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There is a deep tragedy at the heart of Sri Lanka’s constitutional, financial and legal paralysis that we must understand.

‘Eating’ political propaganda

Some years ago, infuriated supporters of a drug baron turned vassal of the Rajapaksas lashed out at a courageous forest officer who protested against the destruction of the environment by politicians, asking ‘are we to eat oxygen’? Now, Southern communities reduced to scraping for daily existence due to reckless decisions taken by corrupt ‘kings’ on whom they lavished unstinted adoration, may perhaps ask themselves another question.

Can they ‘eat’ the political propaganda of the ‘magnificent Sinhala majority,’ which they and their unfortunate children have been nourished on, for most of their lives? In a special report last month following a crop and food security assessment mission to the country, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) along with the World Food Programme (WFP) warned about ‘acute food insecurity’ in Sri Lanka. The report cautions that, ‘nearly 30 percent of the population are experiencing acute food insecurity and (that the situation) will likely deteriorate further unless urgent assistance is provided.’

This is cause and effect in the most classic of consequential processes, the direct result of allowing a coterie of foolish and ignorant men to take the most fatal of decisions affecting the lives of millions. Even so, the question is not about their foolishness or their ignorance (evidenced from beginning to end, as it were) but rather, about how an entire population of (not entirely foolish) men and women allowed this to happen? Ergo, the decades-long crippling of the democratic nation-state and the monstrous growth of a xenophobically communalistic political behemoth lodged in the innards of the State which refuses to die.

A hydra-headed monster
which refuses to die

This is a hydra-headed monster, when one limb is cut off, another grows in its place.  Band aids such as the draft 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, fiddling around with ad hoc fiscal reforms and begging for mercy from donor-creditors will not help. The tortuous back-and-forth in Parliament on even the sorely limited concessions offered by the draft 22nd Amendment tells us that radical constitutional surgery is needed.  But the question is as to how to effect that surgery when our political system is corrupted beyond repair?

This agonising dilemma dominates international focus on Sri Lanka as well. Clearly two strands of opinion have emerged over this week’s adoption by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) of Resolution 51/2022 which, inter alia, urges the Sri Lanka Government to ‘address the ongoing economic crisis, including by investigating and, where warranted, prosecuting corruption, including where committed by public and former public officials…’ The Resolution affirms the readiness of the UNHRC ‘to assist and support independent, impartial and transparent efforts in this regard.‘

At one level, UN High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet’s remarks that underlying governance factors, deepening militarization, lack of transparency and accountability for serious human rights violations created ‘fertile grounds for corruption and abuse of power’ in Sri Lanka, are commonsensical. None of these factors can be compartmentalized, we must concede surely. This blunt assessment was in the report on Sri Lanka released on the cusp of the 51st United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) sessions in Geneva.

The enormity of Sri Lanka’s
financial collapse

Indeed, the Supreme Court’s granting of leave to proceed this Friday on constitutional challenges citing a former President, a former Prime Minister, a former Finance Minister (all Rajapaksas) and members of the Monetary Board in regard to accountability for Sri Lanka’s dire financial crisis, evidences the enormity of that plight. Whatever may happen in regard to the merits of the matter next year, the granting of leave by the Court has a distinct symbolism all of its own. The petitioners had pleaded that decisions of the political leadership, with the omissions and commissions of the Monetary Board, had infringed Articles 12 (1), 14 (1)(g) and 14A of the Constitution.

This very charge is also at the core of those portions of UNHRC Resolution 51/2022 adopted by the Council in so far as its paragraphs relating to economic crimes are concerned. Nonetheless, there is international realpolitik at play in all its subtle and not-so-subtle underpinnings at the UNHRC deliberations. Certainly, the High Commissioner’s Report, in its rationalisation of the indivisibility of human rights (social/economic and civil/political), to formulate a basis for intervention by the Council in regard to ‘economic crimes,’ engages in legal sophistry.

In theory, there is no doubt about such a link. Law students are taught the indivisibility of rights even as they open the pages of international human rights law textbooks. However, international monitoring of ‘economic crimes’ by a nation’s rulers is to embark on a very slippery slope. By virtue of painstakingly developed international law norms, (not without controversy), international interventions are limited to crimes designated as universal jurisdiction crimes (war crimes, torture, crimes against humanity). Airily extending that scrutiny on the basis of the ‘indivisibility of rights’ carries specific dangers for the credibility of such processes.

Insanity of old and failed
repressive measures

That said, the only logical manner to deal with the vagaries of international realpolitik is to ‘put our own house in order.’ Right now, not only is that ‘house’ not in order but also, it has been burnt to a crisp by gangs of greedy political thieves out to grab what they can get. They must be brought to account by the country’s laws  so that there is no room to cry for international justice. If effective action is taken by domestic mechanisms, the sting will be taken out out of UNHRC Resolution 51/2022.

But the Sri Lankan State cannot exhibit that compliance to the Rule of Law. This is also the core problem with accountability in regard to gross human rights abuses committed against the minorities by state agents. Practiced against those labeled as ‘enemies of the State,’ that same strategy is now in action against young protestors. One example, Hashan Jeewantha, was taken in under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) for involvement in ‘anti-government’ activities and released with his detention order being cancelled after the police concluded their investigations.

Obviously, this young man had not committed any crimes. But who will compensate him for his trauma? Insanity, as Albert Einstein said, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. This is the leitmotif of the Sri Lankan State. It commits the same mistakes against those who rebel against it, expecting different results. One may argue that the rebellions, insurrections and wars of the Tamil Northerners (70’s onwards) and the Sinhalese Southerners (70’s, 80’s) were crushed by the military might of the State.

Cheers and culpability

Therefore, there was a ‘triumph’ (of sorts). But at what cost? Hate and mistrust sown through the militarisation of the State has inexorably corrupted our democratic systems, resulted in countless atrocities, the degeneration of legal and judicial systems  and the fleeing of thousands from our shores. So this question is reiterated. Will citizens of this unfortunate land understand, and more importantly, acknowledge the link between their suffering and the communal lies that they had been fed with for decades?

Until then, the trajectory of economic collapse that we are on, will not change. In the following months, while many may die due to lack of medicines (including the elderly and the very young), others will ‘bungee jump’ from the Lotus Tower. That needless Rajapaksa extravaganza, redolent with vulgarly bad taste ‘adorning’ Colombo’s skyline adjacent to the slums, is a fitting ode to voters who cheered for the Rajapaksas and are now remorselessly crushed by their own culpability .

This is a high price to pay for mortgaging Sri Lanka’s conscience to conscienceless politicians.