The security apparatus that arose through the conflict with the LTTE will continue to exist despite the declared end of the conflict. Judging by the statements of the government, the strategy is to strengthen and broaden this apparatus to cover the whole country. In the north and east this will be done on the pretext of preventing the LTTE from reappearing. Elsewhere, it will be done to ensure political control and to paralyse institutions for the advantage of the ruling regime.
The targets of the security apparatus are ordinary citizens. They include people engaged in simple protest, whether about wages, living conditions or other matters of societal importance. Everything is now under surveillance of this apparatus. Trade unions, journalists, civil society organisations and opposition political parties are all of special concern.
The security apparatus is particularly keen to control the electoral process. It targets the grassroots political activities of opposition parties so as to deny fair contest during elections. In fact, it acts to prevent any opposition group from operating freely at any time. It also targets groups within the ruling party itself, who compete for privileged positions in electoral lists or in local government bodies. The system of preferential votes encourages this. There is an assumption that those who receive a larger number of preferential votes may obtain higher positions as ministers or members of local governments. It in turn gives rise to intense competition among members of the ruling group.
Groups exist within the security apparatus for the purpose of activities that are not authorised by law. They monitor political leaders and any other persons whom the government targets, and abduct, torture, interrogate and kill with impunity.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) continues to give very wide powers to the security apparatus. All legal safeguards available through the normal law can be suspended through use of the PTA. Most of its provisions cannot be justified to deal with an emergency; their real purpose is to arbitrarily extend state power.
But the security apparatus does not feel limited to the provisions of the PTA. It can do anything whether the PTA allows it or not, because with the loss of the meaning of legality there is nothing to stop it from acting completely outside the law. There is no way for the parliament or the judiciary to monitor or intervene.
Within the last few years there have been no investigations into complaints against the security apparatus. Calls for such investigations are actively opposed. The mentality developed during the conflict, which persists today, is that demands for investigations are treacherous, analogous to acts of sabotage or the aiding and abetting of terrorism. The security apparatus has consistently attacked the media from this ideological position and the propaganda campaign that has followed is the subject of the next section.
Today the term security apparatus refers not to the military and policing structures of the state in Sri Lanka, nor the laws that are supposed to guide their work, but to a whole political system and a way of life. The predominant position of this apparatus reflects the reduction of law to meaninglessness. This is why in various places during the last year the AHRC has referred to Sri Lanka as the Gulag Island.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn used the word “gulag” to describe a type of experience that is being repeated in many parts of the world. His own three-volume study was of Russia from 1918 to 1956. The dreaded Cheka, the security organisation, exercised the function of informer, arresting authority, interrogator, judge, executioner and even gravedigger. All these functions were exercised in complete secrecy with whatever procedures it chose to adopt. What the law in the country was and how it was implemented was almost completely left to the Cheka; only the communist party general secretary had greater authority. Within this system decisions of life and liberty were made casually, and without transparency or accountability.
The insurgencies in Sri Lanka from 1971 paved the way for the emergence of such an authority in the form of the security apparatus there. Tens of thousands of people from all parts of the country have been forcibly disappeared in a similar manner to what Solzhenitsyn described.
The recent investigations into an open letter that 133 well-known Sri Lankan citizens signed illustrate how the gulag is extending into and overwhelming all parts of the judicial process. The letter was published in newspapers to condemn the death threat against Dr. P. Saravanamuttu, a civil society activist. The president instructed the defence secretary to verify the facts, asking if there was such a threat or that there might be some international conspiracy against Sri Lanka. Officers from the CID then visited and questioned many of the signatories. The officers asked how they know of Dr. Saravanamuttu; whether there was any meeting of all the signatories; whether they had in fact seen the threatening letter, and who had sent it.
The CID visits and questions had no legal basis. They were direct interference into the basic rights of citizens to engage in any solidarity work within the law. The defence secretary has no legal authority to direct inquiries into the legitimate acts of citizens. The CID officers have no duty to obey such orders. They particularly should not be carrying out political work aimed at suppressing those that the government considers its political opponents.
In this instance the letter containing the death threat was brought to the notice of the government and it was very widely publicized right from the start. But like in earlier similar cases, no investigations were carried out into the letter itself. Instead, when the prominent citizens published the letter condemning the threat and demanding protection for the target, it was they who were subject to investigation. In this manner the entire legal process has been turned upside down and inside out.
The defence ministry in 2009 also went to the stage of directly threatening lawyers who appear for clients against it in court. In mid year, the following article appeared on its website:
Leader Publications (Pvt) Ltd, publishers of the Sunday Leader newspaper was charged with Contempt of Court for publishing an article comparing Secretary of Defence, Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa with Velupillai Prabhakaran, who was responsible for the death and destruction of over 100,000 civilians, despite extending an assurance in Court not to publish any defamatory content in reference to the Secretary Defence and the Sri Lanka Forces. The article in question was published minus a by line, which is a rarity in professional journalism.
Leader Publications (Pvt) Ltd was given time to show cause and the case was heard yesterday 9 July 2009 at the Mt. Lavinia Courts before the Additional District Judge Mohammed Macky. The original Defence team had voluntarily resigned from handling the case citing it was against their ethical and moral standing to oppose a national hero like the Secretary of Defence, with whose unwavering commitment and focus Sri Lanka is a free country today.
A new team comprising of some who have a history of appearing for and defending LTTE suspects in the past, namely Srinath Perera, Upul Jayasuriya, S. Sumanthiran, Attorney-at-Law Viran Corea, Attorney-at-Law instructed by Athula Ranagala, Attorney-at-Law appeared for Leader Publications.
It was the observation of some senior independent Lawyers who were present in court that day, that this team of Lawyers share a common anti-patriotic sentiment fired by pro UNP activism and following. One such Lawyer speaking to the media mentioned his disbelief and shock at the manner in which these Lawyers had banded together in the face of prima facie proof of Contempt of Court. As a respected senior member of the legal fraternity, he opined that the behaviour of these Lawyers was an insult to the whole profession and totally unacceptable at a time when Sri Lanka is enjoying its veritable independence after 30 long years. He went to the extent of branding these Lawyers as traitors of the nation.
Lawyers are officers of the court. Any attack on them in relation to their official functions amounts to contempt. The publication of this article, with photographs of three of the lawyers, is an attack not only on them but also on their official function. The article calls these lawyers traitors simply because in this case they appeared against the defence ministry. It also implies that the status of a “national hero” before the law is unequal to that of other parties, even though the basic principle of the law is the equality of all citizens before it. Such is the condition of law under this security apparatus.
