Editorial

Sri Lanka’s good governance test continued at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva over the week with the Core Group of examiners, viz., the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, as the invigilators, with Malawi, Montenegro and North Macedonia cynically thrown in as proof of broad-based concern, the clearest illustration of politicisation of the HRC.

Sri Lanka will clearly get no marks for cooperation with the HRC’s Accountability Project established by the Core Group through the High Commissioner three years ago in Resolution 46/1. Sri Lanka has repeatedly highlighted this as an initiative whose sole purpose is to cater to the aspirations of a few residing primarily overseas, viz., the Sri Lankan diaspora, who are voters in the Core Group now, and that reconciliation processes must have domestic ownership. Minus the consent of the country concerned, the value of such initiatives for peace, stability, and reconciliation in Sri Lanka is zero. The Office of the High Commission of Human Rights (OHCHR) is reduced to what amounts to no less than open threats from the podium, urging other States to invoke universal jurisdiction and ‘targeted measures’ against Sri Lanka.

Nevertheless Sri Lanka needs to remain vigilant that in September—at the same time when elections are supposed to take place here—it will have to contend with Resolutions 46/1 and 51/1 against the country which will get a new lease as the Core Group will seek its extension. UK has in fact, recommended that Sri Lanka agree to a ‘consensual resolution’ like it did during the 2015-2019 Government, a clearly unrealistic demand particularly in an election year. Having forced an evidence gathering mechanism into the conduct of Sri Lanka’s armed forces during the conflict that ended in 2009, this scrutiny has now morphed into a much wider socio-economic-political, all-embracing area.

The countries that came out to speak for Sri Lanka were few, but it was Pakistan and refreshingly Japan this time round, that came out forcefully. The Government has itself to blame for kicking the human rights ball into its own goal in these shifted posts. The formulation, and rushing through of bad laws like the Anti-Terrorism Act, the Online Safety Act, the Truth and Reconciliation Bill, and the Electronic Media Broadcasting Authority Bill have given a handle to the Core Group to whip Sri Lanka into shape. One might suggest that henceforth Sri Lanka gets its laws drafted and approved by Whitehall as was the case prior to 1948.

However, it is clear that the criticism against the Government, even if it comes from abroad, is justifiable because what they say is that the Government is not listening to its own voices at home. Hammering the double standards of the Core Group and the UNHRC is not an adequate strategy to ease its own difficulties on the world stage. The countries backing Sri Lanka remain few in Geneva. Japan and Pakistan came out forcefully in support.

India got a dose of its own medicine pontificating to its neighbours about the treatment of minorities, when the UNHRC chief referred to its own discrimination against minorities, especially the Muslims.

The regular good governance test in Geneva is in addition to the multiple parallel sweeping evaluations being performed on Sri Lanka , now both on the human rights front as well as on the economy through the IMF process and the Governance Diagnostic Assessment and on labour rights through the EU’s GSP+ process.

Economic gains and the ground reality

In Geneva, the UNHRC chief drew reference to Sri Lanka’s poverty having risen by an estimated 27.9 percent last year and how monthly incomes have decreased since March 2022. The IMF has, meanwhile, started its second review of Sri Lanka’s economic recovery programme. The Government anticipates that the difficult decisions it took over the past few months, including raising taxes, have paid sufficient dividends to convince the international financial agency to release its third tranche of funding.

In general, IMF support is aimed at buttressing efforts to “restore macroeconomic and financial stability and debt sustainability while enhancing growth-oriented structural reforms”. These are buzzwords many Sri Lankan economists live and die by. And it is true that the macroeconomic indicators are improving.

On Wednesday, President Ranil Wickremesinghe told Parliament that State revenue had risen by over 50% last year—alongside a surplus in the primary account—when compared with 2022, allowing the Government to settle outstanding dues to contractors. Losses incurred by major State-owned enterprises in 2022 were transformed into profits last year. And inflation dropped from 70 percent in September 2022 to 5.9 percent by last month.

The President also regretted “the tendency of certain political factions to prioritise rhetoric over tangible solutions”. Be that as it may, the “stability” narrative is less meaningful to the growing number of urban and rural poor than it is to economists. Because, while it has been emphasised that there will be “some pain” before these reforms provide widespread dividends, the degree and type of difficulties ordinary people are grappling with risk creating problems that last at least another generation.

Take the nutritional crisis. It has not abated. According to the National Consumer Price Index, the average food expenditure per month is Rs. 48,441.68. Food remains expensive and families are still avoiding proteins because they cannot afford them. Pulses like chickpeas (green gram has skyrocketed in price) are avoided in urban settings because they consume too much gas to cook.

With the new school term starting, there is a flood of charity requests for school provisions, in cash or kind: books, stationery, school bags, lunch boxes and water bottles. Shoes and uniforms are another critical need. Again, while some schools have received vouchers for shoes as well as uniform material from the Government, others have not.

Meanwhile, thousands of homes were cut off from the national electricity grid owing to soaring prices. Ceylon Electricity Board statistics show that in November and December last year, some 145,000 homes were disconnected. The problem with this is that once the arrears and penalties pile up, it becomes increasingly difficult to get supply back.

The era of subsidised utilities may be over, but time must be given for ordinary folk to get adjusted to the new measures and balance their home budgets just as the Government must the national budget.