An expensive shindig which Sri Lankans feel mostly brought bad publicity
By The Economist
“HAS the circus left town? Can I please return to Colombo now?” asked a Twitter user, the morning after leaders of the Commonwealth ended their meeting in the Sri Lankan capital. The circus is gone. The police chief has given hundreds of policemen three days off to recuperate. Advertisements touting the summit as a “victory”—hosted in defiance of demands that the venue be changed because of the country’s dismal human-rights record—will soon be off air.
Sri Lankans are divided over what the expensive shindig has achieved. Most would agree, however, that bad publicity tops the list. International coverage focused heavily on disappearances of people during and after the civil war, media suppression and persistent allegations that war crimes were committed in 2009 as Tamil Tiger rebels were crushed.
The president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, had hoped these matters would stay hidden beneath new pavements specially laid in the capital for the summit, or that the hundreds of journalists who converged on Colombo would be distracted by landscaped parks, coloured fountains and a magnificent line-up of garbed elephants.
But at three press conferences he attended, he was questioned repeatedly about his failure to hold anyone accountable for the deaths of nearly 40,000 civilians at the war’s end. The Commonwealth Secretariat’s moderator asked, cringingly, whether anyone had any questions not about Sri Lanka and human rights. They did not.
More troubling, however, were some who did come. The British prime minister, David Cameron, used his visit to tell the government it must carry out a credible, transparent and independent investigation into alleged war crimes by March. If it fails, he warned, Britain would use its position in the UN Human Rights Council to press for an international inquiry.
The Sri Lankan government is bristling. Its supporters ask who Mr Cameron thinks he is to issue deadlines to a sovereign country. The local press accuses him of playing for the votes of Tamils in Britain. Sri Lankan ministers say foreigners have no right to meddle in their affairs. But aides whisper that, behind closed doors, the government knows foreign governments are no longer buying its excuses. Something more might have to be done, probably before the Human Rights Council convenes in March.
One option for Mr Rajapaksa is to turn to South Africa for guidance. Its president, Jacob Zuma, has shared with the government and the Tamil National Alliance, which runs Sri Lanka’s northern province after an election in September, a suggestion for a truth and reconciliation commission.
It is hard to believe that Mr Rajapaksa will actually follow through. Most of the proposals made by its own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (the word “truth” was avoided in the title) are yet to be implemented. It ordered the army to investigate a handful of war-crimes allegations mentioned in the commission’s report. The army exonerated itself.
Domestic pressure to do something more may be sustained. The Island newspaper, a nationalist one that backed the war against the Tigers, said in an editorial on November 18th that Mr Rajapaksa should not expect his problems on this issue to go away. Tamil and other politicians may also push harder.
The summit over, some activists fear a government crackdown as foreign attention moves on. People who met with Mr Cameron during a visit to the North, including relatives of the disappeared, may be at particular risk of harassment and intimidation.
Yet the president’s popularity among majority Sinhala Buddhists is likely to grow. Already, they see him as a victim of an international conspiracy to bring about regime change in favour of a more pliable government. With India and the West looking less friendly than ever, it might be particularly tempting for Mr Rajapaksa to lean closer to China in the coming months. However Mr Rajapaksa will remain as nominal head of the Commonwealth for the next two years, where debate about his country is also likely to flare. Having asked to be in the spotlight, the Sri Lankan president can hardly complain about the circus now.
