Editorial

President Anura Kumara Disanayake spoke this week on International Anti-Corruption Day detailing the number of bribery and corruption cases that have crashed at the hands of the CIABOC (Bribery and Corruption Commission) and asked what purpose laws serve if there is no enforcement of them to rid the country of the twin menaces. It is noteworthy that this day (December 9) comes back-to-back with International Human Rights Day (December 10).

He and his party relied heavily on the anti-corruption slogan from every platform all these years, but now in office, he will find it easier said than done to overcome this endemic evil, or even reduce its intensity.

He referred to 85 cases that were filed and later withdrawn by the CIABOC in recent years. Not all of these crashed due to political interference. Some were due to the incompetence of the police investigators; some due to corruption on the part of the investigators; some due to the inexperience of the CIABOC prosecutors whose cases were flung out of court by senior lawyers retained by the accused who found gaping loopholes in the poorly drafted Act.

The flawed CIABOC law started off on the wrong footing with the category of commissioners. The Commission itself had no suo moto powers (to initiate its own investigations). The staff required training and if there was a deficiency in that department due to public sector restraints, there should have been provisions to retain reputed accountants, bankers, lawyers from private practice because they were dealing with mega-corruption crimes, even though it was the same professional group that facilitated corruption by advising the corrupt.

When the Yahapalana Government came to office (2015), also campaigning on the anti-corruption platform, it made the cardinal mistake of creating a separate investigation unit within the police with the wrong personnel in charge of it. When this was pointed out to a prominent minister at the time, his response was: “You need to set a thief to catch a thief.”

That Government made a hash of investigations despite getting the World Bank’s help. It appointed a task force headed by a human rights lawyer. The political committee included JVP leaders. The Attorney General complained that half-baked files were sent to them for prosecution by the police and had to be returned needing further investigations. The entire process was either amateurish or corrupt by itself.

This week it was the US State Department that identified two Sri Lankans engaged in corrupt activities while holding public office in Sri Lanka during the Rajapaksa-I regime. Nothing was done about them locally despite them being in the public domain for a long time. However, it was not a wise thing for the Disanayake Government to welcome such an announcement in Washington saying; “Through this, it will be easy for the Sri Lanka government to take action”.

The sanctioning of individuals for corruption is made under the US law that promotes accountability for human rights globally. “Our actions reflect the United States’ continued commitment to promoting accountability for corrupt actors and human rights abusers worldwide”, US Secretary of State Blinken stated.

This approach, welcomed by Sri Lanka and its stance already picked up by anti-Sri Lanka campaigners abroad can bounce back to bite the Disanayake Government if and when the US begins to impose sanctions on Sri Lankan political and military leaders on human rights matters. Successive governments have resisted such external interventions in Geneva and elsewhere, where even human rights violations of the 1971 JVP insurgency have also been flagged for attention.

If only the JVP/NPP Government goes into the recent archives of mainstream media, they will find a treasure trove of corrupt practices that have been investigated by the Press but swept under the carpet over the years.

Building block diplomacy

As we said in this space last week, India has made no bones about its worldview of plans to propel towards a global role for itself. It has referred to its ‘neighbourhood first’ policy as the “building block” (its External Affairs Minister’s words) to reach that goal.

From this perspective, bilateral relations with its neighbours, viz., Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Maldives, have run into icy waters, troubling India’s broader ambitions and security concerns. Arguably, only Sri Lanka remains on good terms, including out of necessary gratitude for a recent financial bailout, though it wasn’t without strings attached in the form of unsolicited projects.

In New Delhi, the elephant in the room will be India’s concern that Sri Lanka (and the neighbourhood) is veering too much towards its bete-noire China, which has implications in the wider canvas of strategic competition in the region, and India’s eventual global ambitions.

It is noteworthy, that despite India’s displeasure, nearly all of its neighbourhood has subscribed to the connectivity infrastructure projects of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, most recently, Nepal. As a counterweight, India has proposed a shopping list to Sri Lanka with multiple ‘connectivity’ projects of its own.

The smaller countries of South Asia were once hopeful that SAARC (the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) would lead to regional integration (the key adversary then was Pakistan, not China)—and a community of nations like the EU, OAU or ASEAN. On the contrary, its 40th anniversary this week went unnoticed. India was never a SAARC enthusiast—as an entity of sovereign equals, in theory at least. SAARC has not held a summit since 2014.

In the meantime, India has set its sights on a leading role in a larger geopolitical space in mini-lateral, pluri-lateral groupings with much bigger and broader global outreach such as BIMSTEC, BRICS, G20, IORA, QUAD and the recently concluded Colombo Security Conclave.

It is in this backdrop, both regional and geopolitical, that President Disanayake leaves for Delhi today on a state visit, his maiden voyage as Head of State and Head of Government. A cryptic release from the Foreign Ministry on Friday does not mention the delegation accompanying him. It remains to be seen how prepared he and Team Sri Lanka are for what would be India’s more than gentle persuasion for Sri Lanka to fit into its ‘building block’ agenda, which includes falling in line with India’s preferred role as the ‘net security provider’ in the region to the exclusion of others.

The region, and those beyond, interested in the Indo-Pacific, will be watching the outcome of the visit very carefully.