Little Big Island...!

-President Sirisenas Interview

with TIME Magazine, Latest Issue on 9th April
Sri Lankas new leader has a tough job: restore democracy and pacify the
major powers((

(Lanka-e-News- 16.April.2015, 11.55PM) When the

Sri Lankan Presidents motorcade encounters a red light now on the streets
of the capital, Colombo, it does something unthinkable just months agoit

stops and waits for a green signal. The convoy itself is much smaller than it
once was, down to three or four cars and two motorcycles from the as many
as 16 cars and numerous outriders that sped through this port city until the
man at the center of the processionthe then President Mahinda Rajapaksa
encountered an unexpected red light on Jan. 8.
That morning, election results showed a sudden reversal for Rajapaksa, 69,
who had ruled the island nation for nine years. In 2009 he crushed
separatists from Sri Lankas Tamil minority to end a nearly three-decade
civil war in a final push that the U.N. says may have claimed the lives of as
many as 40,000 Tamil civilians. A year later, backed by the countrys
Sinhala Buddhist majority, Rajapaksa overwhelmingly won a second term in
office. As he tightened his grip on power, blithely ignoring calls to
investigate allegations of human-rights abuses during the close of the war,
the extended Rajapaksa clan wrapped itself around government like out-ofcontrol wisteria. One of the Presidents brothers oversaw national defense,
another had charge of economic development. A third was Speaker of
Parliament. Dissidents, meanwhile, risked being squashed by an iron fist.
Critical journalists and activists were arbitrarily detained or harassed by
shadowy thugs who would haul them away in unmarked white vans. Some
did not return. (The Rajapaksa regime has denied any such involvement.)
Then, suddenly, it was over for the mustachioed strongman. Voters
jettisoned him in favor of a little-known former ally who promised to be the
anti-Rajapaksa. Maithripala Sirisena, 63, pledged to reverse Sri Lankas
slide toward autocracy and save it from becoming a one-family state. Even
Sirisena was surprised by the outcome. For a short period after being
elected, I was not really certain that I am the President, Sirisena tells Time,
breaking into a smile during an interview at his Colombo office, his first with
an English-language news organization since becoming Sri Lankas leader.
Similarly, the Rajapaksa family must be thinking, What happened
here?
More than Rajapaksas extensive motorcade and security detail are out. The
former presidential compoundexpanded by Rajapaksa to include a 5,000capacity banquet hall with shimmering chandeliers that change color at the
flick of a switchhas been passed to the new Prime Minister, Ranil
Wickremesinghe, who uses it as an office. Sirisena continues to live in the
Colombo home he occupied as Rajapaksas Health Minister.
Its not just optics, say Sirisenas aides. He is supporting constitutional
amendments to weaken presidential powers, reintroduce term limits
scrapped under Rajapaksa, and share authority with a stronger
parliamentary executive headed by the Prime Minister. Under the
Rajapaksas, Sirisena tells Time, Sri Lanka fell into the hands of one family:
With the amendments to the constitution, we will not leave room in the

future for any single family to control the country in this manner ever
again.
China Reaction
sri lanka is one of the developing worlds oldest democracies, with a
tradition of elections that predates full independence from the colonial
British in 1948. So a return to past freedoms and a lighter governing touch
are critical for the countrys future after years of strife. But the ripples of
Sirisenas unexpected ascent reach beyond Sri Lanka. Whether it wishes or
not, the island nation is a player in a geopolitical game among bigger
powers.
Sirisena works out of a large first-floor office in a grand colonial-era building
on the Colombo waterfront. Right opposite, extending out from shore, giant
red cranes loom over piles of rock and sandthe site for the Colombo portcity project, an ambitious $1.4 billion Rajapaksa-era venture to build
shopping malls, hotels and apartment complexes on reclaimed land that
has been suspended as the new government reviews the projects
approvals and permits. Backed by Beijing, which pumped billions of dollars
in loans to fund big-ticket infrastructure projects under Rajapaksa, the
project was inaugurated in September by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Xis visit underlined Sri Lankas growing strategic significance. Though
small, with a population of only around 20 million, Sri Lanka sits just off
Indias southern coast, making it a coveted bridgehead to the vast Indian
Oceanwhere India, China and the U.S. are vying for influence. Falling out
with the West over his alleged human-rights record, Rajapaksa steered Sri
Lanka toward Beijing, borrowing billions and then twice last year alarming
India by allowing a Chinese submarine to dock in Colombo. Rajapaksa had
been very much playing up his relationship with China, says Teresita
Schaffer, a former U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka and a senior fellow at the
Washington-based Brookings Institution, casting it as the diplomatic
equivalent of thumbing his nose at the West for its focus on allegations of
wartime abuses.
The election of Sirisena, whose campaign manifesto said Sri Lankas foreign
policy had fallen into disarray after the military victory of 2009, has
sparked speculation of a diplomatic realignment. I dont call it a tilt away
from China, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe tells Time. The fact is we
moved away from everyone else, leaving only China. We antagonized the
West, we antagonized India. You cant carry on like this. Sri Lanka needs the
West, it needs India, it needs China.
Indeed, since January, Sirisena has visited Indiahis first overseas trip after
taking officehosted its Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and traveled to
China, where he was accorded a grand welcome, complete with an honor

guard at Beijings Great Hall of the People. Still, the now suspended port
project has become something of a test case for relations between Colombo
and Beijing. Sirisena says his administration is reviewing both foreignfunded and domestic ventures as it investigates allegations of irregularities
and corruption under the previous regime. But, he tells Time, we do not
have any enmity toward anybody; we extend the hand of friendship to all
countries.
An Unlikely Leader
There is little in Sirisenas political rsum to herald a disrupter. Like
Rajapaksa, Sirisena is a member of the countrys Sinhala Buddhist majority
and a veteran of the establishment Sri Lanka Freedom Party, joining its
youth wing while still at school. In the early 1970s, Sirisena was jailed for 15
months for his alleged involvement in a left-wing antigovernment
insurrection. He was arrested again in the late 70s, shortly after quitting his
job as a local administrative official to become a full-time politician,
eventually entering Parliament in 1989. In the years that followed, Sirisena
held a series of key party posts and did a variety of ministerial jobs.
Throughout, he avoided scandal and cultivated an image as a clean-living
leader with his feet firmly rooted in the paddy fields of his native
Polonnaruwa districttraits that served him well when he defected from
Rajapaksas side in November. He made a contrast with the [Rajapaksa
familys] plans for dynastic rule, their love of luxury, the allegations of
large-scale corruption, says Alan Keenan, a senior analyst with the
International Crisis Group.
Sirisena has also won a global PR battle. Rajapaksa resisted international
pressure to allow a U.N. probe or to conduct an independent local inquiry
into the allegations of human-rights abuses by the military at the end of the
civil war against the separatist fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam. (The Tigers were themselves known for brutalitythey pioneered
the use of suicide bombers.) Sirisena campaigned with the promise of
setting up an independent domestic probe, the details of which, he tells
Time, will be announced by the end of June. Giving Sirisena time, the U.N.
has postponed the release of its own report to September. Colombo has
also appointed a new governor in the Tamil-dominated Northern Province,
replacing a retired soldier with a civilian, and has revived efforts to form a
South Africastyle truth and reconciliation commission.
But, first, Sirisenas political supporters must win re-election. The President
tells Time that he plans to dissolve Parliament in May, which means a
general election at the end of June or early July. The vote could bring
Rajapaksa back into the political picturean aide says he is likely to contest
a parliamentary seat. He is like a sword of Damocles over the new
government, says Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the

Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo-based think tank. In his villa in the
seaside town of Tangalle on the southern coast, Rajapaksa tells Time that
the new government should not write him off: Too much of confidence is
not so good. He also denies accusations of misrule, nepotism and
allegations that, before he left in January, he attempted to forcibly hold on
to power. Rajapaksa tells Time the new government wants to throw mud
at him.
For now, Sirisena is looking good. As he nears the completion of his first 100
days in office, activists and journalists in Colombo speak of a more tolerant
attitude toward critical voices. I feel less scared now, says Ruki Fernando,
a human-rights activist detained last year when investigating the arrest of a
Tamil campaigner against political disappearances. If you look at the state
media, people they called traitors before are now on TV talk shows.
Sirisena says he wants to reinforce the foundations of Sri Lankas
democracy. I came here not to strengthen power but to give over the
power that is in my hands, he says. Its a major problem for the country
that power has been centralized. Power must be distributed. In a nation
that only months ago seemed destined to become a full-fledged autocracy,
that messageand hoperings loudest of all.
By Nikhil Kumar / Colombo - with Amantha Perera
Photo - Ishara S. KodikaraAFP/Getty Images Sirisena, in white with hands
together, greets his supporters after praying at a Buddhist temple outside
Colombo.
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(2015-04-17 02:48:15)
Posted by Thavam