On the evening of June 1, 2007 two Red Cross volunteers who had attended a training programme of the Red Cross in Colombo and were returning home to Batticaloa were abducted at the Central Railway Station in the presence of several of their colleagues. Their colleagues immediately complained to the Inspector General of Police and other Sri Lankan authorities that several men in civilian clothes, claiming to be from the Criminal Investigation Division (CID), took the two men after explaining to them that they were wanted for questioning.
The next day the bodies of the two men, S. Shanmungaligam, 32, and K. Chandramohan, 27, both from the Tamil community were found in Kiriella near the central town of Ratnapura, 60 miles (40 Km) south east of Colombo. They had both been shot.
The Sri Lankan Red Cross issued a statement on these killings in which they said:
The Sri Lanka Red Cross Society vehemently condemns the brutal killing of two volunteers by an unknown party after they were abducted on 1 June 2007, SLRC Chairman Jagath Abeysinghe said in a statement. (IRIN June 5, 2007)
The statement also explained as to how the work of the Red Cross could be disastrously affected by this act.
Meanwhile the government of Sri Lanka issued a statement denying its involvement in the killings and also stated that it has appointed a team to investigate the crime. To demonstrate the governments innocence the president visited the funeral parlour in Colombo were the two bodies had been taken. The governments claim is that the killings may have been organised to embarrass the Sri Lankan government while crucial talks are taking place in Geneva on Sri Lankas dismal human rights record. The government spokesman, Minister Rohitha Bogollagama, explains away the abductions and disappearances happening in Colombo as the work of underground criminal elements and not of the police or military. The minister seems to believe that much of the governments responsibility will be absolved if the abductions and the killings can be attributed to criminal elements.
Behind this seemingly innocent explanation is the failure of the government to accept the responsibility for upholding law and order and to prevent such abductions and forced disappearances. The position of the government appears to be that such things are beyond their control. This position itself goes to the very heart of the governments capacity to govern. In fact, the situation has been going on for many months now and the government has not shown any willingness or capacity to deal with it. Instead everything that the government has done has contributed to the worsening of the already bad situation.
The government has created the impression it is the secretary of defense, Mr. Gotabya Rajapakse, that is now running the country and that the government is unable to bring him under control. The editor of a leading newspaper, the Daily Mirror complained of personal insinuations of threats to her life being made by the secretary. Earlier an editor of another leading newspaper, the Sunday Leader, informed the media that he was under imminent threat of being arrested and that lead to an immediate response from the media who gathered around the press for the editors defense. There are allegations of many persons who are being arrested for no reason and being kept at the Boosa Detention Camp. Police officers who have questioned the policy of arresting persons without reason have allegedly been threatened with removal from their positions if they insist on reasons for such arrest. Persons in detention have staged hunger strikes claiming that they have been forced to sign confessions under duress.
Captain Sarath Pushpakumara Gunawardhana, who has been detained since 18 December 2006 for allegedly being involved in transactions between some of the governments political allies and the LTTE complained last week that he has received death threats as his interrogators were unable to get him to cooperate. His wife also alleged that he had complained to the Red Cross about torture. Meanwhile, a manager of a newspaper, which has been closed down after a conflict with the government was rearrested and in a statement he alleged that the second arrest took place after he refused to change his earlier statement regarding the involvement of some high ranking persons in the issue relating to such payments prior to the last elections. While serious crimes such as the large number of abductions, forced disappearances and even other crimes like family massacres remain unaddressed, the CID is otherwise busy on such politically related investigations.
No government is entitled to claim that the law and order situation is something beyond its control. In this particular incident of the abduction and the killings of the two Red Cross volunteers complaints were made immediately after the alleged arrest and abductions. However, their bodies were found about 40 kilometers away from Colombo on the morning of the next day. Even the details of the van in which the two persons were taken away, including the vehicle registration number were provided by the colleagues of the deceased who made the initial complaints. Despite of such complaints and even pleas made to higher authorities, no demonstrative action was taken to protect the two volunteers. In any country where the rule of law is functional some of the basic duties of the police on receiving such a complaint would have been as follows:
If the allegation was that the two persons had been arrested by the police the names of the persons concerned would have been sent to all of the stations and inquiries would be made as to whether any such arrest had taken place; a vehicle check would then have been conducted on the basis of the details given; then the police would have passed the information to all the stations around the country including those at check points which are many these days in Sri Lanka through their communication systems; the police would also have used the radio, television and other media to create a high alert throughout the country regarding the alleged incident and called for information from any source; and there are many other precautionary measures that have been taken in Sri Lanka in the past when a high alert was created on an incident such as this.
However, up to the news being received about the dead bodies being found, there is no evidence of any action being taken by the police in this case. Also regarding over a hundred other cases of abductions and disappearances which have been reported in recent times, in and around Colombo, there has not been any practice of such alerts being created by the Sri Lankan police. Instead the attempts have been to create doubts about such abductions and disappearances and to down play all such complaints.
Such a negligent approach on the part of the police and the government is a factor contributing to such crimes and could even be regarded as making them complicit in these crimes.
Tacit approval to engage in abductions and disappearances is very much a part of the Sri Lankan policing culture during the last few decades. The point of view that poison should be killed with poison gave rise to the tolerance of all sorts of practices under the guise of dealing with crime or with terrorism. It is well documented that during the late eighties there were many agencies that grew up within the policing and military system which in turn created death squads in which criminal elements were also absorbed. Such approved agencies were called by such names as the Black Cats. Often there was multiplicity of such agencies. Often no one really had absolute control over these various agencies. While one agency denied their involvement in a particular abduction or disappearance some other agency might actually carry out the operation. In this manner the government and the top ranking officers could deny direct involvement in any of such acts. It is the sum total of such acts of repression that they rely on in order to defeat their direct and indirect enemies.
It may well be that the collapse of the system is so advanced that the state agencies have lost control of the situation altogether. Even by 2001 there was a realisation that Sri Lankas law and order situation was critically flawed. It was this that lead to the introduction of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution and the creation of some independent bodies that might be able to arrest the further development of the situation. However, the present government was able to suspend the operation of these independent institutions.
It is the responsibility of the government to keep effective control of the law and order situation. If irrational policies adopted in the past have now reaped and harvested insanity the question now is as to whether the government will take adequate steps to return to a state of sanity and to face up to its obligations. Obviously, the stage of insanity is so advanced now that without adequate support from other countries that have been able to sustain their institutions of the rule of law it is not possible to overcome this problem. The dysfunctionalism of the Sri Lankan policing system is no longer a problem that can be ignored. Under these circumstances it is the voices of civil society that should rise to demand a return to sanity and to stop the nations further decline into peril. Under these circumstances of the states incapacity to maintain law and order it is no shame to seek help from outside. The Sri Lankan government has done so in the past and other governments have also done so in times of such great peril. It is in that spirit that the discussion at the Human Rights Council on the Sri Lankan situation should be faced up to. The government instead of taking an evasive position should disclose to the international community its failure and inability to deal with the maintenance of the rule of law in the country and seek help. Not to face up to this is to persist along the path of peril which has already brought so much disaster to the country and is manifesting itself every day with new horrendous incidents such as the murder of the two Red Cross volunteers.
