Quite regularly reports appear in the press of persons in police custody, having tried to attack the police with grenades or other weapons, being shot dead. The Gampaha police are reported to have killed two persons who, while in a police cell, tried to escape. These two persons were arrested regarding an attempted bank robbery according to the police. The police had recorded statements from both the suspects and had allegedly taken them to find some objects when they tried to attack the police, who then shot them dead.
The Modara police shot dead a suspect who was alleged to have killed a young mother living in the area. He too was arrested and it is alleged that while he was taken to identify a wooden pole used in the killing he tried to attack the police and was then shot dead. The suspect was a deserter from the Sri Lankan army who had served as a lance corporal.
A further case was reported of a suspect who had been killed after arrest when trying to escape from the custody of the Weligama police. Yet another person who was taken after arrest by Waduwa police to find a weapon jumped from the boat in which he was traveling in Bolgoda Lake, allegedly committing suicide. All these cases were reported to have happened during this month (October 2007) and in police stations quite close to the capital, Colombo.
One of the cases that received wide publicity was the killing of the two alleged suspects of the Delgoda family massacre. The officer in charge of the Megahawatte police submitting a report to the Magistrate’s Court of Gampaha gave the following description of the incident:
On the basis of a statement made by Amaradasa, to the effect that the weapons were hidden at No. 277A, Kaduboda, Delgoda, when the police went to find the weapons a bomb, hidden in that place was taken [by the two suspects] to kill the police officers. On the orders of Sub Inspector Nishanka, PC27273 Wijeratna and PC 34334 Gunwardena shot with their T56 [light] sub-machine guns bearing number 28030808 and 29041767. After the shooting as the two suspects had been wounded they were taken to hospital where they died. The two suspects were shot in the chest and the head.
Subsequent to the incident several villagers contacted human rights organisations and gave different versions of the death of these two persons. While some villagers claim that one of the suspects was beaten to death at the police station and the other was shot dead in some remote place, both bodies were then brought and dumped at the alleged place of the incident. These villagers also stated that they suspect other persons having been involved in the family massacre who are still at large.
In all these cases the magistrates accepted the versions given by the police and entered verdicts of justifiable homicide. The magistrates decided the correctness of the versions given by the police before the cases had been brought to trial at a High Court and before all the evidence was examined.
Such deaths which have become quite a common occurrence indicate that the police higher authorities approve of such practices. The fact that the government or the parliament has not taken any visible or effective action to question this practice also suggests that there is direct or indirect political approval of such killings. The former Inspector General of Police (IGP) quite publicly approved this practice and the present IGP has spoken of stopping crime by ‘hook or by crook’. Neither was taken to task by the government or parliament. In some countries such as Bangladesh and India where shootings by the police has come to the notice of the judiciary, the Supreme Court as well as other courts has made numerous attempts to evolve means to intervene and has rigorously tested the police when such incidents are reported. In Sri Lanka there have been no such attempts and this practice goes on unchallenged.
The practice of killing after arrest is not new in Sri Lanka. In 1971, in the repression unleashed on an insurgency, thousands of persons were arrested and killed. In the period between 1986 and 1990 at least 30,000 people disappeared meaning that they were abducted and killed while in police or military custody. In the north and the east this practice has gone on from the late 70s until now with, it can safely be said, the tacit approval of the police and military establishments and no serious inquiries take place.
Recently with the visit of Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights the question of recording of complaints, investigations and prosecutions came to public discussion. The real issue is not whether a UN human rights monitoring mission should investigate the allegations of such killings and other abuses of human rights, the issue in fact is that somebody needs to investigate them. At the moment no one is investigating these matters. Can a responsible government claim that they will not investigate or, that while claiming to investigate them in fact, do nothing?
The issue of a UN monitoring mission for the investigation of human rights abuses is based on the assumption that there is neither the will or the capacity on the part of the Sri Lankan government to investigate gross abuses of human rights and killings after arrest. While there are many government spokesmen based in the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process and some Sri Lankan consulates abroad, to oppose any discussion on the UN investigations into such practices, no one indicates who is actually going to do such investigations. Obviously their position is that these incidents need not be investigated. The underlying assumption is that investigations into killings and other abuses by the police or military will create serious political problems.
Some members of the governments propaganda industry have talked about the need to engage with the international community regarding the allegations of abuses of human rights. Would this engagement mean attempting to convince the international community that the government is in fact seriously dealing with such incidents of abuse? Or, does this engagement mean finding various ways to deny the existence of such incidents altogether and to make it appear that allegations of abuses of human rights are exaggerated? Further, does it help the Sri Lankan people who face such abuses to know that greater abuses are taken place in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places?
Why are such strenuous efforts made by the propaganda industry without making any attempt to take into consideration the responsibilities of any legitimate government? The legitimacy of a government does not depend purely on elections. (Of course even the legitimacy of some elections is questioned in many countries including Sri Lanka). An essential component of legitimacy is that all allegations of crimes and abuses of human rights are adequately and effectively investigated through the exercise of the governments authority over the law enforcement agencies. A government that is so compromised as not to be able to exercise its authority over its law enforcement agencies has violated one of its most basic obligations. Though the spokesmen for the government include those who belong to educated classes they are somehow unwilling to question this legitimacy issue regarding a government that allows people to be killed after arrest. Perhaps they may lose their positions in their industry if they were to do so.
The question of legitimacy is not synonymous with the question of sovereignty. A vital component of legitimacy is the accountability of the government relating to the investigation and prosecution of all crimes irrespective of who the perpetrators are. The purpose for which UN human rights bodies have been created is to deal with the accountability issue only. It is this issue that the propaganda machinery of the government is trying to avoid and in the process of such avoidance manipulates not only facts but also the very essence of the debate.
