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Is the Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) Presidency which came into power on a ‘reformist’ election platform able to legally justify the invocation of Section 12 of the Public Security Ordinance (PSO) using ‘special powers’ to call out the armed forces for the maintenance of public order?

Sri Lanka’s pervasive militarisation

Speaking to me soon after, a colleague ruminated as to whether this was a routine act, the signing of a gazette placed before the President by a staffer, the issuing of which was not so much a deliberate notification but a misstep. That is however hard to believe. But the fact that, such a preposterous possibility is even talked about, indicates the deeply chaotic extent to which official processes have been reduced to.

It also establishes, without a doubt, the pervasive militarisation of the land which is as much a disquieting sign as the sight of military apparatus outside selected stalls of the annual book fair held at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH) to which thousands flocked this week. This is a good illustration as to how deeply militarised this country has become and how unconscious our citizenry are, in accepting that fact.

President Dissanayake’s act of signing the gazette ordering the armed forces out under Section 12 of the PSO was not subjected to robust discussion let alone critique by civil society groups instrumental in bringing an NPP Presidency into power on the premise of bringing about a ‘system change.’ For the fact remains that a specific set of circumstances must legally exist to bring Section 12 into operation. That can only be done by the President contingent on two factors. First, ‘where circumstances endangering the public security in any area have arisen or are imminent…’

Legal factors on which
Section 12 is contingent

Second, the President must be ‘of the opinion that the police are inadequate to deal with such situations in that area.’ If those conditions are satisfied, he may, by ‘an Order published in the Gazette, call out all or any of the members of all or any of the armed forces for the maintenance of public order in that area.’ But in the wake of the ‘most peaceful’ Presidential election ever in this country’s history as declared by the Elections Commission, which was pounced upon delightedly by the NPP to boast of its party’s discipline, what is the legal justification in the President acting under Section 12 of the PSO?

In what situation was it assessed by the President that the police was not capable of handling law and order in an area or the whole of the country as it were? And if the closet racists among us labour under the mistaken assumption that, the ‘militarisation’ of Sri Lanka by acts like the Presidential calling out of the armed forces under Section 12 of the PSO affects only the Tamil and Muslim minorities living in the North/East (whose vote on September 21st was predominantly for Sajith Premadasa of the ‘Samagi Jana Balavegaya’ party), that is to be simplistic in the extreme.

This ‘militarisation’ mindset of the State equally affects both the majority and the minority, our past history teaches us this fact very well. Put simply, the misdeeds and endemic corruption of the Rajapaksa Presidencies (Gotabaya/Mahinda) that precipitated Sri Lanka’s bankruptcy were enabled under the convenient cover of ‘militarisation’ and the asinine façade of a ‘working warrior as the President.’ That was how not even a murmur was raised when the Gotabaya Rajapaksa regime and its trusted stalwarts in the Central Bank reduced the Monetary Board to a tame and whimpering puppy, the members of whom were unable to prevent disastrous financial decisions being made.

Pattern to which new regimes act

In fact, there is a predictable pattern to the manner in which a regime labelling itself as ‘reformist,’ acts during its first few months upon being elected into power in Sri Lanka. Notably, it prides itself on appointments to state positions typically promoted as meritocratic, parades its commitment to rein in corruption and extravagance in the Government and promises constitutional reforms. And sooner or later, a newly varnished and beamingly confident Head of State riding high on a wave of political popularity will command Deep State security sector dons implicated in a string of ghastly human rights abuses, to retreat into the shadows for a while.

Indeed, seasoned political observers can predict with somewhat boring regularity as to what would happen. In 2015, when the ‘yahapalanaya’ (good governance) regime of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe coalition threw the Mahinda Rajapaksa government out, all these occurrences took place with nary a blink. We were reassured that ‘scientific’ appointments were being made to the state sector, luxury vehicles used by Rajapaksa favourites were exhibited outside the Presidential Secretariat and images were circulated of President Sirisena partaking of a simple homemade lunch packed by his wife in his offices.

It would be useful to recall that all that happened at the exact same time that Sirisena’s partner in the coalition, then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his chosen few in the Cabinet were plotting the first Central Bank bond scam, in tandem with now disgraced Governor Arjun Mahendran who acted on ‘instructions’ given to him by his friends and political masters. Later on, as the doomed regime shakily tottered on, heads of military intelligence were temporarily removed from their positions due to allegations of involvement in creating ‘unrest’ in the Tamil dominated North through ‘clandestine armed groups.’

Will the election of a ‘man of
the people’ correct this?

This ‘retirement’ was never for long however. Those very same intelligence heads and their minions were implicated of culpability in ‘masterminding’ the 2019 Easter Sunday terror attacks by home-grown jihadists in churches and hotels, dealing a deathblow to the collapsing coalition Government and enabling the triumphant ascent of the Gotabaya Rajapaksa Presidency later in the same year. The Wickremesinghe Presidency which took over the reins when Rajapaksa fled in the wake of the 2022 ‘aragalaya’ (people’s protests) as bankruptcy was declared, only reinforced that military ‘capture’ of the state in its retention of those intelligence chiefs.

So even as Sri Lankans hailed the election of a ‘man of the people’ as their President last month, the Dissanayake Presidency has followed the same playbook to the letter. The fact that, as media reports on Saturday noted, the new administration has decided to ‘retire’ the controversial director of military intelligence following demands by the Catholic Church who accuse him of covert manipulation of the 2019 jihadist attacks is neither here nor there. That by itself is not sufficient, the bona fides of the NPP President’s promise for ‘system change’ needs to be borne out by far more solid action.

But rather than these issues being discussed, at least a good part of last week was taken up by the fracas over the Presidential Secretariat’s release of the name list of individuals to whom luxury vehicles had been conferred by the Wickremesinghe Government. That included a Porsche listed in the name of former Colombo Mayor Rosy Senanayake which promoted an agitated Senanayake to protest that this was a broken down vehicle that had been in use much earlier and palmed off on her.

Other luxury vehicles given to parliamentarians and officials holding positions in the state sector led to public fury over privileges enjoyed by a pampered few while children were fainting in village schools due to lack of food and elders were dying as a result of state subsidised medical assistance being subsidised. Even so, these are distractions meant to occupy the public mind. There are far more grievous matters that must be deliberated upon including the truth that Presidents may come and Presidents may go but the country’s Deep State security and military intelligence apparatus continues forever.

It would be immeasurably naïve to think otherwise.