The Rajapakse Presidency (Part 01)

"The Muhamalai disaster demonstrates that the war is headed in the same disastrous direction. Muhamalai II was a serious defeat and an unavoidable defeat – a reality that cannot be changed by frenzied media manipulation. In the aftermath of Muhamalai I (which could have been prevented had the lessons of the ill fated Agni Keela of 2001 were learnt) the political and military leaders preferred to find solace in their own propaganda cover-ups. No attempt was made to understand what went wrong and why; consequently no effort was expended on avoiding similar disasters in the future. Muhamalai II was the result."
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by Tisaranee Gunasekara

"…going forward boldly into the future in search of an imaginary past"
Michael Burleigh (The Third Reich: A New History)

I - Introduction

(April 28, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Muhamalai is a metaphor for the Rajapakse presidency. It is the story of an avoidable error caused by an absence of intelligence and a failure of memory. The latest carnage at the Muhamalai FDL is the second under Rajapakse rule (the first, almost identical, defeat happened in October 2006), a bloody symbol of the regime’s fatal incapacity to face reality and learn from its mistake.From its very inception, the path of the Rajapakse regime was littered with avoidable errors and unutilised opportunities. The administration seems to think that reality can be changed by hyperbolic propaganda. Inconvenient or unpalatable facts are dismissed out of hand and the regime has covered itself with a cloak of politico-economic and moral infallibility. As the Rajapakse worldview and the really existing reality diverge with increasing sharpness, the administration’s words and deeds are beginning to seem distinctly schizophrenic.
The state of the economy is the best case in point. The current economic disaster was both predictable and preventable. It happened because the President and his coterie believed that the economy could be pushed and pulled in any direction they wanted, with complete disregard for objective realities. There was (and is) a belief that one can borrow at whatever rate indefinitely without having to pay a price, that money can be printed and power can be abused to make super profits for family, friends and supporters without incurring any cost, that people can be burdened ad infinitum without the danger of a backlash, so long as the fig leaf of patriotism is present. The end result is hyperinflation, a populace with eroding living conditions and an economy teetering on the verge of an unprecedented debt trap. As the costs of war mount and corruption and waste gallop abreast, the chances of stabilising the economy becomes slimmer, not least because the rulers do not realise the nature, the extent or even the existence of the crisis.
The Muhamalai disaster demonstrates that the war is headed in the same disastrous direction. Muhamalai II was a serious defeat and an unavoidable defeat – a reality that cannot be changed by frenzied media manipulation. In the aftermath of Muhamalai I (which could have been prevented had the lessons of the ill fated Agni Keela of 2001 were learnt) the political and military leaders preferred to find solace in their own propaganda cover-ups. No attempt was made to understand what went wrong and why; consequently no effort was expended on avoiding similar disasters in the future. Muhamalai II was the result. Since the North is not the East, this fatal tendency to wallow in one’s delusions will make the Northern war bloodier, costlier and longer than it needs be – and end not in victory but in a ruinous stalemate leading to another and worse appeasement process.

Mahinda Rajapakse could have taken a different path, one that is less damaging to the country he was elected to govern and ultimately to himself. He chose not to. And to that choice could be traced the current phase of the Lankan tragedy.

Rajapakse won an election he did not deserve to win because his main opponent was Ranil Wickremesinghe. The Wickremesinghe candidacy, rather than the strengths or the weaknesses of Rajapakse, was the determinant factor in the Presidential election. It made inevitable one of the basic building blocks of the Rajapakse victory – the alliance with the JVP. If the UNP had any other candidate, the JVP would have fielded its own contender, thereby forcing the polls to go into a second round. The Wickremesinghe candidacy also enabled the UPFA to polarise the South along pro-national vs. anti-national lines (a contest between ‘helaya’ and ‘paraya’, as a long time UNPer put it). This polarisation would have been impossible if a more organic leader had been the UNP’s candidate. And only Wickremesinghe would have based his entire electoral strategy on the goodwill of Vellupillai Pirapaharan, who is – or should be – infamous for his facility for lying and his panache for double-crossing.

Victorious Rajapakse had two choices open to him – either to be the President of all Sri Lankans or the President of Sinhalese in general and Sinhala Buddhists in particular. Being the President of all Sri Lankans entailed, first and foremost, understanding, accepting and respecting the pluralist nature of Sri Lanka. It also meant opposing the LTTE while working towards a political solution to the ethnic problem based on extensive devolution to the North and the East. In order to be the President of all Sri Lankans, Rajapakse had to make a conscious effort not to become a prisoner of the Sinhala supremacists with whom he made alliances during the Presidential election. He needed to eschew all extremisms, occupy the middle ground and work at creating an alliance of moderates to provide the political backing for his agenda.

The opposite happened. Almost from the inception of his presidency Rajapakse tried to appease both the Sinhala supremacists and the LTTE. But at no point of time was he interested in winning over the moderates by devolving power to the Tamils. He tried to recommence the peace process with the LTTE even as he repeatedly asserted his commitment to the unitary state, declared that there was no ethnic problem and backed the JVP-JHU campaign to win a judicial de-merger of the North-East. While refusing to take any steps to protect Tamil people (and especially Tamil children) from the depredations of the LTTE (and later the TMVP) he also adopted a permissive attitude towards human rights violations by the armed forces in the North-East (he even turned a blind eye to anti-Tamil riots in Trinco, until he received a call from the Indian Prime Minister). Right up to the Mavilaru operation the President tried to appease the Tigers and the Sinhala supremacists simultaneously, with scant regard for the rights of the people threatened by the Northern and Southern extremists.

Once the unofficial Fourth Eelam War commenced Rajapakse opted for a strategy, which is almost the mirror image of the total war strategy of Pirapaharan. He prioritized the war and the needs of the war above development and human needs mandating an unprecedentedly high defense budget. He also adopted a permissive attitude towards human rights violations by the Lankan side. Nor was there a genuine attempt to find a political solution; when the Experts Committee of the APRC came up with a devolution formula Rajapakse ditched it; he did the same to the APRC’s own efforts later. By failing to come up with a political package or to cause any improvement in the human rights situation, he antagonised the international community. He did all this expecting a short, sharp, victorious war.

That expectation no longer seems feasible, according to any objective analysis. Instead a politico-ideological-economic vicious cycle is in the making. The Muhamalai debacle shows the tenacity with which the LTTE will defend its Northern heartland. The economy is in doldrums, despite the happy predictions of the Central Bank (under its political-appointee Governor) while both absolute poverty and relative poverty are set to increase in the short to medium term. A costly war will become increasingly unsustainable in this context, unsustainable economically, politically and in terms of manpower (Muhamalai is bound to dampen recruitment).

Will the government realise the bind Sri Lanka is in, before it is too late to make a course correction? The likelihood of the Owl of Minerva flying before dusk is rather minimal since the Rajapakses inhabit a reality of their own making. Hannah Arendt reminded us that in certain settings, “Ideological thinking becomes emancipated from the reality that we perceive with our five senses, and insists on a ‘truer’ reality concealed behind all perceptible things” (The Origins of Totalitarianism). The ideological thinking underpinning the Rajapakse Presidency will continue to insist on a war that is on the verge of victory, an economy that is on the verge of take off and a populace replete with plenty and prosperity. When will the regime see reality as it exists and in what condition will the country be then?

To be continued.

- Sri Lanka Guardian