Clash of civilization in Cairo and Grandpass

| by Ranga Jayasuriya

( August 16, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Twenty years have passed since Samuel Huntington wrote his 1993 seminal essay, Clash of Civilization, which he later expanded into a ground breaking book, Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order.

In his original essay, which was both lauded and disputed, Huntington, one of the pre-eminent social scientists of the 20th century, observed that the fundamental source of conflict in the future will not be political or economic, but cultural and religious.

The most important conflicts of the future will occur along the cultural fault lines separating the civilizations, he wrote, 20 years ago. Yesterday, Egyptian Security Forces, considered as the last line of defence of the Secular Egyptian State, stormed two protest camps set up by the supporters of deposed president, Mohammad Morsi, killing 450 protesters. Morsi, the first democratically elected president of Egypt, during his one year tenure, did exactly what the secular liberals feared. Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood, vindicated the fears of critics who argued against transplanting electoral democracy in the Middle East and gradually dismantled secular independent institutions within Egyptian society in order to advance their Islamist agenda.

In an unrelated incident, a week before, in a rather diminutive event, mobs attacked a Muslim prayer centre in Grandpass, triggering clashes which lasted for two days.

Prophesy a reality

Huntington's prophesy has become an everyday reality in our present-day world, both at a micro level and macro level.

At the micro level, Huntington observed that, adjacent groups along the fault lines between civilizations, struggle, often violently, over the control of territory and each other. He referred to then Yugoslavia as an example, where, Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims fought each other, recreating a medieval carnage in 20th century Europe. Later, similar clashes, though less severe in magnitude, engulfed many other nations from Nigeria to Indonesia.

The Grandpass clash is microscopic of this confrontation, which is taking place at a global scale.

The developments in Cairo is a glaring example of the confrontation between two civilizations, one liberal, secular and modernist, and the other, overwhelmingly - and sometimes intimidatingly - religious, primitive in outlook and wanting to recreate a medieval caliphate among the modern skyscrapers of Cairo, at the expense of existing secular democratic institutions.

The strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood is, of course, gradualist and much more subtle in its approach, in contrast to Salafi jihad's much overt approach. Nonetheless, all roads lead to 'Rome.' Yesterday's crack down in Cairo is one rare instance in which the apparatus of the Secular State hit back for its survival, though, with a disproportionate force. The Secular State failed to strike with the same decisiveness in Iran in 1979, and paved way for the mullahs to hijack a twin revolution, one religious and the other of the secular left, and to establish a theocracy. At present, the apparatus of the Secular State has cowed in, for the first time in the Modern Turkey, as the mildly Islamist Prime Minister, Erdogan, is gradually dismantling the secular state that Ataturk painstakingly built. In Tunisia, youth disillusioned with the overt Islamist agenda of the post-Ben Ali Government, have launched their own Tamarod, the grassroots movement that organized mass protests calling for the resignation of Morsi, which,prompted military intervention and the final ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood leader.

Puzzling

In 1993, when Huntington penned the essay, Islamism did not have global ambition, though Osama Bin Laden has already formed al Qaeda in Peshawar in 1988. By 1993, Somali refugees, who had been fleeing a bitter civil war there, had just arrived in the West, and thousands more were following their footsteps. Pakistan was Islamic as it has always been. But, the first wave of Pakistani migrants who arrived in Britain during the first few decades of the partition was moderate. Much later, their offspring and the offspring of African migrants have proved to be less restrained and brought the civilizational confrontation to London, Paris and most recently, to the otherwise peaceful city of Stockholm.

What is equally puzzling is that most regimes that were confronted by the secular liberal sections of their society, tend to wield enormous public support of the other and less sophisticated masses who had voted them to power.

That is the dichotomy in the electoral democracy. That exactly is the concern raised by modernist autocrats such as Mubarak and Ben Ali against the introduction of electoral democracy in the Middle East. Liberal intellectuals were equally sceptical about the functionality of electoral democracy in some quarters of the Muslim World. Huntington's prodigy, Fareed Zakaria, in his book, 'Future of the Freedoms,' preferred what he called constitutional liberalism over electoral democracy.

Morsi and his Tunisian and Turkish counterparts have proved those fears.

Democracy is primarily identified with free and fair elections. However, elections are only one facet of democracy and the governments elected by people may tend to be corrupt, inefficient, and authoritarian in practice, whereas constitutional liberalism set in place mechanisms that defend the individual's right to life and property, and freedom of religion and speech. To secure these rights, liberal constitutionalism emphasizes checks on the power of each branch of government, equality under the law, impartial courts and tribunals, and separation of church and state.

The unfolding confrontation is also due to a transfer of power from the traditional elites to less cosmopolitan and sectarian local elite.

The old elite of most Middle Eastern countries, which are currently under threat of possible fundamentalist takeover, had been pro-Western and modernist in disposition, and educated in Oxford, Harvard, West Point, and so forth. They kept the populist impulses of their rather less sophisticated masses under check, through the use of the secular military, an elitist Judiciary and - as in the case of Turkey - a secular press. The sudden plunge to electoral democracy in most countries changed those dynamics, drastically and dangerously.

Spinoff in Sri Lanka

As far as Sri Lanka is concerned, the rising anti-Muslim attacks and the recent attack on a Muslim prayer centre in Grandpass is a spinoff of the clash of civilizations. While the most important confrontation is taking place between Islam of its medieval characteristics and secular liberalism, minor confrontations are taking place all over the world, from Myanmar to India to Sri Lanka.

In this confrontation, much like in the one that is taking place in the post-Arab Spring States, the aggrieved and the aggressor is less discernible. In some places, it is the expansionist and invasive Islamism driven by its set of historical grievances and the global agenda that fuel confrontation. In certain other places, the perceived fears of such encroachment by Islamism, have triggered pre-emptive action from other communities. In that sense, mobs in Grandpass have little difference from angry evangelists who campaigned against the construction of an Islamic community centre, which is also called Ground Zero Mosque in New York, in the vicinity of the World Trade Centre.

Managing those cultural differences is the challenge of our time. Both in the Middle East and other parts of the world, the unfolding confrontation is never meant to be a zero sum game.

It is much easier to manage those differences in a place like Sri Lanka, where all communities have lived together for centuries. In fact, it is perception and not reality that fuels tension in Sri Lanka. Therefore, managing those fears and not to let them overwhelm the public discourse is equally important in order to achieve a long-term peace.

( The writer is the news editor of the Ceylon Today, daily based in Colombo, where this piece was originally appeared)

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Disgraced DIG Vass is only the tip of the iceberg

| by Ranga Jayasuriya

( June 17, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The downfall of DIG Vass Gunawardena, once a star crime buster, known for his special relationship with the powers that be in the defence establishment is interesting, not so much for the extent of his alleged involvement in a myriad of killings and extortions, but for the strange reason that his political bosses and quasi-political bosses, especially, in the defence establishment, have let him down.

But those within the defence circles should know that investigating DIG Gunawardana would tantamount to opening a can of worms.

They should brace for more disturbing disclosures, if the investigators are given a free hand. Perhaps they do not need to worry as even the top echelons of the government, who authorized the investigation, would find it more convenient to confine the investigation covering only the murder of Mohamed Shiyam, whose brother was a generous financer of the ruling party.

Fight the underworld

Disgraced DIG Vass Gunawardena was a cornerstone of the government's unorthodox and highly questionable strategy of fighting the underworld, which saw suspected underworld kingpins, disappear, and being shot dead under suspicious circumstances.

Vass commanded a special police team, which was deployed to fight the underworld, in underworld style. Their operations were officially sanctioned, though some of which had little to do with fighting the underworld. In the aftermath of the abduction and the torture of media activist and journalist, Poddala Jayantha in Nugegoda, it was alleged that Vass's elite police team was involved. Last year, in the wake of the paranoia over the spree of killings in Kahawatta, Vass and his team were deployed in the area. In one particular incident, three men who were arrested over the killings and subsequently released were abducted by unidentified gunmen. Vass Gunawardena, however, was applauded by the villagers for bringing the spree of killings to an end.

Allegations

Subsequent to Vass' arrest last week, the over-enthusiastic investigators have now gone on record, helped by their friendly scribes and their inspired media leaks, that Vass and his cops were involved in a series of extortions and murders. The investigators allege that Vass, through his cops, had been demanding millions of rupees from Tamil business, threatening them with arrest, over charges of involvement with the LTTE, should they fail to pay up.

However, this is not the first time that the allegations about the extortionist rings run by the security forces and police officers have come to light. The government and its interlocutors have regularly dismissed those allegations as 'conspiracies and propaganda.'

Notwithstanding Vass' now much publicized warning to the CID, in which he bragged he was a murderer, the investigators deserve a word of caution for different reasons.

Several years back, DIG Pujitha Jayasundara who tried to play the good Samaritan when journalist Parameshwari Munusamy was abducted and later detained in TID custody, was transferred to Nuwara Eliya on the same night itself.

The fact of the matter is that DIG Vass Gunawardana did not act alone. He was a trusted figure of the government. His operations were sanctioned by the State and when he stepped beyond his mandate, the State looked the other way. This time, Vass apparently moved far beyond, and allegedly ordered the abduction and murder of Shiyam, who hailed from a politically connected family.

In this country, some people, such as Shiyam are more equal than others.

FR petition

Many others, less fortunate, disappeared without a trace, like businessman Ramasamay Prabhakaran, alias Majestic Prabha, 42, who was abducted by armed men, after he filed a FR petition over the torture he had been subjected to by the police, when he was held in the custody of the TID for 28 months, earlier. One respondent cited in the FR application was then SSP Vass Gunawardena.

Prabha also alleged, during a discussion with a group of human rights activists, days before his abduction, that SSP Vass Gunawardena tortured him and demanded Rs 100 million during his earlier stint of detention.

Three days before his FR application was taken up by the Supreme Court, Prabha was abducted by seven armed men, in the presence of his wife and daughter, near his residence on Canal Bank Row, Wellawatte, on 11 February, 2012.

In his FR petition, Prabha demanded Rs 90 million as damage for degrading treatment and torture he had suffered during his 28 month detention by the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID).

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Vas Gunawardena, Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Anura Senanayake, SP Mahin Dole, and five others were cited as respondents.

In his FR petition, the petitioner stated that "on 21 May, 2009, he was interrogated by one of the Respondents, SP Mahin Dole together with other Officers, of how well he knew Col. Ranjith Chandrasiri Perera of the Sri Lanka Army and what connections he had with him...

"Petitioner was then taken by SSP Vass Gunawardena to the CCD and was assaulted with an iron rod in the most inhuman and degrading manner, where he was injured over most parts of his body, including his private parts."

After Prabha was abducted, a caller telephoned his wife, in faltering Tamil, and demanded Rs 100 million to release her husband. After two days, the caller stopped calling.

Prabha joined a long list of the disappeared and abducted.

Climate of impunity

Vass Gunawardena is a product of the climate of impunity that the incumbent regime and some of its key protagonists, perpetuated in the country. Gunawardena, though now demeaned, rightly so, served his political and quasi-political bosses. It would be naïve to believe that the latter would remain idle as investigators unearth more and more incriminating evidence, some of which indicate, their own culpability.

The state sanctioned cover-ups are part of the game. Those who are familiar with the investigations into the disappearance of journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda would recall that the CID investigators traced the last caller to Eknaligoda, whom he was supposed to have gone to meet on the day of his disappearance. The CID using its advanced equipment traced the caller, who continued to use the same phone, to somewhere in Ampara. After this particular breakthrough, the investigations were suddenly stalled, in the words of the officials' privy to the investigations, 'due to the instructions from the top.'

It was in this culture of sanctioned killings, abductions and cover-ups, that Vass Gunawardena and his ilk thrived – and were thriving.

Some would genuinely hope that recent findings would lead to a genuine clean up of the rogue elements in the police and the defence establishment, and would deliver justice to their victims. I beg to differ. Here is my two cents: A blanket ban would be imposed on the media pronouncements of the investigating officers, and the investigation would strictly be confined to the particular killing of the businessman and anything beyond it would be a 'no go zone.'

As far as Vass Gunawardena is concerned, his luck has not run out totally. He may even emerge unscathed, charges against him dropped, and statements retracted. But, that is only if he plays by the cardinal rule of loyalty; don't desecrate the names of your bosses, no matter how culpable they are.

Should he decide otherwise and choose to drag the rest with him, he ought to reminiscence about the dozens of suspects who died in the custody of the police. Vass does not need advice.

And I should not teach my grandmother to suck eggs.

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Proposed Code of Ethics - Govt’s ‘newspeak’

| by Ranga Jayasuriya

( June 10, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Media Ministry's proposed Code of Ethics is the Rajapaksa administration's equivalent to 'newspeak.' In the first place, a 'code of ethics' drafted unilaterally, and even clandestinely, by the spin doctors of the government, is not worth its salt.

That is not how democracies work. Perhaps the best equivalent to this so-called Code of Ethics would be the fictitious, totalitarian language of George Orwell's dystopian novel, '1984.' Their real world equivalents were much scarier.

This purported code of media ethics, dictated by a regime which is accused, with substantial evidence, on its culpability of murders, abductions and assault of media personnel, and the frequent attacks on dissident media institutions, is simply in bad taste. However, it is not only the questionable integrity of the current regime, in terms of media freedom and human rights that is in dispute. The sinister attributes and motives of the purported code of ethics could be dissected in a closer look. Not any rag that is masqueraded as 'ethics' is ethics. The so called Code of Ethics is, in fact, a Bill on press censorship, sugar coated with the term, ethics, just like every warlord in Africa, identifies himself as a liberator, revolutionary, democrat, and so forth. Worse still, this purported Code of Ethics is proof of the increasing authoritarian tendencies of the current regime.

Following are excerpts from the Code of Ethics proposed by the Media Ministry.

1. No publications should be published which:

(a) offends against expectations of the public, morality of the country or tend to lower the standards of public taste and morality.

In other words, the purported Code of Ethics lays down the framework for a cultural police and soon the spin doctors of the Media Ministry would be serving in the roles, equivalent to Teheran's religious police.

In fact, the interpretation of public morality is broad and expansive. When the warped minds who drafted this so called ethics, eventually have the authority to define the parametres of public morality, that would portend to a very dangerous future.

(b) contains criticism affecting foreign relations

This is patently ludicrous. If the busy-bodies who drafted those provisions, think that the media should be kowtowing to the foreign policy of the government, they should be living in North Korea or Cuba. Perhaps, our Chinese friends may have wanted this clause to be inserted. This clause would effectively prevent the media from critically reporting the foreign policy of the regime. But, though the interlocutors of the government may be oblivious, this would do more harm to the relations with the civilized part of the world, read as practicing democracies, than the critical reporting it aims to censor.

Dangerous

Some of the other clauses of this so-called Code of Ethics sound more or less innocuous and for a naïve observer, they may look pretty acceptable. Still, some may be quite dangerous and deleterious to democracy such as the one which prohibits the publication of material against the integrity of the Executive, Judiciary and Legislature. The mindset of the drafters is self-evident in this clause which would place the three branches of the government beyond public scrutiny. That is notwithstanding that the integrity of those institutions is already disputed. It is a servile culture of subordination that the so called media ethics envisages to entrench.

Following are some of the other provisions:

1. No publications should be published which:

(c) contains derogatory remarks on religious groups or communities or promoting communal or religious discord which may affect religious and communal harmony

(d) contains anything obscene, defamatory, deliberate falsehood and suggestive innuendos and half truths or willful omissions

(e) contains information which could mislead the public

(f) is likely to encourage or incite violence or contains anything against maintenance of law and order or which may promote anti-national attitudes

(g) contains anything amounting to contempt of court

(h) contains materials against the integrity of the Executive, Judiciary and Legislature

(i) criticizes, maligns or slanders any individual or groups of persons such as ethnic, linguistic or religious or such segments of the public

(j) contains details of a person's family life, financial information, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental illness or disability, and one's home or family and individuals in hospitals unless it has a direct relevance to the public interest

(k) encourages superstitions or blind belief

(1) promote atrocity, drug abuse, brutality, sadism, sexual salacity and obscenity

(m) denigrates the poor

The bottom line is that the interpretation of those terms is extremely broad, and would place media personnel at the mercy of the authorities at the Media Ministry. Journalists already have their own Code of Ethics, which has been agreed to, by the practicing journalists, newspaper editors and media associations. They also have a self-regulating mechanism that they collectively built and operate. The problem with the current regime is that civil society initiatives of that nature is anathema to the current regime, an attribute which prevents it from actively cooperating with such initiatives. In contrast, democratic societies and their governments in those model democracies in Scandinavia are striving to empower the grassroots initiatives. Those advanced civilizations have evolved from the bottom.

Right to Information Bill

Last but not least, the sanctimonious endeavour of the government is hypocritical. The current regime has stalled efforts to introduce the Right to Information Bill. The government defeated a Private Member Motion that envisaged to introduce the Right to Information Bill, and was the only only elected government to do so. When the government's spin doctors demand that media should not publish half truth, it should be manifestly evident to them, that the task of the scribes, in terms of digging out the truth, would have been much easier, had the government implemented the Right to Information Bill.

That hypocrisy runs deeper in the State media. The conduct of the State- owned and government-controlled media, is also a microscopic of the government's hypocrisy. Since the current government has a close-knit circuit of 'intelligentsia' it is most likely that the proposed Code of Ethics was concocted by some of those state media busybodies. Should the government be genuinely concerned, it should begin with the state media. I bet my two cents that it would never dare to do it.

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What ails our Uni system?

| by Ranga Jayasuriya

( May 27, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) "We actually have only three real universities," quips a senior academic with an impeccable academic record. His pick of three universities are Moratuwa – which he says is the only Sri Lankan university that can be even remotely compared to an international university, Colombo (excluding some of the faculties) and the Business Faculty of the Sri Jayewardenepura University.

This correspondent is at a loss over whether that is an assessment overly harsh or too optimistic. If one is to peruse the world university rankings, our universities are nowhere among the top 1,000.

That is a sad indictment of local universities such as Peradeniya, which was modelled after Oxbridge tradition and held so much potential at its outset. That is worse when some industrious start up universities in countries like Singapore, which perhaps has the most outward looking and ambitious higher education policy in the world, and China, where the government is increasingly keen on branding of its universities, have moved forward.

The student turmoil and prolonged closures, which our universities had been subjected to in the '80s are not an excuse for its poor showing at present. Nanyang Technological University of Singapore was in fact shut for decades, until 1991, in order to wade off Chinese communism. Within two decades since it was reopened, NTU is now ranked among the world's top 50 universities and top 20 business schools. And its graduate school of International Studies, which was set up in 2007, is ranked among the top International Studies think-tanks in Asia. As an alumnus, this correspondent could vouch that its world ranking is reflected in the quality of its teaching.

Why has Sri Lanka failed while places like Singapore had succeeded, needs to be examined in-depth by educationists.

On this count, the common argument, the resource dearth, in terms of physical assets in local universities does not hold much water. While this correspondent had been not so fortunate and the local university he attended had been crippled with lack of facilities, his observation of much of the elite local universities such as Peradeniya, Moratuwa and Colombo, is that they are quite well-equipped with resources and State funding, pretty much akin to their Singaporean counterparts.

The insular approach

Their problem lies, not so much with the State funding, but with the overall insular approach of those universities.

That alone prevents Peradeniya from emulating the success of NTU, let alone Oxford and Cambridge it was modelled after. With their antiquated and insular thinking, local universities continue to fail their students. Of course, some of its best products end up in the Tier One British and American Universities and achieve academic and professional acclaim. But, that has much to do with individual brilliance than that of the institution.

Sri Lankan universities admit the cream de la cream of the country's students, and after three or four long years, they churn out a bunch of half-baked sub-standard graduates. Granted, that everyone of those passing out of the intakes, would have some exceptional minds, who would go to Ivy League or Russel Group universities, while local universities would spend hours telling how great their achievements had been, and opting to ignore the peril it inflicted on the preponderance of its students. That scenario applied to my batch of students, many of whom spent years of post-graduation on the road, demanding State jobs.

Perhaps one of those industrious researcher's should compare the IQ levels and problem-solving skills of new entrants to our universities with their international counterparts, and thereafter, proceed to compare the outcome the two education systems would have on the two groups at the end of their degree courses. The Sri Lankan situation would reveal the disparity between the potential it held at the outset and how little of it has been achieved. If you look for more attributes, with the help qualitative research, our researcher would be able to dissect the inflated egos of our passed-out graduates, notwithstanding low academic and professional achievement that their degrees entail.

Generous investments

The government is regularly being blamed for multiplicity of failures in our universities, ranging from resource dearth, politicization and privatization of free education. But, even the worst critics of successive Sri Lankan Governments, including this government, cannot deny the fact that post-independent Sri Lankan Governments have generously invested on human capital, including higher education. If there is any fault, that is they being ever too generous and that generosity had not been matched by a forward looking State policy on higher education.

Resources utilized without a vision is resources squandered. Successive Sri Lankan Governments have regularly failed to implement a coherent education policy. Policies they succeeded in implementing, such as the populist Swabasha education, were in fact regressive and denied the local universities their qualitative edge. Subsequent governments shied away from addressing drastic concerns, partly because militant student unions were ever willing to take to the streets at the drop of a hat.

It was because of the absence of a clear State policy, and not because the absence of State funding that Sri Lankan universities failed, while their Singaporean counterparts succeeded.

The State should lay out a coherent higher education policy. Given the social milieu of our students, and going by their reactions, such policies are more likely to be protested. If Sri Lankan universities are to succeed, it is mandatory that they be opened up for competition, including competition from their international counterparts. They have to be meritocratic and at least the successful universities would have to gradually downsize the intakes, which amount to over 40%, and taken on affirmative action known as district quotas. They will surely have to downsize their vernacular language degree programmes, which have resulted in multiplying mediocrity.

They will have to hire academic staff from a much broader cross-section, including the private sector and proactively send off its academia, which is largely sub-standard to Tier One world universities for doctoral studies. And they should make use of opportunities of academic exchanges and get down world class academics to teach in local universities.

They will have to entice talented international students to study in local universities with generous scholarships. Those students would one day become grassroots ambassadors for their universities.

Sri Lankan universities have offered five per cent of places for fee-levying international students. Those slots have not been utilized for obvious reason, that is the fees that have been charged by the local universities are too extravagant. An industrious student would rather opt for a better known Australian university, instead of paying for education in a lesser known Sri Lankan university.

Sri Lanka will have to give away or heavily subsidize the tuition fees of international students should it want to create diversity in its student body and to reach out to the international market in terms of education.

Quantity over quality

Populist education policies in the country have favoured quantity over quality. And those thousands of students, who passed out from local universities have then joined the semi-skilled workforce. Sri Lanka should focus on quality, even if that means cutting down on numbers or stalling the further expansion of university intakes, which however, may be an unpopular decision.

Equally importantly, the rot in our universities is due to the absence of competition. The government should not only legalize private universities, but provide generous incentives for world-class universities to open up campuses in Sri Lanka. What we have right now, masquerading as private universities, are low-end polytechnics and colleges of questionable academic integrity.

However, putting in place a coherent education policy is far more complex than writing a column. One may wonder whether Sri Lanka has sufficient intellectual capital to lead such a process. Even countries like Singapore are still looking for foreign expertise to run their universities. NTU for instance hired renowned educationist Prof. Bertil Andersson.

There is a wealth of expertise that some of those countries can share with our policy-makers.

However, universities are ivory towers. And in this country, journalism is considered a job, not a profession. Why should the academia bother about the ramblings of a scribe. That thinking, though, sadly is symptomatic of the current rot in our education system.

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Post-war Sri Lanka – where the victim is the culprit

| by Ranga Jayasuriya

( May 21, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) One should make no apologies to celebrate the victory over one of the most egregious terrorist groups that ever walked the earth.

On the sunny Saturday morning, tanks rolled on the Galle Face Green, Kafir interceptors flew overhead and the Navy gunboats paraded in the adjacent sea on the fourth anniversary of Victory Day. (One boat capsized, during the ceremonial preparations). Even months before that momentous feat in the Nandikadal Lagoon, the text book-styled annihilation of the Tamil Tigers looked like a mere wild fantasy.

It is exactly those sentiments of an accomplishment that was achieved against all odds that the ruling cohort in Colombo wants the nation to remember. There are obvious reasons to celebrate the death of the megalomaniac leader of the LTTE, Velupilllai Prabhakaran, and his bunch of terrorists—though, the high toll of collateral damages would, sometimes, dampen the celebration and warrant circumspection.

However, set aside the often contentious and acrimonious debate on the civilian cost – which, however, is bound to happen in any counter insurgency operation of the Sri Lankan magnitude, the place Sri Lanka has turned out to be since the defeat of the Tamil Tigers is deeply disappointing.

Paranoid

The regime is paranoid, deeply illiberal and is guilty of regular human rights abuses.

None other than President Mahinda Rajapaksa gave voice to those attributes of the Sri Lankan regime when he spoke at the Victory Day Parade on Saturday.

"Foreign forces and pressures, foreign invasions are not new to us," he said.

"In the four years since this great humanitarian victory, there were many strategies tried out by these forces to rule our Motherland. These included the Arab Spring, grease demons, the independence of the Judiciary, media freedom and human rights. There were attempts to make us file answers to such charges almost every six months. It is these sinister aims that are put forward as the protection of human rights and democracy," he said.

Change the venue to Pyongyang, Khmer Rouge's Cambodia or Stalinist Kremlin, and replace the Sri Lankan interlocutor with a local despot of the geographic zone, you would hear the same rhetoric. (Perhaps, barring the grease demons, which is a unique Sri Lanka phenomenon.)

What is self evident in the verbose, like the one above, is the unique story of victimhood international pariahs and their evolving cousins have developed. Ultimately, the plight of myriad individuals, who were abducted in white vans or detained arbitrarily are discounted. The purported victimhood of the State, which is culpable of a multitude of those crimes, is shouted from the rooftop by the executive.

Old wine in new bottles

Such verbose is old wine in new bottles. Rulers have historically highlighted real and imaginary external threats in order to mobilize the local population. For international pariahs, who have failed their people in numerous ways, fear psychosis over the external threat factor provides a convenient scapegoat for their multitude of failures. In the swathes of less enlightened masses that form the receptive audience for those leaders, there are enough willing believers for those rambling.

Therefore, President Rajapaksa held sway over his gullible audience and made them believe his government was a victim of the independent Judiciary and human rights and a multitude of freedoms, the human kind is privileged to enjoy.

When the perpetrator claims for the victimhood, suddenly the victim is made the culprit.

The ex-Chief Justice, Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake, who was arbitrarily removed from her lawful position or Lasantha Wickrematunge, who was gunned down in broad daylight become the culprits, not only responsible for their own misfortune, but also for slandering the otherwise lilywhite reputation of the government.

That is, however, petty talk which smacks of the lack of sophistication of those who rule this country. The Third World, with a handful of exceptions, has been condemned to such buffoonery since the independence of most of those former colonies. This, therefore, is not a new phenomenon.

Victory not savoured

However, it is petty-mindedness that failed this country in its post -Nandikadal history. The Sri Lankan Forces which destroyed perhaps the worst terrorist group could not savour their victory or keep their heads high on the international front. That is not because several thousand civilians, who were either misfortunate to be in the wrong place, or made a conscious decision to side with the terrorists, perished in the final phase of the conflict. Collateral damages are an integral part of the war and more people have perished in other wars, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Chechnya. The flip side was how the government handled those allegations. The government's conduct was characterized by its manifest paranoia, high-handedness and the resort to dirty tactics of character assassination. It was conduct that cultivated a negative reputation for Sri Lanka.

That petty-mindedness of the rulers failed the country in its post-war democratic transformation. It sanctioned war-time counter terrorism strategies, ranging from extra-judicial killings to abductions, as a solution to peace-time problems. Such warped minds sanctioned the abduction of democratic political leaders and party activists, such as Lalith and Kugan, and reigned over a culture of fear in Jaffna. They provided regular flimsy excuses for the frequent attacks on the media.

However, such antics only galvanized Sri Lanka's place as an emerging pariah. That is a sad metamorphosis for one of Asia's old democracies. And even the leaders' who have come to view themselves as the State within this uneventful island, know deep down in their hearts that they are being viewed with a varying degree of contempt in the world's practicing democracies.

Those leaders also committed a grave injustice against the servicemen, who paid with their lives and limb to defeat a megalomaniac terrorist. Not only did they rob the public adoration the soldiers truly deserve, they deprived them of their professional dignity. Had the government handled allegations of war crime like any other civilized modern military would have done, our servicemen would have been in a better position to project their professional integrity.

The strength of the Sri Lankan defence forces is its trained and battle-hardened rank and file. The rest of the military hardware that were on display, ranging from antiquated T 55 and T 72 Main Battle Tanks, Kafir and M 27 fighters to gunboats, would be turned into a scrap metal by a single advanced fighter jet that modern militaries deploy.

It was the men who flew night missions in those outdated Kafirs, which the Israeli defence force discarded long ago, or commanded gunboats against swarming Sea Tiger boats that truly defined the victory achieved four years back.

Their expertise could have been useful elsewhere in the world, be it in the UN missions or in the form of Private Security consultancy, which makes a brisk business from Afghanistan to Iraq. However, concerns over human rights hindered their optimum international engagement. And some of the battle-hardened warriors were condemned to dig trenches on the Racecourse ground.

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Is this presidential commission on Matale mass grave worth its salt?

| by Ranga Jayasuriya

( April 9, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) True to Sri Lankan style, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has decided to appoint a 'presidential commission' to conduct an inquiry into the Matale mass grave.

The mandate of the proposed commission is to be finalized in two days, Presidential Spokesman Mohan Samaranayake, said, confiding to our correspondent that he too is awaiting further instruction with regard to the latest presidential decision. Indications are that the decision to appoint a commission was made in a hurry, in an apparent move to wade off an international scrutiny on the issue which could even risk an international tribunal on the matter, such as the one on the Rwandan Genocide or on the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Incidentally, the presidential decision was announced on the very day this newspaper reported a narrative by K.G. Kamalawathi, whose teenage sons who had been abducted by the Army on 13 December 1989. Mrs. Kamalawathi recalled how she was turned back at the gate of the Army Camp, when she went to meet the then Military Coordinating Officer (MCO), of Matale, Lt. Col. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, to seek the release of her detained sons.

In the backdrop of the prevailing climate of impunity in the country, and that some of those who held command responsibilities in 1989-90, are now holding positions of influence, including the current Secretary of Defence, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, it is open to question whether Sri Lanka is capable of conducting an independent local investigation into the mass grave in the backyard of the Matale Hospital. Equally important is that Sri Lanka does not have a witness protection scheme, which would have guaranteed the security of the family members who would come forward to give evidence before the proposed commission. Last year, a Tamil man known as Majestic Prabha, was allegedly abducted by the State apparatus, after he filed a Fundamental Rights petition against senior police officers who had allegedly tortured him while he had been previously held at a detention facility of the Terrorist Investigation Division.

Faltered and crumbled

The sad but stubborn fact is that previous 'independent commissions' that had been tasked with politically sensitive investigations had faltered and crumbled. Equally disturbing is that most individuals who had been handpicked to those commissions were, in fact, the apologists of the current regime. One interesting analogy is the conduct of the Commission of Inquiry appointed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2006 to probe into several high profile incidents of human rights violations, including the killing of five students in Trincomalee, and the massacre of relief workers of the Action against Hunger (ACF) in Muttur. An International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) – headed by respected Indian former Chief Justice, P.N. Bhagawati – was invited by the President to assist and observe investigations conducted by the Commission of Inquiry. However, in April 2008, after two long but futile years, the IIGEP terminated its existence, blaming the lack of political will on the part of the Government of Sri Lanka to support a search for the truth.

Sometime later, when the mandate of the Commission of Inquiry expired, it had done precious little, other than blaming the ACF for its slain employees – and showcasing to the world that the Sri Lankans lack competent domestic mechanisms.

The bottom line is that presidential commissions in this country are meant to buy time and to divert international attention. One could only hope that the latest presidential commission would be an exception to this norm. For that to happen, it is mandatory that the commission has international participation.

Four presidential commissions

Nearly 18 years ago, the then newly elected President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, appointed three interlinked Presidential Commissions of Inquiry on Involuntary Removal and Disappearance of Persons.

The three commissions were vested with a mandate to investigate and report on the human rights abuses, mainly the disappearances that took place in three main regions during the period 1988-1994.

These three commissions inquired into 27,526 complaints of disappearances and established 16,742 proven incidents of disappearance.

After the mandate of the three commissions had expired, the government established a fourth commission, known as the All Island Presidential Commission on Disappearances, which inquired into 10,136 cases and established 4,473 cases of disappearances. At the expiration of its mandate, the All Island Presidential Commission referred an additional 16,305 complaints which it could not inquire into, due to the limitation on its tenure, to the National Human Rights Commission.

However, in July 2006, the National Human Rights Commission decided not to pursue investigations into the existing complaints, 'unless special directions are received from the government.'

The job of the proposed presidential commission on the mass grave would be made much easier by four lengthy reports prepared by the previous Presidential Commissions on Disappearances, which have provided extensive and disturbing details about the scale of disappearances, which were largely blamed on the State military apparatus and affiliated paramilitary groups.

(Earlier, faced with international condemnation, President Ranasinghe Premadasa, in January 1993, appointed a Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Involuntary Removal of Persons. However, mindful of his own culpability in grotesque rights violations that took place in 1989-90, President Premadasa, excluded the period of the second JVP insurgency from the mandate of his farcical Commission of Inquiry. The mandate of his commission covered only the period beginning from 11 January 1991.)

'Chased away like dogs'

The All Island Presidential Commission in its report acknowledges the persistent problem in Sri Lanka's security apparatus and law enforcement agencies: "The security forces and the police are necessary adjuncts of a State. They are required for the protection of the state and the protection of the citizens of the State. The average citizen looks to them for protection. The tragedy of Sri Lanka lies in the distortion of relationships between the citizens and the security forces including the police, which has resulted from the acts of both politicians and subversives."

The report narrates the routine experience of grieving parents, like Kamalawathi: "During the sittings of this Commission, we repeatedly heard the saying: "When we went to a police station, we were chased away like dogs."

Below is an excerpt from the Presidential Commission of Involuntary Removal and Disappearances in the Western, Southern and Sabaragamuwa Provinces:

"Persons who sought the protection of law encountered a complete denial to them of recourse to the ordinary procedures of law enforcement; i.e. reporting to the police, the reports being followed up by an investigation by the police, a contemporaneous police record of the incidents of disappearance and statements of witnesses, and police report of courts with the attendant safeguards for witnesses, including the complainant, and assistance in obtaining relevant further evidence including forensic evidence."

"I went to the police 76 times, but we were driven away like dogs." - Father

And the reports shed light into grotesque counter insurgency practices deployed by the Security Forces.

Excerpts: "Broilers:" "A practice of keeping in unrecorded detention "stocks" of detainees of a certain age-group, who had been taken into custody in combing-out operations or casually off the road/beach was evident in several instances from the evidence of returned detainees. These persons then disappeared without trace after being taken out of the camp generally following on a subversive act that had caused loss of life or damage to property damage or on the camp being dismantled. Given the practice of 'reprisal killings,' sinister significance attached to these disappearances from State custody. Hence the slang of the period."

Some military officers were candid enough to confess the pressure brought upon them by local politicians. Below is an excerpt from a statement given by Lt. Gen. Rohan Daluwatta, Commander Sri Lankan Army, to the Presidential Commission:

"While I was Co-ordinating Officer, Ratnapura, certain political pressures were brought to bear on me. I was given a list of names with the direction to take them into custody, that they were JVPers. I received the List from a former Minister (deleted from the report).....When I checked the list with the Police, I came to know that they were SLFPers. I was told, that area could be cleared were I to catch them."

Twenty five years after thousands of youths were abducted, tortured, killed and dumped into undocumented graves, the ghosts of the past have come to haunt Sri Lanka. Sri Lankans have failed to hold the killers of their sons and daughters responsible, and their very failure had condemned them to live in a climate of impunity. Should they decide to act decisively this time, not only would they help delivering justice to their dead, but also help end a culture of impunity, in which they have been held hostages.

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Government entangled in a faceoff with the Judiciary

| by Ranga Jayasuriya

( December 30, 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian)  Last week, Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, the chairman of the much disputed Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) was at pains to make his case. The PSC he chaired became a chicanery and his own government is now entangled in a faceoff with the Judiciary, partly because the PSC members of the government had been ever too eager to impeach the chief justice, come hell or high water.

Now the Appeal Court has sent notices to the Speaker and the PSC members to appear before the Court on January 3. The opposition members say they have not received notices, but should the notices be served, they would consider attending.

JVP MP Vijitha Herath said he would most likely comply if he is served with a notice. Should the opposition comply with the Appeal Court ruling, the much hyped speaker’s statement, which disregarded an earlier Court directive would no longer be the unanimous position of Parliament.  

Now the million dollar question is whether the government would accept the Appeal Court ruling – or the Supreme Court ruling on three FR petitions which challenged the impeachment.

It was only a week ago that the three member panel of judges of the Appeal Court stated: “This Court is of the view that any steps taken in furtherance of the findings and/or the decision contained in the report of the 2nd to the 8th Respondents marked P17 would be void if this Court after the hearing of this application issues a writ of certiorari to quash the said findings and/or the decision of the PSC. Therefore the relevant authorities should advise themselves not to act in derogation of the rights of the Petitioner until this application is heard and concluded, since any decision disregarding these proceedings to alter the status quo may lead to a chaotic situation.”

Would the government accept the Supreme Court ruling, if the Court rules that the PSC is a nullity?

It is the question Anura Priyadarshana Yapa repeatedly evaded at the media briefing. The front organisation that arranged the press briefing on behalf of the government was rather misfittingly called ‘Peoples Movement for Justice.’  Seated by the head table, to Yapa’s right was another dubious personality, Rohitha Bogollagama, the former foreign minister whose tenure was tainted by allegations of corruption, including one that he used public funds amounting to a staggering Rs4.5 million to throw a birthday bash for his daughter in the US.

 However, unlike the Chief Justice Dr. Shirani Bandarana- yake, Bogollagama, despite mounting allegations of abuse of public funds served his full term, but he lost his seat in the General Elections in 2010. Yapa was at pains to stress that the proceedings of PSC were fair.

Following is an excerpt from his responses:

    On why the CJ was not given opportunity to cross examine the witnesses.

Actually, when charges were given to us we realised that actual charges rest on documentary evidence. We have not called outsiders. We only want to authenticate those sources. We have called the CEO of the bank (NDB), the President’s Secretary, the Governor of the Central Bank, one Supreme Court Judge Shirani Thilakawardene. There was no problem. That was the procedure of Parliament and that was not a court house. We have used a system and we have adopted it.

    On why the government was adamant on pushing ahead with the impeachment of the CJ without a fair trial.

Actually speaking, they left; if they had stayed on they could have asked us to bring such and such people. They just left without staying. What can we do? We did not ask them to go.

    Are Standing Orders the law? If the Supreme Court says the Standing Order 78 A is not law, would you accept it?

In every country, proceedings in Parliament are considered as law. Even in the Constitution – I cannot remember the exact phrase – it says Laws and Standing Orders. I don’t want to answer your other question.

    (When he was pressed again with the same question...) If the Supreme Court says that the PSC is a nullity, then what will happen?

Has it been determined yet. I don’t want to answer that. We all operate within the limits of our boundaries. 

    Were the PSC members in a panic situation? Is that why they hold separate media conferences?

There is no panic or chaos. Once the proceedings of the PSC were over, it is necessary to answer the remarks made about it. There is no panic.

    On the derogatory remarks made at the chief justice at the PSC proceedings.

I read media reports about that. PSC did not talk to the chief justice. Romesh de Silva, PC, (her counsel)  answered on behalf of the chief justice. There was a situation when we tried to verify matters with him. The members raised questions and there had been an argument. But nowhere during the sittings were any derogatory words used. There are no records of such words in the PSC reports.

However, notwithstanding Anura Priyadarshana Yapa’s defence of the PSC, Lakshman Kiriella, an opposition member of the committee has said that no insults were recorded in line with the normal practice with regard to the Hansard.

According to the parliamentary procedure, the remarks that are insulting and offhand are expunged from the Hansard.

“We were at these sittings and we heard every word that was said. The Chief Justice and her lawyers also heard every insulting remark,” he was quoted as saying.

Sri Lanka is heading towards a bitter confrontation between the Judiciary and the Legislature, which has now become the rubber stamp of the executive. That was partly Yapa’s making. He was too eager to please his bosses that he has finally given a nightmare to Mahinda Rajapaksa. Should the government disregard the Judiciary rulings, and thereby flouting the Constitution, it would do so at its own peril.

( Ranga Jayasuriya is the editor, Lakbima News, the Colombo based weekly)

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Impeachment quagmire – is govt. seeking a way out?

| by Ranga Jayasuriya

( December 16, 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian)  Elsewhere in these pages Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha tells how he had been asked to come, and then told to sign a resolution calling for the impeachment of the chief justice, even without showing him the content of the motion. The learned professor refused and  he may have drawn wrath from the powers that be, who in fact had appointed him through the national list. But 116 parliamentarians of the ruling party were too eager to please their political bosses and signed the resolution. They did not give a damn if they were oblivious to the contents of the resolution they put their signatures to. That is proof of the pathetic state of affairs in politics in this country and the quality and the character of the people, we the voters, have sent to the august House of Parliament.

It is not clear whether the parliamentary process related to the impeachment would be suspended until the independent committee reaches its decision. Should Parliament decide to do it at the behest of the executive, that would question the much clamoured supremacy of the legislature, which Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa cited when announcing his decision to disregard the Supreme Court directives. 

If it was tempting for a bunch of ruling party parliamentarians to initiate the process to impeach the chief justice and score brownie points, it also appeared to be equally tempting for some elements within the inner circles of power.  The Supreme Court ruling on the Divineguma Bill had come as a rude shock  to the government, which appeared to believe that it has consolidated all powers.

However, now the chickens have come home to roost.

After a highly flawed Parliamentary Select Committee found Chief Justice Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake guilty of three charges, paving the way for her impeachment, the looming possibility of an international and even local backlash bleeped in the government’s radars.

For a government which strives hard to repair bridges with the civilised countries of the world, the impeachment of the chief justice would bound to be a fatal blow.  However, those calculations were missing in the government’s game plan. The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) has resolved not to recognise any replacement to the incumbent chief justice and ask its international counterparts to follow suit. Yesterday, BASL in an extraordinary meeting, passed three resolutions to this effect.

One of the first salvos have been fired by the International Commission of Jurists, which on December 6 issued an statement condemning the move.

“The impeachment process against Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake ignores international standards and practice,” the ICJ stated. 

That was followed by concerns raised by the three leading legal bodies of the Commonwealth: The Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges Association (CMJA), Commonwealth Lawyers’ Association (CLA) and the Commonwealth Legal Education Association (CLEA), which raised grave concerns that the ‘judiciary and the rule of law have been severely damaged’ due to the flawed procedure adopted in the impeachment.

The three associations noted that the PSC trial has violated the Commonwealth Latimer House principles on the accountability and the separation of power.

“By its arbitrary actions, and its failure to follow even its own constitutional safeguards for the removal of judges, the Sri Lankan Parliament has seriously undermined that principle and called into question its adherence to the shared values of the Commonwealth,” the three associations had noted.

However, behind the barrage of public statements, the government was evaluating worst case scenarios.

One of such would be the re-evaluation of Sri Lanka’s hosting of the much publicised Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Sri Lanka next year.

Hence the volte-face and another ‘independent commission.’

 President Rajapaksa, speaking at an event to ceremoniously declare open a building at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Sri Lanka, said that he would appoint an ‘independent committee’ to re-evaluate the charges levelled against the chief justice.

“Personally, I disagree with the stance taken by the government parliamentarians over the impeachment motion. Some Members of Parliament are adding 4-1more problems to a person who is already facing enough problems,” he said.

He had said the independent committee which would be appointed by him would look into all aspects of the matter and “on that basis I will take my decision.”

Later in the week, during his breakfast meeting with newspaper editors, the president ruled out claims that he had been compelled to appoint the committee due to international pressure. “I alone appointed it,” he said, adding that there is no constitutional provisions that require him to appoint the committee. This so called committee is bound to further complicate the constitutional process.

This will be detailed in this column.

The president said his actions were not meant to challenge the PSC. Whatever the content of the report, it would be forwarded to the independent committee, he said.

He complained that the chief justice was continuing to hear cases and said that it was ‘unethical.’ Understandable enough, he saw another ‘international conspiracy’ behind the activism against the impeachment of the chief justice.

The president cited that the Chief Justice of the Philippines was impeached, and appeared to suggest his government has unduly been targeted.  However, there is a rub. The impeachment of chief justice Renato C. Corona of the Philippines was conducted in a televised public trial,  after US$ 2.4 million in foreign currency was found in his deposits. His impeachment was cheered by human rights groups and legal bodies which viewed it as ‘a   constitutional process that protects the independence of the judiciary’ as described by the Asian Human Rights Commission. On the other hand, the impeachment of Chief Justice Bandaranayake is being viewed by a discerning public as a veritable witch-hunt. Chief Justice Bandaranayake has now written to the Speaker asking  action against PSC members, who called her a pissugeni (mad woman) and  api me nonawa thiyagena madawanawa (threatened to give her a hard time).

The president’s decision to appoint an independent committee – as a way out of an increasingly embarrassing situation – would likely further complicate the constitutional process related to the impeachment.

Article 107 (2) of the Constitution sets out the procedure for the removal of judges.

“Every such Judge shall hold office during good behaviour, and shall not be removed except by an order of the President made after an address of Parliament supported by a majority of the total number of Members of Parliament (including those not present) has been presented to the President for such removal on the ground of proved misbehaviour or incapacity.”

“Provided that no resolution for the presentation of such an address shall be entertained by the Speaker or placed on the Order Paper of Parliament, unless notice of such resolution is signed by not less than one-third of the total number of Members of Parliament and sets out full particulars of the alleged misbehaviour or incapacity.”

It is not clear whether the parliamentary process related to the impeachment would be suspended until the independent committee reaches its decision. Should Parliament decide to do it at the behest of the executive, that would question the much clamoured supremacy of the legislature, which Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa cited when announcing his decision to disregard the Supreme Court directives. 

Should Parliament proceed to debate the impeachment motion and vote to remove the chief justice, it is not clear as to what the impact the president’s so called ‘independent committee’ would have on the procedure.

But, all above possibilities are largely theoretical. We, the Sri Lankans, know that Parliament,  two thirds of which is dominated by the ruling party, is a rubber stamp of the Executive. It would servilely kowtow to the Executive, just like 116 MPs  who signed the resolution even without seeing it.

( The Writer, Editor of the Lakbima News, where this piece was originally appeared)

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