Tales of victims in Sri Lanka

By Kishali Pinto Jayawardene

(March 14, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Some thirteen days before International Women's Day passed by with nary a whimper this year except the usual familiar events and tired speeches to ceremonially mark the day, a nine year old girl was raped in the
East allegedly by soldiers attached to a nearbye army camp. Initial protests by the villagers in that area, though strong and agitated at first, appear to have petered out gradually.

Reports abound of villagers who protested in respect of this incident being punished with one such protestor reportedly being killed. Though the legal process has been set in motion, it is safe to predict that nothing much will come out of it. In line with many such cases in the past, even if the case is taken to court, proper procedures will not be followed, forensic procedures will not be adhered to and the chain of custody will be compromised. Even if the accused soldiers are arrested by some miracle, they will almost immediately be released on bail. Meanwhile, the trial will drag on for years with the witnesses being threatened. Faced with this most daunting environment, the family members of the victim will most often drop the case.

Justice as a common quest

This column commenced with this case not to show that such examples are limited to the North and East alone. As experience has shown us, extreme police brutality so much nearer to the country's capital, as for example, in Moratuwa, will not lead to any noticeable deterrent punishment being visited upon the perpetrators. There are those both in the majority and the minority communities, who may like to pontificate that the question of Justice is more urgent by far in relation to people living in a particular part of this country but the truth is quite the contrary. The quest for Justice is indeed, what binds victims of the country together regardless of what ethnicity they may lay claim to or what part of the country they may hail from or indeed, what rank of society they may belong to.

This question becomes clear when one looks at exactly who the victims are in this current highly charged atmosphere in Sri Lanka. For example, as much as that nameless nine year old girl is a victim of a barbaric act that will surely have unimaginable consequences on not only her life but also the lives of her family members and members of her community, we have other victims as well. There are also those who may seek to justify or even be glad at the manner in which a former army commander and common presidential candidate has been thrown into detention under military law with the peculiar practice of charges being framed long after the arrest and detention and the further factor of some charges being reportedly withdrawn.

But the point is not the nature of the individual who is a victim at some precise moment in time. On the contrary, the point is that when the law is forsaken, this can apply equally to you or to me at any point in the future. These are, in effect, the terrible consequences of abandoning the Rule of Law. Once the precipitous slide commences, it becomes an avalanche and buries all that distinguishes a barbaric horde of individuals from a democracy.

What should we celebrate?

In such situations, it is unfortunate that highly activist and consistently articulate voices of dissent during the pre-1994 years when insurgent terror was met by state terror, have been replaced by an almost totally marginalized civil society, demonized by effective government propaganda as well as by the lack of internal accountability.

In one and a half months or so, we would mark one year after the end of active conflict with the LTTE. Despite this significant anniversary, where is the individual and collective freedoms that ought to be celebrated? What this country has been reduced to now amply proves the truth of the proposition said time and time again by critics during the past decades, namely that not all the problems besetting this country could be laid at the door of the ethnic conflict.

Rather, our Rule of Law problems underpin the reason as to why there can be no actual peace until these concerns are effectively dealt with. The criminalisation of law and order, breakdown of trust in the electoral process and in the functioning of constitutional institutions as well as a general lack of basic security felt by ordinary citizens are only some of these problems.

The right to equal treatment

What would it take, for example, for ordinary citizens to be able to enter a police station without fear or for a litigant to enter a courtroom without that equal amount of trepidation? At what point would we begin to recover the confidence that disputes would be determined at the highest levels without political bias, the rule of law would be implemented to its fullest and the prosecution of the guilty would take place without fear or favour? When would we be proud that we would be treated equally by the institutions of the State despite differing political views and notwithstanding whichever government happens to be in power?

And at what point would the profligate spending, the debauchery and the dissolute lifestyles of many in political life cease? When would schoolchildren be able to attend sessions of the House without being ushered out of the public gallery in haste when our representatives entertain themselves in choice language? When would the tide of mindless corruption and the endless earning of ill gotten gain come to an end?

These are good questions indeed to quietly contemplate ahead of general elections next month.