judiciary, legal
profession and civil society as well international criticism. Viewed in the
larger context of President Rajapaksa’s authoritarian style of governance, this
is probably a move to bring judiciary under his control.
The Chief Justice was
handpicked by President Rajapaksa though she lacked adequate courtroom
experience. In her submission to the parliamentary select committee examining
the impeachment charges, she said the select committee had no jurisdiction to
exercise judicial powers and impeach her. Refuting the 14 charges of misconduct
against her, she asked for an inquiry to be held by “a lawfully appointed body
consisting of eminent and independent persons not politically affiliated” to
look into the charges against her. She told the media she would fight to
preserve the independence of the judiciary.
Future of 13th amendment
President’s brother and Defence Secreary Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s call to
abolish the 13th amendment last month, taken up by some of the
ruling coalition partners, would appear to be heading for implementation.
According to Weera Wansa, one of the vocal protagonists of the abolition call, 19th
amendment to the Constitution was likely to be introduced to replace it. Another
brother of the President, Basil Rajapaksa, minister for development and
industries, has also supported the move. The introduction of the 13th
amendment led to the creation of Provincial Councils (PC) thanks to the India-Sri Lanka agreement 1987 in order to meet
the aspirations of Tamil minority.
In his budget speech in
parliament on November 8, President Rajapaksa said, “A change in the
prevailing Provincial Council system is necessary to make devolution more
meaningful to our people. Devolution should not be a political reform that will
lead us to separation but instead it should be one that unifies all of us.” He
further added that the elimination of provincial disparities using national
standards was the main weapon “through which national reconciliation can be
promoted…That will be an effort which ensures greater self-respect than having
to lobby foreign countries to interfere in our internal problems.” This would indicate that moves are probably
afoot to repeal or replace the 13th amendment. Though President Rajapaksa had been promised that Sri Lanka would fully implement
the 13th amendment, it has so far refrained from giving land and
police powers to the PCs. Abolition of the 13th amendment could
further delay the revival of stalled political reconciliation process. That
could affect India-Sri Lanka relations; so we can expect the President to take
face saving measures before doing away with it.
Trade and industry
A 13-memebr high power business
mission from the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) visited Colombo from
November 18 to 20. The delegation led
by Adi Godrej, President of CII and chairman of Godrej Group, showed interest
in consumer goods, IT and BPO, automobile sector, electronic and engineering
products, air conditioning and refrigeration, hydro power generation, wind
energy, infrastructure and real estate sectors.
Other members of the delegation
included Rahul Bajaj, Chairman, Bajaj Auto Ltd, Sunil Duggal, CEO, Dabur India
Ltd., Satish Jamdar, Managing Director, Blue Star Ltd and S Shrivastava, Chief
(Global Business and Strategy), The Tata Power Company Ltd. The delegation met with Minister of Economic
Development Basil Rajapaksa, Deputy Finance Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama and
CEOs of Sri Lankan business.
This was the fourth business
delegation from India to visit Sri Lanka indicating Indian business’ growing
interest in the island nation. India-Sri Lanka bilateral trade has jumped from
$3 billion in 2009-10 to $5.1 billion in 2011-12, with India exporting $4.3
billion worth of goods to Sri Lanka in 2011-12 (over 22% of Sri Lanka’s imports.) Indian investment in
Sri Lanka has doubled from $ 78 million in 2009 to $ 147 million. Tata, Bajaj,
Godrej, Bharti, and RPG are well established in Sri Lanka. Others who have
invested in Sri Lanka include Dabur, Britannia, Ultratech, Ambuja Cement and
Ashok Leyland.
However, Sri Lanka government’s
recent actions are likely to help China and Japan and curb the growth of Indian
business interests. Prohibitive duties have been slapped on import of Indian
vehicles. Indian cars control 80 percent of the automobile market. Under the
new import duty regime the price of Maruti Alto was expected to go up by Rs
250,000. Price of an Indian truck could
to go up Rs ten lakhs placing them at a disadvantage. On the other hand
exemptions have been given to cars coming from Japan. Already China has a huge
presence in infrastructure building and construction industry. Now the
government has also granted clearance for a Chinese investor to set up car
assembly plants in Hambantota and Gampaha with an investment of $ 20 million.
China has also emerged as Sri
Lanka’s top lender. Up to August this year, China has disbursed $443.6 million
in loans and export credits; it has also committed $1055 million dollars as
loans and $ 0.16 million as loans. India has disbursed $179.9 million as loans
and $34.8 million in grants which need not be paid back. India is financing
houses for internally displaced persons and low income households. Japan has
disbursed $ 280.2 million as loans and $ 9.8 million as grants.
Sri
Lanka’s UNHRC woes
The UN Human Rights Council
(UNHRC) reviewed Sri Lanka’s human rights record during its session in the
first week of November at Geneva when the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of
Sri Lanka carried out by India, Spain and Benin came up for discussion. A total
of 99 speakers spoke and over 200 points were suggested for inclusion in the
UPR report.
Sri Lanka faced severe criticism
from Britain and European countries which also referred to recent action to
impeach the chief justice. India for called immediate implementation of the 13th
amendment in keeping with the commitments Sri Lanka had made and to build upon
it “to achieve a meaningful devolution package.”
Around the same time a report of the UN
internal review panel headed by former UN official Charles Petrie on the
conduct of UN during Sri Lanka’s Eelam war also surfaced. It found major
weaknesses in UN functioning both at the local level and at the departmental
level in handling a crisis affecting thousands of civilians. It concluded that
events in Sri Lanka marked “a grave failure of the UN to adequately respond to
early warnings and to the evolving situation in the final stages of the conflict
and its aftermath in contradiction to the principles and responsibilities of
the UN. It also found systemic failure
in UN’s handling the situation. It said among the UN personnel in Sri Lanka
there was a sustained and institutionalized reluctance to stand up for the
rights of people.
Miscellaneous
- Sri Lanka army recruits Tamil women: In a path breaking move, Sri Lanka army has recruited 109 young Tamil women from Northern Province for its women’s wing.
- Assassination of former LTTE leader: Unknown assassins riding a motorcycle shot dead Nadarajah Matheenthiran alias Parithy (also known as Reagan in Sri Lanka ), chief of LTTE’s front organisation - the Tamil Coordinating committee - in Paris on November 8. French police suspect the killing was due to faction fight between two factions of LTTE. Parithy belonged to the group led by Nediyavan while the rival faction is led by Vinayakam. Some Tamil Diaspora organisations have alleged that attack by Vinayakam faction was engineered by Sri Lanka military intelligence. Sri Lanka has denied any involvement in the killing. In any case, the killing highlights on going power struggle among overseas LTTE elements overseas to gain control over the LTTE’s overseas set up now in disarray.
Written on November 30, 2012 Courtesy: South Asia Security Trends,
Volume 6 No 11, December 2012 URL: www.security-risks.com
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