Freedom of information a must in a democratizing process

The Right to Information Act (RTI) was passed recently.  Late, but better late than never, as they say.  So kudos to the Government.  In June 2011 I wrote about the relevant issues in an article published in the Daily Mirror. Worth a re-visit, I believe.  

In May 2009 and for a few months thereafter Colombo appeared (as it has appeared for several years) like a besieged and threatened city. ‘High Security Alert’ seemed to be written all over the face of the capital.   There were those who took umbrage at what was seen to be infringement on freedoms and the deliberate gagging of democracy.  Fortunately such people don’t always end up having to defend a nation and the citizenry from ruthless terrorists or negotiate the terms of plunder and subjugation with big-name bullies in the international community. 

It is good, however, that they do what they do, because even while extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures, someone has to keep reminding people that there is a thing called ‘ordinary’ and as such ‘ordinary measures’ too; ‘extraordinary’ has a relatively short life expectancy and in the case of Sri Lanka, May 2009 was scripted to happen as far back as November 2005.  Sure, their objective was less about democracy than about giving the LTTE breathing space and yes, their shrill whines on these matters are still the product of regime-hate and determination to win for Eelam myth-mongers what Eelamist-militants could not achieve through 30 years of terrorism.  That’s beside the point. 

Since May 2009, it is clearly evident that the city landscape has undergone and continues to undergo a massive overhaul.  The barricades are all but gone. Checkpoints and checking have almost disappeared.  Surveillance seems to have gone underground.  ‘Extraordinary Measures’ on the other hand are quite visible on the streets. Both the attack on protesting garment industry workers in Katunayake as well as the attack on a TNA meeting by soldiers prove (if proof indeed were necessary) that the Government has not retired the coercive instruments available in the state apparatus. 

Now it is usual for regimes to switch to coercion when its ideological sway on a population starts slipping.  Jittery politicians however tend to trip the political clock.  They tend to lose faith in their constituency long before the constituency begins to lose faith in them.  This government is betraying exactly this.  The use of force is legitimate in a just war. Nothing else.  The use of force is contemplated when political control slips or is seen to be slipping. That’s the politician’s problem and not something that the citizenry needs to worry about. 

I have, from the time the CFA was signed, insisted that if the path of negotiation is to yield any lasting benefits, then demilitarization should be paralleled with moves towards democratization. I have also argued that the process of democratization should not be abandoned after the military threat is met and eliminated.  Things don’t happen overnight, I know.  On the other hand, we’ve had 769 nights since May 19, 2009.  In general I am in favour of incremental change, especially given the dynamics of Sri Lankan politics.  I am not in favour, however, of ‘dead-slow’! 

I know that Sri Lanka has a constitution that is made to make dictatorships and also designed to ensure a weak opposition.  The 1978 constitution was anti-democratic.  Subsequent amendments made it worse. The 17^th Amendment which sought to correct in favour of democracy and citizen was flawed. The 18^th Amendment threw baby with bathwater. We not only have a weak opposition but one which has shot itself in the foot over and over again by playing petty politics and pandering to the whims and fancies of forces that wanted the LTTE to prevail over the security forces; it was and is motivated by opposition for the sake of opposition and political chair-switch as opposed to championing the national interest.  KaruJayasuriya’s ‘Private Member’s Bill’ pertaining to Freedom of Information was a welcome move, in this context.

The Government using superior numbers in parliament defeated the Bill.  Perhaps the reason was a simple matter of being scared that the opposition, by getting a bill passed, would score points and claim that the Government’s popularity was on the decline.  That’s petty of course but then again politicians are anything if not petty.  The Government has stated that it will come up with its own Bill on the subject and the generous response would be ‘that’s something!’  Common sense says, ‘go tell that to the mountains!’ 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this Bill, but by rejecting it, the Government seems to be wary of the investigative potential in it.  It indicates that there’s something to hide and fear that the hidden will be unearthed.  It also could indicate a desire to keep the lid on certain activities that are planned. 

We are in post May 2009.  We are more than two years into post-Prabhakaran. We are not in post-Eelamism or post-LTTE.  There is still ‘threat’, that’s very clear.  We are however in a Sri Lanka that is not only about countering separatism but a Sri Lanka of having-to-live.  This Bill in no way compromises efforts to counter malicious moves here and abroad that are motivated by regime-hatred and/or desire to divide the country, directly or incrementally (by ‘fixing’ Eelam boundaries through devolution, for instance, as per the Chelvanayakam Option of ‘A little now, more later’).  It contains caveats related to national security. 

We have come far enough on the post-Prabhakaran road to warrant a removal of physical barriers.  The political barriers must now be lifted; incrementally, if necessary, sure, but they must go.  The Government needs to recognize that its sincerity regarding a ‘New’ Sri Lanka and one that deserves the ‘Miracle’ tag is under scrutiny, not by its enemies, but its friends and of course that the general public has the right to indulge in such scrutiny regardless of ‘constraints’ that politicians face.    

MahindaRajapaksa could be remembered as the man who united the country and brought about peace after thirty long years of misery.  He could also be remembered as the man who secured national boundaries and then buried democracy within those lines.  It’s about legacy, Mr. President.  That’s as far as you are concerned. As for us, how history remembers you is a matter for history; for us, it is how life unfolds and stops. Or is stopped.  Defeating the LTTE and giving us breathing space is appreciated and applauded. Rewarded too. That’s no license to gag the people.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer.  Email: malindasenevi@gmail.com. Twitter: malindasene

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Get cracking on the Right to Information Act

A version of this article was published as the Editorial, Sunday Island (February 28, 2016).  Yesterday (Tuesday, March 1, 2016), the Deputy Minister of Paliamentary Reforms and Mass Media, Karunarathna Paranawithana said that the draft Act will be placed before Parliament for the first reading next Monday (March 7, 2016).  

 When the campaign staff of Maithripala Sirisena started articulating the when-elected plans, neither he nor his spokespersons were taken seriously.  It’s not their fault.  Election-time, after all, is all about promises, never mind their doability.   How many times, for example, have we heard the slogan, ‘I will abolish the executive presidency if elected’? 

The fact that the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe dispensation got the 19^th Amendment passed, even with its flaws, was therefore a remarkable and happy departure from past practices pertaining to manifestos and their implementation.  No one can be faulted therefore for hoping that the rest of the promised reforms would get implemented, although about 300 days have passed since the end-date of the 100 Day Programme came and went. 

It wasn’t going to be easy of course.  First, there was the General Election.  That sent everything to the back burner.  Then there was the period of limbo when those in power couldn’t name a cabinet.  The daily grind of governing can also get in the way of making laws.  We had the case of a little girl being raped and murdered, we had the issue of the National Anthem being sung in Tamil, we had a debate about how ‘Danno Budunge’ should be sung and now we have ECTA. 

Some of the distractions are not of the government’s own making, but some certainly are.  It makes sense politically. Who, after all, talks of the famous ‘100 Days’ now? It is almost a year since Maithripala Sirisena and almost all the SLFP high rankers spoke at a rally pledging to put the entire elections system right, but is there any talk of the 20^th Amendment now?  Political expediency is not what the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe Government promised us, however. 

Today we are offered the media-bytes of impending arrests, arrests and promises of further action.   This might keep the vociferously anti-Rajapaksa supporters of the government happy and annoy those on the other side, but righting wrongs is not only about punishing wrongdoers.  It is about correcting the flaws of the system. 

We are still in the early days of the independent commissions.  There is a woeful absence of information about how these entities operate.  It will take time and we should be patient.  However, there’s nothing to stop the government from going ahead with complementing reforms, in particular getting busy with the Right to Information Act. 

The draft was ready more than 10 months ago.  The input of all relevant sections of society was obtained before it was put together.  And yet, apart from the odd ‘we will do it soon,’ there’s no sign of it getting done.

Since anti-corruption was picked as a veritable pay-off line by the Sirisena campaign and has been retained as a ‘must-say’ in the rhetoric of this government, one would have thought the Right to Information Act would have been treated as a matter of priority.  Given the fascination that the government and its defenders demonstrate about the need to be squeaky clean with money, why is this important weapon against financial wrongdoing being constantly footnoted? 

The Right to Information Act would, over time and with regular reference, create a more alert and pro-active citizenry.  It would put politicians tempted to bend rule or even brazenly rob on the back foot.  They'd be forced to think twice before doing ‘what was always done and what every did and worse, were expected to do’. 

And it’s not just the politicians and others in the public sphere that would have to be careful.  A comprehensive RTI Act would cover other organisations too.  Each and every entity obtaining money from the government, foreign governments or international organizations would be open to scrutiny.  This is the case in the RTI Acts of Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia and South Africa. 

[Read 'The Right to Info Act: Get it right the first time' -- Editorial, 'The Nation' about 10 months ago]

A few days ago the Minister of National Co-existence, Dialogue and Official Languages, Mano Ganesan revealed an interesting fact to Parliament.

"The government had not received financial statements from NGOs in respect of funds received from overseas donors since 2000, barring the period 2011-2013.”

Minister Ganesan revealed that “NGOs had received Rs. 13.9 bn (Rs 13,926,619,942) in 2011, Rs. 11. 4 bn (Rs.11,488,308,761) in 2012 and Rs. 10.8 bn (Rs.10,840,293,929) in 2013”.  

If these are typical figures for a year, we are talking about a figure in the region of staggering Rs 150 billion going unreported. 

Minister Ganesan would no doubt take steps to find out who received money, how much money was received and how the money was spent. 

President Sirisena and his supporters, including Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe pledged to put things in order.  We do understand the need to prosecute those who are found to have indulged in financial fraud, but what is more important in the long run is to put in place a system that makes fraud difficult or impossible.   In the case of the former ‘need’ the exercise cannot be selective.  Minister Ganesan will be naming names or should be.  In the case of the latter ‘need’ then the RTI has to be seen as one of the most important instruments of prevention, provided of course that the draft and the final document curtain relevance and limit it to state entities and individuals therein. 

In light of all this, perhaps it is high time that the President and Prime Minister move the forces they command to get the RTI Act back on track.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer.  He can be contacted at malindasenevi@gmail.com

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