Ghosts of the past that won’t go away

Several significant events took place last week which reminded us that Sri Lanka’s violent past is bound to haunt the country for years and decades to come. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a damning report highlighting the outstanding issue of enforced disappearance and the serious lack of accountability for this continuous crime; Gampaha High Court’s Trial-at-Bar acquitted and released four individuals, including a Major General, who were accused of killing three people and injuring approximately 50 others during a shooting incident involving a protest by local residents; Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard participated at a commemoration in Mullaitivu marking the deaths in the last phase of the armed conflict while the police were clamping down on memorialisation of these events.

All in all, it was a week reminding that precious little has been done by the Sri Lankan State to address its appalling human rights record and more concerningly its inability and unwillingness to address these outstanding issues.

Irrespective of the merits of the case and the reasons for the acquittal of the accused, the Rathupaswala verdict stands as a clear indication of the inability of the local justice system to deliver justice to victims of State atrocities. The fact is that as of today, not a single individual is held accountable for the killing of four individuals after the army was called to handle a peaceful protest demanding safe drinking water. Those who ordered the army to come into what was at best a police matter, whoever ordered the military to shoot at unarmed protesters and those senior officers who carried out these orders remain free and unaccountable for their crimes. The fact that it has taken 11 years even to reach this verdict which was supposed to have been expedited through a trial at bar is further testimony to the inefficiency of the justice system.

If the Sri Lankan State cannot deliver justice to Sinhala victims from the Gampaha district, for a crime that took place in broad daylight in full view of the media and rolling cameras then there is little chance there would be justice for the crimes committed against a minority community in the North during the armed conflict.

This fact is elaborated in the latest UN report released this week which emphasised that Sri Lanka’s Government must take meaningful action to determine and disclose the fates and whereabouts of tens of thousands of people who have been subjected to enforced disappearance over the decades and hold those responsible to account. The report further notes that despite the passage of nearly 15 years since the end of the armed conflict, and many decades since the earliest waves of enforced disappearances, Sri Lankan authorities are still failing to ensure accountability for these violations. The Sri Lankan State stands accused of carrying out over 100,000 extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances since 1971.

None of these past violations are going to disappear by doing nothing or screaming blue murder whenever they are raised in international fora by external entities. It is due to the lack of action by the State that these crimes and calls for accountability have now become internationalised. Those who particularly stifled the efforts led by former foreign minister Mangala Samaraweera in handling these accusations domestically, during 2015-18, must now take responsibility for the sorry state of affairs.