Editorial

As yet another International Human Rights Day is marked today on the annual calendar, yet another group of international observers is visiting Sri Lanka, apparently for the purposes of ‘assessing the situation regarding the deprivation of liberty.’ This time it is a three-member delegation from the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The group is due to visit prisons, police stations and institutions for juveniles, migrants and so on.

No doubt, a ‘briefing’ will be held by this mission like all the others that have come before. But will all these visits help the local improvement of the rights of Sri Lankans despite the flowery promises made out by ministers at various gatherings, here and overseas?

If a count is made of the various missions and personages who have trooped into the country to ‘assess the human rights situation’ periodically during the past two years, the number would likely be quite bewildering. Ironically, some of these ‘observers’ are from the very countries of the West that are blatantly violating the human rights of their own citizens and others. In fact, the West’s patent double-standards in fighting terrorism, (Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen), and their holistic albeit selective HR advocacy elsewhere is now a matter of heavily critiqued record. Its hasty proxy wars and destructive rhetoric have hastened the pace of conflict and chaos in many parts of the world. In Syria and Iraq in particular, radicalised Islamic militancy has taken swift advantage of the void left by adventurist policies of Western nations thereby leading to the further de-stabilising of West Asia – the turbulent Middle East.

At home, Sri Lanka almost came a cropper in trying to emulate the West’s oppressive counter-terror laws to replace the existing Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) which, by contrast, appeared to be almost benign. For instance, many of the modern counter-terror laws permit inhumane detention and ‘enhanced interrogations’ — which is a euphemism for torture –, domestic surveillance without warrant and refusal to let the judiciary review such cases. An effort to replicate the same in a draft counter-terror law for Sri Lanka, including allowing the police to have access to bank records without judicial warrant, was prevented only at the eleventh hour following public agitation when the confidential draft was leaked to the media in ‘the public interest.’

In the meantime, Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Commission was not sent the counter-terror draft for review despite its repeated requests to the Government on the basis that its mandate includes the scrutiny of draft laws that affect human rights protections. The question then arises as to whether the Government is under the belief that it is more accountable to the US or the European Union (EU) than it is to the very institutions that are established domestically to protect human rights?

So do the frequent descents of outsiders on this country for the ‘purposes of monitoring’ have practical impact at the local level? To what extent is the Government implementing policy and legal changes based on judgments handed down by the Supreme Court or as contained in various reports of domestic commissions such as the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC)? Many of the LLRC (2011) report’s positive recommendations relating to steps that must be taken to re-establish the Rule of Law still remain unimplemented. The report detailed safeguards for arrested and detained persons and reminded the State that it has had a clear duty to investigate specific allegations, to prosecute and punish the wrongdoers and to treat a disappearance as an offence entailing penal consequences. Many of these duties can be enforced under existing laws. Doing that is the responsibility of state agencies which must be supported by the requisite political will. The Government has taken small steps in that regard at least where legal reform is concerned but much more needs to be done.

And rather than castigating others as to why they are not pursuing the investigations into the killings and harassment of journalists during the previous regime, the Government must be called upon to answer the question as to why the criminal process under its own hand is not yielding proper results in these cases? The responsibility for making sure that justice is served to the dead and the victimized, journalists and others, lies fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the Government’s law enforcement authorities who should be allowed to work free from political pressure to unearth the truth, even if the dead cannot be brought back to life again.

Palestinians, your day will come

This week’s decision by the US President to tacitly recogniae Jerusalem as the new capital of the state of Israel should not come as a surprise given his unorthodox conduct on the world stage. What is arguably surprising is the Palestinians continued belief that the US will play honest-broker in the West Asian (Middle East) peace process.

Since signing the Oslo Peace Accord with Israel in Washington (August 1993), the Palestinians lay faith, surprisingly, in the US to bring lasting peace to the region. The influence of the Jewish lobby in US politics can only compare with the rifle lobby in that country. Even a well-meaning US President, Barack Obama could neutralise neither.

Yet, the Palestinians probably believed the US could use leverage over Israel. Unfortunately they now find the ‘tail wagging the dog’, which also happens to be the title of a recent book by an Israeli scholar who, however, blames the Arab states for regional instability by their willful intransigence. The sectarian divisions within the Arab/Islamic world – partly fuelled by the West, sometimes makes one wonder if there is some veracity in that claim.

It is somewhat comforting to note that the US President is alone – shunned even by his Western allies, in derailing the painful peace process that could see a new wave of violence as Jerusalem was the dream capital of the proposed sovereign state of Palestine in an inevitable two-state compromise.
The Palestinians should patiently stomach this US Presidential decree which even many Americans and the world at large, condemn. The world is with them right now. Having waited for almost seven decades, they must wait just a little more. Their day will come.