Jonathan Manthorpe: Thrust for centralized power by Sri Lankan president puts Commonwealth summit at risk
Canada, for one, saying the prime minister won’t attend unless Sri Lanka addressed rights issues
The removal of the chief justice of Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court by President Mahinda Rajapaksa has sparked international outrage because it seems to many to be another firm step in his establishment of a family dictatorship.
And it comes at a time when many foreign capitals feel forced to respond because Sri Lanka is to host the 54-member Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM) later this year. Typically, the human and political rights records of members of the club of former British Empire colonies is always an issue at such meetings.
Canada’s Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney has already said Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not lead a delegation to the summit unless the Rajapaksa administration addresses the country’s deepening problems of human rights, accountability and political reconciliation after the May 2009 end of the 27-year civil war against the Tamil minority.
Other Commonwealth members are feeling varying degrees of public and political pressure to take a stand. For now, Australia says it will attend, but Britain says it has made no decision.
Since the confrontation between the Sri Lankan government and Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake started in November, the head of the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, Kamalesh Sharma, has issued three statements expressing mounting concern at what appears to be an assault on the independence of the judiciary.
The tone of the Commonwealth statements carry an implicit warning that there may be a demand among member states to move the summit elsewhere. If that happens, it’s unlikely to concern the Rajapaksa government, which regularly thumbs its nose at international dismay at its increasingly harsh human and civic rights record.
Sri Lanka has been torn by ethnic violence almost from the moment of independence from Britain in 1948.
Within the Buddhist Sinhalese 75 per cent majo rity, there are unfortunate strains of racial triumphalism and intolerance that have fostered persistent persecution of the 12 per cent Hindu Tamil and 10 per cent Muslim Arab minorities.
From this flowed the uniquely violent Tamil 27-year war for independence in the north of the island.
But questions about the civic morality of Rajapaksa, who was first elected president in 2005, stem from the final days of the war in May, 2009.
The remnants of the Tamil Tigers and about 30,000 civilians were bottled up in a small enclave on the island’s north coast.
The bloodshed in the army assault was enormous. United States embassy cables to Washington published by WikiLeaks say Rajapaksa was responsible for ordering the massacre of civilians and the execution of captured Tamil Tigers.
A United Nations panel appointed in April 2011 by secretary general Ban Ki-moon says as many as 40,000 people were killed in the final weeks of the war and has called on the Rajapaksa administration to account for what happened.
He has denied committing war crimes and instead of seeking reconciliation with the Tamils and other minorities has set about creating a centralized, Sinhalese-dominated state.
Canada, for one, saying the prime minister won’t attend unless Sri Lanka addressed rights issues
Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake is driven away from her office in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013 after being fired by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who swore in Mohan Peiris, a trusted aide and retired attorney general and a legal adviser to the Cabinet, to replace her.
Photograph by: Gemunu Amarasinghe , AP-
THE VANCOUVER SUNAnd it comes at a time when many foreign capitals feel forced to respond because Sri Lanka is to host the 54-member Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM) later this year. Typically, the human and political rights records of members of the club of former British Empire colonies is always an issue at such meetings.
Canada’s Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney has already said Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not lead a delegation to the summit unless the Rajapaksa administration addresses the country’s deepening problems of human rights, accountability and political reconciliation after the May 2009 end of the 27-year civil war against the Tamil minority.
Other Commonwealth members are feeling varying degrees of public and political pressure to take a stand. For now, Australia says it will attend, but Britain says it has made no decision.
Since the confrontation between the Sri Lankan government and Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake started in November, the head of the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, Kamalesh Sharma, has issued three statements expressing mounting concern at what appears to be an assault on the independence of the judiciary.
The tone of the Commonwealth statements carry an implicit warning that there may be a demand among member states to move the summit elsewhere. If that happens, it’s unlikely to concern the Rajapaksa government, which regularly thumbs its nose at international dismay at its increasingly harsh human and civic rights record.
Sri Lanka has been torn by ethnic violence almost from the moment of independence from Britain in 1948.
Within the Buddhist Sinhalese 75 per cent majo rity, there are unfortunate strains of racial triumphalism and intolerance that have fostered persistent persecution of the 12 per cent Hindu Tamil and 10 per cent Muslim Arab minorities.
From this flowed the uniquely violent Tamil 27-year war for independence in the north of the island.
But questions about the civic morality of Rajapaksa, who was first elected president in 2005, stem from the final days of the war in May, 2009.
The remnants of the Tamil Tigers and about 30,000 civilians were bottled up in a small enclave on the island’s north coast.
The bloodshed in the army assault was enormous. United States embassy cables to Washington published by WikiLeaks say Rajapaksa was responsible for ordering the massacre of civilians and the execution of captured Tamil Tigers.
A United Nations panel appointed in April 2011 by secretary general Ban Ki-moon says as many as 40,000 people were killed in the final weeks of the war and has called on the Rajapaksa administration to account for what happened.
He has denied committing war crimes and instead of seeking reconciliation with the Tamils and other minorities has set about creating a centralized, Sinhalese-dominated state.
Plans for greater provincial regional autonomy, once part of a ceasefire deal with the Tamils, have seen no progress. The purposeful trend is toward centralization of power in Colombo.
With the Tamils defeated, the attention of Rajapaksa’s Sinhala nationalist supporters has turned to the Muslims, descendants of Arab traders. In the last year there has been a series of Sinhalese mob attacks on Muslim mosques and shrines that appear to have political protection and which police have done nothing to stop.
There has also been a steady increase in Sri Lanka’s already appalling record of attacks on journalists, especially those questioning government policy.
Rajapaksa’s confrontation with Chief Justice Bandaranayake stems from his program to claw back power from the provinces.
In November, she chaired a Supreme Court hearing that decided a move to give control of a $600 million development program to the Ministry of Economic Development was wrong because the constitution says development programs are provincial responsibility.
This is where the Rajapaksa family compact starts to come into play.
The Minister of Economic Development is one of the president’s brothers, Basil Rajapaksa.
And when, a couple of days after that Supreme Court decision, Parliament moved to impeach Chief Justice Bandaranayake, it was another brother, Speaker of Parliament Chamal Rajapaksa, who levelled 14 charges against her of abuse of power, failing to disclose financial interests and ruling on a case involving her husband.
She was impeached by a parliamentary committee, but an Appeal Court threw out the decision. Rajapaksa fired her anyway and installed a loyalist former attorney general in her place.
The Rajapaksa family influence on government is extraordinary.
A third brother, Gotabhaya, is Defence Minister. A nephew is head of Uva province and another is director of Sri Lankan Airlines. Cousins are ambassadors to Russia and the U.S. and another is chairman of Airport and Aviation Services Ltd. A brother-in-law is chairman of Sri Lankan Airlines.
jmanthorpe@vancouversun.com
With the Tamils defeated, the attention of Rajapaksa’s Sinhala nationalist supporters has turned to the Muslims, descendants of Arab traders. In the last year there has been a series of Sinhalese mob attacks on Muslim mosques and shrines that appear to have political protection and which police have done nothing to stop.
There has also been a steady increase in Sri Lanka’s already appalling record of attacks on journalists, especially those questioning government policy.
Rajapaksa’s confrontation with Chief Justice Bandaranayake stems from his program to claw back power from the provinces.
In November, she chaired a Supreme Court hearing that decided a move to give control of a $600 million development program to the Ministry of Economic Development was wrong because the constitution says development programs are provincial responsibility.
This is where the Rajapaksa family compact starts to come into play.
The Minister of Economic Development is one of the president’s brothers, Basil Rajapaksa.
And when, a couple of days after that Supreme Court decision, Parliament moved to impeach Chief Justice Bandaranayake, it was another brother, Speaker of Parliament Chamal Rajapaksa, who levelled 14 charges against her of abuse of power, failing to disclose financial interests and ruling on a case involving her husband.
She was impeached by a parliamentary committee, but an Appeal Court threw out the decision. Rajapaksa fired her anyway and installed a loyalist former attorney general in her place.
The Rajapaksa family influence on government is extraordinary.
A third brother, Gotabhaya, is Defence Minister. A nephew is head of Uva province and another is director of Sri Lankan Airlines. Cousins are ambassadors to Russia and the U.S. and another is chairman of Airport and Aviation Services Ltd. A brother-in-law is chairman of Sri Lankan Airlines.
jmanthorpe@vancouversun.com
