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Playing cricket and double-standards

Zimbabwe cricket team has been banned from participation in international cricket, reflecting the opprobrium of the international community to the Zimbabwean regime.

Given the actions of the Sri Lankan Government - and not only in relation to the Tamil community - Sam Pari, in a piece "If Zimbabwe, why not Sri Lanka?" on the ABC's The Drum asks why Australia should be playing Sri Lanka's cricket team. Ought it also not be banned like Zimbabwe? Pari's piece highlights the extent of the abrogation of even basic democracy in Sri Lanka.

"The latest UNHCR report on Sri Lanka still claims that certain groups continue to be at grave risk including journalists, human rights activists and former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam combatants, with allegations continuing to surface of their abuse in detention. Freedom of speech is an anomaly with even western publications being silenced - The Economist was impounded only days after it published an op-ed piece critical of the Rajapakse government.

Similar to Mugabe, the Rajapakse regime too holds its grip on autocratic power. In September this year, the Sri Lankan government approved a change to the constitution which saw the scrapping of the two-term presidential limit and allowing of the president to appoint judges, police, election commissioners, and central bank officials. Known as the 18th Amendment, this dangerous change now strengthens President Rajapakse’s increasingly tight grip on power and further politicises the island’s police and the judiciary.

Already, three of the president’s brothers have been appointed by him into senior parliamentary and ministerial posts, including that of defence secretary. His son is part of the Parliament and other members of the extended family hold senior government positions, following elections that were wrought with corruption. The family also controls about 75 per cent of the country’s finances.

The Asian Human Rights Commission has described this latest constitutional amendment as a change from a “phantom democracy into a complete dictatorship”. Former senior official with the United Nations in Sri Lanka, Gordon Weiss has stated that democracy in Sri Lanka has been dying for some time. The United States has openly condemned the amendment voicing its concern “that this constitutional amendment weakens checks and balances and thus undermines the principles of constitutional democracy”."

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