Monday, 14 August 2017
Thursday, 3 August 2017
Sri Lanka Perspectives - July 2017
Col R Hariharan | 31-07-2017
China gains
control of Hambantota port complex
After months
of negotiations, Sri Lanka has signed the $1.1 billion agreement to allow the China
state infrastructure company to take control of the Hambantaota port. According
to the agreement signed on July 29, 2017, Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA)
agreed to sell 70 percent stake in the port to China Merchant Holdings Co. Ltd.
(CMHC); the CMHC would run the port on 99-year lease.
The port
described as white elephant had been under used, incurring a loss of over $300
million in the last three years. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe explaining
the circumstances leading to the deal, said the national economy was in such a
bad shape, the government had to stabilize the situation. The present
government had been negotiating hard to sell the strategically important port
to China to set off the loan incurred in its construction. The government plans to sell the port had run
into a lot of opposition from the port staff and trade unions. However, the
government did not relent.
The Southern
Sri Lanka port dominates the shipping lanes of Indian Ocean and Chinese
involvement in its construction and management is a matter of strategic concern
to India and the US, as it gives a strong toe hold for China’s power
projection. Partly addressing their
concerns, Sri Lanka has retained authority to manage the security of the port
in its hands and prohibited the use of the port for military activities.
However, Chinese control of the port gives it a definite strategic advantage
due to its geographic location dominating the Indian Ocean sea lanes midway. As
the executive vice president of CMHC Hu Jianhua said “Sri Lanka will be well
positioned to play a strategic role in the one-belt one-road initiative” of
China. Hambantota port would be a
gateway to South Asian nations as well as Africa, where the company had similar
operations, he added.
Constitution-making,
a three-legged race
The
constitution making exercise embarked upon by the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe
government two years ago is still tangled in the web of its own making. People
voted for the unity government after the duo promised to carry out constitutional
reforms to end executive presidency and improve accountability. However, its
success would be determined by minorities getting equitable rights because
their vote was an important factor in the victory of the
Sirisena-Wickremesinghe combine.
Two years
after starting the process, the government seems to be running in the same place
with constitution-making although time-bound plan announced in the beginning
looked fine on paper. Though adequate
opportunity was given to receive public representations on the new
constitution, there appears to be a determined effort to stymie the effort at
constitution making. The pulls and pressures of political and ethnic polemics,
objections of conservative Sinhala sections to change and the government’s
inability to gauge public opinion have made it a three-legged race, with each
leg pulling in a different direction. As a result deadlines announced for
completion of various stages remaining just dead. According to the latest statement of Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe the draft constitution would be ready by January
2018. But there would be two more stages – parliamentary approval of the draft
and referendum – before the new constitution comes into place.
President
Maithripala Sirisena had been trying rein in dissenters within the Sri Lanka
Freedom Party (SLFP) and manage the one-upmanship manoeuvres of the UNP
partners, while former president Mahinda Rajapaksa had been stoking nationalist
Sinhala elements fears of marginalization under the new constitution. The Joint Opposition had been propagating that
the new constitution would dismantle the unitary system and introduce
federalism (though this has been repeatedly denied by the ruling coalition) and
Buddhism was in danger of losing its primacy.
The influential Mahanayake Theros
of Buddhist chapters have now joined the fray against drafting a new
constitution and the President had to meet and reassure them that they would be
consulted when the draft was ready. In
this respect, the opposition Tamil National Alliance has been acting more
responsibly, giving priority to constitutional reform over other issues,
despite internal pressures from the constituents. Despite all subterfuges to stall the process,
the president and prime minister appear to be determined to fast track the
process; unless they stand fast, constitutional reform could be further
delayed.
Tracing the
“disappeared people”
During the
month, the much-awaited Office of Missing Persons Act (OMP) came into being.
This is yet another step in the government’s efforts to improve Sri Lanka’s
accountability process as well as fulfil one of the commitments made under the
UN Human Rights Council resolution in September 2015.
The
constitutional councils has to nominate seven eminent persons as members of the
OMP secretariat. The secretariat is mandated to create appropriate mechanism to
trace missing persons, find out the circumstances of their disappearance, provide
assistance to the relatives of missing persons and create a database of those
who went missing during the conflict with the LTTE, as well as other cases of
missing persons during political and civil unrest including the JVP
insurrections. It also has powers to receive complaints and investigate cases
of missing armed forces personnel during operations. The Joint Opposition had opposed the OMP in
its present form saying it would jeopardise national security, resulting in
prosecution of war heroes.
The OMP act
is the culmination of a long struggle of families to find their kith and kin
who went missing during the country’s Eelam wars and JVP insurrections. In
response to public and international demand, President Rajapaksa constituted
the Presidential Commission to Investigate into Complaints regarding Missing
Persons under Justice Maxwell Paranagama in August 2013. It had received
complaints of 5000 missing service personnel and 16000 civilians. The process
it triggered comes to fruition with enactment of the OMP, which provides an
institutional structure to trace such persons as well as provide for redressal
of the affected families. This meets a long standing demand of not only Tamil
families affected by the Eelam war, but also Sinhala families affected by the
war and JVP insurrections. The success
of OMP would depend upon how quickly the constitution council nominates the
members of the secretariat to produce tangible results.
Col R Hariharan, a retired MI
officer, served as the head of Intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force
in Sri Lanka from 1987 to 90. He is associated with the Chennai Centre for
China Studies and the International Law and Strategic Analysis Institute, Chennai.
E-mail: haridirect@gmail.com Blog: http://col.hariharan.info
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)