Country, interrupted

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lmost a year has passed since a massive public uprising ousted Sri Lanka`s strongman President Gotabaya Rajapaksa last July. But it is an uneasy calm that currently exists in this South Asian country of 22 million – and everyone knows it.

“Some people point to changes such as ending of former tortuous 13-hour power cuts and queues for gasoline, as signs that normalcy has been restored in the country,” says rights activist Mahim Mendis, who is also a social science professor at the Open University. “But the lack of protests today is because of state suppression. Battalions of police and military soldiers are deployed against demonstrators. Arrests are rampant.”

Mendis is a member of the opposition Samagi Jana Balavegaya Party. He was among the leaders of the landmark Aragalaya (civic movement) that for four months last year brought over a million ordinary people together to demand government accountability. Mendis says that state impunity continues to prevail in Sri Lanka, leaving public demands unaddressed and political wounds old and new alike to fester. The government of Ranil Wickremasinghe, who took over as President on 22 July last year, seems determined to quash all kinds of protests, and have gone after demonstrators in full force.

Just last 12 May, two prominent social-media activists were arrested. Less than a month later, on 7 June, authorities used tear gas and water cannons to break up a protest by hundreds of students in Colombo who were demanding the release of demonstrators arrested last year.  Last September the police dragged away 84 students from the Socialist Youth Union Against Suppression that had been commemorating the protest movement. Some of those students are still in police detention. 

The Aragalaya had been an accumulation of the people`s pent-up frustrations over the lack of accountability in government. It is now largely dispersed, no thanks to the strong-arm policies of Wickremasinghe. 

Soon after taking office last July, he had ordered police and the army to crush the protest movement, especially targeting university students and union activists who were the leaders. 

“We will not allow a minority of protesters to suppress the aspirations of the silent majority clamoring for a change in the political system,” Wickremasinghe was quoted as saying after his appointment, adding that his administration would deal with such protesters “firmly according to the law.”

By September 2022, Sri Lanka had been placed on a watchlist by the global civil-society alliance CIVICUS Monitor for the rapid decline in civic freedoms as seen with arbitrary arrests, attacks on journalists, and use of excessive force by the security forces on anti-government protests under a state of emergency enacted by Wickremasinghe. 

Last March, rights watchdog Amnesty International chose to launch its latest State of the World’s Human Rights report in Colombo to draw attention, the organization said, to “the deterioration of human rights conditions in Sri Lanka.” 

Amnesty International Senior Director Deprose Muchena, who visited Colombo for the launch, cited as an example the crackdown on protests under the Wickremasinghe government. He also told the Sri Lankan press that the international rights group will deploy more observers at future protests to monitor any use of violence against activists.

Back to square one

For sure, there is a lot for Sri Lankans to protest over. For one, the country is still reeling from a debilitating economic crisis brought about by the previous government and which had it defaulting last year on its US$ 51.1-billion foreign debt. 

For another, Wickremasinghe, citing lack of funds, refused to conduct local elections that had been slated for April this year. 

Many Sri Lankans rue the fact that they are still dealing with the political allies of the previous Rajapaksa regime, who are now supporting the current government. Rajapaksa’s party, the Sri Lanka People`s Alliance, holds the majority seats—146—in the 225-seat parliament. This means, many say, little change will happen when it comes to government policies and priorities. That, in turn, means that their lives are far from improving. 

For instance, Rajapaksa had increased support for the military under a policy of national security. In the 2022 budget, according to Human Rights Watch, the Defense Ministry received the highest allocation at LKR 374 billion (US$1.22 billion), or about 15 percent of total expenditure. The Health Ministry was allocated less than half of that.

Those who had been hoping that they would finally find answers about loved ones who went missing or were killed under previous regimes may also have to wait some more. Among them is Sandya Ekneligoda, whose husband Prageeth, a political cartoonist and journalist, is believed to have been forcibly disappeared in 2010, during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa, older brother of Gotabaya. 

Sri Lanka is known to be one of the countries with an extremely high number of cases of forced disappearances in the world. In 2017, its total of estimated forced disappearances was 100,000. Many of these and other state-instigated atrocities such as extrajudicial killings and deaths in custody can be traced not only to the country’s civil war that lasted three decades (1983 to 2009),  but also to the heavy-handed tactics of the country’s successive leaders to suppress dissent. 

Observers note that still on the books are amendments to the Constitution that were passed in 2020 and which have an impact on the independence of state institutions, including the judiciary and independent commissions. Among other things, they enhance the President’s powers while significantly lowering that of the Prime Minister and of the judiciary and other independent bodies.

Sri Lanka also withdrew in 2020 from the co-sponsorship of the U.N. Human Rights Council Resolution 30/1 of 2015.  Although this was seen primarily as part of the state’s efforts to delay collection and preservation of information and evidence of crimes related to the civil war, it may yet have implications on state actions outside of the war, which had pitted the majority Sinhala population with the minority Tamils, who were fighting in the north and east.

All quiet in the north and east?

In the former war-torn zones in the north and east, anti-government protests have been less conspicuous. But that may be because heavy control of civilian expression continues in these areas, where military bases have mushroomed. In the former rebel base town of Kilinochchi alone, 24 new bases have been set up. Reporters Without Borders has also recorded the arrests last September of two Tamil reporters who were active press-freedom defenders in Batticaloa, east Sri Lanka.

“Recent protests are more focused in the capital,” says Aurnathalan Armittan, a Tamil who was active in providing shelter to civilians fleeing government bombing in the city of Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka during the war. “In the north, decades of thuggery by the government have dimmed hopes for change.”

Still, many Sri Lankans are pressing on despite the government’s fierce pushbacks. Sandya Ekneligoda, for instance, is continuing her awareness-raising activities and her lawsuit demanding justice. “I will not be intimidated,” says the 45-year-old mother of two.  

In May university student leaders and activists, braving beatings from security forces and even attacks from Rajapaksa loyalists, conducted sporadic demonstrations across the country to mark the first anniversary of attacks on the Aragalaya. 

Bitter opposition by activists has already stalled Wickremasinghe’s proposed Anti-Terrorism Act that had been gazetted for discussion in parliament in March. A major concern is that the bill, which would replace the draconian Prevention Terrorism Act (PTA), will continue to permit the arrest and detention of civilians without charges. 

Critics have also pointed to the danger posed by clauses that empower the president to declare organizations as “proscribed organizations” which could curtail membership and activities, as well as declare places as “prohibited” to stop gatherings. 

Just this March, the U.N. Human Rights Committee recommended that Sri Lanka repeal the PTA, which in reality was an emergency law. According to the Committee, it “allows for extended pretrial detention for up to 12 months, contains a broad definition of terrorism, and is used to target minorities, particularly Muslims and Tamils, government critics, and LGBT people, and to extract confessions through torture.”

For activist Ruki Fernando, the protesters’ resilience is but evidence of the strong public will against repression. Currently, the 49-year-old Fernando travels across Sri Lanka holding grassroots discussions against arbitrary arrests and the merits of protecting freedom of expression. 

“I am constantly harassed by the authorities and taken in for questioning aimed at intimidation,” he says. “But I pursue with hope. My work has illustrated that the spirit of not being silenced is strong in the country. People are increasingly aware that economic development is not the only answer to their lives.” ◉