By Ranga Jayasuriya/Daily Mirror
Colombo, August 27 – Intriguingly, however, the biggest victim of this sordid episode is not even Ranil Wickremesinghe, but what initially appeared to be an ambitious anti-corruption campaign. Its initial indictments hinted at a genuine desire to hold the crooks accountable. But now its integrity is in tatters.
Whoever masterminded the arrest of Ranil Wickremesinghe thinking it would amount to a publicity coup, has scored an own goal for the government. Probably, the government is too slow or has an overestimate of itself to realise the immense local and international fallout of the folly ( Mr Wickremesinghe was granted bail yesterday).
Yet, the arrest of Ranil Wickremesinghe over seemingly innocuous and contentious charges could mark a turning point in politics in this country. Much of that depends on this all-important life-and-death question of democracy in this country: Was the whole drama a misguided, high-handed action by investigating agencies, headed by NPP’s own political appointees, bending backward to pander to the government? Or worse still, is it a political witch hunt scripted by the Palawatte office, and by extension, part of a larger scheme of political monopolisation and suppression?
One could argue for either of these possibilities or for both, but surely the latter would have far more distressing consequences for the country.
First, the context and the nature of the arrest of Ranil Wickremesinghe raise serious concerns about the due process of law. The government insists no one, even an ex-executive president, should be above the law. We agree! Yet the conditions under which the arrest was made and the seemingly innocuous charges levelled against the ex-president smack of misuse of law to intimidate or score a political point. That, in other words, is the weaponisation of anti-corruption law against political opponents.
The ex-president was charged with the misuse of state funds amounting to Rs 16 million during a stopover in England en route to his official visit to Cuba and the USA.
Wickremesinhe attended the G77 and China Summit in Havana in September 2023 and subsequently travelled to New York to participate in the 78thGeneral Assembly of the United Nations. Both are clearly official visits. During his official visit, Wickremesinghe had a stopover in England, where he attended the convocation of the University of Wolverhampton, at which his wife Maithree Wickremesinghe was awarded an honorary professorship.
An estimated Rs 16,644,652.21 (approximately£ 40,000) was spent from state funds for Mr. Wickremasinghe’s stopover. That included Rs. 13,370,350.82 from the Secretariat and Rs. 3,274,301.39 from the allocations to the Sri Lanka Police and Sri Lanka Navy.
The CID has argued that the stopover in England was ‘‘a private visit’, referring to a trail of letters between Wickremesinghe’s office and the foreign ministry and the absence of any official minutes at the Sri Lankan High Commission in London. The initial communication by Wickremesinghe’s private secretary, Sandra Perera, mentioned the visit as a ‘private visit’; later, in subsequent communications, it was amended to ‘visit’.
However, in an unholy hurry to indict Mr. Wickremesinghe, the CID has failed to authenticate a letter of invitation to Mr. Wickremesinghe by the University of Wolverhampton. Although an invitation from a private institute would have little effect in establishing the visit as an official one.
An aging ex-president was on a stopover in England during an official visit to Cuba and the USA. Does the stopover itself constitute a private visit, or does it become private at the point when the president attended his wife’s convocation ceremony? This leaves room for hairsplitting arguments over the demarcation of the private and public life of the president, as well as expenses associated with it.
The contentious nature of defining the visit itself would have recommended a commonsense approach by the relevant authorities. In any other civilised country, the Presidential secretariat could have raised concerns with the office of the former president and demanded a refund of the allegedly misused funds. Probably Ranil Wickremesinghe, in his pompous arrogance, could have argued otherwise and refused to pay up, ending up in the same predicament.
However, at least the government and its supposedly independent investigative agencies could have established their good intentions and followed due process. That could have absolved them of the now credible allegations of a witch-hunt.
Instead, the CID charged the Ex-President under Sections 386 and 388 of the Penal Code and Section 5(1) of the Public Property Act. It produced him before the Court at 3 pm Friday, leaving little time for legal deliberations, and the Magistrate placed him in remand custody at 10 pm, after a power cut suspended sittings for 4 ½ hours.
At the end, the whole episode appeared to be a vindictive political theater. CID Director SSP Shani Abeysekera and a team of officials were seen in the court until the court proceedings concluded. A vested interest in securing an indictment against Mr. Wickremesinghe was ample and clear. So is the sycophantic yearning to pander to the JVP-led government. That a JVP-affiliated YouTuber predicted the arrest of Wickremasinghealso raises serious concerns about the integrity of the process.
There is another reason why this is a charade. Wickremesinghe could be accused of many things, including a culture of cronyism that he himself patronised or in other cases, looked the other way as party financiers and friends milked money through unscrupulous means — or the Batalanda torture chambers accusations — he claims he was exonerated by the subsequent presidential commission of inquiry — or the Bond scam. However, corruption for personal gain is not a vice that Wickremesinghe, who had not drawn the benefits of his office and bequeathed his ancestral house to his alma mater, is known for.
This makes the trumped-up charges against Wickremesinghe look like another historical witch-hunt undertaken by his uncle J.R. Jayewardene against the late Prime Minister Sirimao Bandaranaike. Like Wickremesinghe, Mrs. Banadaranaike could be accused of many things, including bringing the economy to its knees through her destructive socialist economic policies. But, the lady who hailed from a large land-holding family and gave much of it away under the Land Reform Act of her government was not a crook.
However, some of the JVP cadre base, who hold an intense hatred for anyone who is not theirs, want to prove otherwise. The ill-advised persecution of Wickremesinghe may be designed to appease this group.
Second, the far more worrying concern is whether this is the beginning of a witch-hunt, scripted by the JVP hierarchy as the first salvo of a grander scheme of political monopolisation. The political parties of the JVP’s kind, with their origins in revolutionary violence, tend to degenerate into their past habits whenever they are in power. The Latin American left in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua, which have effectively turned their countries into one-party states, is a case in point. Tilvyn Silva was recently heard of fetishising the merit of the one-party state after a visit to China.
However, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake or the Party heavyweights are conspicuously silent over the arrest of Wickremsinghe, though the usual guard dogs would bark, cerebrating a political charade.That might prompt one to ponder the true extent of the government’s complicity. However, it should be clear to the government that the through the arrest of Wickremesinghe it has incriminated itself, much less Wickremesinghe.
The government has also united a feuding opposition. The petty score settling between the UNP and SJB had been a boon for the JVP, guaranteeing the victory of Anura Kumara Dissanayake.However, a united front of the old guard, many of whom face prima facie corruption allegations, may not necessarily contribute to the long-term well-being of the Sri Lankan political culture.
The government may have an overestimate of itself. But this is a dangerous gamble. It lacks a well of public support in a traditional sense, or well-established international contacts to face the unexpected fallout.
Intriguingly, however, the biggest victim of this sordid episode is not even Ranil Wickremesinghe, but what initially appeared to be an ambitious anti-corruption campaign. Its initial indictments hinted at a genuine desire to hold the crooks accountable. But now its integrity is in tatters.
END
