Rewarding Illegality; Enthroning Injustice
By Tisaranee Gunasekara
President Rajapaksa, Bharatha Lakshman and Duminda Silva
The prince who neglects or violates his trust is more a brigand than the robber-chief”
Byron (The Two Foscari)
The long-awaited LLRC report is, finally, ready. But can it promote accountability or assure justice in a country where contempt for law is a hallmark of governance?
Until last month, those who felt unprotected by the Lankan legal-system and, consequently, appealed for international intercession, were either Tamils or Rajapaksa-opponents. Last month, a brother of Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra sought the help of the Commonwealth to ensure justice for his murdered-sibling. This is a pivotal development. If the regime blatantly shields the man who reportedly ordered the public-slaughter of a senior SLFP leader, can Tamil war-victims expect any justice under Rajapaksa-Rule? Given the Rajapaksa-readiness to protect loyal-criminals, can the LLRC Report amount to anything beyond a declaration of pious intents and false assurances?
Last week, Duminda Silva departed in style, to seek treatment in a foreign hospital. In a lawful state he would have been placed under arrest (while in hospital). But Sri Lanka is not a lawful land; here primacy is accorded not to law or justice but to the needs, whims and fancies of the rulers. The grand-manner of Silva’s departure (he was accorded the sort of protection a senior minister would envy – doubtless by the Defence Ministry of which he is a monitoring-MP) foretells that he will not be held legally-accountable for the Kolonnawa-quadruple murders.
The Ruling-Siblings help their loyalists to evade the law with the same pugnacious-assiduity with which they use the law to punish their opponents. So Gen. Sarath Fonseka, the Tiger-slayer, is in jail, convicted of a financial misdemeanour. President Rajapaksa, who refused to show him any clemency, speedily pardoned the former Mayor of Kandy convicted by a court of law of misappropriating public funds. Murderers or thieves, child-rapists or abductors – the long arm of the law is not long enough to catch them (or strong enough to hold them), if they have the right-connections.
Impunity is thus an emblematic feature of the Rajapaksa regime. There is one law for the Rajapaksas and their current favourites and another law for the rest of us. They play; we pay.
The Niemöller-Law is not limited to political repression. Injustice and illegality too are cancers which infect even those who are convinced of their imperviousness. For instance, the proposed Expropriation Bill shares a motive force with the planed mass-eviction of Colombo’s poor. The Rajapaksas have expensive tastes and extravagant needs; selling/leasing land is an excellent way of making a quick-buck, if there is enough land to vend. This, plus the need to de-empower and punish anti-government communities and individuals, is the primary-motive behind most Rajapaksa attempts at land-grabbing and asset-expropriation.
In a delicious irony, the regime’s planned expropriation of ‘non-performing, under-performing and under-utilised properties’ coincides with the latest COPE Report on 249 government ventures which grossed a collective loss of over Rs.19 billion during 2007-2009. So what does the government plan to do with such gargantuan (and unnecessary) white-elephants as Mihin Air and Lankaputhra Bank? Why does the regime not focus on improving the performance of its own ‘non-performing, under-performing and under-utilised properties’ instead of expropriating the properties of others, from Colombo’s poor and Kalpitiya fisherfolk to leading businessmen?
When will the upper and middle classes understand that they too will be subjected to the same injustices as Northern Tamils or Colombo’s poor, sooner or later?
In the North, impunity continues to reign. For instance, on September 20, seven policemen assaulted a suspect inside the premises of the Jaffna court: “Udaya Pushparaja Antony Nithyaraja… had voluntarily gone to the court and appeared before the Magistrate through his lawyer… The Magistrate after considering the police submissions and court documents, released him. However, seven police officers in civilian clothes arrested him and started beating Antony in the presence of the Magistrate, lawyers, court staff and a large number of people. He was dragged to the Jaffna Headquarters Police Station for detention” (Asian Human Rights Commission – 23.9.2011). The perpetrators of this particular crime were arrested thanks to the courageous stand taken by Jaffna lawyers. But in general, the permissiveness of the power-wielders and the powerlessness of the victims enable perpetrators of every sort of crime, from murder to rape, to escape justice in the North.
The Rajapaksa-practice of ignoring, subverting and twisting the law is undermining the justice-system and creating a societal-perception that a person with right-connections can get away with any crime. Increasingly the Southern public too is beginning to perceive the law as a highly partisan, discriminatory entity, which functions as the servant of the powerful and the scourge of the powerless. The resultant loss of faith in the legal system is compelling more and more people to gather together to seek their own brand of ‘justice’. For instance, enraged villagers attacked the properties of the two main suspects (one an army captain) in the killing of a popular doctor in Karandeniya. Clearly the Southern-public is becoming aware that the army and the police are beginning to act with impunity even in the Sinhala-heartlands.
One month ago, Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra would not have thought that a fate akin to that of innumerable civilian Tamils will befall him. That the unthinkable did happen is a warning that the Rajapaksas, like Cronus, will devour their own Sinhala and SLFP children.
Child Rape and the Brutalisation of Society 10 percent to 14 percent of underage girls are sexually abused in Sri Lanka annually and around 7 percent get pregnant at a very young age, according to the Family Health Bureau (Sri Lanka Mirror – 29.10.2011).
Logically, rationally this situation should concern not just the government or the opposition, but every Lankan. Unfortunately, these devastating statistics hardly caused a stir. That indifference is indicative of a deadly-malaise in our society, a habit of almost ruthless indifference, a dangerous lack of compassion, which is becoming ingrained.
This societal indifference to child abuse is mirrored in the abominable tendency on the part of the judiciary to treat this most heinous crime with unpardonable leniency. “A study carried out by Lawyers for Human Rights and Development (LHRD), has found that since 2008 there had been a trend in imposing suspended sentences in cases of rape and child molestation… the study had revealed that even convicts of gang rape of underage females including school children had been given suspended sentences by courts” (Daily Mirror – 24.6.2011).
Wars brutalise societies and make them pitiless. Thus physical and psychological demilitarisation is necessary for societies to revert to peaceful-modes of thinking and doing. Lankan peace, on the contrary, is characterised by increased militarisation, including of hitherto non-militarised spaces. The regime promotes the notion of the military as the embodiment of all that is good and virtuous. This veneration of power and force is impeding the advent of a kinder, gentler societal-ethos. When force and power are regarded as the most desirable qualities, powerlessness becomes an embarrassing weakness. Such a society, instead of protecting its most powerless members (children, minorities, dissidents) will be indifferent to their plight. That indifference will embolden official and unofficial criminals, spurring them to reach wider and higher for victims.
Indifference to child-abuse heralds the jungle for everyone.
When even countries like Cambodia, with such a bloody history, attracts over 2 million tourists a year, we, SL, with all our natural beauty, are struggling to bring in 800,000. Reading your article, it is evident that the world knows about us – who would want to come here?
THESE PEOPLE ARE ELECTED BY A NATION OF IGNORANT UNEDUCATED IDIOTS.THATS REALLY SAD.
Dear Daya, Please do not judge Sri Lankan people by your own standards ,and you have no right to generalise and call Sri Lankan people ignorant and ubeducated.
I am not saying we have the cream of the country involves in serving the nation.
people like you……
Albert Einstein said: “The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who do nothing about them”. An apt saying in the context of the current state of affairs of the country where majority of the people do absolutely nothing about the misdeeds of the corrupt Rajapakse regime – either through ignorance or in the belief that nothing will happen to them as they are perceived to be “Raja Paksa loyalists” i.e. the King’s loyalist followers and patriots. It is mainly because of this sort of ignorant people that a country can fall into a big precipice from which there will be no escape with everyone going down into an abyss. Alas, the Debacle of Asia.
Artical explain the situation but short of an answer to the situation.Sri lankans along cannot find an answer. I think a constructive dialog should initiate within the country to edeucate the genaral public.
President and the cabinet is blind and overjoied with war victory and winning the elections.
My personal opinion is that all news papers should provide a spece for the genaral public to propose the soultions.Taking problems to the people I don’t think will solve any problem because everyindividual know the problem.What we should discuss is the solutions keeping these bunch of rougs in power.
Gaddaffi spread fear into the minds and hearts of his citizens and one day woke the lights of good that destroys the EVIL. Evil is a temporary element and it destroys itself through errors committed by itself. Today a good man in spending time in Jail for something fickle, and so is the government, fickleminded.
The Dushtaya is an ardent fan of Batagoya. Kudu salli would have been spent lavishly on election campaigns. So this is the way of showing gratitude. Sush! Sri Lankans God’s hand is slow but sure. This wrong doer too will face a gruesome and untimely end like his predecessors, who were packed off to search for Satan. Someone should put a Taipan under this goon’s pillow to keep him company. Such shaming cowards should be among kangaroos. Sri Lanka would be better off without them.
This country has gone to dogs under the Rajapaksa junta government and this
Duminda Silva is a drug business man and there is no law for him and he does
what he likes, damn shame, he should be punished soon.
LLRC is international gimmick , just to fool the UN n western countries.
n MR bros did it successfully.
there is no law for armed forces,MPs n their wife n children. these people r above the law. if u have problem with it, u have to deal with it.
“..Wars brutalize societies and make them pitiless. Thus physical and psychological de-militarization is necessary for societies to revert to peaceful-modes of thinking and doing…”" Even the communal troubles (war) since 1956 were allowed to continue
periodically,with the full ‘blessing’ of the successive Governments.UNP & SLFP.
The continued barbarism was always sponsored by both parties, since it was only against Tamils. The lawlessness is not a new phenomenon only in UPFA Govt., but
has ingrained in the society for a long time & nurtured by all political masters for their
perverted ,racial “divide & rule at any cost “policy. Racial thuggery stopped only when LTTE began attacking the attackers & the state terrorists. The culture of
terror by state or inflicting pain on anyone with opposite views,impunity,crime etc.,
continued to flourish with full support of the ruling regimes. Now it’s at a dangerous level affecting even the “so far safer” majority communities too.Now they are starting to feel some of the pain, suffered & still continuing to be suffered by the
hapless ,brutalized,war ravaged Tamils.Senanyakes,Bandaranayakes,Jayawardenas,PremadasasRajapaksas are all biased politicians without any great vision for the country or the people. All of them dirty politics and some are playing it too violently. It’s hard now to change the course or stop it, until it crashes by itself, while the abettors India & the 30+ nations
watch the ‘fun’ , drooling with glee & continue to help financially & militarily for a dictatorial, anti human,lawless regime, knowing fully well how the nation is being ‘ruled’.Who really cares ?…!
Someone much wiser than I said “…people get the government they deserve.”
The polity of this nation has voted this government in and unfortunately the minority that voted against it too have to suffer. The population in general seems to think that thuggery is the way to go.
The need of the day is to educate people on basic decency an fair play, and all right thinking people have the responsibility of doing this one on one, one person at a time.
What gets in at the roots will effect the taste of the fruit in the branches.
Well said……..Bravo! People who vote for a Govt or an MP reap what they sow…..good or bad.
Bruz, You are correct.
“Racial thuggery stopped only when LTTE began attacking the attackers & the state terrorists”
Now that the LTTE is dead & buried, racial thuggery has re-commenced in the cloak of the Military Regime in the north and east.
The recent Navanturai Brutality was a case of racial thuggery, carried out by the army & police. The victims are in jail, but the perpetraters are free, to carry on similar attacks with impunity.
The time is almost ready. Be ready to Act.
THIS IS THE HARD TIME FOR rAJAPAKSE.
well written Thisaranee.This reflect exactly the state of impunity we face at present.Sadly most of us stll indulge in the nation saviour caption of the present regime.Unknowingly but slowly our ship is sinking in the civilised world and the regime does not seemed to be bothered about that at all.Dear folks wake up and rise together before it is too late.
Today what we see in Srilanka is not acceptable to any other country. It is true. The country is in the hand of a dictator and his family is ruling the country with lot of crook politicians,drug dealers and criminals. Nobody can challenge any wrong doing. If they do Gothabaya Rajapakse will take care of them. He is the owner of the slaughter house.Look at Duminda Silva, a well known criminal who is all these days roaming in the streets without any fear. He knew very well that he is backed by the best group called Rajapakses. How can this country have one rule for one individual who is above the law. I am not at all happy. There is NO proper justice system in Srilanka and the Chief Justice is in the hands of – you all know WHO?.
Reminds me of the song…I’m leaving on a jet plane…don’t know when I’ll be back again…
Its time Ranil went he is not fit to be called an opposition leader, where was he was the bill to take over non performing businesses, he was in London with some of his henchmen .Its time Karu Jayasuriya was given this post. UNP wake up
If not for reporting from your paper fonseka would be free. What has fredric a has to say? Why is she silent? Fonseka may have uttered these but your paper blew it out of proportions to get rajapakse