Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
Every now and then, a bit of good news breaks through the gloom that usually characterizes reports from much of the non-Western world. Such is the case of the recent presidential election in Sri Lanka.
The country has been though decades of brutal civil war, culminating in massive war crimes on the part of the Sinhalese-controlled government against Hindu Tamil rebels trying to establish a separate state, Tamil Eelam, in the north of the country.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the insurgents known as the Tamil Tigers, were often little better when it came to committing atrocities.
The conflict was triggered by anti-Tamil riots in 1983 that claimed hundreds of lives. Governments came and went, and fighting was punctuated by cease-fires that were broken by one side or the other, as the insurgency continued with relentless ferocity.
Things changed in 2005, the year Mahinda Rajapaksa won the presidential election. He pursued the war against the Tamil Tigers with renewed ferocity and finally defeated them in May 2009. LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed.
At least 100,000 people died in the 26-year conflict, including as many as 40,000 in the last month alone, according to the United Nations. As well, approximately 300,000 civilians were displaced during the final phase of the war.
Not surprisingly, in January 2010 Mahinda Rajapaksa was re-elected by a big margin.
Given the nature of internal conflicts of this sort, it is remarkable that, despite the atrocities which accompany such guerrilla warfare, the country never succumbed to outright military rule or civilian dictatorship.
Nonetheless, the accession to power by the man who finally defeated the Tigers seemed to bode ill for democracy. Rajapaksa cultivated a more authoritarian style of rule, relegating parliament to a secondary role, and appointed his relatives to key positions.
He arrested his main rival in the 2010 election, General Sarath Fonseka, who a year later was sentenced to three years in jail for “corruption.” Also, in early 2013 Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake was dismissed for allegations of financial and official misconduct. In reality, she was removed when she resisted Rajapaksa’s centralization of power.
When parliament approved a constitutional change allowing Rajapaksa to seek an unlimited number of terms, it seemed that Sri Lanka was well on the road to becoming an authoritarian state.
In August 2013 Navi Pillay, then the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner, accused Rajapaksa’s government of eroding democracy and the rule of law after a week-long visit to the country.
Shunned by most western countries, including Canada, his government increasingly turned to powers such as China, Iran, and Russia for foreign investment and diplomatic support.
Despite anger at rising prices, corruption and one-family rule, Rajapaksa remained so confident of his popularity that he scheduled a president election for this past Jan. 8, two years before the end of his second term.
Hard-line Sinhalese groups like the Buddhist Power Force (BBS) mobilized to support Rajapaksa.
But the Hindu Tamil and Muslim minorities that make up over a quarter of the population were less enthusiastic. Rajapaksa also lost the support of another Buddhist group, the National Heritage Party (JHU).
And worst of all, he was caught unawares by the desertion of former allies in his own Sri Lankan Freedom Party, who described his regime as a “soft dictatorship.” One of them, Rajapaksa’s health minister, Maithripala Sirisena, announced he would run against the president.
And the impossible happened. Despite his overwhelming advantages, Rajapaksa was defeated, winning 47.6 per cent of the vote to Sirisena’s 51.3 per cent. Sirisena, running under the banner of the United National Front, won the strong electoral support of Tamils, Christians, and Muslims.
Some Tamil activists have become increasingly unhappy in recent weeks as a result of what they see as delays in releasing prisoners and returning seized lands. The Tamil-dominated Northern Provincial Council unanimously passed a resolution this month seeking an international investigation into accusations of genocide against Tamils during the country’s civil war.
The new administration has indicated that it will mount its own investigation into possible wartime atrocities and mount criminal prosecutions against the perpetrators of the worst crimes. The UN Human Rights Council has agreed to defer the release of its own inquiry until September.
So apart from giving the country a renewed sense of democracy, under Sirisena there might be the possibility of some genuine national reconciliation.
Henry Srebrnik
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