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Criticising a Supreme Court order that prevented the arrest of former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who is under investigation for financial fraud, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe recently said that the Commonwealth should be consulted on this matter. In another case, the implementation of a presidential gazette order releasing land for resettlement of IDPs in Sampur, in an area that had been leased to a foreign investor by the BOI, was suspended by the Supreme Court. The most recent development in this case, as reported in the media, is that the petitioner (the foreign investor) has actually been advised by the Chief Justice to file for contempt of court if the terms of the temporary stay order issued by court had been violated as the petitioner claimed.

Another instance where a court ruling was apparently disregarded took place on the 6th anniversary of the war’s end, when some TNA politicians held a ‘remembrance’ ceremony on Mullivaikal beach despite an order by the Mullaitivu magistrate. The government adopted a condoning attitude.

Contempt of court?

Whether or not these several episodes amounted to contempt of court is a matter for the judges to decide. One thing they would seem to convey to the citizenry at large, though, is that both the UNP-led Government and the TNA seem more intent on impressing constituencies that lie outside Sri Lanka, than in addressing issues at hand in keeping with the law of the land.

It would seem that the prime minister wants to convince his western patrons and benefactors that he is making headway in ‘dealing with the Rajapaksas’. The hasty presidential order suspending the Sampur land lease seemed designed to show external powers that the government is committed to ‘reconciliation.’ The industrial park project envisaged by the investor who petitioned the SC in this instance was reportedly the biggest FDI investment ever, amounting to US$ 4 billion. (The Chinese-funded Colombo Port City project investment, for comparison, is US$ 1.4 billion.)

The TNA politicians who spoke at the commemoration at Mulliwaikal on May 18 spoke over the heads of thousands of Tamils who were used as human shields or whose children died in the LTTE’s ‘baby brigades’ — their target audience was sections of the Tamil diaspora that make allegations of ‘genocide.’

Foreign constituencies

It’s worth asking why local political players speak directly or indirectly to audiences abroad, even with a general election round the corner. It is Sri Lanka’s citizens who will cast their votes in an election, not these foreign constituencies. But of course, foreign constituencies can bankroll election campaigns.

There is a deep irony in the fact that the government thinks nothing of thumbing its nose at its own democratic institutions such as the judiciary, in its bid to impress the world that it is committed to restoring ‘good governance’. At the same time, its anti-corruption drive is unravelling as a selective hounding of its political opponents, while big-time offenders within its ranks are seen to enjoy protected status.

Rank hypocrisy

Nowhere are the Government’s double standards more evident than in its attitude towards the Sri Lankan armed forces. On the one hand, the Government has agreed to an international element in what it still calls a ‘domestic mechanism’ to investigate alleged war crimes by Sri Lankan forces. In doing so it accepts the position of the western powers that brought resolutions against Sri Lanka at the Human Rights Council, claiming there were ‘credible allegations’ of war crimes of a magnitude that demanded international inquiry. The new Government departs from Sri Lanka’s earlier position based on the LLRC report, which cleared the forces with respect to widespread and intentional human rights violations amounting to war crimes. The report detailed specific grave incidents that required investigation.

Now, while submitting to the position that Sri Lankan forces need to be investigated for violations amounting to war crimes, the present government is at the same time, at various forums hinting that Sri Lankan forces will increasingly participate in UN peacekeeping operations. This points to an obvious contradiction, if not rank hypocrisy. If the Government thinks that Sri Lankan forces consist of disciplined and professional soldiers fit to serve in UN peacekeeping operations worldwide, how can it at the same time say they are suspected of crimes of such magnitude that they need to be internationally investigated? For whose convenience, and at whose behest, are these new plans for Sri Lanka’s armed forces being formulated?

Big power rivalry

The remarks relating to a role in UN peacekeeping have come mainly from Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, and not from Defence establishment or the tri-forces leadership. While President Maithripala Sirisena too recently hinted that Sri Lankan forces would be deployed as UN peacekeepers, it is the prime minister and foreign minister, mainly, who shape the Government’s pro-western foreign policy. Though his mandate to do so is questionable, the prime minister often lectures forces personnel on the need to adapt to a vaguely-articulated ‘new role’ in the future. He recently drew the attention of the three service chiefs to US Secretary of State John Kerry’s suggestion that Sri Lanka’s military have much to contribute in ‘protecting vital sea lanes and taking part in UN peacekeeping missions all over the world.’ Kerry sees no contradiction in asking the armed forces that his government wishes to prosecute for war crimes, to serve as UN peacekeepers. But then, US hypocrisy in its foreign policy around the world needs no elaboration, it is legendary.

Protecting sea lanes has become a politicised issue today with the US bent on countering China’s maritime expansion. Is the Sri Lankan military being asked to ‘take sides’ here? Doesn’t the political leadership need to question the wisdom of being drawn into big-power rivalry of this nature?

UN peacekeeping

As for UN peacekeeping, Sri Lanka is being asked (by the US, and in turn the government) to increase its commitment at a time when these operations have become increasingly complex and dangerous.

“In April 2013, eight Indian peacekeepers were killed when armed militia attacked a convoy they were escorting in Jonglei state, South Sudan. A few months later, seven Tanzanian peacekeepers were killed in Darfur when militia attacked their base. Three more Indian peacekeepers were killed in Akobo in Jonglei state in December, when militia attacked a UN base sheltering civilians. At around the same time, anti-balaka militia in the Central African Republic killed a UN peacekeeper from the Republic of the Congo.” (Alex J Bellamy in an online article titled ‘Are new robust mandates putting UN peacekeepers more at risk?’- 29.05.14)

The UN’s head of peacekeeping operations Herve Ladsous addressing UN member states in October last year said “In fact, some two thirds of peacekeeping personnel today were deployed in the midst of ongoing conflict, where peace agreements or elements were shaky or absent. Conflicts today were also increasingly intensive, involving determined armed groups with access to sophisticated armaments and techniques, as well as transnational criminal networks and terrorist organizations.”

According to SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) “Over the past two decades, personnel contributions from European and North American countries (the West) to United Nations peacekeeping operations and to missions in Africa have reduced significantly. … politicians fear the high domestic political cost of images of body bags returning the corpses of personnel killed on peace operations. Like in war, governments’ behaviour tends to follow the hypothesis of John Mueller that they naturally want to avoid high casualty rates, particularly if their national interests are not at stake.”

The calculus behind the Government’s eagerness to oblige its new western friends by deploying more Sri Lankan soldiers as peacekeepers is hard to fathom. During the 30-years war villages across Sri Lanka have seen enough body bags returning with corpses of their sons and daughters killed in combat against a deadly terrorist enemy. Instead of pursuing backroom deals aimed at securing its own political survival, doesn’t the political leadership need to adopt an approach that allows wide-ranging and well-informed public debate, that includes input from the forces personnel themselves, on the future role of the military?