Human rights violations is currently a much talked about issue in most countries including Sri Lanka. It is quite appropriate to look into this bone of contention with a broad mind without jumping into conclusions, based only on specific incidents or conflicts.
Sri Lanka has a recorded history of over 2,500 years and it had been ruled by a large number of kings and a few queens in the past. History reveals how these kings ruled our country and the service they rendered to the nation. All these rulers were not equally good in governing the country. Some of our ancient kings have performed and enormous service to the nation while some were not successful rulers who had done any admirable service to their countrymen.
There was no standard judicial system or any set rules and regulations in meting out justice to the citizens, but the final decision of the verdict on any wrongdoer vested in the hands of the king who discharged punishment which varied from offence to offence.
No countryman had the privilege of challenging the verdict given by the rulers. There had been a number of occasions where innocent people had been penalised owing to the wrong judgments meted out by some kings without properly scrutinising the circumstances.
There had also been instances where the crafty culprits escaped punishment by deceiving the rulers.
However, it is recorded that most of our ancient kings protected the human rights of their countrymen and treated even their opponents quite honorably. A fine example is King Dutugemunu who defended the king Elara setting up a monument and calling upon his countrymen to pay their respects to the slain leader. This clearly shows the degree of statesmanship and the respect for human rights our ancient kings possessed.
Invasions
With the passage of time our country was invaded by various foreign forces due to a number of reasons. The island was first invaded by Portuguese in 1505 and then by the Dutch in 1656. We became a colony of the British Empire in 1815. Parts of the country were under the rule of the Portuguese and Dutch for long periods and our Sinhala Kings had to fight them on a number of occasions to liberate our people from them. The Portuguese and Dutch rulers had no mercy on our countrymen and human rights violations were rampant during this period.
When our country came under the Union Jack, they introduced and effected a number of changes. They completely neglected our paddy cultivation and introduced cash drops like tea, rubber and cinnamon. They introduced missionary education through which they propagated their religion as well.
The judicial system that the British introduced to our country is supposed to be one of the most admirable and important administrative features, lending to the people becoming more disciplined and law-abiding. The general administration of state affairs was carried out similar to that of Britain. Some of the Sinhala leaders were also impressed with the changes made in different areas of administration and especially about the introduction of rule of law in the country.
1818 Rebellion
However, just three years into the British rule in this country in 1818 Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) not only experienced the biggest human rights violations, but the most horrendous massacre where thousands of rebels were killed and their paddy fields were burnt by the British Army at the Uva-Wellassa Rebellion.
This was quite contrary to the legal procedures and rule of law introduced by the British themselves. In 1828, British rulers introduced the Colebrook Cameron Constitution and streamlined the administration process further. The British ruled our country for well over a century and our patriotic leaders at the time realised the necessity of independence. Some of them were educated in England and came back to their motherland and started to get involved in local politics in collaboration with British leaders. With the dawn of the 20th century there were a few patriotic organisations which started marshalling the local patriots to rally round them and claim self-autonomy.
The Indian freedom struggle was also gaining ground led by Mahathma Gandhi. Our local leaders formed the Ceylon National Congress and started agitating against the rule of the British Empire.
This was the period when the British rulers incarcerated some of our patriotic leaders who fought against the British Empire, blatantly violating their human rights.
The Domoughmore Constitution was effected in 1931 by the colonial masters and universal franchise was granted to every Ceylonese over 21 years of age, the continuous struggle launched by the progressive forces of the day resulted in Independence being granted in 1948 and our island becoming and independent nation under the able and farsighted leadership of D.S. Senanayake.
With the Soulbury Constitution introduced in 1947, the entire administrative mechanism was further streamlined and the Ceylonese were appointed to various high positions hitherto held by the British. Ceylon became a member of the British Commonwealth and also subsequently obtained the membership of various other international organisations.
The protection of human rights is broadly enshrined in the Constitution and it is simply and accepted fact that every-man is equal before the law of the land. All the fundamental rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and whatever Government in power, is bound by the Constitution to protect and uphold the human rights of its people.
Since becoming an independent nation in 1948 up to the present day there had been a number of Governments headed by a number of different leaders.
During the tenure of all these leaders, there had been different political, social, religious and communal issues where the human rights of some people had been violated. The Opposition parties of the day had openly accused the party in power for the violation of human rights.
Not only they accused the party in power, but they have gone before international bodies and complained to them too, sometimes succeeding in getting various restrictions imposed on the country.
Human rights violations
After winning independence in 1948, there had been a number of occasions where the human rights of our countrymen were violated due to unavoidable circumstances. The three main occasions where the human rights violations may have occurred in Sri Lanka were the 1971 JVP insurrection and the 1988-1989 uprising of the same movement.
Sri Lanka underwent a very gloomy period of nearly three decades in its long history due to the protracted war waged against successive Governments by a guerilla organisation headed by its leader megalomaniac Vellupillai Prabhakaran claiming a separate State in the North and the East of the country.
During the second term of Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake there was a food shortage in the country and the prices of essential goods shot up sharply and the progressive forces of the day led by Dr. N.P. Perera, Colvin R. De Silva and supported by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike with some of the union leaders launched a massive hartal on August 8, 1953 against the Government and started a violent march towards Parliament.
Drastic measures
Police were forced to take drastic measures to disperse the unruly crowds and a few people victimised owing to the accidental shooting of the police. Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake who was deeply saddened over this incident stepped down from the premiership and the party leadership displaying his degree of commitment to human rights.
In 1971 April when the JVP terrorists tried to overthrow the legally elected Government headed by Sirimavo Bandaranaike, then opposition leader J.R. Jayewardene gave his unconditional support to the Prime Minister Sirimavo to crush the terrorist organisation.
However, in the process there must have been some kind of human rights violations as the terrorists were engaged in a number of destructive activities all over the country. Their heinous activities lasted only for a few days in 1971 and finally all the culprits were apprehended by the Government including the leader of the movement Rohana Wijeweera.
The JVP insurrection emerged again gradually and from 1988-1989 they carried out their inhuman activities on a different modus operandi threatening all the innocent people who were not in agreement with their political philosophy.
They mercilessly killed a large number of political activists of the United National Party, bhikkhus, professionals, academics, artistes and whoever who held different political views and specially the members of the security forces and even their family members. A rising political star at that time Wijaya Kumaratunga was also a victim of the JVP barbarians. They had no respect at all for human life.
Not only they murdered people brutally but even the members of the grieved families were not allowed to hold a decent funeral for the slain. All the killing orders were issued by the military wing of the JVP. Human rights violations were carried out in the true sense of the word by the JVP megalomaniacs during 1988-1989 period.
When Ranjan Wijeratne, the former army officer took over the Defence Minister post under Ranasinghe Premadasa’s Government, he immediately took the relevant corrective measures to crush the blood-thirsty JVP barbarians. Some of the military strategies he used, rapidly demoralised the military unit of the JVP movement with the support of the effective intelligent officers.
Ranjan Wijeratne apprehended the leader of the JVP Rohana Wijeweera who was hiding in disguise a long time and was made to make a public announcement to his cadres to lay down arms and with that ended the years-long killing spree of ruthless JVP terrorists. At this stage, also as usual the Opposition parties accused the Government of violating the human rights.
Sri Lanka underwent a very gloomy period in its long history due to the protracted battle waged against successive Governments by a guerilla organisation headed by its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran claiming a separate State in the North and East provinces of this country.
The Government leaded by J.R. Jayewardene, Ranasinghe Premadasa and Chandika Kumaratunga took various measures to solve this problem and resorted to a number of strategies sometimes even with the support of foreign nations. Unfortunately, the LTTE movement was not ready to lay down arms and come to an amicable solution despite signing a peace accord with the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa also tried to negotiate with the terrorist movement at the beginning of his Presidency but as usual the LTTE reverted to their inhuman activities. Thus President Rajapaksa became determined to militarily crush the movement and liberate the people from their clutches.
The LTTE not only violated human rights but also slaughtered over seventy thousand people including the two national leaders of Sri Lanka and India, namely Ranasinghe Premadasa and Rajiv Gandhi.
The LTTE movement with its long history had organised very well locally and internationally with the support of the Tamil Diaspora and had presented a different picture to the international community about the Sri Lankan Government.
Some international organisations were convinced by the LTTE that the Sri Lanka Government was violating human rights.
Sri Lanka has obtained the membership of a number of human rights organisations such as UN Human Rights Commission, Asian Human Rights Commission based in Hong Kong. It is also a signatory to conventions such as International Covenant on civil and Political Rights. The above organisation as well as others such as Human Rights watch and Amnesty International are concerned with global unity and international and intercommunal harmony of the world’s people. However, it had been observed that superpowers of the Western World play a major role in this organisations and try to influence the Third World or developing countries to abide by their directions to a greater extent.
There were wars in the past. Even at present there are chaotic situations in some countries where the USA and other Western forces are directly involved on the pretext of international peace and harmony. Human Rights violations are the order of the day in some of these countries and hapless innocent people are killed in large numbers. It is quite surprising to see so-called Human Rights Organisations turn a deaf ear to their crimes.
People’s blessings
During the 1971 insurgency, 1988-1989 terror and 2008-2009 battle against the LTTE’s human rights violations may have occurred which is inevitable when fighting unlawful forces who try to destroy the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a country.
The most recent incident in the country, the Aragalaya and the subsequent developments which threatened the sovereignty of the country and the manner in which the newly elected President Ranil Wickremesinghe handled the situation without venturing into drastic human rights violations was appreciated and admired by every right-thinking citizen of the country irrespective of party affiliations. However, as usual the extremist groups and bankrupt politicians still clamour over this saying fundamental rights were violated.
The Governments in power and the Security Forces had the blessings of the people for the efforts made to wipe out this menace.
Also it is quite appropriate to mention the Latin Axiom Inter arma silent leges which means in times of war laws are mute.