Features

Broken politics and India’s long fingers

Published

4 years ago

2022/03/13

by Rajan Philips

For the people, it is the worst of times. Never before has life in Sri Lanka become so unbearable, so suddenly, and for so many. Never before, as well, has there been a Sri Lankan government so incompetent, so confused and so unfocussed as the present one. Leading by example, the President has publicly and cavalierly disclaimed responsibility for any and all that is going on. When Peradeniya university student Weerasuriya was killed on campus by police shooting, on November 12, 1976, Dr. Colvin R de Silva pointed the accusing finger at then Prime Minister & Defense Minister, Mrs. Bandaranaike.

As Minister of Defence in charge of Police, “She is responsible, she is answerable,” the old Marxist (and a great Criminal Defense Lawyer) thundered in banner headlines. That was the beginning of the end of the last SLFP government. In the Commonwealth parliamentary tradition, Ministers used to resign over budget leaks and train accidents. Now, Sri Lanka’s Head of State doubling as Head of Government, with added powers under an ad hominem amendment, says he is not responsible for anything.

Taking responsibility, as many of us were taught at home and in school, and have tried to live by since, means not only accounting for what has gone wrong but also taking action to make things right. Forget what has gone wrong. Feel the people’s pain, man! And say what wilt thou do to at least to ease their pain, let alone eradicate it? If that is not executive responsibility, what is? If a government cannot do this, what is it there for? The President has fired two ministers and has shuffled and added more. A new Economic Council of the same old, uninspiring men has been announced. An All-Party Conference is also being touted. What else is new? What difference are they going to make?

The usual kite about a National Government has also been flown. But unusually with Ranil Wickremesinghe as PM and Basil Rajapaksa (RW’s onetime sidekick) continuing as Finance Minister. Even the TNA will apparently accept ministers at India’s bidding. Mr. Wickremesinghe has denied the suggestions, but nothing heard yet from the TNA. Perhaps a website kite merits no denial. But there is a palpable sense of India’s looming presence in more ways and in more places than before within the crumbling Rajapaksa political enterprise. To go or not to go to the IMF is still the burning question. Mr. Wickremasinghe is all for an all-party conference and a collective 12-year plan to be fathered by everybody. Give the man some credit. He at least tries to look for the next step for safe landing. Everyone else in parliament is floating in la-la land. The government is missing in action.

Skewed Parallels

When President Rajapaksa fired two of his more loquacious ministers, Wimal Weerawansa and Udaya Gammanpila, skewed parallels were drawn between their dismissals and the dismissals of LSSP Ministers from the United Front government by Prime Minister Bandaranaike in 1975. Basil Rajapaksa was touted as the new Felix Dias, although no one has called him ‘Satan’, yet; only “ugly American!”. Wimal Weerawansa was compared to NM Perera and Gammanpila, of all people, to Colvin R de Silva! The absurdity of these comparisons would have been self-evident for the same pundits did not take the next step of comparing Gotabaya to Mrs. Bandaranaike. The absurd circle would have been completed if someone had compared Maithripala Sirisena to JR Jayewardene as the political beneficiary in waiting, the way JRJ benefited after 1975 with a landslide in 1977.

Sirisena reportedly attended the Thalawathugoda Grand Monarch Hotel meeting where Weerawansa and Gammanpila unveiled their 42-page road map “to place the country on the correct path” and steer it away from Basil’s evil path, but not necessarily away from Cabraal’s whatever path. There were talks about making Sirisena the leader of a new group of SLFP and non-SLFP dissidents who might make up about 25 to 30 MPs in parliament. Pundits, who seem to have gotten weary of Sajith Premadasa, started seeing in Sirisena a potential electrode for a new polarization in parliament, comprising not only SLFP MPs and MPs from the dissenting 11 parties within the government, but also young UNP Turks who are opposed to the electorally toxic friends and followers of Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The desired upshot is to make Maithripala Sirisena a common presidential candidate again. But as a new Yahapalana-Version.2, an SLFP-led outfit that the self-proclaimed centre-left progressives can support. But Maithripala Sirisena may be having his own plans, and even he may not have made up his mind yet about what they are. Within days of the Grand Monarch Hotel (what a republican name!) meeting, Sirisena led his SLFP MPs to a meeting with the President, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance (the ruling family, if you will) and presented the SLFP’s 15-point plan apparently to rescue the government, and may be the economy. The common candidacy project can wait.

This is the current state of politics in Sri Lanka which can only be described as permutating or scrambling politics, where parliamentarians are constantly juggling to form new groups and alliances based on personal political gains and not based on any broader principles or political programs. That is why drawing sweeping parallels to 1975, 1977 or 1964, or any other period before 2005 (why 2005, is a separate subject on its own), would be analytically silly and politically pointless.

For all its infirmities, politics before 2005 was generally organized around political leadership and political parties that drew from a combination of charismas, political loyalties, communal passions, class interests and electoral calculations, but always predicated on competing political visions and programs. Of course, there were personal interests and motivations, but they were generally pursued through and in subordination to broader political goals and programs. At any given time, the people and the electorate were able to see seriously contending alternatives which periodically alternated between government and opposition. It may have been musical chairs politics, but the music was tolerable and the chairs were not broken. There is no need for metaphors to describe the current mess.

The IMF and India

The governance and the administration of the country are in a terrible mess. This has a great deal more to do with than Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s incompetence or Maithripala Sirisena’s opportunism. There is no easy way out. There is no prospect for a charismatic saviour. Local charisma is in short supply and is far scarcer than foreign exchange. A change in government by itself can accomplish nothing unless the executive and parliament start acting purposefully and more constructively. The President has shown his limitations, so there is not much point in badgering him to do anything big, except ensuring that he does not get advised to do something crazy, such as ringing in a worthless new constitution.

The challenge rests with parliament to rise collectively above the limitations and lunacies of its individual MPs. There is no room for too many distractions and the only priority now is to find a balance between paying back our debts and keeping the people fed. If defaulting on debt is the only way to avoid mass starvation, so be it. But it has to be done in an honest and responsible way and not in the way the country’s finances have been managed from November 2019. Looked at it practically, the government has no option but to seek assistance from the IMF. Those of us who are familiar with the debates about the IMF in the 1970s find the current controversy contrived and surreal. The world is at a different place now, so is the IMF, and so is Sri Lanka. Those who shout from roof tops against the IMF must tell others what other immediate-term alternative that they are seeing through their ideological telescopes.

It would be far better to have the decision to seek IMF’s help emanate from Sri Lanka’s parliament than to have the government dictated to by others to go to the IMF or somewhere else. There is no question that the government is coming under pressure from various quarters, for different reasons and to different extents. Foreign debts are not the government’s only problem. The UNHRC’s scope of inquiry into Sri Lanka has been dramatically expanded by the intervention of Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith in the current session in Geneva. Even individual Sri Lankan citizens have started petitioning Geneva against the government. The new known unknown is the alleged new phase in the relationship between New Delhi and Colombo, which is really between the Modi government and the Rajapaksa brothers.

It may be that the government, rather Sri Lanka’s ruling family, may have realized that going along with India is the best way to protect their stay in power and all the interests that go with it. China’s support is one-dimensional – loans, swaps and more loans. Beijing cannot protect the government and the family from human rights policing and the new threat of sweeping international sanctions that Vladimir Putin has recklessly brought upon himself, his oligarchs and other minions elsewhere. If the government and the ruling family do decide to seek India’s help to bail themselves out, what will India ask for in return?

The Foreign Minister has already sent signals about economic integration between the two countries. Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in India, Milinda Moragoda, a veritable Man for all Seasons for successive Sri Lankan leaders, appears to be making moves for a new civilizational integration to fraternalize Modi’s Hindutva nationalism and Sri Lanka’s Buddhist nationalism. India would seem to be sending signals of its own. At the UNHRC, India has given qualified support to Sri Lanka emphasizing both human rights and political devolution. India is also said to have made IMF’s assistance a pre-condition for India’s continuing financial support.

The intriguing new gossip is that India is also behind moves to form a National Government in Sri Lanka with Gotabaya Rajapaksa as President and Ranil Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister. Even though Wickremesinghe has denied this, it is quite possible that the ‘thought’ may have been conceived without anyone consulting him. At the moment the gossip is nothing more than juicy grist for political mouths. Nonetheless, there are powerful ironies in this speculative gossip. If India is really keen about making Ranil Wickremesinghe Prime Minister, that would make amends for India’s treachery against him in 2003-04 when Delhi gave the nod to President Kumaratunga to dismiss Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister. The bigger irony is that after playing hide and seek with India for nearly 20 years, the Rajapaksa brothers would now seem ready to turn to India for help for their own survival. Sri Lanka might be on the verge of a new musical chairs politics.

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Features

The Easter investigation must not become ethno-religious politics

Published

12 hours ago

2026/04/7

Sahan Weerasooriya

Zahran and other bombers

Representatives of almost all the main opposition parties were in attendance at the recent book launch by Pivithuru Hela Urumaya leader Udaya Gammanpila. The book written by the PHU leader was his analysis of the Easter bombing of April 2019 that led to the mass killing of 279 persons, caused injuries to more than 500 others and caused panic and shock in the entire country. The Easter bombing was inexplicable for a number of reasons. First, it was perpetrated by suicide bombers who were Sri Lankan Muslims, a community not known for this practice. They targeted Christian churches in particular, which led to the largest number of casualties. The bombing of Sri Lankan Christian churches by Sri Lankan Muslims was also inexplicable in a country that had no history of any serious violence between the two religions.

There were two further inexplicable features of the bombing. The six suicide bombings took place almost simultaneously in different parts of the country. The logistical complexity of this operation exceeded any previously seen in Sri Lanka. Even during the three decade long civil war that pitted the Sri Lankan military against the LTTE, which had earned international notoriety for suicide attacks, Sri Lanka had rarely witnessed such a synchronised operation. The country’s former Attorney General, Dappula de Livera, who investigated the bombing at the time it took place, later stated, upon retirement, that there was a “grand conspiracy” behind the bombings. That phrase has remained central to public debate because it suggested that the visible perpetrators may not have been the only planners behind the attack.

The other inexplicable factor was that intelligence services based in India repeatedly warned their Sri Lankan counterparts that the bombings would take place and even gave specific targets. Later investigations confirmed that warnings were transmitted days before the attacks and repeated again shortly before the explosions, yet they were not acted upon. It was these several inexplicable factors that gave rise to the surmise of a mastermind behind the students and religious fanatics led by the extremist preacher Zahran Hashim from the east of the country, who also blew himself up in the attacks. Even at the time of the bombing there was doubt that such a complex and synchronised operation could have been planned and executed by the motley band who comprised the suicide bombers.

Determined Attempt

The book by PHU leader Gammanpila is a determined attempt to make explicable the inexplicable by marshalling logic and evidence that this complex and synchronised operation was planned and executed by Zahran himself. This is a possible line of argumentation in a democratic society. Competing interpretations of public tragedies are part of political discourse. However, the timing of the intervention makes it politically more significant. The launch of the PHU leader’s book comes at a critical time when the protracted investigation into the Easter bombing appears to be moving forward under the present government.

The performance of the three previous governments at investigating the bombing was desultory at best. The Supreme Court held former President Maithripala Sirisena and several senior officials responsible for failing to act on prior intelligence and ordered compensation to victims. This judicial finding gave legal recognition to what victims had long maintained, that there was a grave dereliction of duty at the highest levels of the state. In recent weeks the investigation has taken a dramatic turn with the arrest and court production of former State Intelligence Service chief Suresh Sallay on allegations linked directly to the attacks. Whether these allegations are ultimately proven or disproven, they indicate that the present phase of the investigation is moving beyond negligence into possible complicity.

This is why the present moment requires political sobriety. There is a danger that the line of political division regarding the investigation into the Easter bombing can take on an ethnic complexion. The insistence that the suicide bombers alone were the planners and executors of the dastardly crime makes the focus invariably one of Muslim extremism, as the suicide bombers were all Muslims. This may unintentionally narrow public attention away from the unanswered questions regarding intelligence failures, possible political manipulation, and the allegations of a broader conspiracy that remain under active investigation. The minority political parties representing ethnic and religious minorities appear to have realised this danger. Their absence from the book launch was politically significant. It suggests an unwillingness to be drawn into a narrative that could once again stigmatise an entire community for the crimes of a handful of extremists and their possible handlers.

Another Tragedy

It would be another tragedy comparable in political consequence to the havoc wreaked by the Easter bombing if moderate mainstream political parties, such as the SJB to which the Leader of the Opposition belongs, were to subscribe to positions merely to score political points against the present government. They need to guard against the promotion of anti-minority sentiment and the fuelling of majority prejudice against ethnic and religious minorities. Indeed, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa in his Easter message said that justice for the victims of the 2019 Sri Lanka Easter Sunday attacks remains a fundamental responsibility of the state and noted that seven years on, both past and present governments have failed to deliver accountability. He added that building a society grounded in trust and peace, uniting all ethnicities, religions and communities, is vital to ensure such tragedies do not occur again.

Sri Lanka’s post war history offers too many examples of how unresolved security crises become vehicles for majoritarian mobilisation. The Easter tragedy itself was followed by waves of anti-Muslim suspicion and violence in some parts of the country. Responsible political leadership should seek to prevent any return to that atmosphere. There are many other legitimate issues on which the moderate and mainstream opposition parties can take the government to task. These include the lack of decisive action against government members accused of corruption, the passing of the entire burden of rising fuel prices on consumers instead of the government sharing the burden, and the failure to hold provincial council elections within the promised timeframe. These are issues that touch the daily lives of citizens and the health of democratic governance. They offer the opposition ample ground on which to build credibility as a government in waiting.

The search for truth and justice over the Easter bombing needs to continue until all those responsible are identified, whether they were direct perpetrators, negligent officials, or political actors who may have exploited the tragedy. This is what the victim families want and the country needs. But this search must not be turned into a partisan and religiously divisive matter such as by claiming that there are more potential suicide bombers lurking in the country who had been followers of Zaharan. If it is, Sri Lanka risks replacing one national tragedy with another. coming together to discredit the ongoing investigations into the Easter bombing of 2019 is an unacceptable use of ethno-religious nationalism to politically challenge the government. The opposition needs to find legitimate issues on which to challenge the government if they are to gain the respect and support of the general public and not their opprobrium.

by Jehan Perera

Features

China’s new duty-free regime for Africa: Implications for Global Trade and Sri Lanka

Published

12 hours ago

2026/04/7

Sahan Weerasooriya

Image courtesy The Global Times

* The new duty-free regime for Africa, announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in February, is the most generous unilateral nonreciprocal trade concession offered by any country to developing countries since the beginning of the modern rule based international trading system.

* Yet, it is a clear violation of the cornerstone of the multilateral trade law, the Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN) principle.

* Hence, its implications on developing countries, without duty-free access to China, will be extremely negative. Sri Lanka is one of the few developing countries without duty-free access to China.

On 14 February, 2026, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China will grant zero-tariff treatment to 53 African nations, effective 01 May, 2026. Under this new unilateral policy initiative, China would eliminate all import tariffs on all goods imported from all the countries in Africa, except Eswatini. China already enforces a zero-tariff policy for 33 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in Africa. Now this policy would be extended to non LDCs as well. This policy initiative clearly aims at reducing the continuously expanding trade deficit between China and Africa. In 2024, China’s trade surplus against Africa was recorded at US $ 61 billion.

This trade initiative, a precious gift amidst ongoing global trade tensions, is the most generous unilateral nonreciprocal trade concession given by any country to developing countries, since the beginning of the modern rule based international trading system.

Though this landmark announcement has far-reaching implications on global trade, as much as President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, it was almost overlooked by the global media.

Implications for Global Trade

This Chinese policy initiative, though very generous, is a clear violation of the Most-Favoured-Nation (MFN) principle and the “Enabling Clause” of the International Trade Law. The MFN principle is the cornerstone of the multilateral trading system under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and is enshrined in Article I of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). It mandates that any trade advantage, privilege, or immunity granted by a WTO member to any country must be extended immediately and unconditionally to all other WTO members. Though, the GATT “Enabling Clause” allows developed nations to offer non-reciprocal preferential treatment (lower tariffs) to developing countries without extending them to all WTO members, this has to be done in a non-discriminatory manner. By extending tariff concessions only to developing countries in Africa, China has also breached this requirement.

This deliberate violation of the MFN principle by China occurs less than 12 months after the announcement of “Liberation Day” tariffs by President Trump, which breached Article I (MFN) and Article II (bound rates) of the GATT. However, it is important to underline that the objectives of the actions by the two Presidents are poles apart; the US objective was to limit imports from all its trading partners, and China’s objective is to increase imports from African countries.

Though the importance of the MFN principle of the WTO law had eroded over the years due to the proliferation of preferential trade agreements and unilateral preferential arrangements, the WTO members almost always obtained WTO waivers, whenever they breached the MFN principle. Now the leaders of the main trading powers have decided to violate the core principles of the multilateral trading system so brazenly, the impact of their decisions on the international trading system will be irrevocable.

Implications for Sri Lanka

China’s unilateral decision to provide zero-tariff treatment to African countries will have a strong adverse impact on Sri Lanka. Currently, all Asian countries, other than India and Sri Lanka, have duty-free access, for most of their exports, into the Chinese market through bilateral or regional trade agreements, or the LDC preferences. Though Sri Lanka, India and China are members of the Asia Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA), preferential margins extended by China under APTA to India and Sri Lanka are limited.

The value of China’s imports from Sri Lanka had declined from US$ 650 million in 2021 to US$ 433 million by 2025. However, China’s exports to Sri Lanka increased significantly during the period, from US$ 5,252 million to US$ 5,753 by 2025. This has resulted in a trade deficit of US$ 5,320 million. Sri Lanka’s exports to China may decline further from next month when African nations with duty-free access start to expand their market share.

Let me illustrate the challenges Sri Lanka will face in the Chinese market with one example. Tea (HS0902) is Sri Lanka’s third largest export to China, after garments and gems. Sri Lanka is the largest exporter of tea to China, followed by India, Kenya and Viet Nam. During the last five years the value of China’s imports of tea from Sri Lanka had declined significantly, from US$76 million in 2021 to US$ 57 million by 2025. Meanwhile, imports from our main competitors had increased substantially. Most importantly, imports from Kenya increased from US$ 7.9 million in 2021 to US$ 15 million in 2025. For tea, the existing tariff in China for Sri Lanka is 7.5% and for Kenya is 15%. From next month the tariff for Kenya will be reduced to 0%. What will be its impact on Sri Lanka exports? That was perhaps explained by a former Ambassador to Africa, when he urged Sri Lankan exporters to “leverage duty free access from Kenya” to expand their exports to China!

(The writer is a retired public servant and a former Chairman of WTO Committee on Trade and Development. He can be reached at senadhiragomi@gmail.com)

by Gomi Senadhira

Features

Daughter in the spotlight …

Published

12 hours ago

2026/04/7

Sahan Weerasooriya

Jeevarani Kurukulasuriya was a famous actress and her name still rings a bell with many. And now in the spotlight is her daughter Senani Wijesena – not as an actress but as a singer – and she has been singing, since the age of five!

The plus factor is that Senani, now based in Australia, is also a songwriter, plays keyboards and piano, dancer, and has filmed and edited some of her own music videos.

Says Senani: “I write the lyrics, melody and music and work with professional musicians who do the needful on my creations.”

Her latest album, ‘Music of the Mirror’, is made up of 16 songs, and her first Sinhala song, called ‘Nidahase’, is scheduled for release this month (April) in Colombo, along with a music video.

‘Nidahase’,

says Senani, is a song about Freedom … of life, movement, love and spirit. Freedom to be your authentic self, express yourself freely and Freedom from any restrictions.

In fact, ‘Nidahase’ is the Sinhala translated version of her English song ‘Free’ which made Senani a celebrity as the song was nominated for a Hollywood Music in Media Award in the RnB /Soul category and reached the Top 20 on the UK Music weekly dance charts, as well as No. 1 on the Yes Home grown Top 15, on Yes FM, for six weeks straight.

Senani went on to say that ‘Nidahase’ has been remixed to include a Sri Lankan touch, using Kandyan drums and the Thammattama drum, with extra music production by local music producer Dilshan L. Silva, and Australia-based Emmy Award winning Producer and Engineer Sean Carey … with Senani also in the scene.

The song was written (lyrics and melody) and produced by Senani and it features Australian musicians, while the music video was produced by Sri Lanka’s Sandesh Bandara and filmed in Sri Lanka.

First Sinhala song scheduled for release this month … in Colombo

Senani’s music is mostly Soul, Funk and RNB – also Fusion, using ethnic sounds such as the tabla, sitar, and sarod – as well as Jazz influenced.

“I also have Alternative Music songs with a rock edge, such as ‘New Day’, and upcoming releases ‘Fly High’ and ‘Whisper’“, says Senani, adding that she has also recorded in other languages, such as Hindi and Spanish.

“As much of my fan base are Sri Lankans, who have asked me to release a song in the Sinhala language, I decided to create and release ‘Nidahase’ and I plan to release other original Sinhala songs in the future.

Senani has a band in Australia and has appeared at festivals in Australia, on radio and TV in Australia, and Sri Lanka.

She trained as a vocalist, through Sydney-based Singing Schools, as well as private tuition, and she has 5th Grade piano music qualifications.

And this makes interesting reading:

“I graduated from the University of Newcastle in Australia with a Bachelor of Medicine and I work part time as a doctor (GP) and an Integrative Medicine practitioner, with a focus on nutrition, and spend the rest of the time dedicated to my music career.”

Senani hails from an illustrious family. In addition to her mum, Jeevarani Kurukulasuriya, who made over 40 films, including starring in the first colour movie ‘Ranmuthu Duwa’, her dad is Dr Lanka Wijesena (retired GP) and she has two sisters – all musical; one is a doctor, while the other is a dietitian/ psychotherapist.