Building Dystopia

By Tisaranee Gunasekara

"Political opposition, thereby, is given an inhumane overlay which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilised intercourse. A political party is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence. Once such an equation is effectively made, society becomes a congerie of plots and counterplots, and the main role of government changes from that of the arbiter to that of the scourge of God".- Arthur Miller (The Crucible)

(August 16, Collombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The war is not over; the war continues. This claim does not emanate from desperate LTTE supporters, scurrying to salvage political and financial something from the carcass of the dead Tiger. It emanates from the Lankan government, from the man hailed as the architect of the LTTE’s downfall, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse.

According to Mr. Rajapakse, notwithstanding the death of Vellupillai Pirapaharan and the capture of his chosen successor KP, the anti-LTTE war goes on: "Neither the President nor the Defence Secretary has stopped this war. That is why we tracked down KP. The war will stop only after all the enemies who acted to the detriment of their motherland were brought to book irrespective of whether they were local or international" (Indian Express – 11.8.2009; emphasis mine). Moreover this ‘post-war’ war is set to be a Herculean task, since, according to Mr. Rajapakse, ‘the LTTE had about 30,000 trained cadres before the decisive phase of the war in May’ (ibid).

Carl von Clausewitz described war as the continuation of politics by other means. Will governance under the Rajapakses become a continuation of war by other (political) means? The defeat of the LTTE has not led to any significant relaxation of the extraordinary rules and regulations created to defeat the LTTE. The PTA and the Emergency are still in force; extra-judicial methods are still being employed; even the arbitrary road closures for the convenience of VIPs continue. But if the LTTE, despite its defeat, remains a significant threat, if it has (miraculously) regained the capacity to threaten Sri Lanka, not just with stray suicide bombers but also with explosive laden vehicles, this continuance of extraordinary security measures can be depicted as necessary and therefore just. The rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens can become undesirable clutter or even dangerous impediments in the craze to build a Patriotic Utopia via the medium of a Permanent War against ‘Nation’s Enemies’.

Legalising Illegality; De-Criminalising Criminality

The unjust internment of around 280,000 internally displaced Tamils to catch a few thousand (or even 30,000) suspected Tigers is particularly frightening because it is happening in a ‘democratic’ country. For most Sinhalese the continuing tragedy of these hapless people is as incomprehensible as news from a distant, alien land. This emotional disconnection has led to a bland acceptance of both a colossal injustice and the official excuses for it (including the myth of ‘displaced Tamils living in luxury’ in the internment camps, which is linked to another, older myth – that of the ‘plantation Tamils cosseted by the state’). Unfortunately an outbreak of illegality and immorality in one part of Sri Lanka cannot but impact on the rest of the country. Impunity is a habit rulers can become addicted to easily. And though its initial victims may be the more powerless segments of a society (ethnic or religious minorities, the poor, members of the political opposition), eventually it will permeate every nook and cranny of the land, affecting even the so called privileged groups.

General Parakrama Pannipitiya, who headed the victorious Eastern offensive against the Tigers, was arrested by the police on a charge of illegal treasure hunting, early this year. (Gen Pannipitya reportedly fell foul of the defence authorities and had to appeal to the Supreme Court seeking the restoration of his security in 2008). After being remanded for six months, he was suddenly released in July, when the charges against him were dropped, inexplicably. Since in Sri Lanka the police act like the proverbial Chinese monkeys when the powerful or the well connected commit a crime, the suspicion that the case against Gen. Pannipitiya was a politically/personally motivated hoax cannot but obtrude. If so, and if such a fate can befall a decorated general, what cannot happen to an ordinary citizen who advertently or inadvertently falls foul of the powers that be?

The plight of 22 year old SLIIT student, Nipuna Ramanayake, abducted and assaulted by the son of a top crime-busting cop, using his father’s powers and facilities, has become something of a cause célèbre. The arrest and assault of a 14 year old school student by the police just a month ago indicate that in Sri Lanka, today, extra-judicial violence perpetrated by the rulers and their acolytes, against political opponents and personal enemies, is a norm. According to a petition presented to the Supreme Court, 14- year old Jeewantha Ranasinghe, a Grade 9 student of the Subharatha Maha Vidyalaya of Meegoda "was arrested by officers of the Nawagamuwa police station… on June 22, 2009. Two or three days later, he was produced before the Magistrate and bailed out…..arrested (again) on July 7…. and bailed out on July 9…. The Kaduwela police had not given a reason for his arrest. …. While in police custody, Jeewantha had been assaulted" (The Island – 12.8.2009). This minor was arrested due to a "complaint made by a relative of a Pradeshya Sabha member named Suresh Priyadarshana of Kaduwela…." (ibid). Obviously the reason for this infamy was a boys’ quarrel between the victim and another student of the same school! When the rule of law is replaced by the law of the rulers, anything can become a crime and anyone a victim, even school kids.

Minister of Human Rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe, who not only maintained an echoing silence about the accelerating trend of official impunity but also defended the regime from Colombo to Geneva, had his ‘Road to Damascus’ moment when one of his own Coordinating Secretaries was abducted two weeks ago. It took him several hours and innumerable telephone calls to discover that the victim had not been abducted by criminals but arrested by the police, in the extra-judicial manner increasingly favoured by power wielders. When an incensed Minister protested, arguing that the "police cannot simply barge into people’s houses without appropriate documents and take people away" (Bottom Line – 5.8.2009), the police responded by saying they can – since the deed was done by a ‘special squad that had wide powers to arrest anybody in any part of the country" (The Island – 7.8.2009).

The police reportedly tried to justify the abduction of Nipuna Ramanayake by claiming that he has friends with underworld connections. Today ‘underworld’ is the excuse for official injustices and excesses in the Sinhala South. It is now a norm in Sri Lanka for arrested suspects to be killed while they are ‘trying to escape’ or ‘retrieving a hidden weapon’. Since most of the victims, hitherto, have been known criminals this practice has been tolerated by the media as well as the public. Such reactions are understandable in a society plagued increasingly by violent crimes. Unfortunately this modus operandi not only amounts to using criminal methods to control criminality; it also gives the rulers a carte blanche to violate the basic rights of any citizen, deemed or depicted as a criminal. This is a path which leads not to the restoration of law and order but to the replacement of one sort of criminality for another. The law of the jungle is a monstrosity which can claim the politically inactive as well as the politically active, the innocent as well as the guilty, as the twin cases of Nipuna Ramanayake and Jeewantha Ranasinghe indicate. This way, life in Sri Lanka can become a waking nightmare for all Sri Lankans except the Rajapakse family and its closest acolytes.

Two Elections, Two Realities

Two elections and two diametrically opposite voter responses point to the disturbing reality of Sinhalese and Tamils drifting further apart, emotionally and politically. In the Uva, there was a high voter turnout and a resounding win for the government – a foregone conclusion given the popularity of the regime amongst the Sinhala majority and the disastrous state of the UNP. In Jaffna and Vavuniya, the UPFA should have won a similar victory, as it was the only political formation allowed to campaign freely. Security concerns were used to impede the election work of opposition parties and to keep most of the non-state media away. The populace had no space to air their fears and concerns. It was an environment carefully crafted to discourage dissent and breed acceptance. And yet, dissent found ways to creep through. A majority did not vote. Despite the absence of any real competition or electioneering, the UPFA (piggybacking on the none-too-popular EPDP) could win only marginally in Jaffna and went down to a crushing defeat in Vavuniya. The TNA, disorganised and divided, did surprisingly well, winning in Vavuniya and coming second in Jaffna.

An attempt is being made to explain away the low turnout in Jaffna and Vavuniya by arguing that the election was based on an old and thus outdated voter register. Perhaps; but the regime’s unseemly haste to hold elections necessitated the use of that outdated register. Revising the voter register would have taken time but that would not have suited the politico-electoral agenda of the Rajapakses. As the manner in which the election was held demonstrates, the aim was not re-democratisation or renormalisation of the North but gaining a political fig leaf for the ruling party’s Sinhala supremacist agenda, including its disinclination to offer a reasonable political solution to the Tamils and its illegal and immoral internment of the IDPs.

Though the absence of overt violence was a plus point, this was not a function of increased freedom for the populace or fairness in the electoral process. On the contrary, it resulted from the ending of the dual power situation, with the defeat of the Tigers. In the past, the LTTE needed to use terror in order to discourage its opponents, in areas not under its control. Today the entirety of the North is under government control. That obviates the need for overt violence as a means of controlling and discouraging overt dissent, because this task can be (and was) accomplished via the use of excessive security measures, disallowing electioneering by the opposition and coverage by non-state media.

Since the Rajapakses knew full well that the UPFA, on its own, was a non-starter in Jaffna and Vavuniya, even under the most favourable conditions, they compelled the EPDP to contest as a part of the ruling coalition (Obviously the regime overestimated Minister Devananda’s capacity to deliver; at the next election, that hiatus will not be overlooked). This is another example of the ruling party’s strategy of establishing a base in the North and the East, not by winning over minorities, but by absorbing into the UPFA fold those minority parties dependent on official patronage and protection. There may be a connection between this strategy and the President’s post-war theory of the non-existence of minorities (and a permanent struggle between patriots and anti-patriots). If there are no minorities in Sri Lanka, there cannot be any minority parties representing minority interests and articulating minority concerns either, by definition.

This theory entails the creation of a Sri Lankan identity not via a democratic and consensual process on the basis of justice and equality but via legal and illegal compulsion. For instance, a new law, which is to be presented to the parliament later this month, would "outlaw political parties bearing the identity of a religion or a race" (The Sunday Times – 9.8.2009). If enacted, this piece of legislation will re-commence the old process (which began with Sinhala Only) of outlawing the assertion of minority identities and demands. This will further alienate the minorities, not just Tamils but also Muslims and perhaps even Sinhala Christians. The Rajapakse’s Patriotic Utopia, built on the ruins of basic human and democratic rights, in the North and in the South, may turn out to be a dystopia for most Sri Lankans.

Courtesy: The Sunday Island

-Sri Lanka Guardian