Asia Times: Sri Lanka: New rulers have bloody past

The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20020103080015/http://atimes.com:80/ind-pak/CL19Df03.html


	December 19, 2001	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Sri Lanka: New rulers have bloody past
By Feizal Samath

COLOMBO - The return to power this month of Sri Lanka's United National Party (UNP) has brought back bitter memories of a brutal crackdown the party conducted against left-wing rebels during the 1980s. One organization representing families of the crackdown's victims has even made an appeal to international human-rights groups, including Amnesty International, to monitor the UNP's behavior.

"The old notorious regime who ruled the country from 1988 to 1994 got a resounding victory at the general elections," Chandra Peiris, chairman of the Organization for Parents and Family Members of the Disappeared (OPFMD), said in the appeal. "It is important to recall that a [high] number of disappearances were recorded during their rule. Fear of death or disappearances had become an inevitable factor with uncertainty during this period of UNP rule."

The OPFMD represents a group of families seeking justice against the killers of thousands of young people who died at the hands of the military and pro-UNP death squads between 1988 and 1990. The crackdown was ordered by then-president Ranasinghe Premadasa as the Marxist People's Liberation Front (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna or JVP) caused mayhem and terror across the country in a bid to oust the government. Estimates of the number of people who disappeared over the three-year crackdown have ranged from 10,000 to 60,000.

Although the crackdown succeeded in suppressing the JVP, it did the UNP little good. The climate of fear created across Sri Lanka by the bloody campaign contributed to the UNP's defeat in both parliamentary and presidential elections in 1994.

Much has changed on the Sri Lankan political scene since that time. The JVP is back, but now as a respectable third political force in the country. The Marxist front raised its number of parliamentary seats to 16 in the 225-strong assembly in the December 5 poll, from 10 after the December 2000 election. The People's Alliance (PA), which held power until the UNP's victory this month, has itself been accused of human-rights abuses, most loudly - ironically - by the UNP.

The UNP under Ranil Wickremasinghe, now the prime minister, has painstakingly tried to eradicate the ugly scars of the 1988-90 era by promising better governance. It has promised a new political culture without the lawlessness and thuggery that have dogged Sri Lankan society and elections in recent years during the PA rule.

While in opposition, the UNP accused the PA - particularly the Presidential Security Division (PSD) - of harassing and intimidating political opponents. Independent journalists were assaulted and at least two killed by unknown gunmen suspected to be linked to the PSD.

Even the OPFMD is keeping its options open and not ruling out the possibility that the new government - though responsible for atrocities in the past - might have changed its spots. "We are trying to contact some people in the government. Some UNP parliamentarians like Mahinda Samarasinghe, who is serving on an international parliamentary committee on human rights, have been outspoken on human rights and recognized abroad and we would like to discuss these matters with them," Peiris said.

Samarasinghe, now labor and employment minister in the new government, said the PA went on a witch-hunt in attempts to charge offenders with human-rights violations. "They were using the investigations for political purposes."

Peiris worries that the new regime might reimpose restrictions on human-rights activists and organizations. "We are appealing to all human-rights activists to participate in exposing possible human-rights violations," he said.

Samarasinghe responded: "We are not going to sweep anything under the carpet. We will look at the [1988-90] issues on a case-by-case basis and not only provide compensation but also rehabilitate families of the victims, which is important. But remember there is also the argument that the military response at that time [in 1988] was to preserve democracy."

The PA, whose leader Chandrika Kumaratunga is still the country's president, promised to prosecute human-rights offenders after winning power in 1994. She appointed special commissions to probe disappearances, punish the killers and offer compensation to the families of the dead. The process has dragged on even though the commissions identified some 3,000 people, including officers of the armed forces and the police, as being responsible fully or partly for the killings.

Those named included an officer who was subsequently promoted to the rank of major-general in the army, and now serving as an ambassador. "We protested against the appointment of Major-General Janaka Perera as high commissioner to Australia because of his alleged involvement in disappearances," Peiris said.

Expatriate Tamil groups in Australia also protested Perera's appointment, accusing him of crimes against Tamil civilians during the 18-year ethnic conflict. Tamil rebels are fighting for a separate state for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority community in a campaign that has cost the lives of more than 60,000 people since 1983. The war has devastated the economy, which has been further rocked this year by lower export earnings owing to a global recession. Economic growth is set to grow by below 1 percent this year from 6 percent in 2000.

The three commissions appointed by Kumaratunga to probe the disappearances reviewed 32,000 complaints but only recommended compensation for the kin of 12,000 victims.

(Inter Press Service)

Dec	JAN	Feb
	03
2001	2002	2003