OPINION:
Gotabaya Rajapaksa is Sri Lanka’s new president. Shortly after Mr. Rajapaksa was elected, he appointed his brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, as prime minister.
During their previous decade in power, the Rajapaksas presided over a decade of increasingly authoritarian rule. Abductions were a major problem during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s presidency (2005-15), when Gotabaya served as secretary to the ministry of defense. Nepotism and corruption were big issues as well. Human rights abuses were widespread. Another Rajapaksa administration is expected to be, at least, equally ruthless.
The early days of a return to Rajapaksa rule certainly aren’t encouraging.
Last month, a member of the Swiss Embassy in Colombo was reportedly abducted and detained. There’s an allegation of sexual assault, too. It’s unclear who exactly is responsible. However, in an official statement, the embassy noted that “[t]he employee was detained against their will in the street, forced to get into a car, seriously threatened at length by unidentified men and forced in order to disclose embassy-related information.”
Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Colombo-based Centre for Policy Alternatives, notes that the “[a]bduction sends out message of a nasty descent into full fledged authoritarianism where tax cuts and other populist measures will play the role of a distraction from this clean up of any dissent or criticism in the build up to the general election.”
“This is in effect the clearing of the stables for stable, majoritarian authoritarianism,” Mr. Saravanamuttu says.
“The United States is gravely concerned by reports of the abduction and assault of a Sri Lankan employee of the Swiss Embassy in Colombo,” Nancy VanHorn, spokesperson at the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, told me late last month.
Aside from the obvious rights concerns, the abduction has turned into a significant diplomatic incident. To make matters worse, Sri Lankan police arrested the woman recently.
If people working for foreign embassies aren’t safe on the island, that probably makes ordinary people — who don’t have connections to influential foreign governments — feel that much more unsafe.
A piece in The New York Times documented concerns pertaining to a broader crackdown, “as officials and journalists who investigated the Rajapaksas for human rights abuses and corruption began trying to flee the country, officials said.”
Senior investigator Nishantha de Silva, who had been looking into Rajapaksa corruption, left the country for Geneva, Switzerland. Mr. Silva reportedly received death threats after Gotabaya Rajapaksa became president. AFP notes that Mr. Silva’s “investigations included high-profile killings and corruption involving administration members under former president Mahinda Rajapaksa.” Further examination of Rajapaksa corruption isn’t really going to be possible now that the family is back in power.
Additionally, a private news organization, News Hub, has recently been raided. News Hub has not hesitated to criticize the Rajapaksa family in the past. Media freedom deteriorated during the previous era of Rajapaksa rule. Journalists were even murdered and, as usual, impunity prevailed.
There’s been talk of self-censorship setting in as well. People have been closing Twitter accounts or making them private. Criticisms of the Rajapaksas are being toned down. Dissent is weakening and the harassment of journalists is growing.
Sri Lanka is already changing in scary ways and its early days. Put a different way, the island nation is going back to the future, Rajapaksa-style. An alleged abduction, media intimidation, self-censorship, a broader movement to stifle dissent and centralize power — these are all Rajapaksa hallmarks and the family is just getting started. The situation is bound to get worse.
• Taylor Dibbert is an adjunct fellow at Pacific Forum.
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