The Economist - USA (2020-05-16)

32 Asia The EconomistMay 16th 2020

2 previous practice, they are seeking to reas-

sure people that they will publish minimal

information about their identity and

routes. But delays associated with worries

about privacy have probably already

pushed up the number of infections asso-

ciated with the incident.

The new outbreak has slowed the re-

sumption of normal life. Clubs have been

ordered to shut again until June 7th. The re-

opening of schools, originally planned for

this week, has been pushed back by a week.

Thousands of cram schools have also been

toldtocloseaftera teacherandseveralstu-

dents tested positive.

The outbreak has probably spread more

widely than it might have given the recent

uptick in domestic travel, with cases relat-

ed to the Itaewon clubs being discovered as

far afield as Busan and Jeju. The bounce-

back in domestic tourism has been swift,

as people have grown keener to get away

from it all but have little scope to travel

abroad. Flight capacity from Seoul to Jeju,

the world’s busiest air route, is back to 95%

of its usual average after dropping by half

in March, when social-distancing recom-

mendationswereat their most stringent.

During the May holiday weekend, Jeju

felt little changed from before the pandem-

ic, bar a dearth of Chinese tour groups.

Beaches, coffee shops and bike lanes were

packed with visitors, many of whom ap-

peared to have left their face masks at the

airport. A guesthouse-owner on the island,

who caters mainly to tourists in their 20s,

says that occupancy has reached around

80% of the typical level: “Everything is

starting to get back to normal.” Unfortu-

nately, periodic surges in infections and

consequent adjustments to the rules are

also likely to become normal. 7

Banyan Soldiers everywhere

B

eforethepresidential election he

won last November, Gotabaya Raja-

paksa laid out for Banyan his vision for

Sri Lanka. It was a sunlit upland of peace-

ful, inclusive “knowledge-based” devel-

opment. All the political bickering of

recent years, “Gota” promised, would be

swept aside by his programme of brisk,

technocratic proficiency. His years as an

army officer would ensure that.

A military timbre to the former lieu-

tenant-colonel’s rule was always on the

cards. Mr Rajapaksa’s campaign dwelt on

the need for a “disciplined society”.

Viyathmaga, a social movement with

political ambitions that backed him,

counted many former officers among its

leaders. The president’s personal net-

work is rooted not just in his family (his

elder brother, Mahinda, now prime

minister, was himself president from

2005 to 2015). Gota commands the loyalty

of past and present soldiers, a band of

brothers from his time fighting a horrif-

ic, long-running civil war against Tamil

insurgents, first as an officer and latterly

as the powerful secretary of defence

under Mahinda.

After the war, the army and intelli-

gence played a big role in public life and,

most Sri Lankans assumed, in the disap-

pearance of critics of the government,

until Mahinda was unexpectedly defeat-

ed in the presidential election of 2015. Yet

few predicted the extent to which under

Gota’s rule military types would move

into senior positions in government,

development and even health, fighting

the covid-19 epidemic.

In a tally by the International Truth

and Justice Project, a human-rights

group, current or former officers include

the president’s chief-of-staff and the

heads of national intelligence, prisons

and prisoner rehabilitation. Generals,

past or present, are in charge of customs,

the port authority, development, agricul-

ture and poverty eradication. The army

commander, General Shavendra Silva,

runs the coronavirus task-force. Top brass

are also expected to be named to plum

ambassadorships.

The president’s backers bridle at any

suggestion that this is an unhealthy trend.

They point out that the top customs job is

an irresistible temptation to civilian in-

cumbents. Yet they do not explain how it

would be any more resistible to military

men. As for handling the coronavirus,

given that the bureaucracy is hidebound

and civilian capacities are weak, deploying

the armed forces and their logistical abil-

ities makes sense—besides, the armed

forces are widely admired. Yet it is weird

for them to police a dubious liquor ban

imposed by the teetotal president. And

their enforcement of quarantine areas

with hazmat suits and assault rifles is

surely overkill. Moreover, the command-

ers’ claims of covid-competence have been

undermined by outbreaks on military

bases. Of 900-odd reported cases in Sri

Lanka, over 500 are members of the

armed forces or their close contacts.

Nor is there much reason to believe

that military men will do a better job of

running ports, reducing poverty or in-

creasing crop yields. For now, the main

question is accountability. The positions

filled by officers have little civilian over-

sight. It does not help that Mr Rajapaksa

has dissolved the old parliament, while

elections for a new one have been thwart-

ed by the epidemic. The president and

his aides govern by decree.

It reinforces what Kanishka Jayasu-

riya of Australia’s Murdoch University

calls the “normalisation” of military

influence in the civilian sphere, as infor-

mal networks become formal under Mr

Rajapaksa. The normalisation extends to

business, where—as has long been the

case in, for example, Myanmar—military

types prosper alongside a new, assertive

bourgeoisie grown rich on the back of

property and infrastructure deals, much

of it lubricated by Chinese loans. Former

officers advise on projects’ security,

while the army gets involved in slum

clearance to make way for development.

Academics and journalists say they are

afraid to investigate the business links.

Thus does Sri Lanka lurch further

from liberal democracy. Gota has in the

past railed at Banyan about the unfair-

ness of external critics. He has no time

for the un’s call for an investigation into

crimes that may have been committed in

the closing days of the civil war. He de-

fends General Silva, who was banned

from America earlier this year over sus-

pected involvement in extra-judicial

killings. As he and his band of brothers

have long seen it, having saved Sri Lanka

from fracturing, they are entitled to an

outsize role in its future. With military

efficiency, they are taking it.

Sri Lanka’s new president is putting men in uniform in charge of everything