“Once again as the United Nations Human Rights Council meets in the coming days Sri Lanka’s situation of Sri Lanka will receive global attention. The Sri Lankan crisis, seen by different persons in different ways on the basis of their particular positions, is essential one of a crisis of a political system that has been unable to meet the expectations of its people.”____________________________________
by Narendra
(March 01, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) One of the latest incidents highlighting the situation of Sri Lanka is the removal of the Director General of the Bribery Commission, who is the only person legally authorised to sign indictments relating to charges of bribery. Thus, by removing the authorised signatory the possibility of signing indictments has been neatly prevented.
Observers have pointed out that this has happened in a background in which the Commission was investigating the possibility of corruption in the purchase of outdated Mig fighter planes. Thus, any possibility of the Bribery Commission filling indictments against some powerful persons has been, as was pointed out above, neatly prevented.
Shortly before the removal of the director General another suggestion perhaps prompted by an article about the Mig deal was made by the Secretary of Defense, Gotabhaya Rajapakse that the criminal defamation law must be reintroduced into Sri Lanka. That comment drew a serious backlash from the press and the community. Perhaps the alternative approach of removing the person who can sign indictments may have been the result of that backlash.
Equally cynical is the manner in which the appointment of the Constitutional Council has been ignored. It is the Constitutional Council that can select commissioners to be in charge some of the most important institutions in the country.
It is these commissioners who will have the power of appointment, transfer, promotions and disciplinary control of all the public servants coming under these institutions. This move was designed to prevent unqualified persons from being appointed to such positions for political reasons.
The method used to sabotage that constitutional provision was simply to not appoint members to the Constitutional Council who in turn could appoint the commissioners for these commissions; the same trick used in the case of the Director General of the Bribery Commission.
Once again as the United Nations Human Rights Council meets in the coming days Sri Lanka’s situation of Sri Lanka will receive global attention. The Sri Lankan crisis, seen by different persons in different ways on the basis of their particular positions, is essential one of a crisis of a political system that has been unable to meet the expectations of its people.
The expectations of citizens of all backgrounds have radically changed over several decades. However, the political system has not progressed to keep up with these expectations; in fact it has regressed and at times regressed to a ridiculous extent.
There is nothing in today’s political system that can stop such trickery. The system is exposed as one of the weakest political systems. In contrast the population of Sri Lanka has undergone vast changes from a one-time mostly rural population to a very highly sophisticated nation. On the one hand educational reform which made way for the education of all persons has virtually altered the nature of the country within a very short time.
A communication revolution also helped the people to have more information and also to be able to express themselves more easily, even despite of the many restrictions placed on freedom of expression, association and publication.
Added to this there is now a vast migrant population who spend long years of their lives outside the country and thereby acquire sophistication through their new experiences. This migrant population includes millions of workers as well as millions of others who have left the country for political reasons and are living in other parts of the world.
Naturally, these persons and also the younger generation which are exposed more than ever before to new educational and communication experiences have aspirations for a society which is managed more rationally and which answers to their needs.
The political system as it stands today fails to satisfy everyone and in fact in every part of the country many expressions of disgust are heard about the manner in which the country’s political system and the politicians function.
The country’s political system today is in need of radical and fundamental reforms. This involves not only the area of minority rights but all areas of life and governance. Patrick Lawrence, in a book entitled Conversations in a Failing State states that Sri Lanka appears to be a country which is unmanaged rather than mismanaged. In fact, ‘un-management’ and mismanagement go hand in hand and are frustrating the entire population of the country.
The violence that is taking place in Sri Lanka should be seen within this context. The government tries to deal with the crisis spread throughout the country by military means. The roads in the country belong to the police and the military.
Even the Supreme Court was compelled to point out, that even places like check points and areas under speed limits are utilised more for corruption purposes than for anything else.
As the government fails to provide a satisfactory system of governance the military is given a free hand in all areas of national life. In the following passage from the book cited above the prevailing situation of the roads in Sri Lanka is captured:
In that first, revealing hour, when impressions accumulate as if pressed upon a blank surface, all that I saw that could be called Sri Lankan were police units, barricades that turned the road into a kind of driver’s training track, and army units equipped with automatic rifles and submachine guns.
There are checkpoints along the road beneath the wall, which rings what amounts to a large military quarter. Drive past one of these and you may be stopped and your papers checked.
This procedure might take five minutes, or twenty-five. In such situations the police are free to detain you as long as they wish and to ask you anything they wish, and if you are Sri Lankan you are best advised to set constitutional legalities aside and answer them. Patrolling police and army units enact the same scene more or less constantly all over the city.
Whatever the necessity of such exercises, there is a subliminal message in them: If Sri Lanka is anyone’s space, it is theirs, not the space of its citizens. Public space is now military space.
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