By Anura Gunasekera

As this is written, hundreds of thousands of ordinary people, in defiance of a sudden curfew ordered by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, are roaming the streets of towns and villages across Sri Lanka, demanding the ousting of the man himself. They were supported, in a unique show of solidarity by the “Sri Lankan” diaspora, in cities in the US, UK, across Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The name Rajapaksa, once revered by the snhala-Buddhist majority, is now publicly reviled across continents. The Rajapaksa have successfully harnessed ethnic discord and ethno-nationalism to secure political power. But the brown”Kurakkan Satakaya“, this ostentatious mark of the Rajapaksa family, strangled the nation. In the two years since the new Rajapaksa dispensation, its appalling misrule has compelled a divided people to unite against a common enemy – the First Family. It seems incomprehensible that the family, devilishly adept at taking advantage of public sentiment, could have been so oblivious to the bubbling discontent within the same policy.

The “Terminator” has lost his invincibility, his ability to inspire terror, and finds himself pathetically exposed for the man he always was; an average soldier with a limited intellect, ignorant of modes of governance, macro-economics, internal and external political realities, completely disconnected from the pulse of a restless nation and the suffering of the people who elected him, and unable to solve problems that do not respond to paramilitary reprisals. Recall his recent response to farmers’ opposition to organic fertilizers, that he could, if he wished, use the army to force farmers to comply with his diktat!

He is the man that Dr. Dayan Jayatilleke, a scholarly political analyst and, during the Yahapalanaya regime, an ardent supporter of a Rajapaksa revival (remember his ecstatic “Nugegoda Rising” – Colombo Telegraph, 02/19/2015- and DJ himself reading the message of the absent Mahinda Rajapaksa) described, in a writing of around March 2017, “as a man who could lead the country towards a just and equitable society in which ethnic and religious factors can be transcended in a new fusion…a decorated warrior who knows how to defend his country at the risk of his life…a man with a vision and a capacity for modernization…..fighter and builder…..every country needs and should be proud to have”. He has been proven wrong on all counts, but while an intellectual like Dr. DJ may have been misled, the 6.9 million ordinary citizens should not be blamed for embracing the same misconceptions. .

Interestingly, Dr. DJ now writes (The Island-03/04/22- Round tables as agents of political change) “Always remember the goal; remove the incumbent autocrat and the regime, centered around the ruling clan; the target is not the rival party or its supporters. The objective is the democratic removal of the leader and his parasitic and paralyzing clan”; complete flip-flop, gradual and long in coming but refreshing.

He is also the man that leading members of the Sangha considered a “Hitler” who could transform the fortunes of the country while ushering in a new order. Not said but implied, it would also be an essentially Sinhalese-Buddhist hegemony, the Rajapaksa concept which also resonates with the majority of our politics.

The Sangha, educated in the Dhamma but perhaps ignorant of history, were perhaps unaware that the real Hitler had died by his own hand, even as his enemies drew closer to his last refuge. Historically, almost inevitably, autocratic and tyrannical rulers have come to brutal or ignominious ends. In addition to Hitler, let us remember Mussolini, Franco, the two Duvaliers, father and son, Pinochet, Reza Pahlavi, Marcos, Ceausescu, Idi Amin, Kadhafi and Sadam, to name but a few examples. The president urgently needs to engage in a capsule history lesson from the past seven decades. Maybe someone should educate him on Hosni Mubarak and the “Arab Spring”.

The protests were first launched by desperate farmers in response to the foolish presidential directive to convert to organic farming overnight. With the fuel crisis, blackouts, disruptions to public transport, dismantling of livelihoods, shortages of basic commodities and the unbearable rise in the cost of living, protests have spread across regions of the country, involving citizens of all social and economic levels. However, the unrest was able to continue.

The Mirihana case changed all that. The origins of the shift from an angry but non-violent protest to actual violence are unclear. However, while the damaged vehicles were still clearly smoldering before an investigation had even begun, the president’s media division announced that the blame lay with an organized ‘extremist group’, giving credence to the opinion now popular opinion that the violence had been orchestrated in order to justify the repressive measures that followed.

So as soon as the sovereign’s personal sacrosanct abode was besieged, the Public Safety Act was invoked, an emergency declared, a curfew imposed and social media shut down; a response typical of all autocrats, deeply sensitive to any attack on their personal authority and, in times of conflict, apprehensive of any sign of personal danger; hardly an answer worthy of a “decorated warrior” or a “fighter”.

“Gota Go Home” is a request resonating across Sri Lanka and other countries as well, articulated in Sinhalese, English and Tamil. However, the solution to the problems that man’s irrational decisions have exacerbated is not so simple. The country’s current economic difficulties are the cumulative result of irresponsible fiscal management across successive regimes. For decades, we have been living beyond our means. The former Rajapksa regime compounded the problem, embarking on massive infrastructure projects with minimal prospects of even long-term returns and nominal returns for ordinary people.

President GR, immediately after taking office, granted huge and unjustified tax breaks to a small segment, depriving the state of revenue. The Covid pandemic has further contributed to the drop in GDP; the decree on organic fertilizers brought agriculture to its knees; the nation’s finances were entrusted to Brother Basil, presented as a genius despite clear evidence of a lack of basic intellect. Nivard Cabraal assisted him, who said that excessive printing of money does not cause inflation! Its mismanagement of the rupee/dollar relationship has repeatedly been cruelly denounced by genuine economists, while its refusal to engage significantly with the IMF, when it was crucial, deprived the country of an eventual lifeline until it is too late; January’s controversial $500 million bond redemption, draining foreign exchange reserves, was the final nail in the coffin. The fallout from the Ukraine-Russia conflict did the rest; it is a fatal combination of ungovernable externalities and internal idiocy.

As well as an incompetent and obstinate president, the slavish cabinet and parliament are also to blame. The governing group, a collective buffer, having first empowered the President to safely pass the 20th Amendment, ignoring financial discipline and enactment of law, legitimized every whim and whim of the leader. In Parliament today, the same lackeys, now shams of repentance, morally called for reforms to solve the problems they themselves created.

The ‘Viyath Maga’ pundits and ‘Eliya’ luminaries, many of whom are leading entrepreneurs, professionals and so-called intellectuals, who enthusiastically endorsed the President’s delusional ‘Views of Prosperity’ must also accept their share of responsibility. Perhaps the president’s personal diviner, “Gnana Akka”, should also bear the blame, for negotiating divine approval for his irrational strategies!!

What is the solution to the crisis? The President’s invitation to the opposition, to

joining an interim administration and helping to rehabilitate the economy was rejected. Cabinet and Ministers have resigned (?) and the President has reappointed some of them, giving them different portfolios.

The same empty heads on different bodies still subservient to an all-powerful president will not usher in essential change, which must be implemented by an empowered Parliament, possible only if the 20th Amendment is repealed and the 19th Amendment strengthened; a complicated and time-consuming process, but one that will allow the independent commissions, oversight committees and councils, now inactive or incapable, to function effectively and restore accountability and public oversight of executive action. The President, despite the havoc he has contributed greatly to, still misses the point and must be compelled by some means to relinquish the unlimited power granted to him by the 20th Amendment.

Of course, the simplest thing would be for the president to hear the call of the nation and step down, as the Constitution provides, paving the way for a complete political restructuring.

A new Cabinet with the old faces with GR as President, exercising the same power, will be a complete farce and is likely to provoke renewed citizen unrest. It is clear that the Rajapaksa family and their henchmen are now anathema. The failure to devise realistic strategies for the immediate, medium and long-term solutions to the current problems, and to convey them effectively and convincingly to a frenzied public, could lead to the ongoing protests and catalyze total anarchy. .

In addition to financing internal fuel and medicine needs, importing basic foodstuffs, raw materials for industries, and repaying bilateral and multilateral loans, the country must repay in full an international sovereign bond of $1 billion. If we fail to meet these commitments or restructure debt repayment, the country will enter a state of “disorderly default”, a situation in which we will be rejected by all agencies aid agencies, donors and governments. Sri Lanka will become a pariah state. Keep in mind the once prosperous Lebanon, now the global archetype of total failure.

A few days ago, social media activist Anuruddha Bandara was reportedly abducted by a group claiming to be police and later found at Modera police station. His crime by posting a message on social networks, with the slogan, “Go Home, Gota”, the same cry echoing across the country and continents in recent days. Had the legal fraternity not come to his aid in an incredible show of force, Bandara might have disappeared, as so many dissidents have done in similar circumstances in the past. His quick recovery and subsequent application of due process is proof that the black ops crackdown on dissent, so brutally effective when the current president was secretary of defense, are no longer so effective. This in itself is an encouraging sign.