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The strategy of violence is very much like the tricks one might use in a computer game. It is easy to kill, easy to burn and easy to escape. In Sri Lanka, by sheer experience, which is repeated endlessly over and over again, this strategy is now known to everyone. Anyone who wishes to be a villain does not need much training, and the rest of the population has learned how to carry on with life as if nothing has happened.
Robert Frost is quoted as saying he can summarize his views on life in three words: it goes on. The situation of violence and lawlessness in Sri Lanka can also be summed up in the same three words: it goes on.
All social behavior, good or bad, is conditioned. The current situation regarding violence in Sri Lanka is no exception.
What conditioning created the possibility for such behavior as the burning of the printing press of the Sunday Leader? A few of the obvious conditions quickly come to mind.
First of all, the state has clearly abandoned its obligation to investigate all crimes. Within the Sri Lankan state, there is no longer the recognition of a powerful and overriding principle that all crimes, irrespective of who commits them or for what purpose they are committed, need to be competently, thoroughly and speedily investigated.
By abandoning the primary obligation to investigate all crimes, the Sri Lankan state has removed the foundation stone on which any credible criminal justice system can stand. Today it can be said that the criminal justice system of Sri Lanka has no legs to stand on. Nothing creates a better climate for violence and crime than the perpetrator's knowledge that the criminal justice system simply does not work.
Months before the burning of the Sunday Leader printing press there was an attempt to arrest the editor of this same newspaper without any legal basis; timely publicity prevented it. Thereafter, there was an assassination threat to the editor of the Daily Mirror which, she was informed, the state might not be in a position to prevent. This incident too caused much publicity. As expected, no attempt was made to investigate these incidents or to take legal action, which would have necessarily followed if the criminal justice mechanism functioned normally.
Now, in this instance of the burning of the press, there is more subtlety. Unknown persons entered the printing press, got all the workers present to surrender, burned the printing presses and disappeared with ease into the night. Such is the ease that lawlessness creates for criminals.
Much has been said about this act of violence being carried out in a high security zone. However, this is no surprise either. Nadarajah Raviraj, a well-known Tamil member of Parliament, was killed in a high security zone. There are rumors that law enforcement agencies were warned before the incident that an act of violence might occur and that they should not be upset.
Crimes committed in high security zones are numerous. Many abductions, several of which have ended up as disappearances, took place in high security zones. It is not difficult to coordinate the execution of a crime within one of these zones. All that is needed is to ensure that the particular act has been cleared and is considered necessary. When this message gets through directly or indirectly, those receiving the message know the rules of the game and behave accordingly.
The term "high security zone" is a misnomer. These zones do not provide security to the people. More often than not, these zones are part of the repression of the democratic freedoms of the people.
Then comes the stage at which people representing the authorities appear on the scene and promise investigations. There are immediate press conferences and news releases. The message of these activities is all the same: a serious investigation has begun. Within days, or sometimes within hours, there is another announcement to the effect that there is no evidence about the perpetrators of the crime, which then enters the registry of uninvestigated crimes.
All this will be accompanied and followed by condemnations and calls for investigations from local as well as international sources. However, no amount of condemnation or calls for action can make the lame walk or the blind see. Nothing can now make Sri Lanka's criminal justice machinery perform the normal functions that are expected of such a system.
If the criticism about the failure to investigate and to prosecute crimes in Sri Lanka is to bear significant results, it is necessary to accompany it with an exposure of the system as a whole. Until the systemic problems of the criminal justice system in Sri Lanka are addressed, similar, or worse, crimes are unavoidable.
The preservation of press freedom in Sri Lanka now faces enormous odds. The killing, harming and intimidating of journalists and the destruction of properties that belong to news agencies is now a part of normal behavior within the country. Local and international efforts are needed to attack these problems in their totality.
The Sri Lankan state has abandoned its basic obligation to protect the people through an effective criminal justice mechanism. For this significant shortcoming the Sri Lankan government should be taken to task, both locally and internationally.
(Since the writing of this column, several other serious acts of violence have taken place in Sri Lanka causing death and the destruction of property. There were two bomb blasts in Colombo and two air strikes in the North. Under such circumstances, the attack on the Sunday Leader will be relegated to a less important event. In all probability, there will be no adequate investigation into any of these events. The lives and the property lost are of no significance. Each side will blame the other for these acts of violence. That is, more or less, all that will happen).
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(Basil Fernando is director of the Asian Human Rights Commission based in Hong Kong. He is a Sri Lankan lawyer who has also been a senior U.N. human rights officer in Cambodia. He has published several books and written extensively on human rights issues in Asia.)
