2016: looking ahead:

New Year of major political and economic transition

by Jehan Perera

The old year is coming to a close with developments that the country can take satisfaction in as it prepares to welcome the New Year. The remarkable change at the beginning of the year, from authoritarian governance in which the rule of law was weakening to governance whose hall mark is responsiveness, can be considered to be a model of democratic transition.

The pent up frustrations of the past are being given the space to manifest themselves. The willingness of the government to change, even reverse, some of its decisions regarding the national budget for 2016 in the aftermath of public protests need to be seen in the light of this new governmental responsiveness.

Mature democracy

These are all signs of a mature democracy, in which the Sri Lankan people can take pride. Just at this moment, there is also the special sense of relief that the whole country can feel at last week’s commuting of death sentence for the Sri Lankan female worker convicted of adultery in Saudi Arabia. All Sri Lankans will be grateful to the Saudi Arabian government for being responsive to the appeals of their Sri Lankan counterparts and others who urged mercy.

The execution last year of another Sri Lankan female worker in Saudi Arabia who was beheaded for having caused the death of an infant she was looking after was a cause for sorrow. That case demonstrated the singular failure of the previous government which, despite having favoured ties with non-Western countries while confronting the Western powers, did not succeed in saving the life of that young woman.

The former government pointed to the double standards of the Western countries and sought to obtain the support of non-Western countries, especially those from the Arab world and Africa, on the grounds of national sovereignty. The present government has sought to reverse that negative trend with Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera in particular being seen as the face of Sri Lanka’s policy shift which accepts international human rights norms as applicable to itself as to others.

Positive ties

The Foreign Minister’s ability to strike close relationships with foreign leaders has been noteworthy in the public interactions that have taken place in Sri Lanka. Both US Secretary of State John Kerry and Undersecretary of State (designate) for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon who visited Sri Lanka referred to Samaraweera in warm personal terms in their public statements.

These positive relations are a sign of the changed relationship between Sri Lanka and the Western powers which would induce them to go the extra mile in support of Sri Lanka.

The United States has put Sri Lanka on its priority list for support in terms of achieving the Millennium Development Goals, which move has brought in extra financial support for the country and its people. It is likely that strong support from the United States also buttressed the Saudi Arabian government’s decision to be merciful to the Sri Lankan worker.

Sri Lanka can, therefore, enter the New Year confident of strong international support from the most powerful and wealthy nations of the world. It is in this positive context that the country will need to take on the challenge of addressing the issues of accountability for what happened during the war and dealing with the issues of violations of human rights that arose from it.

The government’s decision to co-sponsor the UN Human Rights Council resolution in Geneva two months ago was an example of successful conflict mitigation. Instead of continuing on a fateful course of confrontation with the Western powers and international human rights groups that it was doomed to lose in view of their much greater leverage, the government’s decision to co-sponsor the UN resolution has led to the transformation of our international relations from that of a confrontation to a set of relations that can be strengthened positively.

Mechanisms

The next session of the UNHRC is in March 2016. The government recently announced that it will set up a Secretariat for Reconciliation that will coordinate the different government agencies that have been earmarked for this purpose.

It has proposed that the new secretariat will develop a plan on proposed new institutions such as the Office for Missing Persons and, the Truth, Reconciliation and Prevention of Conflicts Commission. These were identified by the government in the days prior to the last session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in September.

The Secretariat will also be responsible for the coordination of other requirements related to strengthening the rule of law, human rights and administrative and judicial reforms as well. When there are multiple agencies that are dedicated to the same broad objectives, there is likely to be overlap between their activities and even rivalries on the ground, unless they are coordinated.

Since the election of the new government in January there has been no doubt about the government’s conviction that it has to steer a new path that is different from that of the previous government. In this context the new secretariat is expected to follow up the progress of implementation of recommendations made previously by various national and international bodies, including the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission and also the Office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, apart from coordinating with the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission.

One of the chief government bodies working in the area of reconciliation is the Office for National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR), which facilitates the work of civil society organizations, and is headed by former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga.

Another is the Ministry of National Dialogue which Minister Mano Ganesan has proposed should be re-named the Ministry of National Coexistence, Dialogue and State Languages.

Challenge

Now that the government has been successful in transforming its relations with the international community, the main political challenge that it needs to focus its attention on is to increase its support among the Sinhala-Buddhist majority community. It is notable that a major section of Sinhala-Buddhists did not vote for the current government at either the presidential or parliamentary elections.

While the presidential and general elections that took place earlier this year saw the change of the topmost leadership in the government, it established a governing coalition comprising many politicians from the former government along with those who are new to government.

Equally significantly, in the next layer of government, comprising the top rungs of the judiciary, attorney general’s department, public service and security forces there remain those who held high positions under the previous government. Under the previous regime, these layers imbibed that regime’s security-centered view of the world and narrow approach to national problem-solving which mistrusted the ethnic and religious minorities.

On the one hand, the government needs to actively engage with the general population, including the public service, to create a new vision of governance that leads to reconciliation. It needs to do this engaging those in the North and the South who work at the community level and in the local government structures, including provincial councils.

Reconciliation

It is not enough for the government to make policy declarations that satisfy the international community. These declarations need to be implemented without delay, and those who do the implementing need to be convinced that this is the best way to reconciliation and unifying the people living in the country so that they all share the common goal of reconciliation.

There needs to be more open government, in which dialogue and public education takes a more central place. For instance, the public is still not aware that the UNHRC resolution has many other things in it as well, and not only war crimes and accountability. These include matters such as full implementation of the 13th Amendment and devolution, return of land to civilians and restoring livelihoods and economic normalcy to the lives of the war-affected.

There is the need for a comprehensive road map of action that has a broader scope than that of accountability for the last phase of the war which could be extended to include the violence of earlier periods as well - such as the massacre of Buddhist pilgrims in Anuradhapura and the expulsion of Muslims from the Northern Province.

It also includes compensation and institutional reform that would ensure non-recurrence of war and violence in the form it took. The recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission appointed by the former government continue to be relevant in this regard.

Imagination

On the other hand, it is important that, in the New Year, the government comes up with a plan that wins the imagination of the mass of people, the vast majority of whom live a relatively poverty stricken existence in the southern hinterlands. It is not enough for the government to win the support of the international community, the ethnic and religious minorities and intelligentsia and urban elites.

The improvement in human rights and the freedom from fear and impunity matter a great deal. In particular the ethnic and religious minorities, and political dissenters, faced a terrible time during the previous government. The election of the new government led to an immediate change in the environment pertaining to their sense of security and belonging.

The willingness of President Maithripala Sirisena to regularly travel to the North and to meet the people is a refreshing change from the past when visits by Heads of State to that part of the country were extremely rare, and failed to convince the people living there that they were equally valued citizens of one country.

Today, there is a need for the government to move faster on issues that are to be found in the UNHRC resolution. However, the present popular consciousness is one that has, by and large, been shaped by the previous government’s approach to governance. In this light, there is a need to create a different mode of thinking both within State institutions and in civil society in general.

If this does not happen, and a new consciousness among the people does not arise, the government will find it difficult to meet its targets of releasing detainees and lands, and, the demilitarization of the North and the East, as these will be seen as catering only to the ethnic and religious minorities and not to the majority.

The best course of action would be to supplement the political reforms and necessary changes in political consciousness through public education campaigns along with economic development activities that clearly target the masses of people.

Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake’s pledge that foreign investment worth USD 1 billion is waiting to come into the country next year is the type of big thinking that the country needs, but which needs to be converted into reality.

J. R. Jayewardene

There is a lesson to be learnt from the strategies followed by two of the previous presidents of Sri Lanka under whom Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in particular served as an emergent young leader of government.

Presidents J. R. Jayewardene and Ranasinghe Premadasa implemented huge productive projects that captured the imagination of the people. President Jayewardene presided over the Mahaweli development project in which a thirty-year plan was implemented in six years. He also saw to the opening up of the economy that invigorated the stagnant economy of the socialist years of the previous government.

President Jayewardene’s initiatives were followed by President Premadasa’s scheme of a million houses, the 200 garment factory project that brought industrialization to the rural areas and, the Janasaviya poverty alleviation scheme that was a lifeline to all poor people.

Prime Minister Wickremesinghe has shown a determination to set things right, and has the experience in government to do things right. So far his government has been focusing its attention on correcting the imbalances of the last government’s economic policies under which huge white elephant projects were undertaken for propaganda purposes and to siphon off financial spin-offs to the ruling politicians.

In the New Year, the government needs to identify and implement large scale development projects that are productive and capture the imagination of the masses of people to accompany the process of achieving national reconciliation by addressing the injustices of the past.