A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
(Full Story)
Search This Blog
Back to 500BC.
==========================
Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Sunday, July 16, 2017
Amend The Enforced Disappearance Bill
They
are phantoms and apparitions condemned to the Nacht und Nebel (night
and fog) of memory – the disappeared, ceasing to exist as persons but
existing as nonpersons or Orwellian unpersons, denied access to the
human bondage of their flesh and blood, exiled to an erasure as a
certificate of absence, a document issued as a face saving gesture by an
apathetical Government to be clutched by needy hands for the purpose of
establishing identification, to be used in order for the families of
the disappeared ones to get things done: victims of disappearances which
were forced, enforced, involuntary and unjustified. They are either
among the dead, the bodies dumped, plonked and jailed in some memory
hole of Mother Earth or the scattered remains and traces encountered
along a vanishing trail providing sustenance to and for gluttonous
scavengers, or if alive, as a habeas corpus, damned to a life of earthly
hell, their bodies conditioned as a site of grotesque pastiche and
hideous parody, the withered gaunt skin a dirty black emaciated wilt
pockmarked by the scars of hate. In the case of those falling into the
latter category, enduring violence, physical and psychological, rituals
of cleansing at the hands of their captors or would be assassins, is and
becomes merely a way of living and simply surviving. Such is the
accursed lot of The Others who have been relegated to the lost and not
been found.
Enforced disappearance constitutes
the violation of the basic rights (fundamental and human) relating to
life, liberty, personal security, health, legal personhood, the equal
protection of the law, access to legal counsel, a fair trial, the
presumption of innocence, the freedom from arbitrary arrest (including
being taken into custody without being informed of the charge/s against
one) and detention, and the freedom from torture, cruel, inhumane and
degrading treatment and punishment.
In
Sri Lanka, the missing persons including cases and complaints of
enforced disappearances are in the five figure range and include cases
which are being investigated, closed and concluded, resolved,
unresolved, gone cold, under study due to the lack of clarification,
unverifiable due to investigators running into a blank wall,
discontinued (abandoned searches), where persons are presumed dead or
declared dead in absentia, and historical cases, and elsewhere of the
officially missing and unofficially missing, of illegally cremated
bodies recovered from excavations and exhumations of mass graves, of
corpses in unidentified, unmarked graves, of bodies whose whereabouts
remain shrouded in uncertainty or are unknown, of persons incorrectly
believed to be dead owing to being absent for a lengthy period or other
such circumstances, staged disappearances, faked deaths and cases
involving the fraudulent reportage of the missing, amongst others.
These
incidents occurred during the brutal insurrections and the bloodier
counterinsurgencies of the 1980s involving the then Governments and the
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, the murderous three decade civil war and
armed conflict and the terrorism of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam, and the post-war State sponsored terror of the authoritarian and
totalitarian regime of the dictator, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the notoriously reliable killing machines in the form of the white van phenomenon masterminded by former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and
alleged extrajudicial activities including summary executions carried
out by the State’s armed forces, the security establishment and forces,
and the military (the Army, Navy, Air Force) and its personnel (soldiers
including officials and heads), the intelligence agencies and services
(and surveillance apparatuses), the Police including the secret Police
(including custodial killings during interrogations and investigations),
pro-Government paramilitary groups, State death squads, unofficial
armed groups, agents of the Government, and the militants (the Tigers).
Most recently, a former Navy Spokesman was arrested on charges of
alleged involvement in the disappearance of several youths, the
malefaction of enforced disappearance.
The
International Convention for the Protection Of All Persons from
Enforced Disappearance Bill is a piece of enabling legislation presented
by the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) {Sri Lanka being a dualist
country} to give effect to the obligations under the namesake
International Convention which the incumbent GoSL acceded to, signed and
ratified, thereby becoming a State Party to the said Convention. The
Bill purports to ensure the right to justice of victims of enforced
disappearances and also to provide reparation to such victims.
Offences
recognized as coming within the scope of the Bill include enforced
disappearance, wrongful confinement, kidnapping and abduction {all the
offences mentioned here come under Section 3 of the Bill}, and aiding
and abetting/conspiracy {Section 4 of the Bill}, all of which are crimes
which according to the Bill apart from being non-bailable, grants the
relevant law enforcement authorities the power to arrest suspects sans
warrants and conduct investigations sans judicial permission obtained in
prior {Section 5 of the Bill}, and are punishable upon conviction by
the Colombo High Court or a High Court with the jurisdiction in the
Western Province {Section 6 of the Bill} by way of a term of
imprisonment (maximum 20 years), a fine (maximum Rs 1 million) and
compensation (maximum Rs 0.5 million) {Sections 3 and 4 of the Bill}.
Further, interference with and influencing an investigation, the latter
also by means of the application of pressure; the intentional or
unintentional failure on the part of officers responsible for the
official register to record particulars in relation to the deprivation
of liberty of a person; intentionally recording inaccurate information;
the refusal to provide information; and the provision of inaccurate
information, are all enshrined as offences under Section 17 of the Bill
and are punishable by a term of imprisonment (maximum seven years) and a
fine (maximum Rs 0.5 million).
Those
who can be held liable under Section 3 of the Bill include public
officers; anyone acting in an official capacity; anyone acting with
State authorization, support and acquiescence; and superiors wielding
effective authority and control over subordinates (interpreted as those
possessing the power to issue orders and having the capacity to ensure
compliance).