[Editor’s Note: An interview with Mr. Basil Fernando of the Asian Human Rights Commission by Nilantha Ilangamuwa of the Sri Lanka Guardian](May 28, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) In caste-based societies, one of the methods used to discourage attempts to seek justice is the mockery of tragedies and ridiculing of victims. A caste-based society is a heartless society at all times. It cannot deal with people who complain against the wrongs that have taken place within the society. Instead of dealing with their complaints, the caste system has devised a number of methods to deter victims from complaining, such as ridiculing those who suffer from tragedies and ignoring protests using unscrupulous methods to denigrate those who persist in complaint-making.
Thousands of examples can be given for illustrating this aspect of a caste-based society. We will take two well known instances from recent times. One is the manner in which Manorani Saravanamuttu, popularly known as the mother of Richard De Soyza, was treated after the disappearance of her son. The other is the more recent case of treatment of Sandhya Eknaligoda, the wife of the disappeared Prageet Eknaligoda.
A number of disappearances in the south during this period were officially recognized to be about 30,000 people.
The abduction and disappearance of Richard De Soyza and the later re-appearance of his dead body on Koralawella Beach was one of the most shocking events for Sri Lankans, particularly middle class Sri Lankans in the 1990s. Following his abduction, his mother, a medical doctor, got herself involved with other mothers of disappeared persons and formed The Mothers Front of Sri Lanka. Ms. Saravanamuttu demanded an enquiry into the abduction of her son and identified Ronie Gunasinghe to be the leader of the team of people who took her son from her house. Ronie Gunasinghe was attached to the security unit of then-president Premadasa. She identified him after seeing him on TV. As she demanded enquiries into her son’s death and actively participated in the work against disappearances with other mothers, she came under attack from many quarters. Her own words about the circumstances she faced are quoted below.
“It is the most devastating experience to have a child pulled out of your arms. My boy ‘disappeared’ and 48 hours later, his mutilated body was found. Since then I have received numerous threats, anonymous letters, telephone terror and I am also certain that my telephone is tapped. I want to pursue my son’s case. Many friends and colleagues have asked me to stop, ‘the one who seeks the battle should not complain about the wounds,’ but I know there are tens of thousands of relatives who have been affected by the violence. I will never advise the women I work with to forget, I will tell them that they must speak. 20,000 - 30,000 did not join, out of fear of reprisals to other relatives.”
The extent to which Ms. Saravanamuttu was pursued by the Ranasinghe - Premadasa regime and those who supported him is well known. There were even attempts to file lawsuits against her on the basis of the complaints she made against officers who she suspected to have abducted her son. As the attacks mounted from every angle, she had less and less friends and it is well known that by the time she died in February 2001, she lived a highly isolated life, thoroughly disappointed by the inhumanity of a society which did not protest against such gruesome inhumanities as forced disappearances.
When the abduction and disappearance of Richard De Soyza became a scandal against the government at the time, the government began a campaign to ridicule the personality of Richard De Soyza. The emerging leader of the United National Party at the time, Ranil Wickramasinghe, tried to portray the abduction and disappearance as something to do with the sexual orientation of Richard De Soyza. He went on to publicize some letters that were alleged to be related to Richard De Soyza for this purpose. A malicious campaign was carried out against the personality of Richard De Soyza in order to discourage those who demanded enquiries into his abduction and disappearance. It took many years for the inquiries to be conducted, and even today, the whole case has not been resolved in any manner that could be deemed satisfactory.
Reflecting on the situation of the mothers who face disappearances, the words spoken by Ms. Saravanamuttu are worth being quoted again.
“Whether they know why they are doing it, I do not know. Whether they have been told today is the night for so and so. They probably do not question why we are doing this. What has this fellow done to us that we should go and take him, and kill him? That I do not know. But they come. They come with their eyes that are empty of everything. They come with their guns. They come with the assurance that they will not fail in their missions. They come and knock at doors. Ring bells and they look at you, and frighten you, and threaten you. If I had thought for one moment that they had come to take my son I would have died there at the door…it’s the women who bear the brunt, and its the women who are the strong ones, because when you lose a child, you lose yourself.” (quoted from a video interview by Nimal Mendis)
Nearly twenty years after the disappearance of Richard De Soyza, another disappearance caught the attention of Sri Lankan society. This was the abduction and disappearance of Prageet Eknaligoda on January 24th 2009. Following the abduction and demand for inquiries that were made which have become increasingly embarrassing once again a similar pattern of attack on the disappeared person himself and those who are calling for inquiries began to surface. The pattern of behaviour was exactly the same as the manner in which Manorani Saravanamuttu was treated during her tragedy.
Media people who are well known to be associated with the presidential secretariat and security apparatus started attacking the personality of Prageet Eknaligoda. There were attempts to suggest that he was not actually a journalist and attacks on his financial situation, attempt to portray him as a pauper and unscrupulous person who was trying to achieve asylum in another country. It took efforts on the part of his friends to expose the fact that these claims were baseless. Indeed, the attack on Mr. Eknaligoda’s personality did not come from fact, but was fabricated in the name of a cultural tradition which discourages protest by engaging in severe slander campaigns against victims of a tragedy.
This attack was extended to Sandhya Eknaligoda, in the same way that the attack against Richard De Soyza was extended to his mother, Manorani Saravanamuttu. Newspaper articles portraying her as a person who is fabricating stories and engaged in some kind of drama to get attention was published in newspapers such as The Island. To this date, there have been no apologies for this unscrupulous slandering of family members who have been subjected to one of the worst treatments of society through the forced disappearance of a loved one.
Beneath all this is a mentality that has been shaped by a caste-based society that knows no remorse regarding even the worst tragedies that occur. In all societies, the causing of disappearances is known to be one of the most heinous of all crimes. This recognition does not exist in Sri Lanka.
In the last four decades, as many as 50,000 or more people have been forcibly disappeared in Sri Lanka. These disappearances have involved abductions, followed by interrogations, assassinations and secret burials. This whole process continues to be part of the ethos of Sri Lanka. There has not been a strong enough protest crying out against this heinous crime from the government or the society at large.
Old mentalities bred through centuries of caste-based systems where victims are denigrated as people of no importance is a fundamental part of the Sri Lankan psychological framework. This behaviour of mocking tragedies and ridiculing victims is reproduced over and over again in the country. The country’s justice system has been unable to deal with this problem. Thousands of people have gone to courts either by making habeas corpus applications or other petitions to courts, but have not been able to receive adequate justice which would revert the process of absolute indifference that the state and society shows against the most brutal forms of violence which prevail in Sri Lanka.
In the midst of such a cultural tradition, talk of lessons learned and attempts at reconciliation remain nothing but another example of highly organized denial. The whole attempt at commissions is nothing but a process of mocking those who ask for justice. By arranging farcical commissions and inquiries, those who make complaints are brought to greater mockery and humiliation and a message is passed to the whole nation that there is nothing that can be done against injustice but to stomach all insults and injustices and all forms of protest, since they would bear no results. Such is the way centuries of caste practices have been reproduced in Sri Lanka.
To be Continued…
Read Previous Parts:
Caste origins of authoritarianism in Sri Lanka : PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR
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