Lebarcham (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} kirili) wrote,@ 2008-09-22 19:45:00 |
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Law is ridiculously interesting. Tort law, at least. That was the one I was told would be boring. Contract law isn't interesting, nope nope.
Anyway. I've been getting more and more into research these few days, research on Sri Lanka. Everybody knows something is terribly wrong and people are just too overwhelmed with knowing it to record it, because. Well, because it's a ridiculous thing to expect hope en mass when you never knew where to get it. They never really knew democracy, so they know it's wrong but there's no collective idea of what's right.
Sri Lanka was colonized since about the 8th Century AD, by India (Hindus), then Portuguese (Catholic) then Dutch (Protestant, methinks), then British (confused, but also took the trouble to go and kill the king and properly subjugate the country).
So there was no place for art to really develop, art that can be called Sri Lankan. There was Michael Ontaaje's Anil's Ghost to record a part of the horror of the 1980s, some writing by Martin Wickramasinghe, but generally the horror has gone... on and on and on, and nobody really analysed it overmuch. www.disappearences.org has an attempt...
How South Asia is churning comes to Hong Kong in bits and pieces. Stories of tragedies and near collisions, almost-victims and victims of bomb blasts, police brutality, extra-judicial killings.
On the day before yesterday morning, 10 a.m. Nishantha Fernando was shot while he was in his van with his 11 year old son. The son was physically unhurt. Nishantha Fernando was pronounced dead in Negambo hospital, Sri Lanka. RIP Nishantha Fernando.
On Janaka Perera, the general responsible on the deaths of many, many people in the 1980's... an idea of his depraved mind.
And more on this sad case.
The country churns with fear and fear and malcontent, which outing will be the end, what kind of world are these children growing up to see.
Good journalism is showing, not telling, I've been told. And it's not difficult to show what has happened to Sri Lanka, from colonization from around the 8th century to supposed independence in 1948 and the systematic destruction of all hopes of having a democracy removed as saplings from the minds of the people. After the 1978 constitution of JR Jayawardene and the establishment of the executive president, as well as the political turned ethnic violence between the LTTE and other such groups against the Sri Lankan government against the oppression of the Tamil minority, the Sri Lankan government murdering 30,000 JVP in the 1980's... the countless disappearence...
The killings in Sri Lanka are an immense part of his history hencetoforth not adequately explored. I am in no position to explore it, but if the hallmark of journalism is showing and not telling them perhaps I can share some stories I have heard with you.
General Janaka Perera and the Human Broiler project.
A general in the 1980's who is still wondering free, responsible for the death of many, many human beings. One story of a camp under his guidance was a woman who was being interrogated. Her boyfriend's head was cut off and put on her lap.
She jumped out the window.
The Human Broiler Project was that it wasn't enough just to kill political dissdents and those who may be political dissdents, but to cut them to pieces and dump them back in their villages.
Fear. Bodies in the rivers. Burning on the roadsides.
Janaka Perera told a friend a story about how, after they had captured two insurgents and put them in prison, he was tossing and turning, unable to sleep. So he got up, took a gun and shot the two people. Then he was able to sleep.
Nishantha Fernando was killed, pronounced dead at Negambo hospital. Gerard Perera, who made torture allegations against the police, was shot dead on a bus.
How does the rule of law deteriorate to this point?
Nishantha Fernando repeatedly made complaints to the Inspector General of Police, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka and the Attorney General about assassination threats made to him and his family. The Inspector General was under obligation to protect him and failed. Human rights organizations had also written to ask for his safety.
Nishantha Fernando initially made allegations against some higher-ups in the Negambo police station for asking their asking of bribes. 5,000 rupees (46 USD). Policemen came to his home, beat up his wife and two children as well as himself, and then took him to the Negambo police station where he was further tortured.
So Nishantha Fernando filed a fundamental rights application, and the Supreme Court granted leave to proceed. Four thugs came to his house and demanded he withdraw his case on the 23rd of June 2008. After this he and his family went into hiding. Recently he emerged and yesterday, the 20th of September 2008, he was shot in broad daylight.
How does the rule of law deteriorate to the point when police officers can wreak revenge on people who dare complain against them? How does the belief in rule of law become a naïve hope, when the inspector general despite having the requirement to, makes no move to protect you?
How does filing a bribery case lead to torture and assassination?
According to his wife, the only enemies Nishantha Fernando had were the police.
The world looked at him when he went into hiding
Who could possibly hurt you now?
"A case in front of a the Supreme Court,
a guarantee from the Inspector General to protect you!"
And they shook their heads because they don't know
He shook his head because he did
For a man with a case
in front of the supreme court
with protection from the Inspector General
is the least safe man of all.
He had complained about a bribe one day
Police man asked him 5,000 rupees, 46 US dollars
And this he naively thought illegal
and the high court made the same mistake
and asked him to proceed with the case
The Police, they know the real law
So they came to tell it to him
In the real language
Blows on his children
His wife
And, in the purest of legal language, in a torture chamber
the Police Station
So he went up to the fools
That sometimes come to the supreme court
and they granted him leave to proceed
in a case against those who knew the real law far better than
the men in wigs
who sometimes think
"I remember law, I feel an itch to enforce it today."
And then came thugs,
Who had been brought up knowing the real law,
the real judges,
how much a life is
really worth
And they told the naive man, who had twice foolishly believed the men in wigs
To stop harassing the real lawyers, judges, deities
the Police
And he asked for help and he told and he tried to explain,
"They threaten to kill me, my family,"
And the Attorney General
The human rights commission
The Inspector General of Police
Said "no."
They don't like to give much hearing to
The Real Law of the land
(They'd lose too much,
in a land where corruption is the status quo)
A few months in hiding
But money doesn't get made easily
by those in hiding
So he came back to his house
in the realm of the real law
Driving on the road
Wife and daughter at home,
kid beside him
In his van
in the broadest daylight, shot.
Believers beware, the grave of Justice weeps
Another man fallen to the ignorance of many
And the cruelty of few who control them
