Denial of the right to bury the dead and remember the dead: a deceptive tactic to obscure Government’s ulterior agenda? - 21 February 2021

 

Denial of the right to bury the dead and remember the dead: a deceptive tactic to obscure Government’s ulterior agenda?

Few dictators have a clear strategy, but the ones who seize control of a country’s security forces or build ruling political parties tend to stay on top. [Paths to Power – Review essay by Anna Grzymala-Busse]

Two inhumane governmental actions in Sri Lanka have caused considerable hurt to the Muslim and Tamil communities in the country. For Muslims, the forced cremation of their deceased who succumb to COVID-19 is religiously unacceptable and culturally repugnant. For the Tamils, denying the right to publicly remember their dead during the civil war is cruel and callous. Both these government directed actions are discriminatory, offensive, unnecessary and, above all a sheer violation of fundamental human rights.

Governments that disregard the basic rights of the people often end up dictatorial and self-serving. In Sri Lanka there is abundant evidence that the country is drifting into one.  This worrying political tendency can only be curtailed if we the people take timely and unified democratic actions to avert it.

The playbook sadly is always depressingly the same. Authoritarian leaders be they in Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Brazil, or India claim that there is a need for order, stability, and direction, which democratic governance they fallaciously assert is unable to fulfil.  The end result is that once they have solidified power, they resort to violent force, military support and corruption for the wealth and welfare of themselves, their clan and cronies at the expense of the nation’s wellbeing. This political playbook has been repeatedly used in our post-independence history, resulting in disastrous outcomes for the health of the nation and its fragile democratic structures.

The playbook is unerringly the same: intimidate the press, hamper civil society, and use parliamentary majorities to push through new laws and constitutions. If one squints, things look normal: elections take place, people can travel in and out of the country, the cafés are full, and the secret police’s dungeons are (nearly) empty. But underneath the surface, checks and balances that had once prevented dictatorship are falling away. [How Dictatorships Work – Political scientists Barbara Geddes, Joseph Wright, and Erica Frantz]

Why does the Government of Sri Lanka persist that burials of COVID-19 victims are a health hazard despite no scientific evidence to prove its claim 11 months after the proclamation, and even so after the Chair of the Committee of Experts appointed by the government has advised that it is safer to bury the bodies with certain safety measures?

Why 11 years after the ‘victory’ over the LTTE the government thought it necessary to destroy a simple monument that conveyed the agony felt by the people in the North in the last phase of the civil war?

These actions are not only aggressive and intimidatory but also a carefully calculated attempt by the government to hamper civil society by stoking the fear and resentment of the Sinhala Buddhist majority. The ultimate aim, it would appear, is to exploit racial prejudice and chauvinism to secure absolute power for the long term. Whilst their corrupt, nefarious and authoritarian actions escape scrutiny under the political hullaballoo that is being engendered.

Thus preventing a proper and democratic discussion before the passing of the 20^th Amendment to the Constitution in October last year; the amendment has further eroded separation of powers, and checks and balances. The amendment gives the President sole and unfettered discretion to appoint all judges of the superior courts.

By setting up Presidential Task Forces and appointing retired military officers for key government positions with enough benefits to secure their loyalty, the exercise of power is happening in extra-legal domain. Law has receded, politics have taken over and institutions are being made dysfunctional.

The Courts are steadily becoming non-independent. Presidential pardons granted to notorious criminals who have been behind murders and grievous crimes, sentences are diluted, and security forces enjoy complete impunity.

Under the circumstances, it is not difficult to gauge that the transition to dictatorship is in the making with a clear strategy already in place.

It is in this worrying dictatorial political context we should view the unfair anti-democratic decisions made against the Muslim and Tamil community. It is in this light we should be agitating for their removal and demanding for a fuller and democratic discussion on the eroding of our democracy.

In conclusion, I can only reiterate that it is vital that all communities of Sri Lanka be cognizant of this evolving danger that could cause dire consequences to the island’s democracy, social fabric and peace. Ethnocracy reflecting the primacy and interests of the majority group will serve no good to the multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic and multi-religious democratic Sri Lanka.