By Athulasiri Kumara Samarakoon

Some nations turn their tragedies into fortunes while others fall from one tragedy to another. Sri Lanka, which at present is facing the Bergmanian ‘hour of the wolf’, is an apt example of the latter.

Instead of steering the post-LTTE phase towards the creation of a united Sri Lankan nation and a much longed for terror free polity, the powers-that-be have thrown the country into an abysmal, unlawful state of egotism, brutishness and nastiness; a veritable ‘war of all against all’.

We are witnessing what Hobbes and Locke termed as ‘the state of nature and anarchy in the absence of legitimate control and constitutional government’.

In such a state, justice and law are replicated by might, and the life of the individual is reduced to suffering. If guided in the right direction, Sri Lanka should have by now achieved the far better status of ‘democracy, life and liberty’ for its people, who as a nation have associated with one of the most revered and non-violent philosophy’s of the world; Buddhism. For our ill fate, this country has painted its darkest image before the civilized world by displaying all its tribalistic qualities while still trying to appear as ‘The Wonder of Asia’. Yes, we await many wonders and marvels to come, but the enlightened citizenry of this country has to brave this darkness and show the way out for the ordinary masses at this hour of need.

The post-Shirani Bandaranayake judiciary and democracy of Sri Lanka calls for analyzing two broader issues that we as an unethical nation could face in the international realm. The first being the issue of Sri Lanka being labelled as a ‘pariah’ nation in the democratic world, and the second being the strengthening of the Tamil diaspora voice and their support base for prolonging the battle for a separate state in Sri Lanka. In the eyes of the international community, Sri Lanka has achieved very little in terms of healing the war-traumatized, creating ethnic reconciliation and carving out governance solutions for the ethnic conflict through constitutional means, implementing the LLRC recommendations and guaranteeing human and democratic rights and the dignity of human life.

All these political, ethical and moral obligations on which the ruling regime should take initiatives to drive the post-LTTE nation towards a democratic polity of equality and peace, are being further delayed and instead sectarianism, nepotism, corruption, religious fanaticism, breach of the supreme law and the use of illegitimate force and violence have hindered the hither to survive character of democracy. Thus, Sri Lanka has been made a dependent nation on many facets of the term dependency – economic, political, security etc. – and the pride of this nation has been mortgaged for the mere survival of a regime that defies the law.

Many analysts have shown that the post-Shirani Bandaranayake judiciary will not be accepted by international bodies, donor agencies and all those influential actors in international politics. The Supreme Court and Court of Appeal interpreted the PSC report and gave its historical judgment stating that it had failed to deliver justice, hence making it unconstitutional. This whole orchestrated act of removing the CJ showed the international community that hereafter ‘justice’ would be a prohibited word in Sri Lanka. When the United Nations’ Human Rights Committee is hearing cases of Sri Lanka’s war crimes, and the USA has moved a resolution against us, and when Canada, UK, USA, Commonwealth, ICJ and several other powerful actors who shape the normative concerns of the international community show concern, this government acted bluntly and put the country in more danger.

The failure of Sri Lanka to adopt an ethically and morally guided foreign policy has severely constrained its capability to stand proud before the international community. As a small nation which lacks material capabilities to stand on its own, we have to rely on international cooperation and support. Our strength as a nation that can rely on the necessary cooperation from international forums has severely been drained, because we have domestically worsened issues of human rights, good governance and democracy. Rather than mobilizing multilateral cooperation, Sri Lanka has descended to using an ad hoc policy of visiting individual states and begging for support, politically and economically. More than receiving aid and cooperation what we have received is loans that we are obligated to pay back. Whatever weaknesses they had, some previous governments were mostly able to accrue international cooperation without bonding the country to their agendas.

Today, we have to question this regime as to why it has been deviating from the democratic world. Liberal democracy seems to be an anathema for this regime. The regime through its highly controlled government media has been able to propagate the theory of international conspiracies against its survival. They have fabricated stories that the international community is waiting to dethrone them through a coup d’é·tat similar to what happened in Libya or Egypt. This tactic of creating a fear psychosis among the local support base has so far allowed them to survive in power.

Theoretically, the international milieu is an anarchical space in which states have to struggle for their own survival on their own, and there is no guarantee that other nations would come to their rescue. Nevertheless, nations survive for long in the system because they do not fight physical wars very often and instead struggle through other means. And a careful and realist analysis of this regime’s external policy would suggest that Sri Lanka has lost many a battle in the spheres of economic, political and moral existence in the international system.

Several nations helped this regime win the war against the LTTE, and in the post-war scenario they requested the regime to show some respite towards the Tamils and win their hearts. The failure to unite this nation democratically is the gravest danger that this nation will befall internationally in the near future. The regime falsely accused Dr. Bandaranayake of working against the unity of this country. MP M.A Sumanthiran’s speech during the impeachment debate begged for rule of law and justice to be shown to her highlighting that no community wants to divide this country, but rather be governed democratically and constitutionally. The minority communities have completely lost faith in the way this regime has repeatedly ignored their pleas, and there is no doubt that the regime will be further pressurized at international forums and sovereignty or remains of it will be no more, putting the country’s survival critically in danger.

In facing the world, the strategy of the government should be to strengthen democracy, rule of law and creating a legitimate space for minority political rights and ending the civil war against civil society leaders and the restoration of media freedom. Nations like human beings make mistakes, but the point is to learn from these mistakes and correct them for future action. Democracy is our supreme inheritance and strength in the international realm.

(Athulasiri Kumara Samarakoon is a lecturer in Political Science at the Open University of Sri Lanka and MA and M.Phil in International Politics (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India) JNU. He is a PhD candidate in International Politics – JNU)