Font size:

This is demonstrated in the whole affair relating to Lasantha Wickrematunge, a prominent Sri Lankan journalist, politician and human rights activist who was murdered on Jan. 8 last year. Sri Lankan society as a whole has shown an unwillingness to demand an inquiry into this incident. Sri Lanka’s parliamentarians, prominent politicians and distinguished intellectuals have all failed; in fact, everyone has failed.

There is a small minority that demands investigations into such serious crimes. But very often their demands are portrayed as unpatriotic acts.

In fact, there is often very conscious and deliberate propaganda against demanding an inquiry into a murder. The state media is responsible for maintaining an atmosphere in which people who demand investigations are ridiculed and viewed with a negative attitude

From the beginning, senior politicians in the government were widely suspected of involvement in Wickrematunge’s murder. With such a strong and open allegation, society should have insisted that the matter be credibly investigated and resolved. There is no excuse for the government to fail in such an inquiry – yet this is exactly what has happened in this case, as in many others.

Sri Lanka is a country where people willingly and freely talk about conspiracies and unpatriotic acts. There is no end to such talk by the people, religious leaders, community leaders and the state media.

Yet what greater conspiracy is there than seeking to hush up murders? This militates against civilization. All civilizations have insisted that murder be eliminated, and when it does take place, that everything possible be done to take legal action against murderers. Yet this is not the attitude in Sri Lanka.

In the government are professors, vice chancellors from universities and people who have held positions in academic life, intellectual life and prominent positions as vocal persons in society. It is quite normal for them to be loyal to the government on many issues. However, all loyalties end when murder takes place.

There cannot be loyalty to defend murder. However, in Sri Lanka the people who are closest to this government as well as earlier governments have shown their loyalty by allowing political leaders to ensure that inquiries into murder do not take place. This type of loyalty is not loyalty but a complete lack of decency and betrayal of civilized life.

There is an organization called the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights. But up to now what has it done to ensure justice for people like Wickrematunge?

It is easy to travel the world preaching Sri Lanka’s human rights record. The minister and other senior people in the ministry have done everything possible to keep the murder of Wickrematunga and those of others hushed up. The hypocrisy is so unlimited in Sri Lanka on such matters that they can defend murder and then remind us that they represent the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights.

The same applies to the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka. What has this commission done to at least ensure inquiries into murder? No one deemed it necessary to resign from their position to show they would not be party to this type of commission.

Unsuccessful investigations into murder are possible on very rare occasions when every effort is made but questions cannot be resolved. Yet in the case of political assassinations like that of Wickrematunge, there is no great difficulty in the investigative process. Instead, there is a political conspiracy of intimidation and interference that prevents the truth from coming out.

Sri Lanka has an attorney general as well as an inspector general of police, but they have no capacity to declare that they will not be party to the hushing up of crimes including murder. Can they say that they have done everything possible in order to ensure an investigation into the murder of Wickrematunga and similar other cases?

What they can say is that they have shown their loyalty to the government by being party to the cover-up of murder. When the strongest officers of a state become party to such crimes, what confidence can there be about the rule of law or the criminal justice system in a country? This is the crisis facing Sri Lanka today.

--

(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.)