June 26th was the United Nation’s Day in . As far as Sri Lanka is concerned the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights did nothing to commemorate this day. Instead the statements from the spokesman for the ministry manifested the usual lack of political will to deal with the issue of torture. The attitude of the Sri Lankan government, was expressed once again in the following wording, expressed by the spokesman, With regard to torture, it is well known that it exists all over the world…... Such sentiment is often expressed by spokesmen for the Sri Lankan government.
The statement that torture exists all over the world is like saying that deaths occur in all hospitals and therefore there is no difference between good hospitals and bad ones, or to say that there is child mortality in all countries and therefore there is no distinction between those countries that have proved capable of minimising it and those countries which have failed to do so. Such statements are ways of dismissing criticism about problems that exist within a particular context by generalising them as common experiences. In this way the specific criticism is denied by making a general observation which in no way explains the specific problem in a particular country. By such logic it can even be said that, since everyone dies, there is no reason to look into the particular circumstances of a particular death.
The reality however, is that there are many countries in the world which have overcome the problem of widespread torture and who have built an institutional framework within which torture is a rare occurrence. When this rare occurrence happens, people are scandalized and the state has within its system the means to act quickly to investigate and make legal redress available. South Korea and Hong Kong are two examples from Asia where the authorities have proved capable of developing their policing and law enforcement systems so that they can function without the use of torture. Some transgressions do happen from time to time but they do not reflect the normal situation within which criminal investigations and law enforcement take place.
For South Korea their current situation of a very low rate of torture was achieved only after the 90s. For Hong Kong this was achieved after the early 70s when the law enforcement system underwent a dramatic change by several reforms within the criminal justice system. The major reform was in the area of limiting the power of the police. This limit was brought about by the creation of the Independent Commission against Corruption which functions completely outside the territorys policing system. Previously Hong Kong had a similar type of bribery and corruption control system to Sri Lanka. It was called the Anti Corruption Branch in which the investigative functions were performed by the police themselves. As to be expected connivance between the investigators and the suspected officers prevented the branch from functioning efficiently. Therefore the policy decision to separate corruption control from the police was made. In the ICAC no officers were seconded for service from the police, not do they return to the policing system. The result was that it was possible to develop a disciplined police force due to the checks and balances newly developed through an intelligent reform process. Today the average citizen expects a reasonable service from their police officers and there is no fear among the people that if they are arrested they will be tortured. As one Sri Lankan interpreter explained, many south Asians who are arrested for immigration offences have to be assured by the arresting officers that they will not be mistreated as invariably those arrested expect such treatment due to their knowledge about how things happen in their own country. A visiting Sri Lankan who watched an arrest taking place in a Hong Kong street, wrote to the press about his surprise in seeing the police officers bending down to the suspect and assuring him of his security. All arresting officers are obliged by law to explain to all suspects their rights, including the right to telephone their family to inform them of the arrest, the right to legal counsel and for the right to food, water and amenities. There is also an independent and a vigorous legal profession which will, without any fear of repercussion, fight for the right of their clients who may be in custody. Further there is an independent press and there are no reports of assassinations or intimidation of journalists.
The statement that torture takes place everywhere is also a deliberate attempt to dismiss the published reports about the torture that takes place in Sri Lanka. If one goes by the complaints in recent times there are many examples of people being beaten to the extent of having serious injuries such as renal failure and brain injuries. One victim faced the threat of the infliction of Tuberculosis. Others have been killed for such petty crimes as stealing a bunch of bananas. Entire families have been assaulted because the head of the family made a complaint of bribery against a police officer. There are endless numbers of cases where innocent people have been picked up as substitutes for a crime that the police have failed to investigate and were in need of a suspect to be produced in court for the purpose of satisfying their superiors or to get promotions. One person was killed because he refused to sell liquor to a police officer on a poya (religious) day. Drivers who failed to stop their vehicle quickly enough at the signal of an officer have been shot dead and many more cases where an affluent person is able to influence a police officer to assault someone that he is displeased with. Such cases have been documented in enormous quantity and are available in the internet for anyone who cares to study them.
When government spokesmen make such statements that torture happens everywhere it reflects a level of negligence towards citizens that no person representing a state can have a right to possess. Behind such statements is the mentality that the state owes nothing to its people. Behind it also, is the contempt that such spokesmen have for their citizens as well as the forums where such matters are discussed. Torture is considered one of the most heinous acts of a state but for a spokesman of the Sri Lankan government it is simply something that happens everywhere.
This dismissive approach regarding torture was also expressed in an open forum by another spokesman in trying to reply to the criticism against the failure to successfully investigate and prosecute serious violations of rights such as disappearances, extrajudicial killings and torture by stating that when he arrived in Geneva he lost his wallet and when he complained about it to the police he was told that such things happen frequently and they are unable to investigate this affectively. The equation was the loss of a wallet versus things such as disappearances and other gross abuses of human rights. This spokesman did not inquire as to how many cases of disappearances, extrajudicial killings and torture occurred in Geneva in recent times. That even a single act of that type would cause a scandal provoking mass protests and serious interventions from parliament, the judiciary and the like were matters of little concern to this spokesman for the Sri Lankan government.
The problem about torture in Sri Lanka is not just about the seriousness of the problem and how widespread it is. What is more disturbing is that the cynical attitude within the government is so deep that there is not even a rational discussion about the problem, as would be expected from a responsible state. This means that not only is there a grave problem of torture in the country but that the state does not even make the effort to at least try to understand the problem. Hired spokesmen engage in poo pooing any criticism about such issues.
