Col R Hariharan
Highlights
Growing
authoritarianism: A
number of actions of Sri Lanka government show growing authoritarianism in the
name of patriotism and hyper sensitivity to any allegations of war crimes and human
rights violations without doggedly refusing to take internationally acceptable
action to clear its record and to attend to aberrations of governance.
TNA on
collision course: The
Northern Provincee Chief Minister appear to be on a collision course as
indicated by the recent happenings which have highlighted the limited powers of
the provincial councils. This is likely to get worse as Sri Lanka becomes more
sensitive in March 2014 when Sri Lanka faces the UN Human Rights Council on its
response to earlier resolutions on its accountability.
Growing
authoritarianism
A number of
actions of Sri Lanka government appear to confirm the fears of Ms Navneetham
Pillai, UN Commissioner for Human Rights that the country might be heading
towards authoritarian rule. Recent instances show the government’s growing
authoritarianism in the name of patriotism and sensitivity to allegations of
war crimes and human rights violations against it.
Major
General Jagath Dias, commanded 57 Division deployed in the Vanni during the
last Eelam war. Later he served in Sri Lanka embassy in Germany. At present he
is at the Army Headquarters in Colombo. General Dias had been dogged by
allegations of war crimes wherever he served abroad.
In spite of this
background, Army Headquarters had nominated General Dias as its representative
to attend an International Red Cross (ICRC) meeting in Australia. However,
Australia refused to issue a visa to him to attend the event. The ICRC
spokesperson explained the fiasco as “procedural matters relating to
international travel were beyond its control,” whatever that meant.
Sri Lanka
government peeved with the embarrassing turn of events was reported carrying
out an “urgent review” of its relationship with ICRC; however, there was no
report of such a review of its relations with Australia which denied the Visa.
The Colombo daily Island questioning the wisdom of such a move as the ICRC
called the move as “most disturbing.” The daily raised the question “Does that
mean we are seriously considering asking the ICRC to leave the country over
Major General Jagath Dias not being able to travel to Australia for an ICRC
event to be held there?”
Sri Lanka
has black listed Geoffrey Dobbs – an Australian hotelier who owns a chain of
four luxury properties in the Galle region - from entering Sri Lanka because he
had flown four Sri Lanka’s flags upside down in one of his properties near the
home of Provincial governor Ms Kumari Balasuriya. Driven by patriotic concerns,
she painted him as “very undesirable” and initiated the ban.
Apparently
the Dobbs issue was not so simple. The Opposition has alleged the action
against Dobbs was part of an official strategy to take control of his
money-spinning luxury hotels. Justice Balasuriya quickly denied it. Even if the
allegation was true and Dobbs did commit the offence, why was not he allowed to
enter Sri Lanka where he could be hauled up before a court of law?
Nobody
raises such questions in Sri Lanka for fear of Many media scribes who had been
critical of Rajapaksa's governance were chased out of the country or done to
death by “unknown” thugs for their “anti national” attitudes. But what can one
expect from a regime that had sacked the Supreme Court chief without a trial
for writing a critical judgement against a draft bill of the government.
TNA on collision course
Despite
President Rajapaksa’s assurance of “fullest support” to Northern Province Chief
Minister CV Wigneswaran at his swearing in ceremony, the relations between the
Chief Minister and Governor Chandrasiri appear to be on a collision course as
indicated by the recent happenings which have highlighted the limited powers of
the provincial councils. The relations started getting sour after the Chief
Minister proposed to set up the departments of housing and housing in the
appropriations budget 2014 he presented. The Governor observed that this was
beyond his power as provincial council could only set up Authorities and not
departments as per the Constitution.
In another
instance, the Governor appointed Mrs Vijayalakshmi as chief secretary ignoring
the Chief Minister’s request that he should be consulted before he appoints
civil servants in the province. Again the Governor rejected the request, and
went ahead with the appointment quoting constitutional provision in support of
action.
The Chief
Minister in his budget speech had reiterated the demand for replacing
Chandrasiri, a former army general, with a civilian and withdrawal of the army
from the province as it was interfering with normal life.
All the
demands of the Chief Minister were in keeping with the Tamil National Alliance
(TNA)’s electoral promises within the ambit of its demand for greater autonomy
for Tamils.
The
Government is unlikely to accept these demands as it would be contradicting its
strategy of keeping alive the bogey of resurrection of Tamil Tigers. Moreover,
the Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who is calling the shot on all issues
relating to the armed forces and Tamil insurgency, has already shot down the
demands. He has made it clear that military pull out would be disastrous for
the country as it could lead to the rise of LTTE under the patronage of the
TNA.
So it is
not surprising that the TNA had rejected the President’s recent suggestion to
participate in the parliamentary select committee (PSC) deliberations on
provincial autonomy. In any case the PSC is unlikely to make any progress as
its composition is heavily weighted against the TNA which has only two members
in the 17 member PSC.
TNA has
reiterated that it would not participate in the PSC unless the government comes
out with some proposal as such deliberations earlier had not produced results.
In this environment, TNA-Colombo confrontation is likely to get heated up
further in March 2014 when Sri Lanka is taken to task at the UN Human Rights
Council for its unsatisfactory response to resolution on accountability for its
conduct during the Eelam War –a touchy issue for both Rajapaksa and the TNA.
Written on December 31, 2013
Courtesy: South Asia Security Trends, Vol 7 No 12 January 2014
www.security-risks.com
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