Critics of President Rajapakse see his move as purely cosmetic. Some have gone to the extent of terming the end to emergency as a ‘calculated deception committed on the gullible people’ and as a ‘calibrated bid to deflect’ mounting international pressure over his government’s war crimes and abuses.  This criticism is not fully devoid of merit. It is because the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) remains in place. And the government has given more teeth to the law by vestingthe army and police with sweeping powers of detention without trial for up to 18 months.

The government’s logic is simple: We need these powers till the cases of LTTE suspects detained under emergency powers are over.  No time limit has been set for these cases though. There are reports that most of these suspects are held arbitrarily without charge or trial.   Attorney General Mohan Peiris told the Daily Mirror: “We need these new regulations to deal with LTTE surrendees and detainees. There will not be any respite in this case, though the emergency lapses. We will leave no room for de-proscription of the LTTE and the invalidation of the High Security Zones”.

Rajapakse government is also adopting an “Emergency Sequential Bill” to make unspecified emergency powers permanent.   The question that is yet to be answered officially is: Will these powers be invoked to ban strikes by government employees, factory workers and other members of the organized sector.  The question assumes importance because Colombo is witnessing industrial unrest as never before.

So much so, to what extent the lifting emergency will give HR respite to the beleaguered Lanka President is a moot point. In fact, he may find himself increasingly cornered in the days ahead. Firstly because the official ‘analysis’ of the Eelam War is seen as a job to white wash the war crimes. Secondly because the claim of not undermining the media freedom ‘then or now’ has no takers since it is widely known that the Rajapakse era has terrorized the media even without formal censorship. A number of prominent journalists and media workers were either killed or forced to flee the country by what are known as pro-government death squads which operated in tandem with the army.  There is no guarantee that these gangs will simply disappear now.   Rajapakse’s contention that he is being pressurized in order to check the growing Chinese influence on Sri Lanka will not cut any ice  for this very reason.

Anticipating ‘trouble’, Sri Lanka has once again turned to China.  ‘Rajapakse is awfully disturbed by the pressures he is getting from the Western hemisphere on the war crimes issue’, says Kusal Perera, a political analyst at The Centre for Social Democracy.

So, on Tuesday, Aug 9, the Lanka President  air dashed to Beijing  seeking an assurance that aid and loan flows will not be hit in the days of ‘insecurity’ that lay ahead.  China is Sri Lanka’s largest bilateral donor and in June committed $1.5 billion to Sri Lanka’s $6 billion post-war rebuilding plan, having already financed a power plant and new port in Rajapaksa’s southern home turf, Hambantota.

The Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission is due to give its report to the government on November 15. Washington would like Colombo to submit the report to the UN Human Rights Council.  If Rajapakse heeds the demand, it could give momentum to calls for an external probe to which Sri Lanka has refused to submit so far. Already, the US State Department has indicated that it will call for Sri Lankan human rights violations to be listed for discussion in UNHRC sessions to be held in March next year. That is when the support of China will become crucial. Also in the UNHRC session which is opening in Geneva on September 13.

But the Communist country is facing its own ethnic unrest with the Tibetans and Uighurs in a state of unrest resisting Beijing’s heavy handed measures.  It will also not like brazenly side with Colombo and thus annoy Delhi with which it is due to open crucial trade talks in September.

Ethnic unrest China is facing is akin, in a manner of speaking, to the ethnic strife Sri Lanka has embroiled itself over the past several decades. As the experience of the two countries shows, the problem is political in nature primarily; economic deprivation and discrimination are aggravating it.

President Rajapakse will do well to reach political reconciliation with the ethnic Tamil minority instead of focusing all his government’s energies to block the UNHRC debate by lining up support from friendly countries. Reports from Colombo show that Lanka President is working on the ‘numbers’.  The Sunday Times reported that the Sri Lankan ambassador to Geneva has been instructed to “get in touch with the Latin American group of countries.” And External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris has set out on a two-week tour to lobby leaders in Singapore, Jordan, South Korea and others in the Non-Aligned Movement.

Well, it is refusing to learn lessons, and such an approach  undermines the efforts of ‘Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission’.