It is justice not a pardon that Sarath Fonseka needs

" In the Buddhist tradition the righteous ruler must govern with both impartiality and fair play, in addition to acting justly. Since you are a national leader who intends to build a righteous society based on Buddhist principles, the confidence many people have placed in you is at stake on this occasion. "

by Shanie

"It is essential that justice be done, and it is equally vital that justice not be confused with revenge, for the two are wholly different."

(October 23, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) We have borrowed the title for this week’s column from the recent statement by Bishop Duleep de Chickera and the quotation above from a statement by Oscar Arias Sanchez, twice President of Costa Rica and a Nobel Prize Laureate. Bishop de Chickera, who has been following in the tradition of another (former) Anglican Bishop Lakshman Wickremesinghe as a stout defender of civil rights, was forthright in his statement. He said that it was evident that Sarath Fonseka had been denied the opportunity of a fair trial as well as the due process of law and it was this breach of the law that needed to be rectified. Consequently what Gen. Fonseka needed was not pardon but justice.

The good Bishop went on to state that a growing culture of arbitrary rewards and punishments was bringing the country to a critical crossroads in its political history. The Government was fast losing credibility as the authority chosen by the people to safeguard the rights of its citizens and ensure justice for all. The opposition, in disarray and obsessed with its own power struggles, was unable to make a difference on behalf of the people. These trends reached a tragic climax when the 18th amendment was enacted by Parliament. Consequently, to call for justice for Sarath Fonseka required a call for justice for all. Such a stance would eventually restore the integrity of our Nation.

Thirty years ago, one of Bishop de Chickera’s predecessors that legendary Bishop Lakshman Wickremesinghe was also very forthright when he intervened in an injustice done to Sirimavo Bandaranaike by the then J R Jayewardene Government. In 1980, after a sham of an inquiry by a hand-picked tribunal, Sirimavo Bandaranaike was found guilty of the vague crime of abuse of power, which until then was a crime unknown to law. Jayewardene used the huge majority he commanded in Parliament to have a resolution brought to Parliament and passed to deprive his political opponent of not only her seat in Parliament and also prevent her from both contesting as well as canvassing at the subsequent Presidential and Parliamentary elections. When that resolution was brought before a pliant legislature, Bishop Lakshman Wickremesinghe wrote to President Jayewardene. That letter needs to be quoted in full because of its amazing relevance to the present:

"I am appealing to you not to proceed with the afore-mentioned Resolution and also not to take any further action on this matter for the following reasons:

1. The proceedings of the Special Presidential Commission of Inquiry cannot be described as a fair and impartial judicial process. The reasons for saying so have been provided in the Statement issued by the Civil Rights Movement of Sri Lanka, of which I am Chairman for the time being. A copy of the Statement would have been sent to you.

In view of this, to proceed with the Resolution in Parliament so as to subject Mrs Bandaranaike to civic disabilities such as depriving her of her seat in Parliament and of her right to contest the General Election of 1983 or before, will be to act in a way that is neither impartial nor fair.

In the Buddhist tradition the righteous ruler must govern with both impartiality and fair play, in addition to acting justly. Since you are a national leader who intends to build a righteous society based on Buddhist principles, the confidence many people have placed in you is at stake on this occasion.

2. Again, in view of what has been said of the Special Presidential Commission of Inquiry, to deprive your chief political opponent, who alone is able to muster an effective opposition to your party in this country at the present time, of her right to sit in Parliament and to contest the next General Election as leader of her party or a coalition of parties, is to undermine one of the basic foundations of a vibrant democracy. This foundation is the presence of an effective opposition party capable of forming an alternative government.

The people expect that a national leader of your stature and experience will not so act as to undermine such a basic foundation of real democracy.

3. If this action is proceeded with, it will deepen the divisions already existing within the nation, and especially among the Sinhala people. The spirit of bitterness and desire for revenge will be further aggravated. The kind of stability you require for implementing your development programme will be severely undermined. Dissent and opposition will speak expression in ways that are extra-parliamentary; and the increasing use of the security forces will be required to maintain an outward show of stability.

The cost to rapid development, a vibrant democracy and righteous society will far outweigh the temporary gain of proceeding with the Resolution now tabled in Parliament."

Democracy and Political Revenge

Prof. Wiswa Warnapala was both a political scientist and Minister in the last PA government. Six years, on the occasion of the fourth death anniversary of Sirimavo Bandaranaike, he wrote a long essay which, like Bishop Lakshman Wickremesinghe’s letter, not only has amazing relevance to the present but also elaborates on Oscar Arias’ comment on political revenge. Warnapala wrote: "The deprivation of civic rights of. Bandaranaike was a monumental political mistake committed by a political regime, the guiding force of which was political vengeance. It was during this period that the UNP, purely because of the majority it commanded within the legislature, converted political revenge into a political ideology and its style of government was based on it.

"Political revenge became the art of government during the period of office of Mr. J. R. Jayewardene, who made use of every institution of Government, both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary, to manipulate the system to achieve his narrow political ends. The imposition of civic disability on Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike became an integral part of that manipulative process, the aim of which was to perpetuate themselves in power. They thought that political power would remain in their hands permanently and took all measures, guided by an arrogance of power unprecedented in the political history of Sri Lanka, to de-stabilise the opposition…. It was a deliberate act of political revenge and by imposing civic disability on this powerful political personality, the UNP government, led by Mr. J. R. Jayewardene, wanted to remove her from the politically landscape of Sri Lanka because they thought that she was a formidable political personality who could challenge them.

"In a liberal democracy, rulers are made accountable to the ruled through the device of a representative assembly freely elected on the basis of universal suffrage. It is a system which secures regard for individual rights and liberties by regular authorization through the rule of law and on an interpretation of the laws by an independent judiciary which is independent of the government of the day. That basis of liberal democracy was destroyed with the measures taken to impose civic disability on Mrs. Bandaranaike."

Warnapala also came up with an interesting point that among those who showed courage and respect for liberal democracy in opposing the deprivation of Mrs Bandaranaike’s civic rights, only one person now sits in the present Parliament - R Sambandan, the TNA leader from Trincomalee. He also quotes from the statement of the Civil Rights Movement of Sri Lanka, referred to by Bishop Lakshman Wickremesinghe in his letter to President Jayawardene that the legislation "inflicted a kind of second class justice for political offenders". It further stated that offences such as "abuse of power are vague and hitheto unknown to the law". It argued that all provisions of that piece of legislation were against the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Human Rights and Human Life

Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate, has been languishing under house arrest since 1989 for her courageous opposition to the authoritarianism of the Burmese military dictatorship The Civil Rights Movement of Sri Lanka in a booklet published in 1994 quoted Suu Kyi as saying: "It was predictable that as soon as the issue of human rights became an integral part of the movement for democracy the official media should start ridiculing and condemning the whole concept of human rights, dubbing it a western artifact alien to traditional values. It was also ironic that Buddhism, the foundation of traditional Burmese culture, places the greatest value on man who alone of all beings can achieve the supreme state of Buddhahood. Each man has in him the potential to realize the truth through his own will and endeavour and to help others to realize it. Human life therefore is infinitely precious."