For the ruling National People’s Power (NPP) led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD), the Local Government (LG) Elections held in May was one of its coming-of-age tests at a national level.
By the third week of June, the NPP managed to gain control of 192 LG councils, although it had secured a majority in only 151 of them. According to media reports, although the NPP had no majority in 40 councils, it managed to take control with the support of local coalition partners or post-election agreements. In one council, the NPP managed to take charge of the administration with some understanding of the Opposition. No doubt, the NPP’s political success in this manoeuvre would increase its confidence to face mainstream political parties led by veteran leaders.
But for the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led NPP to sustain its quest for national status as a matured group, success in national elections is not enough. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) founded by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa is a very good example of the fleeting nature of public adulation. It suffered drubbings in both the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections last year.
However, electoral success in three national elections is only the first step for the NPP’s sustainability in the national political mainstream. It has to make a difference by delivering a clean administration because it has been a long time since Sri Lanka had one.
National political parties had accepted political corruption as the done thing. The ‘Aragalaya’ agitation showed that people were not prepared to accept it, and voters, on the rebound, elected the NPP conglomerate in three successive elections. They expect it to deliver a corruption-free administration.
AKD realised this as early as December 2024. The President, addressing heads of Government departments, thundered: “The confidence of citizens in institutional systems has been shattered and institutions themselves have lost faith in their own authority. This deterioration is due to the corrosive effects of this political culture… While we may not be able to reverse this situation entirely in a year or two, we are committed to making a meaningful effort.”
However, as Lord Acton’s cliché goes, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” AKD should worry about the after-effects of the NPP gaining power at the local level, particularly in large municipal councils like Colombo, Galle, Kurunegala, Puttalam, and Nuwara Eliya. It is not going to be an easy task for AKD because the LG system, corroded by corrupt practices, offers easy pickings for the NPP’s neophyte members. The NPP would do well to educate its first-time members on conduct and accountability to the public.
Systemic challenges
For too long, governance in Sri Lanka has been affected by systemic aberrations. AKD’s good intentions are not enough to improve governance due to systemic challenges. Recently, there were two examples of systemic aberrations right under the nose of the President.
The first related to the release of convicted bank fraudster Athula Thilakaratne under a presidential pardon on Vesak Poya Day, 12 May, although he did not figure in the President’s list of pardoned prisoners. News reports of the incident triggered widespread public outcry and questions in Parliament from the Opposition.
Although the Prisons Department justified the release, claiming that the convict was eligible for release under general guidelines and it was nor politically motivated, the incident dented AKD’s credibility. The President’s Media Division (PMD) had to issue a statement clarifying that Thilakaratne’s name was not on the official list of inmates approved for pardon by the President. It explained that the President could grant pardon only upon receiving a vetted list of eligible inmates from the Ministry of Justice, based on recommendations from the Department of Prisons.
Preliminary investigations by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) have indicated that more convicts had been released after being falsely classified as recipients of presidential pardons as well. After this, the CID questioned the Commissioner General of Prisons and widened the scope of investigations to include prison officers involved in the process, as part of an ongoing official inquiry.
The second instance pertains to the appointment of Tysers Insurance Brokers Ltd. (TIBL) – a UK-based firm with a questionable reputation – as the broker of record by the National Insurance Trust Fund (NITF) operating under the Ministry of Finance.
In February 2024, the Fraud Section of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) Criminal Division is said to have filed a case against TIBL under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). TIBL reportedly entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, agreeing to pay a substantial fine and forfeit assets to resolve the charges. According to the DOJ, TIBL was also engaged in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme to influence Ecuadorian Government officials.
The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) is probing the case based on a formal complaint from an advocate. It will be interesting to know how the foreign brokerage managed to overcome the Government’s strict vetting process as required by the Insurance Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (IRCSL).
Bringing closure on genocide allegations
Even as US President Donald Trump was making the United Nations (UN) largely irrelevant, the Sri Lanka Government rolled out the red carpet for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk’s visit to the country from 23-26 June.
Sri Lanka had made human rights commitments at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to investigate allegations of war crimes and human rights violations. However, they have been on the backburner in the past few years.
Nevertheless, Sri Lanka’s commitments will come up once again during the September session of the UNHRC. At the session, High Commissioner Türk will submit his findings on Sri Lanka during his visit, along with reports from key members of the Core Group on Sri Lanka – the UK, Canada, and Germany.
During his visit, the UN High Commissioner met with not only the President and Prime Minister but with Opposition leaders and religious heads as well. He visited the mass grave at Chemmani, near Jaffna. His statement thereafter says it all: “My visit yesterday to the recently reopened mass grave at Chemmani was a compelling reminder that the past haunts the lives of many in Sri Lanka.
“I heard from many mothers during my visit to Jaffna and Trincomalee, as well as victims of enforced disappearances in the south. A woman from the Southern Province, whose husband disappeared in 1989, for example, still goes from town to town searching, and the tears of Sinhalese, Tamils, and Muslims are the same.
“Acknowledgement and truth-telling are important steps towards healing and closure, as are justice, reparation, and non-recurrence.”
We do not know what AKD had promised the UN High Commissioner or what stand Sri Lanka will take at the UNHRC session in September. But the President’s own JVP had lost 10,000-20,000 people suspected of being JVP sympathisers in the 1971 insurrection.
In the second JVP insurrection between 1987 and 1989, an estimated 60,000-80,000 young people suspected of being JVP sympathisers were killed by the State. Over 20,000 people disappeared after being taken into custody. Of course, the Eelam Wars had left their own mass graves and forced disappearances as well.
How can AKD and the NPP afford to ignore this gory history? The NPP/JVP will never come of age unless they make accountability for war crimes and human rights articles of faith.
Firstly, they could take follow-up action on the data already collected on enforced disappearances. Secondly, they could resurrect cases prosecuted during wars and insurrections but abandoned thereafter. For instance, the Chemmani mass grave came to light during the 1998 trial of Sri Lanka soldiers for the rape and murder of Krishanthi Kumaraswamy. One of the convicted soldiers, Somaratne Rajapakse, testified that 300-400 Tamil civilians had been executed and buried in Chemmani after the military recaptured Jaffna in 1995-’96. There are one too many such abandoned/pardoned cases.
Bringing back the supercop
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Shani Abeysekara has been reappointed as the Director of the CID with the approval of the National Police Commission.
Abeysekera’s return to the helm of the department comes after nearly five years, showing the Government is serious about independent investigations. His initial stint as Director of the CID (2017-’19) was characterised by several high-profile probes that drew both praise and criticism.
Among the most notable investigations under his leadership were those into the murder of journalist and Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickrematunge and the disappearance of cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda, as well as probes into the controversial Avant-Garde maritime arms scandal and the 2019 Easter Sunday terror attacks. He earned accolades for investigating these cases as they involved several influential figures.
(The writer is a retired MI specialist on South Asia and terrorism, and served as the Head of Intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force [IPKF] in Sri Lanka from 1987-’90. He is associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies. Email: haridirect@gmail.com; website: https://col.hariharan.info)