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Sometime last November DEW Gunasekera, the leading light in the pro-Moscow Communist Party here and a one-time MP and cabinet minister, made some scathing remarks about Sri Lanka’s current cabinet. He called it the worst cabinet in the parliamentary history of the country. That is more than seven decades of history.

He made several other remarks that were devastating enough to have driven the more self-respecting of those donned in ministerial garb to have hidden their faces in shame.

But then “DEW” as we used to call him from the early days when he, along with others such as my school mate Sarath Muttetuwegama, represented the CP’s young revolutionaries, was not the only critic from within the ruling coalition to find the cabinet an unthinking collective and unworthy of holding office.

At different times since then harsh comments have also come from other insiders such as Vidura Wickramanayaka, Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe and Susil Premajayantha (the last two having held varied portfolios over time) to name a few. Limited space prevents me from quoting their relevant comments.

One can quite understand if opposition critics, whether inside or outside parliament were to take the government apart over its performance in the last two years. In fact on social and main stream media programmes one often hears more penetrating analyses and assessments than what generally emanates from the parliamentary opposition — with a few exceptions of course.

What brought to mind DEW Gunasekera’s sharp criticisms and those of others implying a rudderless government is the most recent comments made in an interview by Justice Minister Mohamad Ali Sabry who suggested that the right to engage in strike action by employees of six sectors/institutions in Sri Lanka should be constitutionally banned.

Thankfully, the Justice Minister said this was his personal view though he did urge President Rajapaksa to act more firmly as the people expected. Whether the people expect increasing authoritarianism by a President as his Justice Minister hopes, thereby violating international law while at the same time his government makes overtures to the international community to win new friends and strengthen existing relations, is a matter that needs to be tested publicly.

Whether Sri Lanka has been endowed with a Justice Minister (who, some say, is a prominent lawyer) acquainted with international law and knowledgeable of Sri Lanka’s obligations as a signatory to several international conventions, is better left for academics and legal experts to sort out.

What concerns me here is whether Minister Ali Sabry is flying trial balloons and testing public opinion and responses like some hardly-known politician named Diana Gamage did the other day. She called on President Rajapaksa to present a Bill to parliament calling for a two-year extension of the life of the current parliament and to the President’s term of office because the Covid pandemic disrupted the work of the government.

She made no mention, however, of the business cronies who pocketed loads of money during that same period and whether they should return it all to a cash-strapped Central Bank Governor who spent early days printing money and now selling our gold.

It might not be long before we hear some other nondescript MPs make more ludicrous proposals that would drive an already harassed and suffering public to demand the closure of that over-rated House in Diyawanna Oya as a total waste of public funds.

All this is merely a comic sub-plot that might be good enough for a Diana-come-lately. But it does not answer the central question. Does Minister Ali Sabry even remotely aware of the damage he is doing to Sri Lanka at a time when the country needs all the nations this government can muster and all the support it can win to pull it out of the diplomatic and economic morass Colombo still finds itself in, despite the bluster and bombast of some other ministers and the receding ranks of the Viyathmaga cronies.

Has the Justice Minister abandoned whatever sagacity he possessed in an effort to appear tough and ready for battle without an iota of understanding of the damage done to the country’s image internationally by continuing with the machismo diplomacy of the last two years?

The Speaker was lamenting recently that only 300 books in the parliamentary library had been borrowed by members in the whole of 2021. He does not disclose the reason but it may well be because they cannot read or don’t read.

But that should not have stopped the Justice Minister from delving into books there or popped into the Law Library to acquaint himself with a number of international conventions Sri Lanka is a signatory to and how many of them would be violated if his unmitigated nonsense ever ended up as a constitutional provision as he suggests.

Surely the minister must know — one hopes — that it is still possible under our emergency regulations to declare certain services as “essential services” and ban strikes. But only for a specific period and not permanently as he suggests.

Limited space available does not permit an extended education of the Presidential Counsel. But surely he must have learnt in his progress towards a PC that the right to strike has been customary international law since the early 1950s and we have been a signatory to the ILO conventions for a very long time, as we are to other international conventions dealing with human rights.

He must be aware that Sri Lanka, given the dire economic straits it finds itself in, is still hoping that the European Union will extend the GSP Plus trade benefits to us. But that requires Sri Lanka abiding by 27 international conventions dealing with human rights and labour laws.

If Ali Sabry has his way then our exporters struggling to find markets could kiss goodbye to GSP Plus.

But marching to the drum beat of incendiary politics with complete disregard for the timing only underlines DEW Gunasekera’s charge of thoughtlessness. To suggest what is tantamount to violation of generally accepted international human rights laws and trade union rights days before the UNHRC is to meet in Geneva to consider a report on Sri Lanka’s progress on the last resolution passed by the Council is sheer stupidity, if nothing else.

Last year the ill-timed and injudicious remarks by Minister Sarath Weerasekera about banning the face coverings of Muslim women following on the decision to prohibit the burial of Muslim corpses,  ahead of the Geneva meeting cost Sri Lanka several votes and a critical resolution.

Now we have Ali Sabry charging in like the Light Brigade apparently oblivious to President Rajapaksa’s policy statement to the new session of parliament last month in which he said, “We are a nation that respects international laws and conventions.”

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London)