By The “Sunday Times” Political Editor
President Maithripala Sirisena hurriedly interrupted the Cabinet meeting that was in progress last Tuesday. He rose from his chair and asked ministers whether they could feel something like a tremor that was causing vibration of the floor.
He said he could feel such a phenomenon where he sat — the podium in the onetime Well of the House of Parliament facing ministers seated behind rows of tables. Soon, members of his personal protection group were summoned and told to find out what was happening.
The men who left the chamber returned sometime later to tell Sirisena that the vibrations were caused by piling equipment being used in the Chinese funded Colombo Port City project. It was just across the road from the Presidential Secretariat. “Let’s hope that when the construction work finishes, the Presidential Secretariat will be intact,” he remarked half-jokingly.
The meeting continued. When discussions or decisions on some 49 items on the agenda were concluded, it was time for “any other business.”
Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe rose to explain why he has been accused of abusing United Nations envoy Ben Emmerson QC, Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter terrorism. During a five-day visit to Sri Lanka, Emmerson met Rajapakshe at the Justice Ministry. Emmerson is retiring from the UN system later next week.
Rajapakshe told the meeting that Emmerson had claimed there were 200 Tiger guerrilla suspects in government custody. This, the minister declared, was a highly exaggerated figure and he had asked Emmerson to explain how he arrived at such a number. The real figure,
Rajapakshe said, was sixty. Emmerson had replied that he had obtained those figures from “reliable sources” but had refused to elaborate. The Justice Minister claimed he told Emmerson to rely only on “authenticated” figures. It is in that hostile tempo that the duo had discussed the introduction by the Government of a new counter terrorism law. Here again Rajapakshe was to tell Emmerson that interference was not welcome since the introduction of a new law was the sole prerogative of a sovereign government. He appeared unaware that such foreign intervention was inevitable since the Government had co-sponsored the US backed resolution on Sri Lanka at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. In that too, Sri Lanka had assured that the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) now in force would be repealed.
Private tuition in diplomacy
Rajapakshe’s lengthy explanation notwithstanding, he received some private tuition on diplomacy and diplomatic conduct from Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his own ministerial colleagues. “We need to get along with the international community. We don’t want to return to the Mahinda Rajapaksa era,” declared Wickremesinghe. He said in that era, top UN officials were either not allowed to come to Sri Lanka, or were abused when they did arrive.
Even if Wickremesinghe did not say so, one such instance was the comment made by then cabinet minister Mervyn Silva. When the UN’s former Human Rights High Commissioner Navi Pillay was in Sri Lanka, he made a public statement that he wished to marry her. In another instance, the then Prime Minister D.M. Jayaratne was to describe a visiting UN dignitary as a “terrorist.”
The Premier said that in the recent past, UN reports on Sri Lanka had not been inimical. Only one such report had made some critical references and was bad. Foreign Minister Ravi Karunanayake declared that such undignified remarks against a visiting UN dignitary only made his job difficult. “I am also a patriot but I don’t go about confronting others to demonstrate it,” he said. Endorsing those views were also former Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera and Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne.
President Sirisena disclosed that he had received reports that some pro-Tiger guerrilla elements had been responsible for taking Emmerson to a detention centre. That should not happen, he said, and asked who gave permission for this. Prison Reforms Minister D.M. Swaminathan was quick to disown it was he or his Ministry. It turned out that the Foreign Ministry had agreed to the visit in accordance with previously agreed procedures laid out for UN special mandate holders. Such visits, once again, were the result of assurances agreed to by Sri Lanka in the US sponsored Human Rights Council resolution.
The ‘tremor’ or vibration that Sirisena encountered when chairing the cabinet session was relatively minor compared to the political tremors he is experiencing. On the one hand, just two weeks after admonishing his partner in governance, the United National Party (UNP) leadership for stalling investigations into high profile cases involving former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and members of his family,
Sirisena has placed the state investigative agencies on high gear. A number of cases have now been revived after they had been in limbo for some time. Opposition parties have renewed their campaign against such action, particularly with regard to cases involving military personnel. This week, the UNP also struck a discordant note and delivered what seemed a veiled message to Sirisena.
On the other hand, a group of pro-Sirisena loyalists of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) seem hell bent on quitting ranks and sitting as an independent entity in Parliament. The group met twice this week, in the homes of two different SLFP cabinet ministers, to discuss the move. At least a few seem poised on leaving ignoring Sirisena’s appeal to stay together till December 31. This new deadline is to decide on whether or not to renew a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the SLFP and the UNP to continue the coalition.
That new deadline is not lost on the UNP too. It is also busy working out counter strategies.
Courtesy:Sunday Times