Sri Lanka Lawlessness

The attack on Sri Lankan cricketers participating in a test match in Lahore, Pakistan, on Tuesday resulted in the deaths of seven policemen and some injuries to the cricketers. The fact that even sports have been targeted by terrorists indicates the extent to which the region is destabilized.

According to reports, security agencies had precise and detailed information about the attack. However, like many other such occasions, the information did not lead to any effective security measures.

Ahead of the Mumbai attacks last November – where eight simultaneous attacks in various locations targeted hotels, a cinema, a religious center and a hospital – prior information was likewise ignored. The absence of effective security mechanisms is not only the cause of successful attacks by terrorist groups but is also the cause of widespread crime in all countries in South Asia. The subcontinent has become a no-security zone.

It is the responsibility of the state to maintain effective and enlightened security policies that ensure the peaceful settlement of disputes and the suppression of violence. The failure of such policies endangers all aspects of life, including sports.

However, much greater problems are constantly manifested in the subcontinent for similar reasons. In Bangladesh on Feb. 25 and 26, low-ranking officers of the Bangladesh Rifles killed 55 officers and seven civilians, including the wives of two officers. Five other senior officers are still missing.

Those killed included the major general of the BDR, two brigadier generals, over a dozen colonels, several lieutenant colonels, captains, majors and two soldiers. This massacre is likely to have an enormous impact on the stability of the country for a long time to come.

Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 civilians are trapped in an area said to be less that 45 square kilometers on the country’s northeastern shore. Efforts by the International Committee of the Red Cross have not succeeded in bringing about any agreeable solution between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to allow safe passage to these civilians to leave the area.

Jacques de Maio, the ICRC head of operations for South Asia, was quoted in the BBC as saying that it would be possible “quite easily to avoid all of the unnecessary suffering and death which is taking place right now and to allow for an immediate and massive evacuation.”

He was further quoted as saying, “When we reach the beach with the ferry, there are exchanges of fire, there are thousands of people on this beach, they are stranded on basically sand and salty water. When we evacuate them, our people have to select the ones eligible – meaning we have to exclude many others. And this is very difficult to handle for people on the ground.”

As the ICRC official pointed out, all the unnecessary suffering and death could be easily avoided. The attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Pakistan might also have been avoided. Likewise, the massacre by the BDR could have been avoided, and even the Mumbai attacks could possibly have been prevented.

However, the failure to prevent these tragedies reflects the failure of the governments in the region to attach importance to law and order and the rule of law. Where the state does not maintain the supremacy of the law, there is room for anyone to flout it.

Politicians flout the law by creating avenues for unabated corruption. In using such avenues to amass wealth illegally, they help to undermine the law. Corruption links politicians with criminal elements, including drug smugglers and others engaged in illegal trades. This marriage between politicians and criminal elements compromises the law enforcement agencies.

As a result, a system of illegality develops where powerful politicians, criminals and law enforcement agencies act with complete disregard to the law. In such circumstances, often the military is also called upon to play a role, which opens new routes for military corruption.

This gives rise to a new kind of administration in which chaos is deliberately created. Elected representatives and the persons who are supposed to uphold the law treat the law itself as their enemy. A psychology develops in which subverting the law becomes the preoccupation of those who are supposed to create the law and maintain it.

Terrorists also exploit the same state of lawlessness that politicians, law enforcement agencies and criminals exploit for their benefits. The resulting chaos is the logical outcome of the way political regimes in the region manage themselves with callous disregard for law and order.

If ruling regimes themselves subvert the law, they are in no position to control those elements that are traditionally called subversive. Such regimes do not have the legitimacy or the moral authority to deal with present-day problems.

Under these circumstances ordinary civilians become victims of this chaos. They cannot carry on their normal lives even when it comes to sports. Much rhetoric about solutions to acute problems of violence remains only pious expressions, if not deliberate propaganda, to divert the attention of people from their inevitable fate when ruling regimes undermine the rule of law.

Source: South Asia a no-security zone