Col R Hariharan
Sirisena consolidates his
power
President Maithripala
Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe consolidated their hold on
power by luring some of the senior members of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party
(SLFP) to join the national unity government. This had dissipated the
effectiveness of SLFP to function as the main opposition party. As a result,
the speaker nominated the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R Sampanthan as
the opposition leader in a welcome gesture to the Tamil minority.
The President’s political
exercise has created a jumbo cabinet with 47 members of cabinet rank (including
the president and the prime minister), 19 state ministers and 23 deputy
ministers. Thus out the 225 members of parliament, as many as 88 members are
occupying ministerial chairs! Though the Sirisena regime has ensured its
stability by accommodating various political and regional interests within the
power structure, its adverse effects on the quality of governance remains an
open question.
President Sirisena and
Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and their loyalists are controlling the
portfolios like defence, finance, home affairs, external affairs and policy
planning. This would enable them to
continue with the reform agenda. However, the presence of some of the tainted SLFP
members facing corruption allegations in ministerial appointments has clouded
the sincerity of the government’s promise to get rid of corruption and take
action against the corrupt.
In yet another step to
improve governance, the government announced the formation of the
Constitutional Council (CC). This was in accordance with the 19th
Amendment of the Constitution which was adopted in the parliament to ensure
transparency in appointing members for nine independent commissions (i.e., electoral
commission, bribery commission etc). However, the first meeting of the
10-member CC on Septemebr 10, 2015 was attended only by six of the seven
members of parliament (including the speaker, the prime minister, leader of the
opposition and three ministers). The other four members expected to join the CC
shortly include the nominee of the opposition Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and
three civil society nominees – Dr AT Ariyaratne, former UN Under-Secretary
General Ms Radhika Coomaraswamy and President’s Counsel Shibly Aziz.
Sri Lanka PM’s visit to
New Delhi
Prime Minister
Wickremesinghe after assuming office made his maiden visit to New Delhi from
September 14 to 16. During the visit he met with his counterpart Narendra Modi,
external affairs minister Ms Sushma Swaraj, President Pranab Muhkerjee and
minister for road transport, highways and shipping Nitin Gadkari.
The two prime ministers
are believed to have discussed issues related to bilateral trade and defence
cooperation. Addressing a joint press conference after their talks, Modi
described it as a historic year for India-Sri Lanka relations because “Sri
Lanka has voted twice this year for change, reforms, reconciliation and
progress.” He assured India’s full support to Sri Lanka’s new government. Modi
added “we recognize our closely aligned security interests and the need to
remain sensitive to each other’s concerns. We both reaffirmed our commitment to
deepen our defence cooperation.” Wickremesinghe reciprocating the sentiments
said the two countries had to improve trade and increase security forces
cooperation in the Indian Ocean.
Though they made no specific reference to
Tamil minority issues or to the forthcoming UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC),
probably both issues figured in their talks. Sri Lanka media went on overdrive
after Indian minister Gadkari spoke of discussing a proposal to construct a
land-tunnel link between India and Sri Lanka with the Sri Lankan prime minister;
however, Colombo denied holding any talks with India on this issue.
Sri Lanka resolution at the UNHRC
The UN Human Rights
Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein presented the report of the Office of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHR) on the follow up action on the UNHRC
resolution Sri Lanka’s 2012 at the Council meeting. The OCHR report was based
on the “principal findings of the OCHR investigations on Sri Lanka (OISL)”
which were included in the report.
The report was a scathing
indictment of the conduct of both the Sri Lanka government and the LTTE during
the years preceding, during and after the Eelam War resulting in gross
violations of human rights, killing of innocent civilians and prisoners,
enforced disappearances and alleged war crimes by Sri Lanka army and the Tamil
Tigers. However, the report recognised the cooperative attitude of the Sri
Lanka government to the UN efforts and the series of actions it had taken to
improve governance overcoming the aberrations of the past. Pointing out the
failure of the Rajapaksa government to conduct an impartial investigation into
the allegations, Prince Zeid recommended the setting up of an international
hybrid mechanism to investigate the allegations and monitor further action.
Both foreign and local judges would participate in the hybrid court.
In Sri Lanka, the
proposed hybrid mechanism drew a lot of flak on the constitutional impropriety
in having foreign judges presiding over domestic courts as well as on the issue
of violation of Sri Lankan sovereignty. Not surprisingly, former president
Rajapaksa came out strongly against the revised draft.
Sri Lanka would prefer to
have a purely domestic process due to political sensitivities in international
involvement in such a process. It would also pave way for former president
Mahinda Rajapaksa to whip up nationalist sentiments and use them as a ploy to
come back to power. However, the Sirisena government knows it has to agree to
an internationally acceptable inquiry as Sri Lanka’s credibility both at home
and abroad on this issue has been eroded. So its stand had been to agree for
holding an internationally acceptable domestic inquiry and not any
international inquiry.
After hectic diplomatic
parleys, in a bid to evolve a consensus last week the US presented a fresh
draft resolution co-sponsored by Sri Lanka. The revised US draft tones down the
exact nature of foreign participation while retaining it in a domestic
mechanism, though it recognizes the serious nature of the allegations as well
as the failure of Sri Lanka to act upon them as required by earlier UNHRC resolutions.
The TNA chief and
opposition leader Sampanthan, acting with pragmatism rather than playing for
the gallery, has welcomed the draft. In an interview to The Hindu he
said the draft addressed the main issues of accountability and reconciliation.
The involvement of Commonwealth and other foreign judges, defence counsel,
prosecutors and investigators would give the judicial process much greater
credibility, he added. Tamil Diaspora has been divided over the US resolution. Though
some of the diehard erstwhile supporters of the LTTE have criticised it, many
agree with Sampanthan that this was the best possible resolution that could
have been achieved. And only a consensus resolution could make its honest
implementation possible.
Not unexpectedly, Tamil
Nadu political parties have demanded a purely international investigation to do
justice to Sri Lankan Tamils. However, Indian external affairs ministry
spokesman Vikas Swarup has made clear that India would support the revised US
draft. This was expected as India had always been on principle opposed to the
role of foreign judges in internal conflicts.
The spokesman commenting
on the issue after Prime Minister Narendra
Modi and President Sirisena met on the sidelines of the UN general assembly
meeting in New York, said “Our position is very clear. We stand for justice and
at the same time we are respectful of the Sri Lankan sovereignty issues to the
extent the Sri Lankan government is comfortable with the formulation that
marries the two.”
Written
on September 30, 2015
[Col R Hariharan, a retired Military
Intelligence specialist on South Asia, served with the Indian Peace Keeping
Force in Sri Lanka as Head of Intelligence 1987-90. He is associated with the
Chennai Centre for China Studies and the South Asia Analysis Group. E-Mail: colhari@yahoo.com Blog: http://col.hariharan.info]
Courtesy: South Asia Security Trends, October 20015, Volume 9 No 10 www.security-risks.com
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