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This week six prisoners were shot and killed at the Kalutara prison south of Colombo, Sri Lanka, allegedly for attempting to escape. It was not long ago that three persons were killed inside the Negambo prison north of the capital, allegedly due to a dispute between two parties.

Last month four people were shot dead by the police at Urubokka, Matara, which the police reported was due to a shoot-out between the police and some persons. The families of the deceased and a large number of people who protested against the killings stated that the police story was false.

Six further deaths took place at police stations, allegedly by those under arrest attempting to attack the police or committing suicide while in police custody. Meanwhile, eight civilians were killed, allegedly by another civilian at Butthala – killings that the police attributed to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Meanwhile, veteran politician and president of Tamil United Liberation Front, V. Anandasangaree – who is a well-known opponent of the LTTE – wrote to the president to complain about a few hundred civilian casualties due to artillery attacks by the military on the people trapped in the no-fire zone.

There were also reports of LTTE killings of some persons who tried to escape from their control in the same zone. Like many other words in the political jargon of Sri Lanka, “no-fire zone” has hardly any meaning.

All these killings have taken place under different circumstances and in different parts of the country. What is common to all is that no authority has taken notice of the killings, ordered a credible enquiry into the deaths, or provided reliable reports to the public concerning the circumstances of these deaths.

The question of justice of course does not even enter into any of these deaths, as no one will ever be prosecuted for such killings. The Sri Lankan government cares the least about the prevalence of impunity.

The loss of legal accountability for killings is followed by the loss of sensitivity toward such deaths. The social discourse on these matters has virtually stopped.

The government’s propaganda agents ridicule all international agencies that attempt to draw attention to this situation. Meanwhile the freedom of the press in the country is suppressed and large numbers of journalists have even fled the country, thus preventing any local attempts to provide information to society on such deaths, and keep society involved in trying to overcome the present situation.

In Sri Lanka the distinctions between misfortune, tragedy and catastrophe have been lost. By whatever name, what goes on is a saga of limitless misery with no foreseeable possibility of any end. Life is just a dip into a highly polluted river, but no one seems to worry about it anymore.

There is no basis on which to believe that the ruling regime has any intention to pull the country out of this situation. Its sole purpose seems to be to exploit the people’s anger against the LTTE in order to create a political psychosis which will prevent any form of exercise of democratic rights by anybody in the country.

So long as the government succeeds in creating the images and the sounds broadcast through its own media channels, without allowing anyone else to express a contrary view, the regime seems to believe it can survive. The war provides an ideal situation for this kind of horrible politics.

Under these circumstances all attempt at recovery has to begin from outside the regime, and particularly from the civil society. More than ever, the main strategy for the recovery of the nation appears very clearly to be the development of a common strategy between Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and all others to come to a common front for the achievement of democracy and human rights.

It is in the common interest of all that the central concerns of the nation should be directed toward the reestablishment of all institutions within the country, and to provide impetus for their functioning under a spirit of democracy, with a firm commitment to establish a functioning rule-of-law system. Today the realization of this demand is required for the very survival of the people.

In the post-independence era, petty politics and virtual lunacy among the politicians was able to prevail; they chose to think of their own advantages as against the interests of the nation. From the first prime minister of the independent nation to the present executive president, this kind of political lunacy has been pursued with absolute carelessness against the nation.

Unfortunately the rebel elements that arose, like the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and the Tamil militant groups, including the LTTE, were unable to effectively challenge the kind of politics that prevailed in the country. The rebel strategies themselves played into the hands of self-seeking politicians, who used them to justify their politics, as they had no other basis on which to legitimize themselves.

A common front for democracy and the rule of law is the only strategy that could counteract the dangerous politics that are prevailing now. Any country that wants to survive and to develop in the present world context needs to have its own foundations strong. The foundations for such a society can only be democracy and rule of law that is available to all individuals, irrespective of what community they belong to.

It is necessary for the minority to realize that the overwhelming masses of the majority community also suffer from the denial of democracy and the rule of law within the existing political system of Sri Lanka. It is also necessary for the majority community to see the minority not as aliens or enemies, but as a part of the nation, without whom there can be no real basis for the nation to survive and to develop.

In fact, such realizations exist both within the majority community and minority communities. What are needed are movements to provide expression to such realizations which exist among all the people.

The mess that the country is in and the deaths that are caused senselessly and unnecessarily can be eliminated only by a common front of all the people of Sri Lanka, which would stand against the unscrupulous and stupid politics that have prevailed in the country in the post-independence period.

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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. His blog can be read at http://srilanka-lawlessness.com.)