Tisaranee Gunasekara
“…when
the plague begins, it’s easy for people to see the first blackbird as a
harbinger. But when it lands on the climbing fence it’s just one
bird”.
Salman
Rushdie (Joseph Anton: A Memoir)
The constitutional path to
tyranny is a well-worn one; its many previous travellers include a former
corporal named Adolf Hitler.
Sri
Lanka took a giant leap along this path with the 18th Amendment. The Divineguma
Bill, prepared in equal secrecy and propelled with similar unseemly haste,
constitutes the second gigantic leap.
The
1978 Constitution created an overweening executive. The 13th and 17th Amendments
sought to correct the resulting power-imbalance. The 17th Amendment was a 100%
home-grown product; the consequent absence of a foreign protector enabled the
Rajapaksas to hatchet it, with the 18th Amendment.
The
13th Amendment remains a major impediment to the Rajapaksa-project. The siblings
do not dare to decapitate it at one go, because it was an Indian construct.
Instead, they will undermine it, measure by measure, until devolution
evaporates.
To
understand the Divineguma Bill, ignore the rhetoric and study the budgetary
figures. Ministry of Defence and Urban Development, (under Mahinda and Gotabhaya
Rajapaksa) will get the biggest financial chunk in 2013 as well. Currently, only
Rs. 88.9 billion is allocated to Brother Basil’s Ministry of Economic
Development. Once the Divineguma Bill is through, the new mega-Divineguma
Department will be given Rs. 80 billion. This massive financial-injection will
make Brother Basil’s fiefdom second only to Brother Gotabaya’s, in terms of
budgetary allocations.
According
to the Bill, all Divineguma employees will have to sign a secrecy-clause. Such a
requirement, while normal in matters defence, is utterly abnormal in matters
development. This clause is another step in infusing (anti-democratic) military
ethos into the economy and turning development into the new ‘war’ (this
transmutation will enable the regime to affix the ‘terrorist-label’ to anyone
opposed to its development projects – be it urban poor, farmers, professionals
or environmentalists). The secrecy-clause will also give Minister Rajapaksa a
carte blanche over that gigantic stash of cash.
The
Bill also mandates the creation of several layers of unelected organisations
from the Grama Niladhari division upwards, another Rajapaksa army, ‘waiting for
a sign’.
In
a familial state, all of this is as it should be.
Last
week all elected provincial councils approved the Bill. The succumbing of the
SLMC was an expected shock. By gifting the Eastern PC to the UPFA and approving
the devolution-denuding Divineguma Bill, the SLMC opted for that kamikaze-path
taken by the old left and the JVP; discredit, fraction and irrelevance is the
invariable fate of any party which becomes the subaltern partner of the
SLFP.
The
only remaining obstacle to the Rajapaksa power-grab is the Northern PC. The
democratic solution would be to have elections and let the elected-council
decide on the Bill. But the Rajapaksas would know that the UPFA and its Tamil
proxies will not be able to win the Northern PC without an unaffordably massive
electoral highway-robbery. So the regime will argue that the Governor can
decide. Since the Governor is a presidential-appointee, his decision is a
foregone conclusion. Hopefully the matter will be referred to the Court.
Hopefully Rajapaksa attempts to subjugate the Judiciary will fail.
If
the Bill becomes law, it will open the anti-democratic floodgates. Other
Rajapaksa-strengthening measures will follow, such as the Bill to subordinate
the CMC and several other councils to a mammoth ‘Corporation’ under Gotabaya
Rajapaksa; and the amendment to empower the regime to acquire any land by
declaring it of religious/economic import.
And
tyranny will become an everyday experience.
The
Rajapaksas (like Vellupillai Pirapaharan) are guilty of what the late great
historian Eric Hobsbwam termed “a strategically blind maximalism”
(Revolutionaries).
The
Divineguma Bill tells the Tamils that the regime is hell-bent on obliterating
devolution. When the same government which denies the very existence of an
ethnic problem and scrapped the national anthem in Tamil denudes the provincial
councils of their power, it will inadvertently accord the dead Vellupillai
Pirapaharan a prophetic-mantle. The LTTE always maintained that in its absence,
Colombo will render Tamils powerless. The Divineguma Bill will create a host of
receptive ears for that deadly message.
The
government, by bending the SLMC to its will over the Bill, has sent the wrong
message to the Muslims as well. Schisms will follow the SLMC’s stark inability
to defend its mandate; irrelevance may be its end. The question is: what sort of
entity will replace the SLMC in the East? The SLMC, for all its lacunae, is a
democratic party firmly committed to peaceful methods. Its successor might not
be either, at least to the same degree. An ethno-religious enemy may benefit the
Rajapaksas, because there is nothing like a ‘threat’ to justify those
despotic-powers and tyrannical-practices needed to bolster familial rule. But
another alienated minority is the last thing Sri Lanka needs.
Divineguma,
India and China
During
his recent visit to Delhi, President Rajapaksa was reminded again of the need
for a political solution. The Divineguma Bill, if it is bulldozed through
without being approved by an elected Northern PC, will render a reasonable
political solution impossible and embarrass Delhi.
A
series of mutually offsetting balancing acts is what often passes for India’s
policy towards Sri Lanka. Delhi wants to keep Colombo out of a Beijing-Islamabad
axis and further Indian economic interests, without antagonising Tamil Nadu. In
this context the interests of Lankan Tamils are often just asides and
afterthoughts (for this de-prioritisation, the LTTE’s murderous conduct was
considerably responsible). For instance, 8,000 Sampur residents were reportedly
evicted (forcibly) to make way for an Indian-funded coal power plant and a
Special Economic Zone. This rank injustice is a perfect example of cohabitation
by Indian and Lankan establishments to further mutual economic interests, at the
expense of thousands of hapless Tamils. While the elected representatives of
those Tamils downplay the iniquity, for fear of antagonising Delhi!
This
absence of a coherent Lankan policy has created loopholes for irresponsible
extremist elements in Tamil Nadu to engage in juvenile and violent practices,
such as the attack on innocent pilgrims to a Christian shrine. Delhi’s tolerance
of Chennai’s Tamil extremism is the concomitant flipside of its tolerance of
Rajapaksas’ Sinhala supremacism. The ‘Do nothing’ policy applies both ways;
Delhi ignores or glosses over the Rajapaksa regime’s many broken promises even
as it gives Tamil Nadu a semi carte blanche to perform anti-Colombo
antics.
Its
inability to save the 13th Amendment may propel an embarrassed Delhi into
greater tolerance of Tamil Nadu extremism; plus ensuring that Sri Lanka’s UPR
report is more unfavourable than favourable. In return the Rajapaksas will cling
tighter to the Chinese. The sudden outbreak of virulent animosity between China
and Japan over Diaoyu Islands is an indication that Beijing’s conflictual
international relations extend beyond Washington and Delhi. Not the most
sensible time for a small Asian nation to be identified as a
Chinese-satellite.
The
patron-client relationship with Beijing is essential for Rajapaksa power and
survival. But for Sri Lanka it can open an unnecessary Pandora’s Box. Let us not
forget that the Cold War was fought most destructively not in the US, the USSR
or Europe but in client Third World states.
- SLG
