South Asia Terrorism Portal

SRI LANKA

Strongman's Follies
Ajit Kumar Singh
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

The rising economic emergency in Sri Lanka has now spiralled into a political catastrophe. At the time of writing, the government has more or less collapsed in the country, with the whereabouts of the head of the state, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, unknown. On July 9, 2022, Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena confirmed in a video statement that President Rajapaksa had informed him that he would step down from his post on July 13, 2022:

Earlier on July 9, violent demonstrators demanding President Rajapaksa's resignation stormed his official residence in Colombo, as the Army and Police were unable to hold them back. However, Rajapaksa is believed to have left the residence a day earlier, as a safety precaution, ahead of a planned weekend of demonstrations.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, has also offered to resign and Tweeted,

Later in the night of July 9, he added,

On July 9 itself, violent demonstrators demanding Wickremesinghe's resignation set fire to the Prime Minister's private home in Colombo. Wickremesinghe had earlier moved to a 'safer location.'

At least 102 people, including two police officers, were injured during the protests on July 9. However, a tense clam was restored.

Since the economic crisis engulfed the nation in March 2022, protests have become the norm. Sri Lanka has been forced to suspend repayment of about USD seven billion in foreign loans due in the current year, out of USD 25 billion to be repaid by 2026. The Sri Lanka Finance Ministry disclosed that Sri Lanka had only USD 25 million in usable foreign reserves. The country is thus left without the wherewithal to pay for the import of basic necessities, let alone repay billions in debt.

The situation started to deteriorate at the beginning of 2022, with several developments finally culminating in the July 9 disorders. Prominent among these were:

Meanwhile, in a letter to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Parliament Speaker Abeywardena appraised him about the decisions taken during a meeting of the leaders of Sri Lanka's political parties. The letter stated that it had been decided that both the President and the Prime Minister had to resign, subsequent to which Parliament will be called to session within seven days to select an acting President. The letter further read,

The solution though is not that simple. Bhavani Fonseka, a prominent human rights lawyer in Colombo, noted,

Indeed, calling the situation "dicey", political analyst Kusal Perera observed,

The present crisis is essentially a consequence of appalling mismanagement by the Rajapaksa family that controlled virtually all key portfolios in the Government. Sri Lanka is far from a poor country, with a GDP per capita in 2019 touching a high of over USD 4225.11 in 2019, though it has since been on a decline. This made Sri Lanka the richest country (in per capita terms) in the region, with the exception of the Maldives. By comparison, India's per capita GDP in 2019 was USD 2100.75; Bangladesh, USD 1855.69; and Pakistan, USD 1284.70. The Rajapaksa stranglehold on Government, rampant corruption and a range of irrational policy decisions contributed to a rapidly escalating economic meltdown, with a heavy-handed pattern of authoritarian rule stifling all criticism, both withing Government and from the Opposition.

Among the most disastrous moves in this context was the abrupt and arbitrary decision in May 2021 to declare Sri Lanka 'fully organic,' banning all use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Gotabaya Rajapaksa boasted to the world that Sri Lanka would be the model for other countries to emulate, but there was little planning or consultation with the scientific and agricultural establishment. The result was massive crop losses, with estimates of up to a 50 per cent decline in major crops. Including tea, which accounts for nearly 10 per cent of Sri Lanka's exports, as well as prized a range of spices for which the country is a preferred source. Former Central Bank Governor W.A. Vijaywardana described the 'fully organic' policy as a "dream with unimaginable social, political and economic costs," and warned that "Sri Lanka's food security has been compromised."

Worse, the COVID pandemic led to a collapse of the travel and tourism industry, another mainstay of the country’s economy and the third largest source of foreign exchange. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, this sector contributed 10.5 per cent to Sri Lanka's GDP in 2019. In 2020, as the pandemic swept across the world, the sector contributed a bare four per cent of GDP, and fell further to 3.1 per cent of a contracting GDP in 2021.

In the meanwhile, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa had embarked on a wasteful and ill-conceived project of infrastructure development, far out of proportion to the country's projected needs and capacities for utilization. The grandest - and most irrational - of these projects were under the aegis of China's 'Belt and Road Initiative' (BRI), and were executed under unequal and exorbitant terms that pushed Colombo into massive debt, prominently resulting in the in their surrender under long-term leases, to the Chinese, as was the case of the Hambantota Port, or massive complexes, such as the Rajapaksa Airport and a massive Conference Centre, that remain unused since their completion.

Worse, ahead of the 2019 presidential elections, Gotabaya Rajapaksa promised drastic tax cuts, which most experts dismissed as an election gimmick, warning that, if the proposals were, in fact, implemented, the country would go bankrupt. Unfortunately, the proposals were not election gimmicks, and Rajapaksas went ahead with the promised tax cuts, drastically curtailing state revenues. Much commentary also suggests the Rajapaksa family's rampaging corruption as a cause of further national indebtedness.

As the cumulative deficits mounted, a cycle of the falling international value of the SLR (currently listing at SLR 363.63 to the USD, down from roughly SLR 178 to a USD in 2019) and rising domestic inflation pushed the country into a full-blown crisis, which rapidly escalated after international petroleum and food prices spiked in the wake of the war in Ukraine.

It is useful to recall that over three decades of widespread terrorism, graduating to the scale of a civil war, failed to do the damage that the Rajapaksa family has done to the Sri Lankan economy over just the past roughly two-and-a-half years.

Indeed, the Rajapaksa's derived much of their political authority and popularity from the crushing defeat inflicted on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009, when Mahinda Rajapaksa was President, and Gotabaya Rajapaksa was Minister of Defence. Hubris, nepotism and an acute proclivity to authoritarianism, however, led them to a succession of policy debacles that have yielded the present and grave catastrophe. While the Rajapaksas' political futures appear to be virtually sealed, the people of Sri Lanka will continue to pay the price of this family's folly for years to come.

PAKISTAN

North Waziristan: Returning Scourge
Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

On July 6, 2022, an Army soldier, Sepoy Waheed Khan (23), a resident of Nowshera District, was killed during an exchange of fire with terrorists in the Mir Ali area of North Waziristan District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

On July 3, 2022, one terrorist was killed during an exchange of fire in North Waziristan District, when a group of terrorists from Afghanistan attempted to break the border fence near the Kanjeera and Wargar Sar military posts. One trooper, identified as Saqib, suffered injuries in the encounter.

On July 2, 2022, at least three terrorists were killed in an intelligence-based operation (IBO) in the general area of Ghulam Khan Kalay in North Waziristan District. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said, the “killed terrorists remained actively involved in terrorist activities against security forces". Arms and ammunition were seized from the slain terrorists.

On June 26, 2022, seven terrorists and two soldiers were killed during an exchange of fire in the Ghulam Khan Kalle area of North Waziristan District.

According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), North Waziristan has recorded a total of 102 fatalities (six civilians, 34 Security Force, SF personnel and 62 terrorists) in terrorism-related violence in 2022, thus far (data till July 10, 2022). During the corresponding period of 2021, there were 63 such fatalities, including nine civilians, 18 SF personnel and 36 terrorists. In the remaining period of 2021, another 43 fatalities, including three civilians, 22 SF personnel and 18 terrorists, were recorded in the district. Thus, a total of 106 fatalities, including 12 civilians, 40 SF personnel and 54 terrorists, were recorded through 2021. 

The 62 per cent surge in terrorism related violence in the first six months and eight days of 2022, in comparison to the corresponding period of the previous year is a matter of grave concern, particularly in view of the region’s violent past.

North Waziristan District falls under the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, once described as the “most dangerous place in the world.” North Waziristan was one among the seven Agencies of the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas [FATA]. On May 31, 2018, FATA was merged with the KP Province and its status was changed from Agency to District, as was the case with the other six erstwhile Agencies. North Waziristan shares borders with Bannu, Tank, Dera Ismail Khan and Kurram Districts of KP in the North and Northeast; Sherani and Musakhel Districts of Balochistan to the south; and Khost, Paktia, and Paktika Provinces of Afghanistan to the west and north-west. Its strategically central and vulnerable location gives it tremendous importance for the terrorists.

Since March 6, 2000, when SATP commenced compiling data on conflicts in Pakistan, and till May 30, 2018, when it was still an Agency in FATA, North Waziristan recorded a total of 7,128 fatalities [827 civilians, 686 SF personnel, 5,365 terrorists and 250 not-specified (NS)]. Since May 31, 2018, North Waziristan has recorded another 415 fatalities, including 38 civilians, 170 SF personnel, and 207 terrorists.

Terrorism in the region was at its peak between 2005 and early 2014. In this over-nine-year period, the region accounted for 800 civilian fatalities out of a total of 838 recorded since March 6, 2000. Further, out of a total of 942 SF fatalities recorded in the region between March 6, 2000, and July 10, 2022, 656, i.e., 70 per cent, were recorded between 2005 and early 2014 alone.

Things changed with the launch of operation Zarb-e-Azb (Sword of the Prophet), on June 15, 2014, in the aftermath of the attack on the Jinnah International Airport, Karachi, on June 8-9, 2014. At least 33 persons, including all 10 attackers, were killed in the Karachi Airport attack, with TTP claiming responsibility.

Zarb-e-Azb officially ended on April 18, 2016. On June 15, 2016, the then Director General (DG) of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Lieutenant-General Asim Saleem Bajwa, disclosed,

After, the end of Zarb-e-Azb, the Pakistan military lunched Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad (Elimination of Discord) on February 22, 2017, across the country. Since then, another 303 terrorists have been killed in North Waziristan (data till July 10, 2022). The operation is still continuing. 271 SF personnel have also been killed in this period in North Waziristan.

Due to continuous operations in North Waziristan, terrorists shifted across the border to Afghanistan. After the start of operation Zarb-e-Azb on June 15, 2014, a July 7, 2014, report claimed that up to 80 per cent of terrorists fled after rumours of an Army assault emerged in early May, most over the porous border into Afghanistan. Similarly, after the launch of Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad on February 22, 2017, a March 8, 2017, report also confirmed that many terrorists managed to escape, slipping across the border to eastern Afghanistan.

As the Taliban started making deep inroads in Afghanistan in 2020, the terrorists who had escaped to Afghanistan received increasing support, regrouped, and started returning to Pakistan. Journalist Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud, covering KP for The New York Times, observed, on August 3, 2020,

The security situation has worsened after the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, with a surge in attacks in North Waziristan. According to partial data compiled by SATP, 139 persons (nine civilians, 52 SF personnel and 78 terrorists) have been killed in 60 terrorism-related incidents in Pakistan in the 328 days between August 16, 2021, and July 10, 2022. In the preceding 326 days (between August 14, 2021, and September 20, 2020) there were 95 fatalities (18 civilians, 31 SF personnel and 46 terrorists) in 36 terrorism related incidents.  

On April 28, 2022, KP Inspector General of Police (IGP) Moazzam Jan Ansari observed that terrorists were infiltrating from Afghanistan into the tribal Districts, to carry out attacks. He said that such incidents had taken place in Bajaur, as well as the North and South Waziristan Districts. IGP Ansari added that, on the Pakistani side, kinetic action was being taken against terrorists; however, the issues emanating from across the border needed to be taken up with Afghan authorities as, “We are facing problems from other side of the border.”

Despite the ongoing peace-talks in Kabul, between the Pakistan Government and TTP, facilitated by the Afghan Taliban, the violence in North Waziristan continues. If the violence remains unchecked, this region may rapidly spiral into escalating violence reminiscent of the 2005-14 period.