Milly Dowler shakes the conscience of British democracy from heaven!

A lesson for pseudo demo-crazy of Sri Lanka, it will never learn.

by Rajasingham Jayadevan

(July 11, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) 13 years old English school girl Amanda (Milly) Dowler was murdered on 21 March 2002 and her body was recovered from the woods on 18 September 2002. It was a painstaking effort to provide justice on her death until the evil serial killer Levi Bellfield was sentenced for life on 24 June 2011 after careful investigations by the police and criminal proceedings that followed.

Amanda (Milly) Dowler

The verdict was based purely on meticulous circumstantial evidence, when the killer kept on saying ‘I have no comments’ during the investigations. The burden of proof needed for criminal convictions is very high degree and there was only sufficient corroborative evidence against Levi Bellfield that he was sentenced without the DNA evidence or the trace of the car he used to abduct and kill Milly.

Since the outcome of the Court hearing, the very foundation of the British democracy has come under heavy public scrutiny with revelation of tapping of Milly’s phone by the News of the World. The media magnet Rupert Murdoch’s News International came under public outcry for hacking into the phone of the missing Milly Dowler and many other tragic victims. The News of the World with the highest circulation, founded in 1843, has folded (10/7) unable to cope with the damning scandal.

Sky media tycoon’s shares plummeted in the stock market and tools have been sharpened to inquire into the scandal of phone hacking that involved police taking bribe and questioning the Prime Minister David Cameron’s judgement to engage the former editor of the News of the World Andi Coulston as his advisor, who is accused of presiding over the said newspaper when the hacking of the phones of Milly, Soham murder victims Holly Marie Wells and Jessica Aimee Chapman and many scandals involving the war veterans of Afghanistan.

The Opposition Leader Ed Millaband pitched the debate on the issue in the right path: New Statesman - Full transcript | Ed Miliband | Speech on the press | Reuters | 8 July 2011. During public address to the media, he also touched on the state of immature democracies and this is quoted herein to evidence the state of governance in countries like Sri Lanka:

‘When people talk about the idea of democracy, we mean much more than the right to vote. We can think of countries round the world where people have the vote, but we know the press is not truly free. People are intimidated from expressing their view. Journalists are jailed for what they write. Newspapers are closed down - not by proprietors but by government. All of that represents a gross interference and perversion of what we think of as a true democracy. What is more, within our democracy, a free press is an essential part of what makes political change happen’.

Very poignant assessment indeed! Counties like Sri Lanka have to go through many thousands of years when sad deaths like that of Milly Dowler can help correct the failures and establish the much needed sanctimonious freedom of expressions and secrecy needed by the people.

Taking on from what Ed Millaband has said, Sri Lanka can be branded as a rogue democracy that thrives on the human sufferings and unaccountable conduct. Justice is not forthcoming on deaths of media men and on war crimes by the state and the killers are enjoying unprecedented impunity with state patronage.

Innocent people are being charged to prevaricate justice to the criminals and some killers are sent abroad to prevent inquiries. It is known the killers of Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickramatunge, BBC reporter Nimalraj and Tamil Net’s Tharaki are no longer in the country. They are living in comfort in safe heavens (like Britain) claiming bogus asylum status, North Korea with the government patronage and the war crimes accused enjoying diplomatic immunity and serving in the offices from the UN and the Sri Lanka’s foreign missions. Innocent men are held in custody on these cases based on false statements created following heavy torture process and them used as tools to nail the innocent in the politically controlled judiciary.

Cries of the victims are never heard beyond their walls and fences. With the heavy military dictates, even their cries within the walls are silenced leading to suicides and mental illness.

A pseudo democracy that survive with the tapping of the phones of its own citizens with its military intelligence service that is accused of involvement in many killings - to name one is the gang rape and murder of Mrs Anita Annalingam by the nefarious military man Mohamed of the clandestine military outfit Rajith group within the army that was one time under the purview of the Maj Gen (Retd) H K G Hendavitharane speaks loudly of the impunity heaven of Sri Lanka.

This pseudo democracy of Sri Lanka is crazy, that it is preoccupied with the paranoia of resisting any questions being raised about its murderous conduct. The manner in which it is dealing with the Darusan’s report of the UN Secretary General and C4 telecasting of war crimes adequately confirms the assertions made my Ed Millaband about these rogue democracies. Clean suited Professors and ersatz characters are in abundance to willfully circumvent the truth of the murderous mission of the government.

In the ever shrinking global village, such conduct cannot progress for ever and demo-crazy’s like Sri Lanka will be made to change and accountable in their conduct against their own citizens. I feel the dead Milly Dowler has played a little part to speak for justice for those who have fallen victims to the rabid tools in other countries like in Sri Lanka.