Policing system needs an autopsy

“Despite of even senior retired police officers openly talking about the serious collapse of the policing institution in the country the Sri Lankan public refuses to take serious notice of the failure of the primary institution of law enforcement in the country.”
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 a18-sri3-480Many reactions to the killing of B Sivakumar by several policemen in an attempt to arrest him treat the issue as a matter of malice of society rather than an issue of extrajudicial killing by a group of policemen. If the matter is looked at from the point of view of extrajudicial killings by policemen, then the incident would not be treated as some sort of an exception at all, but rather as one of many such killings that are happening in Sri Lanka almost every day. The Sri Lankan police are notorious for extrajudicial killings. Whether the killing happens by way of misadventure in the attempt to make an arrest, or a deliberate killing under the pretext of self-defense, is not significant. In all instances, the police officers are responsible for the murder of the person.

However, the Sri Lankan public refuses to deal with the matter as a problem of policing in the country. The police are supposed to have the training and the discipline to deal with arrest and are expected all the time to act rationally and to use their discretion in doing so. However, the Sri Lankan police in making arrests so often behave more like a bunch of hounding dogs attacking prey. For the prevalence of this mentality, it is those who control the policing system who are responsible. However, today there is no one to take such responsibility. Read more »

Bambalapitya incident: Government is responsible for the police brutalities

oie_oie_2054Kochchitaya_Gal_Gasu_Kolla_JThe incident at Bambalapitiya regarding the pursuit of a young man by the police to the sea and allowing him to die there is another cruel incident that demonstrates the type of policing that exists in Sri Lanka. Police hounding people like dogs is a demonstration of the way that arrests are done. The only exception in this case is that the way that this was done has come to knowledge of the public due to the presence of some persons and a video camera that caught the incident. However, if all the incidents that happen daily at the police stations in Sri Lanka were to be caught on camera, it would show that this incident is no real exception.
The people of Sri Lanka know that this is what is happening at their police stations. However, there is passive acceptance of this kind of cruelty. The media rarely report police brutality and some local reporters unfortunately get their reports from the police themselves. Read more »

Another journalist complains of death threats

The editor of Satana, a local newspaper in Sri Lanka, has complained of receiving constant death threats over the past few days. In a telephone interview to the Asian Human Rights Commission on Tuesday, editor Senaka Ekanayake said that people unknown to him were visiting his house in search of him.

Ekanayake further said that despite lodging complaints with the Sri Lankan police and other authorities, he has not received any protection. He is now living in hiding, fearing for his life and unable to continue his work as a journalist.

The former editor of the same newspaper, Rohana Kumara, was assassinated on Sept. 7, 1999, after he published information against the government of the day. Kumara’s assassination is a well-known case in Sri Lanka and to date no one has been arrested or prosecuted for his murder.

Ekanayake has been arrested and remanded to judicial custody on two occasions for periods of ten months in relation to his investigative journalism. Read more »

Rains in Sri Lanka, once a blessing, now a curse

flood_16_08_09_2The people of Sri Lanka have always looked forward to the rainy season, which generally begins in October and ends in January, as it brings many blessings. It brings much needed water to the paddy fields and assures food for the year to come. It also fills the reservoirs. Many of the blessings for the year ahead also depend on rains from the heavens.

However, for the nearly 300,000 people in camps for internally displaced persons, the expectation of rain this year will not create such feelings of joy. In fact, for them it will bring enormous adversity. Leaking roofs, overflowing gutters and swamp-like conditions are what they will have to expect. Their relatives living outside, the people of goodwill in the country, Read more »

The absence of legal protection – does the law mean anything?

agulana_06“Does the law mean anything in Sri Lanka for such citizens? As almost every citizen belongs to similar categories as the persons mentioned above, it may be justified to ask, what the law means in Sri Lanka to its citizens who are entitled by law for protection but are deprived, in fact, of such protection.”
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 The two boys who were murdered by the Angulana police, Ranga Bandara, MP, or a child in an IDP camp, all have one thing in common as Sri Lankans; they have no protection in law.

Yet according to the legal enactments each is entitled to protection. The Angulana boys were entitled under the law to be arrested only on suspicion of a criminal charge, to be treated humanely during detention and if there were any charges, to be produced before a court within 24 hours. As for Ranga Bandara, MP, according to the law there were many kinds of protection available. As a Member of Parliament he had the right to special protection. As a citizen of the country he had the right to have his property protected. Further he had the right when a crime was committed against him to expect an independent and impartial inquiry by competent investigators and to have the perpetrators of the crime prosecuted. Read more »

The Arson attack and the abysmal lawlessness

2081Palitha_RangeBandara_JThe opposition politician Ranga Bandara’s house was burned to cinders on the evening of the 4th October. Sometime earlier, the house of another opposition politician, John Pulle, was similarly raised to the ground.

In any place where the rule of law exists, even to a basic level, this kind of action would be deemed incredible. However, in Sri Lanka the event is treated as yet another trivial event in the political ’samsara’. There will be a few noises and the government will promise inquiries but in all likelihood no serious action of any credible nature, in terms of criminal justice, will happen.

In a rule of law state this kind of attack on politicians is a most unlikely event for the following reasons:

Prevention

The policing system of the country has its own capacity to detect crime and to prevent such attacks. The strength of a rule of law system is that it has sufficient Read more »

Opposition demands dismantling of war time security measures

The spread of the security apparatus helps to maintain a conflict time mentality, even in peace time. Why should such a tense mentality be maintained any longer?
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Sri Lanka Civil WarNearly five months have passed since the government claimed complete victory over terrorism by the defeat of the LTTE. And at the same time, it was claimed that peace had arrived. However, throughout the country the presence of the security forces and the operation of the security system go on in the same manner as before. This week the opposition demanded that the government security is brought to the level of peace time security and an end to the ‘war time’ measures.

The opposition complained that the road blocks in Colombo itself continue to be maintained in the same manner as before the victory. In fact, one of the opposition leaders claimed that things have even become worse. Read more »

Features of a Gulag – The loss of the meaning of legal and illegal

“Can people who are displaced be kept in camps and deprived of the right to return to their homes? Can people be taken out of the camps of Internally Displaced Persons without leaving any trace of their removal from the camp? Can the government allow the abduction of persons to take place for ransom or for any other reason?”
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 The concept of the gulag, first used by Aleksandr Solzhenisyn it in the Gulag Archipelago 1918 – 1956, has come to mean a particular system of repression imposed on a whole country, and which has some definite characteristics.

In an earlier article, I described these characteristics as:

The loss of the meaning of legality within a particular country;
A predominant position played by the security apparatus;
The emergence of a propaganda apparatus that is not bound by any rules relating to truth or falsehood;
The emergence of a superman controller who manipulates all the three elements mentioned above in any way that he wishes;
A doomed citizenry reduced to zero status;

The position on which this article is based is that Sri Lanka is now such a gulag. All the above mentioned characteristics are now quite prominently visible within Sri Lanka. However, a phantom limb disorder still continues to exist. The people wish to believe that the old legal system and social system are still intact despite some unhappy new aspects that cannot be denied. Read more »

The cultural capacity to tolerate cruelty

This article is related to my previous articles on Sri Lanka, the gulag island
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 The degeneration of mind that can place in the midst of extraordinary forms of repression is unbelievable. One demonstration of that is the way in which forced disappearances are treated by some parts of the population in Sri Lanka. They not only support but are overjoyed to see such things happening. When the family members cry about it, they are told not to be hysterical or emotional about it.

Accepting cruel treatment silently is considered rational. To protest against it is considered hysterical, over emotional and irrational.

How has such an ugly mentality become part of the heritage-urumaya-of Sri Lankans?

From 1971 up to now, in all parts of the country, we have seen the worst form of cruelties. We have also seen so many who enjoy seeing and remembering such cruelties as triumphs. The causing of such cruelties is even seen as heroic.

Every attempt to express human reactions to such cruelties is talked about as hysteria. Read more »

Sri Lanka: a Gulag Island – a response to Dayan Jayatilleka – the mentality of the phantom limb

“The discussion on irrationality was relating to a remark by Dayan that his removal from the post of Ambassador to Geneva was an irrational act because it was not taken in terms of assessing merits. I did not disagree with him; I only said that it is as irrational as all other acts taken without regard to merit.”
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 newDayan Jayatilleka begins his article with the words, “I am proud of my country, Sri Lanka.” To demonstrate the differences in our points of view I would like to begin by stating that, while I am proud of some aspects of Sri Lanka I am also very ashamed of many other aspects of my country, Sri Lanka. I have publically stated that many times, over many years, beginning particularly from the cruel repression of the innocent in 1971 under the pretext of dealing with the JVP insurgency. In my book of poems, The sea is calm behind your house, I have expressed many times that when a motherland turns into a ‘murder land’ it is a matter that the citizens should begin to recognize. This theme of the motherland turning into a cruel land towards its own children is also one of the themes in the Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenisyn (my book of poems is available at: www.basilfernando.net, kindly see particularly the introductory essay by Professor K.G. Sankara Pillai of India). Read more »