The hounds of law keep the UNP and the Rajapaksas nervous and concerned

 

Handcuffed Lalith Weeratunga and Anusha Pelpita being taken to the prison vehicle after HC issued its ruling in respect of ‘Sil Redi’ case.

by Rajan Philips-September 9, 2017, 7:57 pm 

The High Court conviction and sentencing of Lalith Weeratunga, Secretary to former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and Anusha Palpita, former Director of Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, is unprecedented in several respects. I cannot think of an instance when such senior state officials were found guilty of misusing state funds for political purposes. Craving the Court for clemency in sentencing, their lawyers alluded to the age and health of their clients, their hitherto upstanding and unblemished record in professional and public life, and the fact neither of their clients intended to or did personally benefit from the misuse of state funds. Ironically, the same mitigating attributes make their misusing of 600 million rupees of state funds, to distribute ‘Sil Redi’ to garner votes in the January 2015 election for the man who appointed them to their positions, inexplicable and inexcusable.

As experienced senior officials, Weeratunga and Palpita should have not only avoided distributing Sil at state expense, but also admonished their political masters that doing so to influence voters would be highly irregular and illegal. It is not known whether they did this on their own or were following their candidate’s instructions even though they were senior officials of the Sri Lankan government and not Mahinda Rajapaksa’s SLFP minions. Perhaps, we will never know and the Rajapaksas can always disclaim any responsibility just like Ravi Karunanayake claimed utter innocence about how he ended up in a benefactor’s penthouse. Indeed the unkindest cut of all has already been noted – in the conspicuous failure of the Rajapaksas to show up in court in solidarity when Weeratunga and Palpita were sentenced to their jail term and fines. The court did what it had to do based on evidence and the law, and regardless of who was involved. And that would have sent shivers among the higher echelons of the UNP and within the inner sanctums of the Rajapaksas.

The UNP leadership should be duly concerned because the High Court convictions indicate what could befall its own officials and agents if what are being revealed at the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Central Bank bond scam also hold up in a competent court. But the political damage is done whether or not legal convictions would later follow. What should not happen, however, is the use of political influence and interference to escape legal convictions. And these need not happen, even in Sri Lanka, if the courts and the legal system are allowed to do what they are meant to do. That is what the proceedings of the Commission of Inquiry and the verdicts of the High Court have again demonstrated. The bigger problem is that the ethical standards in politics and the political culture that sustain them that used to be in place in Sri Lanka have totally disappeared over time primarily due to pre-19A operations of the presidential system and the deterioration of political parties under the double onslaughts of the presidential system and proportional representation.

When Ravi Karunanayake tendered his resignation, not without demur and not without duress, it was suggested by the Prime Minister, no less, that a high ethical standard was being introduced by the yahapalanaya government. What he ignored and was eloquently silent about was that no previous Finance Minister in Sri Lanka, in the time before the finance portfolio became a presidential privilege, ever came anywhere near living in a luxury dwelling paid for by somebody else. Every Finance Minister in that era became hugely unpopular halfway through their term for tightening belts and imposing taxes, but no one accused them of corruption or misappropriation. The first principle in ethics is not to do anything unethical. The fallback position is to be able to get rid of those who are unethical as soon as possible. This is never achieved easily, but political leaders at the top must be at least committed to achieving this rather than obfuscating and allowing corrupt practices to continue unchecked.

What is also revealing, but in a different way, is that how the UNP leaders and the Rajapaksas are becoming digressive and diversionary to respectively escape bond scam fallouts and potential court arraignments. To the UNP leaders the bond scam is conveniently sub-judice, and they want to impress the country with their 2025 Vision. The Rajapksas have come up with a different light to divert attention from their dark past: the so called Eliya (light) Forum to ‘enlighten’ the people about the dangers inherent in the constitutional changes that the government is proposing. The not so old ‘Viyath Maga’ has now been fitted with new head lights to excite illuminating aspirations among the professional followers of the Rajapaksas. Whether it is economic visioning or constitutional enlightenment, the underlying purposes are the same: Divert the people’s attention away from corruption and abuse of power.

Universal Jurisdiction/Distraction

The last two weeks have also heard the hounds of law bark not only in Colombo, but also in far-away Brazil. The lawsuit filed in Brazil and other South American countries against General Jagath Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Brazil till he left the country about the same time as the lawsuit being filed, has provoked a range of reactions in the country. It is another distraction that the government seems to have brought upon itself but it now needs to address. Given the known divisions among army high-ups and their conflicting supports to the Rajapaksa and the UNP camps, it is puzzling that the government appointed General Jayasuriya as Ambassador to Brazil even as it brought back Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka into politics and cabinet. It is also inexplicable that this appointment in 2015 should have come at the same time that Sri Lanka’s loquacious Foreign Minister (at that time) was waxing eloquent before the UNHRC in Geneva.

The Foreign Ministry has come under criticism from knowledgeable sources for its explanation of the contract of appointment of General Jayasuriya to Brazil and South American countries. Just before the lawsuit and his departure from Rio de Janeiro, Mr. Jayasuriya seems to have requested a new posting to Australia or an Asian country. What attracted him to Brazil in 2015? The 2016 Rio Olympics? Whatever the reason, the good, or bad in some reckoning, the General and the Foreign Ministry did not do their homework before sending a controversial Sri Lankan military figure to post-military democracies in South America. That the lessons from South America have not been learnt yet in Sri Lanka became clear in some of the commentaries that invoked the example of Augusto Pinochet in defence of Jagath Jayasuriya. It is better not to have any friend than to have seriously misinformed on matters of universal jurisdiction.

Strange things always happen, but it was not that strange that the invocation of Pinochet and the denunciation of the United States of America as the real instigator of the present government’s constitutional project came from the same Rajapaksa political corner within a matter of days. Augusto Pinochet captured power in Chile, in 1974, through a military that was sanctioned and supported by the United States of America. Here at Galle Face Green, Colvin R de Silva, then a Minister in the United Front Government, scaled the customary heights of eloquence warning his compatriots of the ever present threat of imperialism. Imperialism was real then, and anti-imperialism in Sri Lankan politics was sincere and genuine, and not the fashion makeup that it has now become especially given the context of a different world order.

More pertinent to the present, Augusto Pinochet, quite accidentally while in retirement, went on to set the precedent for what is now recognized as universal jurisdiction. The courts in Spain and the House of Lords in England rejected immunity claims of Pinochet, declaring that he was liable to stand trial for torturing not only citizens of other countries but also citizens of his own country because torture by the state is a heinous crime against humanity. And the judges in Spain and the Law Lords in Britain based their rulings not on any international law but on domestic laws ratifying international treaties. That said, the lawsuit against General Jaysuriya may not go any farther except making him unsuitable for future diplomatic assignments, or, at worst, preventing him from travelling freely overseas. But to the much beleaguered Sirisena-Wickremasinghe government this is another problem that they would rather not have.