Editorial

This week marks the first anniversary of what was a momentous, if slightly controversial, chapter of contemporary Sri Lankan history: the Aragalaya or the ‘Struggle’.

The Aragalaya was a spontaneous mass uprising — like the French and Russian revolutions of yore and the Arab Spring of recent times which succeeded in having the powerful sitting President ingloriously flee the country. But it stopped short of what some of its later masterminds hoped for — the complete overthrow of parliamentary democracy. It almost ended with someone in a red beret addressing the nation as the new leader of the country via the captured state television station from the captured President’s House in Colombo Fort.

Political scientists have a field day analysing the merits and demerits of that epoch moment; how the agitation, all started with farmers in the hinterland crying out for fertiliser to till their fields, gathering momentum in the urban townships and then in Colombo when the soaring cost of living hit the people in the stomach and the shortages of cooking gas and fuel found them in mile-long queues. Their wrath was justifiably aimed at the ruling politicians who with their business cohorts had plundered the country, and the cocky officials in high positions who had tendered foolish advice.

It was inevitable that there were elements waiting to exploit this volatile situation and light a match to the tinder box.

Many locals withdrew from the struggle when they saw it had taken a different turn towards a different end-game. The departure of the President helped defuse the pressure-cooker atmosphere. Still, some remained naive to the fact and continued to romanticise ‘change’ — for the sake of change.

The radical remnants of that struggle who found their numbers dwindling and unhappy it did not materialise to its logical end in their playbook continue in the streets of Colombo with their campaign, craving for some oxygen from the media to stay relevant as the post-Aragalaya Government manages to turn things around to some extent from the socio-economic and political pandemonium of last year.

But there are lessons for all politicians, especially those in office that a mass uprising can turn out to be ugly. The Government must not spoil its current wave of universal popularity through the advances it has made on the economic front by introducing bad, toxic laws. Rights activists believe the Government is getting a little ahead of itself in its quest to control public dissent. And in the guise of combatting the ghost of terrorism hovering over the nation at all times, it is introducing laws that turn the country into a ‘Police Raj’.

The Government has long been under pressure to replace the PTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) of 1979 from human rights groups, local and foreign. Without a PTA, however, consequences could have been worse for this country that has been ravaged by armed conflict both in the North and South, and fundamentalist fanatics — the involvement of all communities, in one way or the other, but it was the excesses by the abuse of that law that eventually hit the headlines.

Critics of the proposed law, the ATA (Anti-Terrorism Act) to replace the PTA have some legitimate grounds to complain. One is that the gazetted bill is not accompanied by a paper giving reasons that justify provisions in the proposed law. Or why they have been replicated from the ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) Act and other criminal laws already in the statute book. Explanations must not wait till the bill is brought before the Supreme Court or debated in Parliament.

There is no proper definition for several words — “Intimidating” or “wrong actions” — what do they mean, legally? “Terrorism” is widely strewn all over the bill. Even what “old age” is — as a mitigating factor when sentencing takes place leaving it to a judge to decide whether to go by the WHO’s 80 years, or the British Geriatrics Society’s 85, or whether 70 is the new 60 and so forth. There are dangers to journalists. “Confidential information” about a corrupt police officer could be deemed a ‘national security’ issue. Our FOCUS ON RIGHTS columnist expands on these defects.

On the global front, the Government has to deal with a whole load of Western double standards. For instance, last week, the European Union lawmakers rejected a call by the Green Party MEPs to even debate the clobbering of anti-pension reform protesters in Paris by the French Police. The sooner the Government comes to terms with such a world, the better.

It seems imperative that the President has another look at the drafting flaws in the bill, and the Government should do better to engage in proper consultation with the stakeholders, which include the legal fraternity, civil society groups — and the security services, because of its importance and significance both domestically and internationally. All laws are imperfect, but this proposed one seems seriously flawed.

Time for resurrection

 

aster, celebrated by Christians worldwide, continues to be marked with a pall of gloom in Sri Lanka with the lingering sense that justice has not been meted out to those who lost their lives and were grievously hurt in the serial bombings of churches and hotels on this holy day back in 2019.

Those attacks had a profound impact on the political climate as well and the then Government got roasted for its inefficiency and complacency in not avoiding the bombings when it had prior knowledge of them. The Supreme Court handed down some harsh punishment to those responsible for dereliction of duty, but the masterminds behind the bombings seem still at large. Or so the hierarchy of the Catholic Church believes.

It is no exaggeration that the same hierarchy backed the ultimate victors of the elections that followed the bombings, due mainly to their anger with the then incumbents in power. However, soon they felt they were probably duped into supporting the very perpetrators of the dastardly crimes. Today, their emissaries are canvassing the world for justice in Rome and in Geneva to press the Government into identifying the perpetrators. These calls coincide with the Vatican’s apology for the Catholic Church’s historical role in justifying colonialism by European powers in the last few centuries.

Easter is the celebration of new life. So is next week’s Sinhala and Hindu New Year hopefully, the dawn of happier times for the people of this country who have endured great hardships in recent months.