The slogan “Go, Gota Go!” which the people of Sri Lanka, the vast majority of whom constitute the youth and the politically unattached, have rallied around means much more than asking President Gotabhaya Rajapakse to resign. The people are fed up with the Rajapakse family and do not want any Rajapakse to be in any position of power. The people also do not want an authoritarian rule, whether under a Rajapakse or any other. They also want to get back to their lives, which had been denied due to utter mismanagement by the Rajapakses. The people also want freedom, the freedom to air their views and criticize those in positions of power. The people of Sri Lanka have spoken loudly and clearly.

While reiterating our support for the just demands of our fellow Sri Lankans, we as organisations representing the Sri Lankans living abroad make the following concrete proposals:

1. It is imperative that the aspirations of the people who have come out onto the streets demanding change are met. A mechanism to ensure this through continuous dialogue must be established as a matter of urgency. The victory that is being achieved must not be allowed to be lost. We need to learn from the successes, failures, and disappointments of the various movements for democracy across the world.
2. The Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution shall be immediately abolished, and provisions of the Nineteenth Amendment brought back, putting rights its inherent contradictions. We propose that the Twenty-First Amendment Bill should provide for the restoration of the Nineteenth Amendment, and the abolition of the executive presidency resulting in the election of the President by Parliament, and the President acting on the advice of the Prime Minister. We are conscious of the need to avoid a costly referendum at this point. There are different views on whether a referendum is needed to require the President to act on the advice of the Prime Minister and for him/her to be elected by Parliament, all the same, there is a growing body of legal opinion that such changes do not require a referendum. It is best that the matter is determined by the Supreme Court. Any provisions that the Supreme Court determines as requiring a referendum could be suitably amended, and a referendum avoided at this point.
3. We propose that President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa should immediately declare in Parliament his willingness to resign from the position of President and tender his resignation upon the Twenty-first Amendment taking effect, while during the interim period act in consultation with leaders of political parties represented in Parliament.
4. Until the next Parliamentary General Election, the number of Ministers should not exceed twenty, and the total number of non-Cabinet Ministers and Deputy Ministers should not exceed twenty, irrespective of which party or parties constitute the Government.
5. The Twenty-first Amendment should provide for a Parliamentary General Election soon after it is enacted.
6. All Constitutional Commissions should stand dissolved with the enactment of the Twenty-First Amendment, and new appointments made through a newly established Constitutional Council.
7. The Government and the Opposition should endeavour to work together in consultation with the people, with a view to overcoming the present economic crisis until a Parliamentary General Election is held, and all political parties and citizens’ organizations should appeal to the international community to come to Sri Lanka’s aid at this critical juncture. The Government should keep Parliament and the general public regularly informed of steps taken to overcome the crisis in the spirit of a participatory democracy, and in a transparent and accountable manner.
8. For the long-term peace, prosperity and economic stability, Sri Lanka needs a new Constitution made with the direct participation of all its peoples. The new Constitution should also address the ethnic issue, the issues of inequality, and accountable governance and contain a fundamental rights chapter that accords with modern international human rights standards. We, therefore, propose that the Twenty-first Amendment should also provide for the adoption of a new Constitution through a directly elected Constitutional Convention. The ongoing constitutional reform process in Chile offers us a valuable example of how it could be done.

Signed:

Dr Lionel Bopage

On behalf of

Voice for Democracy in Sri Lanka International Collective (VDSL)

Voice for Justice in Sri Lanka Inc. (VJSL), Australia

Australian Advocacy for Good Governance in Sri Lanka Inc. (AAGGSL), Australia

Collective for Progressive Unity International Collective (CPU), and International Network for Sri Lanka’s Democracy e.V (INSD), Germany

Assistance Should Promote Strong Social Safety Net, Rule of Law

(Washington, DC, April 4, 2022) – Any future International Monetary Fund (IMF) program in Sri Lanka should protect the human rights of low-income people, and address corruption and entrenched obstacles to the rule of law, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the IMF. The economic crisis in the country has caused acute shortages of essential goods including medicines, a crippling lack of fuel and electricity, spiralling inflation, and desperate hardship for millions of people.

On March 31, 2022, the IMF confirmed it will soon begin talks with Sri Lanka about a potential loan program. Major economic problems in the country have led in recent weeks to growing protests in Colombo, the capital, and across the country, highlighting the critical need for IMF support. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declared a state of emergency on April 1, then imposed a 36-hour curfew and blocked social media in an attempt to curb protests, in which scores have been arrested. The government should respond to the protests in accordance with international human rights standards, which prohibit the use of unnecessary or excessive force.

“The protests roiling Sri Lanka are a clear message about many people’s economic situation,” said Sarah Saadoun, senior researcher focusing on poverty and inequality at Human Rights Watch. “The IMF and the Sri Lankan government should come to an agreement that supports people’s ability to afford life necessities and addresses the problems underlying the current crisis.”

In February, the IMF issued an Article IV report, which includes policy advice on how the Sri Lankan government should address the current crisis. The report laid out a plan for significant fiscal consolidation, achieved in part by increasing income and value-added tax rates, removing energy subsidies, and “rationalizing” the public wage bill. It recognized that these adjustments would have adverse impacts on low-income people and said that the government should mitigate the impact by strengthening social safety nets “by increasing spending [and] widening coverage.”

The IMF and the government should give priority to ensuring adequate investment in social protection programs before making any adjustments that would raise the cost of living, Human Rights Watch said. The World Bank estimates that 11.7 percent of people in Sri Lanka earn less than US$3.20 per day, the international poverty line for lower-middle income countries, up from 9.2 percent in 2019. The World Bank also assessed that “[l]ess than half of the poor were beneficiaries of Samurdhi,” Sri Lanka’s social safety net program, “and benefit amounts remain largely inadequate.”

While inflation reached over 18 percent in March, severely exacerbating economic hardship, the value of the Sri Lankan rupee has rapidly declined, making imported necessities, including medicines, sanitary products, food, and fuel, scarce or unaffordable for many people.

Recent government decisions raise concerns about whether adequate funds will be allocated for social investment. In the 2022 budget, the Defense Ministry received the highest allocation at 373.1 billion rupees (then US$1.86 billion), an increase from the previous year, amounting to 14.89 percent of total expenditure. The Health Ministry was allocated less than half that, 158 billion rupees (then US$790 million), a decrease from the previous year despite the Covid-19 pandemic. Some parts of the defense budget are excluded from civilian oversight, including intelligence services that have been implicated in serious abuses. These include surveillance and arbitrary arrests of families of rights victims and civil society activists.

In recent years, the IMF has given increasing importance to combatting corruption, recognizing that “[e]ntrenched corruption undermines sustainable and inclusive economic growth.” It is especially urgent for the IMF to include reforms to address corruption in Sri Lanka. The Rajapaksa administration, which took office in 2019, has repeatedly acted to block financial transparency and accountability by weakening independent institutions and by intervening to prevent investigations and prosecutions in high-profile cases.

The 20th amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, adopted in 2020, undermined the independence of the judiciary, as well as key institutions including the National Audit Office and the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption. Numerous prominent corruption cases have been withdrawn by the commission or the attorney general, or dismissed by the courts.

The Rajapaksa administration has aggressively sought to suppress civil society with intense surveillance of activists and nongovernmental organizations, reducing the public’s ability to hold the government to account.

Recommendations by Human Rights Watch to the IMF include:

• Assess the expected direct and indirect impacts of any adjustments on low-income people in Sri Lanka, in line with the social spending strategy adopted by the IMF in 2019, and ensure that these are adequately mitigated, such as by increased investment in well-designed social protection programs.
• Include a social spending floor as performance criteria and ensure that it adequately mitigates any impacts of adjustments before they are carried out, and that it enables investment in social protection to adequately protect people’s economic rights.
• Implement progressive tax measures that do not further burden people living in poverty.
• Urge the government to put in place policies to increase women’s access to employment by reducing barriers, including by providing state-funded maternity leave and access to affordable menstrual hygiene.
• Include reforms to restore the independence of institutions, including the judiciary, auditor general, attorney general, and the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, which are key for economic growth and fighting corruption.
• Require the Sri Lankan government to restore independent investigations into corruption allegations and prosecute those found responsible.

“Sri Lanka needs economic help, but to be effective the IMF program needs to be robustly negotiated and properly carried out,” Saadoun said. “Reforms should ease people’s economic hardship, not exacerbate it.”

Human Rights Watch

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has issued a gazette declaration revoking the proclamation of the State of Emergency imposed four days ago.

Accordingly, the State of Emergency imposed islandwide will be lifted effective from midnight today (05).

MIAP

People have gathered outside former Minister Wimal Weerawansa’s house and staged a demonstration, following days of anti-government protests throughout the country.

These demonstrators demand that all corrupt politicians be ousted and funds stolen from the public be returned.

However, upon query, Weerawansa commented that these people were organised by Jayantha Ketagoda at the request of Basil Rajapaksa.

MIAP

The Archbishop’s House has endorsed the anti-government protests by staging a peaceful demonstration with a march from the Archbishop’s House to the centre of Borella city today (05).

The event was participated by many Catholic fathers, led by the Archbishop of Colombo His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith.

As a government elected by the people, the voice of the people should be heard and the people have more power over politicians, Reverend Father Cyril Gamini told media.

MIAP

The ‘Jana Niyamu Kalakaruwo’ artists collective today (05) staged an anti-government protest near the Parliament roundabout.

The protest demanded that the President and the government should step down in obedience to the public’s demand.

Heavy security was deployed in the area where the protest was taking place.

MIAP

A special debate on the crisis befallen the country is due to be held in Parliament tomorrow and the day after.

The debate is scheduled based on the agreements made during the party leaders’ meeting held under the patronage of Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena upon the Parliament adjournment today (05).

Addressing Parliament, Leader of the National People’s Power (NPP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake proposed that that the Parliamentary sitting be adjourned immediately and a party leaders’ meeting be convened given that there was no point in talking about bills without ministers.

MIAP

All the blame for the crisis in these two countries cannot be put on the shoulders of Beijing as the majority of it rests on the myopic leadership of these nations.

Eighteen kilometres from Chinese owned Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka lies Mattala Rajapaksa International airport, which has unfortunately earned the sobriquet of being the least used airport in the world. Built during the presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa, both port and airport, built from high-interest loans from Chinese EXIM bank, are monuments to fiscal profligacy practised by rulers of the Island nation currently reeling under deep economic and political crisis.

Like Sri Lanka, Pakistan is also the biggest beneficiary of economic assistance from China and that too has descended into political and economic chaos. Instead of Chinese loans making the two economies more resilient, the client states of Beijing have literally folded up in wake of the global economic crisis brought on by a pandemic, which ironically has origins in Wuhan, China.

Sri Lanka is presently reeling under protests due to rampaging inflation; Pakistan is in a free drop with Imran Khan Niazi now a Prime Minister just in the name after having totally exposed the fragility of democracy in the Islamic Republic for his own survival.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) owned media dismisses predatory economic policies of Beijing as western propaganda and insists that loans given to countries like Pakistan and Sri Lanka are only a small portion of their overall debt portfolios. These Chinese claims are substantiated by the openly available information on government-to-government loans from China. But this is only half of the story as information on the actual liabilities or outflows of the borrowing countries on account of guaranteed returns on investments, commercial loans etc. is not readily available.

Like in the case of Pakistan, Beijing has maintained that its loans comprise 10 per cent of Sri Lanka’s overall external debt. This works out to be USD five billion out of total debt of nearly USD 51 billion. But this figure does not include currency swaps, foreign currency term facility agreements, and loans given by Chinese state-owned enterprises. Project wise loans given by the Chinese EXIM bank are estimated to be USD 4.8 billion, out of which only USD one billion carries a concessional interest rate of two per cent while the remainder carries a whopping rate of six per cent.

In Pakistan, the Chinese EXIM Bank has loaned USD 11 billion (concessional) at an interest rate of 1.6 per cent for infrastructure projects and another USD 15.5 billion (commercial) carrying an interest rate of 5-6 per cent for power projects under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, part of the BRI and designed to give Beijing access to the Arabian Sea and beyond. All debts are denominated in USD dollars, which hedges the Chinese exposure to exchange rate fluctuations but increases the cost of hard currency for the borrowers. In Pakistan, the debt burden has consistently increased due to the regular depreciation of the Pakistani Rupee at an average of six per cent per year. In Sri Lanka, the Lankan Rupee collapsed in a matter of days, increasing the cost of hard currency dramatically.

All the blame for the crisis in these two countries cannot be put on the shoulders of Beijing as the majority of it rests on the myopic leadership of these nations. Tempted by the easy availability of loans from China to finance ambitious infrastructure projects that give an impression of rapid economic development to the gullible public, these leaderships threw fiscal prudence and economic viability out of the window to retain political power. With Beijing neutral to whether the borrowing regime was corrupt or inefficient or both, these politically expedient loans have now come to haunt these two countries.

The Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka and Gwadar Port in restive Baluchistan in Pakistan are classical cases of white elephant projects. Both the ports are located strategically but are commercially unsustainable as there is simply not enough traffic. China has already acquired Hambantota and it is not a matter of wild imagination that it acquires Gwadar too in the coming months. Fact is that there is no real income from these ports and cargo traffic is being diverted from Colombo and Karachi ports to keep them operational. In the meantime, Matala airport is sometimes used for storing paddy.

The extent of profiteering by the Chinese companies that execute projects is also not often known. In Pakistan, it was accidentally illustrated by the leaked Power Producers Report in April 2020, which examined among others, two thermal power projects in Sahiwal and Port Qasim. Both were executed by Chinese companies. For these two projects worth USD 3.8 billion, the report found an overpayment of Pak ₹483.64 billion or approximately USD 3 billion.

With the Ukraine-Russia war not showing signs of any resolution and parts of China being hit by the coronavirus, global finance will continue to lag, putting countries like Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the high-risk category for investment as they are also facing serious political turmoil. Economic engagement of the dragon will prove very costly to both Islamabad and Colombo with the gullible masses taken for a royal ride.

Hindustani Times