Friday, October 19, 2012

Civil Society Condemns Poster Campaign Vilifying Dr. Saravanamuttu

October 19, 2012

Prominent civil society organizations and activists in Sri Lanka by a statement signed by 19 organizations and 20 individuals, have condemned the appearance of posters vilifying Dr.Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, and those associated with him, in and around Colombo, on October 15, 2012.

Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Executive Director - CPA

The statement further said that they see this to be one more in a series of attacks that have been, and that continue to be, mounted against Sri Lankan citizens who are critical of authoritarian and arbitrary acts of the government and who demand accountability and justice for human rights violations.

The posters denounce Dr. Saravanamuttu, saying he is depriving fifteen hundred thousand poor Sri Lankan families of benefits under the proposedDivineguma Bill, and says that he and his ‘gang’ support the separation of the country. We see this to be a hostile reaction to the steps taken by Dr. Saravanamuttu and his organization, the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), to challenge the constitutionality of the Divineguma Bill, which was placed before Parliament on August 10, 2012. Among the concerns raised by the petitioners were the potential for infringement on some powers devolved to Provincial Councils by law. The right to challenge the constitutionality of any Bill placed before Parliament is, according to our Constitution, enjoyed by every citizen of Sri Lanka. The issue continues to be under consideration by the Supreme Court.

Dr. Nimalka Fernando, one of the signatories and the President of the International Organization against discrimination and Racism said that the group condemn this action without reservation and call on the government and its law enforcement agencies to take all steps to uncover those responsible for the printing and publication of these posters.

Full statement will follow:

Civil Society Statement on the posters vilifying Dr. P. Saravanamuttu, Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Alternative (CPA)

As civil society organizations and activists committed to the protection of human rights, democracy and peace with justice in Sri Lanka, we are gravely concerned by the appearance of posters vilifying our colleague, Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, and those associated with him, in and around Colombo, on October 15, 2012. We see this as another act in a series of attacks against civil society actors who are seen to be critical of the government.

The posters denounce Dr. Saravanamuttu, saying he is depriving fifteen hundred thousand poor Sri Lankan families of benefits under the proposed Divineguma Bill, and says that he and his ‘gang’ support the separation of the country. We see this to be a hostile reaction to the steps taken by Dr. Saravanamuttu and his organization, the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), to challenge the constitutionality of the Divineguma Bill, which was placed before Parliament on August 10, 2012. Among the concerns raised by the petitioners were the potential for infringement on some powers devolved to Provincial Councils by law. The right to challenge the constitutionality of any Bill placed before Parliament is, according to our Constitution, enjoyed by every citizen of Sri Lanka. The issue continues to be under consideration by the Supreme Court.

Although the posters bear no imprint, and thereby violate the law, there has been no attempt made so far to investigate the printing and dissemination of these posters and bring those responsible for this illegal act before justice. While we are well aware that in the past some political parties as well as civil society organizations have been compelled to resort to printing and publicising posters without an imprint because of the persistent repression of the freedom of opinion and expression, in this case we feel that these posters spread ideas of hatred against an individual and the ideas he stands for and are therefore indefensible in the name of the freedom of expression.

We see this to be one more in a series of attacks that have been, and that continue to be, mounted against Sri Lankan citizens who are critical of authoritarian and arbitrary acts of the government and who demand accountability and justice for human rights violations.

We condemn this action without reservation and call on the government and its law enforcement agencies to take all steps to uncover those responsible for the printing and publication of these posters.

Sgd:

Organisations:

1. Mr Britto Fernando - Family Organisation of the Disappeared

2. Mr Sudarshana Gunawardana – Rights Now Collective for Democracy

3. Dr. Nimalka Fernando - IMADR (Asia Committee)

4. Mr. Herman Kumara – National Fisheries Solidarity Association

5. Ms. Padmini Weerasooriya – Mothers and Daughters of Lanka

6. Mr. J. C Weliamuna AAL – Lawyers for Democracy

7. Mr. Philip Dissanayake – Right to Life Human Rights Centre

8. Mr. Freddy Gamage - Centre for People’s Dialogue

9. Ms Sunila Abeysekera - INFORM

10. Dr. Jehan Perera - National Peace Council

11. Ms. Visaka Dharmadasa – Association Women Affected by War

12. Fr. Nandana Manatunga- Human Rights Office

13. P.P. Sivapragasam – Human Development Organization
14. R. Nadarasa - Workers Solidarity Union

15. Mr. K S Ratnavale, AAL – Centre for Human Rights and Development

16. Ms. Sherine Xavier – Home for Human Rights

17. Rev. Ashok Stephen – Centre for Society and Religion

18. Ms. Mala Liyanage - Law and Society Trust

19. Ms. Pushpa Chandrakanthi – Savisthri

Individuals:

Mr. Lal Wijenayake, Attorney at Law
Mr. Chandra Kumarage. Attorney-at-Law
Mr R M B Senanayake – Retried Civil Servant
Mr. Gamini Viyangoda, Writer and Journlist
Mr. Chandraguptha Thenuwara, Visual Artist
Ms Shreen Abdul Saroor - Women’s Rights Activist
Ms Damaris Wickramasekera - Civil Society Activist
Mr Kusal Perera - Journalist
Dr. Sepali Kottegoda -
Mr. Lakshan Dias - Attorney-at-Law
Mr. P N. Singam
Mr. Ruki Fernando
Rev. Fr Rohan Silva
Ms. Visaka Tillerkeratne
Dr. Devanesan Nesiah
Dr. Anita Nesiah
Mr. Mohamed Mahuruf
Mr. Sampath Puspakumara Attorney-at-Law
Mr. Udaya Kalupathirana
Rev. Sr Angela Fernando

The Proposed Bill Will Limit The Powers Of The Magistrates And Increase The Powers Of The Police

By Basil Fernando -October 19, 2012

Basil Fernando

Making bad laws has become the hallmark of lawmaking in Sri Lanka for several decades now. The most recent example of the making of very bad laws is a bill which has recently been placed before parliament under the title Code of Criminal Procedure (Special Provision). The pursuit of injustice through legal enactment finds one more expression in this proposed bill.

The task of law is to create the framework for justice. Legislators, in making laws, ought to be preoccupied with enhancing the liberties of the people and thereby bringing about greater happiness to the people of their countries. However, it is now a Sri Lankan habit to create a framework of injustice through law and to create conditions that will make the people of the country as unhappy as possible. The pursuit of justice is by now a habit that has been lost in Sri Lanka.

In the protection of individuals, the task of the magistrates is of prime importance. It is said that the kingpin of the criminal justice system is the magistrates. It is by enhancing the capacity of the magistrates to dispense justice that society is kept in safe hands. To undermine the magistrates is to undermine the law itself and to allow illegality as law. That is one of the aims of the proposed bill. Its ultimate objective is to undermine the powers and the functions of the magistrates in Sri Lanka.

While the magistrates are being undermined, the Officers-in-Charge (OICs) and other officers of police stations are being given greater powers under the proposed bill. The powers of the OICs are embellished at the expense of the powers of the magistrates. In the future, Sri Lankans will have to depend on the mercy of the OICs of the police stations and even on officers of lesser ranks.

The average Sri Lankan knows by experience that OICs know of very little mercy or justice, but that they have great appetites and get what they want by using their fists and boots. It is quite a part of the average man’s common sense to avoid the police to the best of their ability. However, with the proposed bill the chances of avoiding the grip of such policemen and their demands will be much less. There will be no escape from the increase of extortion, torture, custodial deaths and dealing with all kinds of other demands from the police. The proposed bill will enhance such powers of the police and even change the age-old rule of the 24 hour limit before one is produced before a magistrate.

While the magistrate’s powers will be reduced, the powers of the Attorney General will be increased. The way people think of the Attorney General’s Department now is not the same as it used to be. The fact that the department’s powers can be manipulated for the benefit of politicians brings no surprise to anyone anymore. What this simply means is that the people with the right connections, whether they are accused of rape, torture or any other crime, could resort to the escape route which will be opened through interventions to the Attorney General’s Department. Under the proposed law on many serious offenses, the Attorney General’s Department will be empowered to call back the file from the magistrates. While that may be happy news for those who have the right links, it is not good news for those who are seeking justice.

However, justice may not be the concern of the government and those who are drafting these kinds of laws. Sri Lanka’s history for the last 40 years is one of the taking away of civil liberties by various means. The easiest ways were the emergency regulations and the anti-terrorism laws. However, these were not all. The country’s constitution itself is designed to embellish the power of the executive and diminish the powers of the judiciary and to leave the people without protection.

What is really happening is the naked abuse of power. However, this abuse of power is given respectability by all kinds of enactments, bills and other legislation. Freedom loving nations make laws exactly to avoid the kind of situations that Sri Lankans are creating for themselves by their laws. While more and more chains are placed on the people, these chains are now called laws.

The duty of any sensible person is to oppose the use of legislation for creating injustice and the deprivation of liberties. It is for that reason that the proposed bill needs to be opposed.

SRI LANKA: Statement on the poster attacksagainst CPA executive director

October 17, 2012

16 October 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka: The Centre for

Policy Alternatives (CPA) views with very serious concern the appearance of posters in Sinhala on Monday, 15th October 2012 in the environs of Colombo, the English translation of the text of which states: "Let us save the pro-people Divineguma Act that builds the lives of fifteen lakhs of low income families from the Paikiasothy gang that aids and abets the separation of the country." Photographs of the poster are attached. The chilling import of the reference to CPAExecutive Director, Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, requires no emphasis in the current political climate of violence against critics of the government and the culture of impunity for perpetrators. This is the most recent attack against CPA and its Executive Director. It must be unreservedly condemned.

The context of the reference in the poster to the Divineguma Bill, which is currently in the enactment process, and CPA’s legal challenge to its constitutionality, is as follows. When the Bill was placed on the Order Paper of Parliament on 10 August 2012, both CPAand Dr. Saravanamuttu in his capacity as Executive Director, filed petitions challenging the Bill in the Supreme Court, bringing to the Court’s attention a number of substantive and procedural grounds on which the Bill was potentially inconsistent with the Constitution. There are several substantive areas of constitutional concern in what is envisaged in the Bill, including the doctrine of the separation of powers, the possible reversal of certain subjects devolved to Provincial Councils, Parliament’s control over public finance and its general oversight over the executive, and public access to information held by government. We will make no further comment at this stage on these issues as the matter is pending before the Supreme Court.

On the procedural issues, however, the Supreme Court agreed with the averment in our initial petitions that the substance of the Bill impacts on a number of devolved subjects in such a way as to require it to be passed in terms of the special procedure laid down in the Constitution, which involves the consent of the Provincial Councils. Pursuant to this determination by the Supreme Court, the government sent the Bill to the Provincial Councils where consent has been forthcoming, except in the case of the Northern Province, where there is no elected Provincial Council. There is currently a legal challenge by a Member of Parliament for the Jaffna District to the consent provided on behalf of that Province by the Governor. Regardless of the matter being referred to the Supreme Court on the question of the role of the Governor, the Bill was tabled for the second time in Parliament on 9 September 2012. CPA and Dr. Saravanamuttu have challenged the Bill yet again, with the matter to be taken up in the Supreme Court this week.

Aside from these attacks, CPA also wishes to disclose that the military visited CPA on the morning of Monday 15th October, the same day the posters appeared. The military personnel informed CPA security that they in turn had been told by the Postal Department that the CPA address was one that had a connection to the Elections Department, which they were checking. Whether there is some causality between the appearance of theposter and the visit by the military, or whether it is mere coincidence, we are at a loss to understand how the military has a role in the conduct of such inquiries in terms of the law of the land.

Beyond the vilification and incitement of public hatred against an individual, we are concerned that these developments signify deeper changes that seem to be occurring in our post-war political culture. The government seems increasingly to regard not only critique and dissent from civil society, but also any constitutional restraints on its power as unacceptable to its agenda, and its stock response to any form of democratic dissent is to accuse opponents of a lack of patriotism. It seems to regard populism and majoritarianism as the only legitimate elements and forms of democracy, and needless to reiterate, CPA is founded on a set of beliefs, which are directly contrary to such perspectives on democracy.

We believe that forms of electoral democracy that are unrestrained by constitutional controls, checks and balances, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, fundamental rights and minority protections, devolution, and a vibrant and sceptical electorate, media and civil society, constitute no democracy at all. The emasculation of these fundamental principles in the purported interests of economic development is not only a false dichotomy, but also serves to corrode the traditions of choice and change we have enjoyed as part of the democratic way of life since 1931.

As the history of many countries which have had the unfortunate experience of populist authoritarianism has shown, the attenuation of legal and political restraints on political power that is exercised, at first instance, in the form of purportedly ‘pro-people’ policies have an alarming tendency to turn anti-people before long, when governments get used to centralisation and an absence of controls. In the light of recent manipulations of the Constitution, the strengthening of the executive at the expense of both Parliament and democracy, the undermining of established arrangements for ensuring good governance, the treatment of political opponents, violence against protestors, activists and journalists, enforced disappearances, attacks on the independence of the judiciary, the militarisation of civic life, and the pervasive culture of impunity, we wish to state categorically that we see a process taking place in Sri Lanka today which is aimed at dismantling surviving liberal democratic institutions and norms, including through the demonisation of critical voices.

These developments are taken lightly at the peril of our democratic future.

Our contact details are:
24/2, 28th Lane,
off Flower Road,
Colombo 7,
Sri Lanka
Tel: +94 11 2565304-6, 5552746, 5552748
Fax: +94-11-4714460
Email: info@cpalanka.org

Overall Coordinator of CPA Programmes
Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu
Executive Director

Tel: +94-11-2301634 (direct)
Email: psara@cpalanka.org

The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) was formed in the firm belief that there is an urgent need to strengthen institution- and capacity-building for good governance and conflict transformation in Sri Lanka and that non-partisan civil society groups have an important and constructive contribution to make to this process. The primary role envisaged for the Centre in the field of public policy is a pro-active and interventionary one, aimed at the dissemination and advocacy of policy alternatives for non-violent conflict resolution and democratic governance. Accordingly, the work of the Centre involves a major research component through which the policy alternatives advocated are identified and developed.

Bowed And Afraid: The Sunday Leader To Apologize To Gota For Calling Former Editor “A Fucking Pig Who Eats Shit”

OCTOBER 19, 2012

More than the launderer, Asanga Seneviratne, Lal Wickremetunga should be absolutely ashamed of himself for his ACTIVE participation in this travesty of justice.
What is he going to do next? Apologise for the death of his brother? That is certainly a logical next step for this man. These people will do ANYTHING for money!

Beyond surprised - October 19, 2012

Bowed And Afraid: The Sunday Leader To Apologize To Gota For Calling Former Editor “A Fucking Pig Who Eats Shit”

By Colombo Telegraph -October 19, 2012

In an astounding turn of events The Sunday Leader newspaper has agreed to carry a published apology to Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa in relation to an article carried on July 8, this year titled, ‘Gota Goes Berserk.’

Lal Wickramatunga - Chairman, The Sunday Leader

In a hearing conducted at the Government run Sri Lanka Press Council on Thursday October 18, lawyers representing the newspaper agreed with the complainant namely, Gotabaya Rajapaksa who was also present at the hearing that the newspaper had agreed to settle the matter by way of a published apology.

Attorney-At-Law and MP, M. A. Sumanthiran appearing for and on behalf of former Editor-in-Chief Frederica Jansz insisted the apology must not in any form have an adverse effect on Ms. Jansz. Sumanthiran maintained that the former editor is not a party to this apology. A position accepted by the Press Council.

At the time the article was published Ms. Jansz was not only Editor of the newspaper but also authored the said story carrying it under her byline.

Subsequently, Ms. Jansz has in a letter to the Press Council in August denied charges brought against her as Editor and the newspaper by the Defense Secretary, insisting the newspaper had not committed an offence in publishing a story involving the Defense Secretary, a plane switch at SriLankan Airlines and a puppy dog. The article also published excerpts of a conversation between Ms. Jansz and Gotabaya Rajapaksa that has been described by civil society and international media organizations as shocking and shameful.

In this conversation which Rajapaksa has not denied to date he used foul language on Ms. Jansz calling her a, “A shit, shit journalist. A fucking shit. A pig who eats shit!’

In the same conversation in response to a question posed by Ms. Jansz asking if he was threatening her, Rajapaksa replied, “ Yes I threatened you. Your type of journalists are pigs who eat shit! Pigs who eat shit! Shit, Shit, Shit journalists!!! Ninety percent of the people in this country hate you! They hate you!!! You come for a function where I am and I will tell people this is the Editor of The Sunday Leader and ninety percent there will show that they hate you.’

He added that those ninety percent of the people would also try kill her.

Two months later after having published this story Frederica Jansz was sacked as Editor –in-Chief of The Sunday Leader. Rumour had it that the sale of the newspaper was accelerated with the government using as its front man a shady businessman, Asanga Seneviratne. Whose profession is mainly that of a wheeler dealer.

Seneviratne has now agreed to publish an apology to Gotabaya Rajapaksa in relation to this story and phone conversation where the newspaper’s former Editor was abused and threatened with death by the defense secretary who is widely feared in the country for a man with full access to the State’s machinery and all its powers at his disposal.

http://fcohrdreport.readandcomment.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/hrdreport_2012_header.png

Discuss the UK's work on Human Rights and Democracy in relation to: Quarterly Updates: Sri Lanka

Pages:

Latest update: 30 September 2012

The human rights picture in the last three months has been mixed. Sri Lanka published an Action Plan on implementing recommendations of the post-war Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) in July. The Action Plan detailed action including on International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and identified 6 – 36 month time frames for implementation. President Mahinda Rajapaksa told the Sri Lankan press that over 50% of the LLRC recommendations had already been implemented. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) claimed that the Action Plan was “another time-buying exercise” for international consumption.

A team of technical experts from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) visited Sri Lanka from September 14 to 21. The visit may be followed-up with a visit by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, whose invitation from the government of Sri Lanka was re-extended in June. Outstanding requests for visits from Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council have yet to be accepted by the Government of Sri Lanka.

Elections for the eastern, north central and south western provincial councils were held on 8 September. The governing United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance were elected as the largest party in all three provinces. Elections were generally peaceful, although there were 105 reports of election related violence and intimidation. Local observers PAFFREL said that despite some improvements, the elections did not meet criteria for a free and fair poll. Although the police were successful in controlling some unlawful campaign activities, they were unable to fulfil their duties “in the face of state power”. Observers applauded the Elections Commissioner who, despite limited powers, “was seen …to provide the most level playing field possible at the elections.”

Reports in July indicated an increase in the involvement of local level politicians in crimes. Quoting sources from the police headquarters they stated that legal action had been initiated against 42 politicians for their involvement in crimes.

The Asian Human Rights Commission reported 7 incidents of torture during the last three months including one death and a critical injury. A joint military and police operation to rescue three prison officials taken hostage by protesting ex-LTTE and Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) prisoners in June resulted in serious injuries to three prisoners. Two of the injured died in July and August and a third remained in a coma in September. Civil society and Tamil political parties allege excessive use of force. UK based NGOs Freedom From Torture and Human Rights Watch in recently released reports have alleged ill treatment of Tamils returning to Sri Lanka from the UK. All asylum cases are looked at on their individual merits but judicial decisions in the UK courts have not upheld the view that Tamils are, per se, at risk of ill treatment on return from the UK.

Incidents of reported adductions / enforced disappearances reduced during the reporting period, but no conclusive investigations into past incidents took place. Local civil society and family members of those disappeared between the 1980s and 2009 from across the country held an event in the Northern Province to commemorate the International day against disappearances on 30 August and called for justice and accountability.

In July, police closed the offices of two pro-opposition websites, confiscated computers and documents and arrested nine workers who were subsequently released. There was an alleged attempt to abduct a journalist from the Lanka-e-news website. Two regional newspaper reporters from the north said they had received death threats for their reporting of a controversial protest in the region. Media alleged that the Sri Lankan Defence Secretary threatened the editor of a Sunday newspaper during a telephone interview. The government announced in July the imposition of a registration fee for all news casting websites. This was reduced, but not removed, after local and international press freedom organisations condemned the fee.

On 24 September, the final 1,179 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) were moved out of the Menik Farm IDP camp in Northern Sri Lanka. The UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator welcomed the closure while expressing specific concern for 110 families who are unable to return to their homes, which are occupied by the military. Aid agencies have welcomed the progress in demining which has allowed a number of IDPs to return to their land. They have also raised concerns that some IDPs may have been moved against their will or on false premises to third locations with even fewer basic facilities.

In September, the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) – the legal oversight body – made a public statement that the Commission was subject to threats and intimidation by persons holding political office. The statement also alleged that various influences had been used on the JSC regarding its decisions. On 23 September the Sri Lankan Bar Association passed two resolutions in support of the JSC.

Pages:

Regime Change

By Sanjana Hattotuwa -October 19, 2012

Sanjana Hattotuwa

The Rajapaksa government will fall and several in it will have to answer allegations of war crimes. There are many who will disagree with both assertions, indeed, violently and with the usual rhetoric. The animating logic behind regime longevity, seen from within government, is that the international community will forget Nandikadal in May 2009.

This is unlikely.

Phaidon’s colossal ‘Decade’ is the sequel to ‘Century’. It’s not available in Sri Lanka, but at Waterstones or Barnes and Noble there is usually a display copy one can peruse. Sri Lanka is featured, from memory, twice in the tome. One photo features the LTTE’s attack on Katunayake Airport. The other is a far more interesting photo. It is one taken when Prabhakaran’s freshly killed body is being taken on a stretcher across a ditch in May 2009, with dozens of soldiers looking on. The photo in and of itself is a revealing frame, but if one looks closely, there are over 13 cameras – including camera phones – captured in that single shot. It is improbable that the soldiers, after the zenith of war, rushed back to their homes and returned after picking up their cameras or mobile phones to capture this moment. It is logical to assume they had these cameras and mobile phones with them throughout the final weeks of war. What are personal digital trophies of war are in fact records of intent, orders and action in the frontlines. They will go public.

Former BBC correspondent Frances Harrison has just released a book with harrowing testimonies by those trapped in and around Nandikadal. It will be progressively released globally, and with each launch, add to scrutiny on Sri Lanka. With each review of the book – good, bad or indifferent – attention on Sri Lanka’s bloody secrets increases. Channel 4, it was noted on Twitter recently, is working on yet another documentary on the end of the war. High-resolution satellite imagery that can be commercially acquired based on initial scoping, for zero cost, via Google Earth can highlight instances of shelling, and through more rigorous analysis, direction of fire. Inferring by extension which party shelled where, when and how often is possible. The UN Human Rights Council is not going to forget its March Resolution. The real nature and extent to which cluster munitions on the ground have been discovered, though obscure and very contested now, will in the months and years to come, invariably filter out. One reason why some openly supportive of and close to the former Army Commander haven’t met with fatal accidents post-war is possibly because in the event of their death or disappearance, it has been made known that content will be released to international and domestic fora, including media, which can put the government in an uncomfortable and untenable position. It is unlikely all the information submitted to and acquired by the UN Panel of Experts was reflected in its final report and released publicly. This information can months and years hence, by strategic design or sheer carelessness, leak. Individuals who have not been paid for their work and never travelled to Sri Lanka have interviewed those on the ground in the final weeks of war in duty stations like Haiti, beyond Government scrutiny. The resulting reports again highlight horrific ground conditions at the end of war. With every single international event Sri Lanka hosts – be it cultural, film, sports, literary or political – sections of the diaspora will raise the volume on human rights abuses. The more Sri Lanka engages with the international community on bilateral and multilateral issues and agreements, the more these alternative narratives will persist, pique and propagate.

Several staples bind these disparate information release points over an extended temporal arc that weaves through many capitals. One, they will be predominantly against government. LTTE atrocities will be noted in passing, at best. Two, there is no one left in Sri Lanka the government can kill to thwart the release of this information or analysis. In fact, such moves may accelerate their release and dissemination. Three, each release or leak will be increasingly graphic and therefore more telegenic. Four, released predominantly online, this content will have a long-tail – that is, it cannot be erased and will be used and useful long after first publication or release. Five, accountability will take the form of domestic and international public shaming long before any IHL is brought to bear. Five, regime instability can be fermented from within. The discussion and release of inconvenient truths can over time and cumulatively become a body of evidence too hard to defend publicly or be associated with. After all, regime apparatchiks also have a basic survival instinct.

In the fullness of time, whether the underlying mechanics of illiberal governance and not just government is changed remains the only open question.

Courtesy Sajanana’s blog

SRI LANKA THE MID-TERM REPORT

By Gomin Dayasri
Symbolically the bloom has faded away from the national flower (“Nil Manel”), which grows in the mud in shallow waters. Beside sits Sri Lanka, stranded in such sludge in troubled waters. Rajapakse pulled a patriotic genie out of an iron helmet during the war but it’s fast becoming a fading gnome - unless an intense heart massage can revive the spirit of patriotism, which is the last trump in his pack of card tricks.

Navigating nationally, ground realities give a more kaleidoscopic visual than a statistical survey on the results of the last provincial council elections, which were staggered. Picture gets distorted, placed against the background of an election map spread across the country, on a solitary day’s polling round, as at a presidential election or general elections. A government with a 2/3 majority has a gait to look the size of a sleeping giant but its thought process carries the dimension of a teeny-weeny peanut. UPFA is a rainbow coalition created by an arranged marriage than a love match. Such a union needs weeks to assemble and days to disintegrate.

Sri Lanka’s immediate future lies on its way to bloom or gloom on the broad and slim shoulders respectively of regime’s apparatchiks- P.B.Jayasundera and Nivard Cabraal. The eye of the oncoming cyclone is focused on the economy. Coming close to a pre-empted election year, economic platform is set for a make or a break situation; never has the executive been dependent on so few for so much. Were the Two Big Lads – often at variance- hamstrung to decline the options available in deflecting the many obstacles they encountered? They have no choice but to take the nuclear option with the lights blinking red. Fate of a government hangs on their individual decisions.

Read more...