By Nira Wickremasingha | The Wall Street Journal
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For a country proud to have maintained civilian democratic rule through the depths of the war, Mr. Rajapaksa's moves are disheartening to say the least. In passing the 18th amendment to the constitution earlier this month, the parliament dominated by his Sri Lanka Freedom Party removed the constitutional two-term limit that had capped presidents at a maximum of 12 years in office. They also abolished the 17th amendment enacted in 2001, which had created a Constitutional Council and independent commissions that the president had to consult when appointing people to high-level government posts. That amendment had been a key check on Sri Lanka's otherwise very powerful executive.
Mr. Rajapaksa did not singlehandedly create Sri Lanka's overly strong executive presidency. The constitution introduced in 1978 by President J.R. Jayawardene concentrated significant power in the hands of a single individual. Mr. Rajapaksa's SLFP has claimed at least since it took power in 1994 that it wanted to abolish the executive presidency and replace it with a form of government where power was less centralized. But now Mr. Rajapaksa is embracing a much stronger executive.
With the constitutional term limit abolished, Mr. Rajapaksa has a fair chance of staying in power. Just as in other presidential regimes such as France or the United States, incumbent presidents in Sri Lanka are very likely to win second-term elections. Limits on terms of office are set precisely for this reason.
Many Sri Lankans seem to think, for now anyway, that would not be such a terrible thing. Having ended a debilitating decades-long civil war, President Rajapaksa was re-elected earlier this year with a convincing majority of 58% over his main opponent Sarath Fonseka, a former army commander and erstwhile close ally. If given sufficient time and sufficient powers he promised to rebuild the country, supported by a depoliticized business community.
Meanwhile, the opposition has fallen into disarray. Since 2007 Mr. Rajapaksa has deftly maneuvered to weaken his two legitimate political challengers. The right-wing United National Party led by Ranil Wickremasinghe is in tatters, having lost many of its parliamentarians to the government, and was pushed by popular political pressures to support the ruling party in the "war to eliminate terrorism." The left-wing People's Liberation Front party has split into two factions, one supporting the government and the other in opposition. Its last electoral performance was dismal. Mr. Rajapaksa has hastened this collapse of the opposition with interventions of his own—most notably, the court-martial of Mr. Fonseka for "involvement in politics" while still an officer and dabbling in weapons contracts, charges that conveniently surfaced around the time of the election.
Over the years Mr. Rajapaksa has been busy weakening the institutions that would allow a better-organized opposition to one day become a political force. While the mainstream media are supportive of state policies, dissenting opinions are few and confined to the English-speaking or radical press. The media are on the whole practicing self-censorship.
The fact that academics, lawyers, students and pressure groups took to the streets to protest against the 18th amendment indicates that there is still room for the opposition to maneuver in the interstices of power. The question remains whether, as defenders of the 18th amendment argue, voters will be given a true choice in 2016. This ultimately depends less on Mr. Rajapaksa than on the will of opposition political parties to forge an alternative democratic vision and give leadership to those who believe in it.
It is revealing in this regard that passage of the amendment was achieved with hardly any public debate or scrutiny of such a significant change. It was pushed through parliament as an "urgent parliamentary bill" and it was discussed for only one day. Unsurprisingly, the Supreme Court had earlier ruled that a referendum would not be required. In the end Mr. Rajapaksa secured the requisite two-thirds majority thanks to support from his own party and a smattering of parliamentary votes from some defecting members of the UNP and other, much smaller groups including the main party representing the Muslims.
It is doubtful that this episode will awaken Sri Lankans who were inclined to view Mr. Rajapaksa as the savior of the nation to a more worrying side of his regime. For now there seems to be a wide popular consensus around the shape of the new Sri Lanka: patrimonial, nepotistic, nationalistic and militarized. With a strong electoral mandate and a large parliamentary majority supporting him, Mr. Rajapaksa had a free hand to reform a country bruised by 30 years of violence into a social democratic state. As he instead focuses on consolidating his power, this hope fades away, leaving people in the years to come with a difficult choice: total compliance or desperate revolt.
Ms. Wickramasinghe is professor of modern South Asian studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
© The Wall Street Journal
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Sri Lanka: Rajapaksa makes a move
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Sri Lanka bans BBC from covering civil war hearings
BBC News
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For three days, civilians will have the chance to give evidence on life under the Tamil Tigers or LTTE.
The government says the Commission on Lessons Learned and Reconciliation is working to prevent a repeat of the conflict.
A senior defence ministry official said he could not allow the BBC to attend the sittings, due to start on Saturday.
An important part of the commission's work is to meet ordinary Tamil civilians who were displaced by the war and suffered severe trauma, injury or the loss of close family members.
This weekend the panel will travel to Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu - a former Tamil Tiger heartland in the north of the country.
The panel will travel to the lagoon which was the scene of some of the last fighting and across which many people fled from the guerrilla-controlled zone.
Many of the hearings on this trip will be held in public but the defence ministry has rejected an application by BBC News to witness the panel's activities on this leg of their mission.
The military liaison officer declined to give any reasons.
In August, the BBC attended panel hearings in an unrestricted part of the north but was not allowed to attend its meetings in camps with refugees and suspected former rebels.
Sri Lankan government officials regularly accuse journalists, both foreign and domestic, of bias against the administration.
On Monday, a newspaper editor told the commission that he believed such perceptions were made worse by the systematic restrictions on reporters wishing to travel in the north.
© BBC News
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Sri Lanka jails ex-army chief Fonseka
By Amal Jayasinghe | Agence France-Presse
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The military court, whose decision must now be ratified by President Mahinda Rajapakse, found that Fonseka favoured an arms company run by his son-in-law, said the official, who asked not to be named.
He was charged on four counts of corrupt purchases for the military.
The conviction came after Fonseka last month was stripped of his rank and pension after another court found him guilty of dabbling in politics while in uniform.
There was no immediate comment from Fonseka's Democratic National Alliance (DNA) party which has maintained that the prosecution of the former four-star general is part of a political vendetta.
State radio said Fonseka could appeal to a civilian court against his three-year jail term.
Fonseka, 59, who led the military to victory over Tamil Tiger rebels in May last year, fell out with the government and unsuccessfully tried to unseat Rajapakse in January polls.
"The chairman of the court read out its decision and it must now be ratified by the president," the official said, adding that the closed-door court would make no formal announcement.
Rajapakse is expected to ratify the decision - seen as a formality - when he returns from the UN General Assembly session this month.
Fonseka's lawyers had refused to make final submissions in the former army chief's defence after accusing the court of serious irregularities.
Fonseka was arrested two weeks after his defeat in the presidential elections and has remained in military custody since. He won a seat in parliamentary elections in April, however, allowing him to attend parliament.
He has said the government is seeking revenge for his decision to stand against the president and to keep him from speaking in parliament.
"They are going to put me in jail and I am prepared for that," Fonseka told reporters in parliament after being escorted by the military from his room in Colombo's naval headquarters to parliament in August.
The first court martial also ordered the withdrawal of the medals he had earned during his 40-year military career and stripped him of his rank and pension.
The general quit the military in November to become an opposition politician, but has since been embroiled in numerous court cases, which he says are being orchestrated by the government.
He faces civilian charges of employing army deserters, as well as revealing state secrets - offences that carry a 20-year jail term.
The 37-year ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka ended in May last year when government forces wiped out the Tamil Tiger separatist group which had fought since 1972 for a Tamil homeland.
The victory boosted the popularity of Rajapakse among the ethnic Sinhalese majority, but the military campaign has since been dogged by war crime allegations which have strained Colombo's relations with former Western allies.
Fonseka angered the government by saying he would willingly testify before any international war crimes tribunal. Rajapakse has vowed to prevent any such probe.
The United Nations estimates that at least 7000 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed in the final months of fighting between government troops and the Tamil Tigers.
© AFP
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Sri Lanka lowers blast toll to 25
IANS | Sify News
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The explosives, which were being dispatched for a road construction project, detonated on a truck at the Karadiyanaru police station, 260 km east of Colombo, military spokesman Major General Udaya Medawala said.
'Our initial reports said that at least 60 were killed, but the latest accounts say 25 - consisting of 16 policemen and nine civilians - were killed,' he said.
He said more than 50 people were injured.
Witness accounts said that the damage was extensive, with bodies strewn over a distance of 200 to 300 metres and some still buried under debris.
The explosion occurred when officials of the road construction project came to collect the dynamite from the police station, where the stocks were stored for safety purposes.
Deputy Inspector General of Police Ravi Wijegunawardena said the explosion was accidental and investigations were under way into what caused the detonation.
However, police chief Mahinda Balasuriya, accompanied by a team of officials from the Criminal Investigations Department, were flown into the area to carry out investigations.
A police officer at the scene said the blast levelled the buildings in the police compound.
'We do not know how the explosion went off, but it seemed that it was triggered in one of the trucks, immediately setting off the explosions in the other containers as well,' the officer said.
A civilian who escaped the blast said that there were others who were at the police station to deal with routine matters at the time of the blast.
'I called over at the police station to collect a police report and was told I had to wait for another hour. I went out of the compound to have a cup of tea when the blast went off. I escaped, but some others who came with me were not so lucky,' Thangavelu Ravindran said.
He said that bodies were still under the walls of the buildings and the police and villagers were trying to get them out.
Forty-seven people injured in the blast were admitted to two hospitals in the eastern district of Batticaloa while four others were transferred to Colombo for treatment.
The country's Eastern Province has been calm since government troops recaptured the area from Tamil separatist rebels in 2008. Government troops then went on to defeat the rebels in their northern stronghold.
Major reconstruction projects in Eastern Province, including roads, have got under way after the return of peace to the area.
© Sify.com
Friday, September 17, 2010
'OVER 60 KILLED IN SRI LANKA EXPLOSIVES DEPOT BLAST'
Photo courtesy: Tamil Net
Agence France-Presse
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Spokesman Ubaya Medawala told AFP that most of the victims were policemen, who were issuing explosives to Chinese road builders who needed them to blast rock on a nearby project.
"It's an accidental explosion. The munitions were kept at the police station for safety reasons. It exploded as police were issuing some munitions to the contractors," Medawala said.
The police station in Karadiyanaru, 235 miles (378 kilometres) by road from the capital Colombo, was extensively damaged.
Chinese infrastructure companies are highly active in Sri Lanka, fuelling concerns in neighbouring India about the growing influence of China in South Asia.
State-run firms are building two ports in Sri Lanka, one in the southern town of Hambantota and another in Colombo.
The nearest hospital to the site of the accident, in the town of Batticaloa, said several people injured in the blast had been admitted, but a spokesman was unable to say how many had been hurt in total.
© AFP
Friday, September 17, 2010
China-Lanka agree to deepen military ties
Indian Express
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The Chinese offer to enhance defence ties with Sri Lanka came during a key meeting between Defence Secretary Rajapaksa and Chen Bingde, the Chief of General Staff of Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA).
China was willing to work with Sri Lanka to further enhance friendly exchanges and cooperation between the two nations and armed forces, to promote their comprehensive and cooperative partnership, Chen said.
There has been continuous consolidation and development of China-Sri Lanka relations in recent years, state-run Chinese news agency Xinhua quoted Chen as saying today.
He said Beijing appreciated Sri Lanka's firm support on the issues of Taiwan and Tibet, which were related to China's core interests.
© Indian Express
Friday, September 17, 2010
Ban Ki Moon's 1st Meeting with Sri Lanka Panel Omitted From Schedule
By Matthew Russell Lee | Inner City Press
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Ban's published schedule for Thursday September 16, while listing a meeting with a Grand Master of the Urasenke Tradition of Team, did not list any meeting with the panel. Inner City Press asked Nesirky about it.
Nesirky replied Ban's meeting with the panel would occur “today, this afternoon.” Inner City Press asked, why wasn't it listed on Ban's schedule?
“Not everything is on the schedule,” Nesirky replied.
What is the purpose of publishing the schedule that, if a meeting about war crimes is not listed?
“There are any number of reasons some things are on the schedule and some things are not,” Nesirky said. “Internal meetings typically are not.”
But Ban's meeting with, for example, the panel on the assault on the Gaza flotilla was listed.
Nesirky replied, “who's panel is it?” Good question -- some now think it is Mahinda Rajapaksa's panel.
On September 14, Inner City Press asked Nesirky to describe Ban's experience with Rajapaksa prior to becoming Secretary General of the UN, and to confirm that Ban's son in law Siddarth Chatterjee, while an Indian army officer, served in the Indian Peace Keeping Force in majority Tamil areas. Nesirky said he would “get back” to Inner City Press on these.
More than 48 hours later, Nesirky has provided no information in this regard.
From the UN's September 14, 2010 transcript:
Inner City Press: On Sri Lanka, I wanted to ask this, since, recently there has been a removal of term limits on the president Mahendra Rajapaksa, saying that he can run forever, and The Economist magazine said that Rajapaksa has “preferred to put the consolidation of his family’s power ahead of solely needed national reconciliation.” The Government has now banned The Economist, this edition from the country. Since the Secretary-General, you know, has referred a lot to his May 2009 joint statement with Mr. Rajapaksa that includes references to accountability for war crimes and reconciliation, one — does he have any comment either on the extent that the elimination of term limits or on the banning of a publication? Two — the panel that he announced in March and that sort of convened once in July has it yet begun? Has the four-month clock begun? And just relatedly, two questions, can you describe the personal relationship of the Secretary-General with Mr. Rajapaksa, including prior to becoming Secretary-General? And, can you confirm that the Secretary-General’s son-in-law served in the Indian peacekeeping force that occupied Tamil areas of Sri Lanka during previous peace negotiations? Just as a factual matter to know what the Secretary-General’s connections to Sri Lanka are?
Spokesperson Nesirky: On the term limits, that’s an internal matter for Sri Lanka. I don’t have any comment on that. On publications and the banning thereof or the difficulty of receiving in any place, our general view would be that freedom of the media is an essential part of, an essential ingredient for democracy in any country.
You ask about the panel of experts — the panel members and support staff have been conducting intensive preparatory work, and indeed the panel will meet with the Secretary-General this week, marking the formal commencement of its activities. And as the final two questions, I will get back to you.
We're still waiting.
© Inner City Press
Friday, September 17, 2010
Sri Lanka Tamil party criticises presidential panel
By Ranga Sirilal | Reuters
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The opposition and Washington have criticised the amendment to the constitution that created the committee, which President Mahinda Rajapaksa pushed through parliament this month, for diluting the few remaining checks on the powerful presidency.
It also lifted the presidential two-term limit, freeing Rajapaksa to run for a third term in 2017.
"The parliamentary committee is a powerless body, which is not going to do anything and we do not want be a member of that council which can't do anything for the people," Tamil National Alliance (TNA) legislator Suresh Premachandran told Reuters.
The new parliamentary committee has no veto power on appointments and replaces a 10-member constitutional council set up under an amendment passed in 2001 but never enacted.
The TNA said its parliamentarian, M.A Sumanthiran, would not join the five-member panel.
Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe of the United National Party (UNP), who will sit on the new committee, had nominated Sumanthiran. The UNP and TNA opposed the amendment but were powerless to stop it in a parliament Rajapaksa's party controls.
The TNA is the largest party representing Sri Lanka's Tamil minority, and it had been the political proxy for the Tamil Tiger separatists whom the government defeated last year to end a civil war that had raged off and on since 1983.
The TNA has said it is willing to work with Rajapaksa toward devolution of powers, one of the main bones of contention during the war. Rajapaksa has promised to deliver some kind of political reconciliation to Tamils but has yet to do much.
Diplomats from the West and Japan, one of Sri Lanka's staunchest allies, have warned that a failure to bring meaningful reconciliation could spark new violence.
Scholars say Sri Lanka's constitutional changes or failings helped fuel the 1971 and 1988-89 uprisings by the Marxist JVP, in which more than 100,000 people were killed, and the Tamil Tigers' war, in which an equal number were killed.
© Reuters
Friday, September 17, 2010
Young Tamils in Sri Lanka 'being held without charge'
By Charles Haviland | BBC News
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Nanda Godage said some had been incarcerated in this way for years.
He was testifying before a war commission, which is examining the final years of the long-running civil conflict which ended last year
The commission also looks at ways of preventing war from breaking out again.
Mr Godage, a former Sri Lankan ambassador to the European Union, told the commission that at least 2,000 young Tamils had been in detention for years on suspicion of involvement with the Tamil Tiger rebels.
These were in addition to several thousand people who had been held in camps since the end of the fighting last year, he said.
They had been failed by the legal system, he alleged.
By holding them in this way, he charged, the Sri Lankan state was in danger of "breeding many more Prabhakarans" - a reference to Vellupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the Tamil Tigers who met his death as the war ended.
Mr Godage told the BBC he was especially angry about 500 young people who were being held purely on suspicion in a Colombo jail, Welikada, under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
If there was no evidence against them and the others, they should be freed, he said, although he acknowledged that the security of the state was vital.
Forgotten
He told the panel of a case he said was typical: a Tamil engineer who admitted to the police that he had given money to the Tigers while working in the UK.
The man had spent more than a year in prison despite explaining that many Tamils abroad were forced to make such donations.
The retired diplomat said some top officials sympathised with these detainees, but that complex bureaucracy meant they were forgotten about.
Former Tamil Tiger members or suspects who are still alive are receiving mixed treatment in Sri Lanka.
The most senior of them, nicknamed KP, is nominally detained, but is co-operating with the government in building links with the Tamil diaspora.
Another senior ex-Tiger has just told the BBC that he is helping to run a television station in the north while out on bail from a court case.
© BBC News
Friday, September 17, 2010
China to build another port in Sri Lanka
By Indrani Bagchi | The Times of India
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The Sri Lankan cabinet recently decided to award the contract to build a new deep-water container terminal in Colombo port to a consortium consisting of China Merchant Holdings International and Aitken Spence. According to reports from the island nation, the terminal will be built by the same company that built the Hambantota port complex -- China Harbour Engineering Company ( CHEC) and Sino Hydro Corporation.
No Indian company even bothered to bid for the project.
After Hambantota went to the Chinese and Indian strategists saw it as part of Beijing's "string of pearls" strategy, it was believed that India would be more proactive when it came to strategic projects in its neighbourhood, where more than mere economic interests are at stake. But for the ADB-funded Colombo Port project, there were no Indian entities participating in the bids, leaving the Chinese consortium as the sole bidder for the terminal.
That when China's engagement with Sri Lanka gets deeper. India is Sri Lanka's biggest trading partner, but China is its biggest donor. In 2009, China gave about $1.2 billion to Sri Lanka.
When it is expanded, the Colombo port -- which will become bigger than most Indian ports combined -- will probably handle the bulk of Indian shipping traffic, making it more than important for India. Sri Lanka is positioning itself as a South Asia hub, which would work very well for India as it currently uses either Singapore or Dubai.
In fact, the Sri Lankan government has asked for bids for developing an industrial park in Hambantota. But so far, said sources, only a very small number of Indian companies have even expressed interest. Indian companies are getting into numerous sectors in Sri Lanka, but the headline grabbers remain the Chinese, adding to the perception that India is being "surrounded".
While it is a fact that China, with its deep pockets and state-owned enterprises has been increasing its footprint in South Asia, it's equally true that Indian entities are proving to be unequal to the challenge. Government and industry sources point to a number of reasons.
First, Indian companies venturing out in the neighbourhood are few because most of them are very risk-averse. They are also all private sector entities and not backed by India's government might as in China. The government is also hesitant about pushing companies in other countries for fear of being tainted by corruption charges.
Second, countries like Sri Lanka are only now emerging from decades of strife. But whereas this is seen as a strategic opportunity for China, India is far slower off the mark. China also instinctively invests in projects where its presence/benevolence can be seen. In Sri Lanka, as in Bangladesh, Beijing has built much needed convention centres. India could actually be thinking cricket stadiums in Sri Lanka or cricket training academies in Bangladesh. But there is none of that fleet-footedness in New Delhi.
In countries like Nepal, where anti-India feeling is rife, Indian companies are finding that tenders are tailored in such a way so as to exclude Indian companies. In this way, Indian sources estimate that over 900 Indian companies have lost out in the past couple of years.
Third, and most important, the top levels of the government remain obsessed with Pakistan, neglecting the other countries in the neighbourhood. The PM, for instance, has only travelled to Bhutan. And there is no brainstorming between government and industry about Indian outreach in these countries and how the public and private sectors can complement each other's efforts.
© The Times of India
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