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Just a few days earlier a government minister, Mervin Silva, forcibly entered the premises of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corp. with about 10 other people and allegedly assaulted a news manager, leading to retaliation by corporation employees who demonstrated their anger against the minister and his companions.
In another incident, Mano Ganeshan, also a member of Parliament and the convener of the Civil Monitoring Mission, had to flee the country for his safety after the government reduced the security detail made available to him. He was also a spokesman on abductions, disappearances and other violations of human rights taking place in the country.
Moreover, on Jan. 2 the government announced it was withdrawing from the ceasefire agreement it signed with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2002. Consequently, the year 2008 is likely to see violence increase, and certainly no action is being taken by the state to create any hope that events will take a turn for the better.
These episodes, though shocking, are not unfamiliar to the people of Sri Lanka or the people outside the country who have been watching the deteriorating conditions in the country for several years. Political assassinations, disappearances, kidnappings, killings after arrest under the pretext of arrestees trying to attack law enforcement officers, harassment of every kind, widespread cheating, rampant corruption and hooliganism openly practiced by politicians and their family members are now a normal way of life. Reporters Without Borders named Sri Lanka as the fourth most dangerous country in the world for journalists in their 2007 report that covered 21 countries.
The assassinated legislator, T. Maheshwaran, was killed after he made a public statement in a television interview that he would reveal the names of those who are engaged in kidnappings, abductions and murders in the north and east of the country. As a member of Parliament, it was his duty to reveal the information he had to the country's legislature. However, making such a revelation was considered an offence that justified summary capital punishment.
Threats are commonly made to anyone who makes, or plans to make, any revelation about the criminal acts performed by political leaders through the police and military as well as paramilitary groups. The paramilitary groups are the executioners who carry out the crimes, while those who sanction such actions remain behind the scenes.
After every such crime, Sri Lanka's president makes a declaration that there will be an impartial inquiry. Sometimes the declaration even goes further to the effect that, if the local inquiry fails, foreign experts will be asked to conduct further inquiries. These promises are forgotten within a few days, however. The same political authorities that directly or indirectly sanction such murders and other crimes also ensure that no inquiries are conducted into these illegal and violent acts.
This political culture that relies on crime as a way of ruling is married to a legal culture in which such crimes can be neatly prearranged and impunity for the perpetrator can be assured from every possible avenue.
The local system has not only mastered the art of subverting the law for political purposes but also celebrates this expertise. There are government propaganda agencies that make an art of denying the collapse of the system and mock anyone who dares to say that the king is naked. The lighthearted manner in which the propaganda agencies and representatives of the state, such as the Peace Secretariat and some ambassadors, play their role within this culture of violence deserves a special study. It would reveal what happens to people who call themselves intellectuals within a political climate like that of Sri Lanka today.
In talking about the political culture which emerged in the 1980s in the midst of the southern and northern insurgencies and the state's unleashing of terror, the reputed Sri Lankan-born author Michael Ondaatje wrote a well-known novel entitled "Anil's Ghost." The climate of fear and intense obstruction of investigations into acts of terror that are recorded in this novel have intensified several hundred times now. With each year the psychosis of fear and denial grows, as respect for law and order diminishes. "Rule of law" is a term today that is discussed only in a cynical tone.
The latest act of hooliganism by Minister Mervin Silva, and its aftermath, fit neatly into this context. It was nothing new for this minister to walk into the country's premier television broadcasting corporation together with 10 others, widely reported to be drug dealers and convicted criminals, without any security clearance. Had any civilian dared to do so, they would most probably have been shot for having violated national security laws. After entering the premises, it is alleged that the minister assaulted the news manager and even followed him to the chairperson's office when he tried to flee.
The enraged employees did what they could to assist by retaliating against the violence allegedly perpetrated by the minister and his men. If these employees believed that normal legal recourse would be of no avail, they cannot be blamed. No one in the country with a minimum of knowledge about how the system works would believe that any legal inquiry or punishment would follow complaints over such actions.
Instead, the minister has created an image for himself as what one newspaper describes as a "cardboard hero." All the employees could do was expose what occurred to the public.
Wherever a culture of violence and impunity is entrenched, citizens feel powerless before even the most severe acts of injustice and absurdity. Their last resort is publicity. The people of Sri Lanka have been reduced to this level even when they see acts before their very eyes which are an insult to their intelligence. It is only the propaganda agents placed in government institutions that do not see things this way.
As usual, promises of inquiries under the law and under party discipline have been shouted about on this occasion too. As usual, nothing will come of these promises. These are theatricals with which the people are familiar.
However, something more dangerous can happen. It is said that inquiries are being conducted into those who retaliated against the minister and his intruding companions. It would not be a surprise if some of the broadcasting corporation employees identified as having played some part in dealing with the minister would be exposed to various forms of retaliation. In a country where abductions and disappearances are commonplace, these employees have good reason to be concerned for their own security.
The people of Sri Lanka do not receive protection from their state. The state itself takes the liberty to kill and harm its citizens. Even to complain and reveal what is happening can lead to serious consequences, as was revealed by the assassination of the parliamentarian T. Maheshwaran.
With the end of the ceasefire agreement, more violence is likely to erupt which, among other things, will make it impossible to address the pressing livelihood and security problems affecting everyone in Sri Lanka.
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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.)
