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This occurred as the commission was investigating possible corruption in the purchase of outdated MiG fighter planes. The timely presidential action prevented indictments from being filed against certain powerful persons.
Shortly before the removal of the director general another suggestion -- perhaps prompted by an article about the MiG deal -- was made by Secretary of Defense Gotabhaya Rajapakse that a criminal defamation law must be reintroduced into Sri Lanka. That comment drew a serious backlash from the press and the community. The alternative approach of removing the person who signs indictments may have been the result of that backlash.
Equally cynical is the manner in which the appointment of the Constitutional Council has been ignored. The Constitutional Council is tasked with selecting commissioners to be in charge of some of the most important institutions in the country. These commissioners are to have the power of appointment, transfer, promotions and disciplinary control of all public servants in these institutions.
The council was designed to prevent unqualified persons from being appointed to such positions for political reasons. Yet the government sabotaged that constitutional provision by simply failing to appoint members to the Constitutional Council, who in turn could appoint the commissioners; the same trick used in the case of the director general of the Bribery Commission.
Once again as the U.N. Human Rights Council meets in the coming days, the situation of Sri Lanka will receive global attention. The Sri Lankan crisis, seen by different persons in different ways on the basis of their particular positions, is essentially a crisis of a political system that has been unable to meet the expectations of its people.
The expectations of citizens of all backgrounds have radically changed over several decades. However, the political system has not progressed to keep up with these expectations; in fact it has regressed, at times to a ridiculous extent. There is nothing in today's political system that can stop such trickery as mentioned above.
In contrast, the population of Sri Lanka has undergone vast changes from a one-time mostly rural population to a highly sophisticated nation. Educational reforms that made way for the education of all persons have virtually altered the nature of the country within a very short time. A communications revolution has given the people more information and allowed them to express themselves more easily, despite the many restrictions on freedom of expression, association and publication.
Added to this there is now a vast migrant population who spend long years of their lives outside the country and thereby acquire sophistication through their new experiences. This migrant population includes millions of workers as well as millions of others who have left the country for political reasons and are living in other parts of the world.
Naturally, these persons and also the younger generation, which is exposed more than ever before to new educational and communications experiences, have aspirations for a society that is managed more rationally and answers to their needs. The political system as it stands today fails to satisfy everyone. In fact, in every part of the country many expressions of disgust are heard about the manner in which the country's political system and the politicians function.
The country's political system is in need of radical and fundamental reforms -- not only in the area of minority rights but all areas of life and governance. Patrick Lawrence, author of "Conversations in a Failing State," describes Sri Lanka as a country that is "unmanaged rather than mismanaged." In fact, "unmanagement" and mismanagement go hand in hand and are frustrating the entire population of the country.
The violence that is taking place in Sri Lanka should be seen within this context. The government is trying to deal with the nationwide crisis by military means. The roads belong to the police and the military. Even the Supreme Court was compelled to point out that places like checkpoints and roads with speed limits are being utilized for corrupt purposes.
As the government fails to provide a satisfactory system of governance, the military is given a free hand in all areas of national life. In the following passage from the book cited above the prevailing situation of the roads in Sri Lanka is captured:
"In that first, revealing hour, when impressions accumulate as if pressed upon a blank surface, all that I saw that could be called Sri Lankan were police units, barricades that turned the road into a kind of driver's training track, and army units equipped with automatic rifles and submachine guns…
"There are checkpoints along the road beneath the wall, which rings what amounts to a large military quarter. Drive past one of these and you may be stopped and your papers checked. This procedure might take five minutes, or twenty-five. In such situations the police are free to detain you as long as they wish and to ask you anything they wish, and if you are Sri Lankan you are best advised to set constitutional legalities aside and answer them.
"Patrolling police and army units enact the same scene more or less constantly all over the city. Whatever the necessity of such exercises, there is a subliminal message in them: If Sri Lanka is anyone's space, it is theirs, not the space of its citizens. Public space is now military space."
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(Basil Fernando is director of the Asian Human Rights Commission based in Hong Kong. He is a Sri Lankan lawyer who has also been a senior U.N. human rights officer in Cambodia. He has published several books and written extensively on human rights issues in Asia.)
