Columns

The presidential pardon for a murder convict has come under worldwide criticism

April 1st is a day of tomfoolery when legs are pulled even by those who should know better. So when the phone rang and the caller at the other end said “Naseby here”, for a moment I thought it was an “April Fool” joke.

But it was no joke. Lord Naseby, or Michael Morris as I knew him way back in Colombo in 1963 (if my memory serves me correct), asked for my postal address to send another copy of his new book, as the one addressed to me along with copies to four others appeared to have ‘vanished’ between London and Colombo’s Ministry of Foreign Relations to where they were sent.

Lord Naseby’s book is titled “Sri Lanka- Paradise Lost; Paradise Regained”. I was tempted to ask him to add a few words to the title at the end- “and lost again”.

No, it was not intended to be humorous. It was a serious suggestion belated though it might be. It was meant to convey a widely held view that things have changed considerably since the book was written and the socio-political situation is not as bright as some would want the world outside to believe. And it has nothing to do with the corona virus either.

For all that I have heard, read and been told in the last couple of years by those still living in Sri Lanka, residing abroad and by foreign diplomats and journalists paint a gloomy scenario of what lies ahead for the country. The political and racial warts that lay buried some months back are surfacing fast they say.

The upcoming parliamentary elections — whenever they are held — will show where the country is heading — towards strengthened democratic pluralism and racial/religious reconciliation or more insidiously in the direction of authoritarian control.

In the last couple of years or more, Buddhism has been desecrated, justice has been discarded and the country’s democratic polity in danger of dismemberment. Political forces and Buddhist nationalists have tried to bend the higher echelons of the Buddhist hierarchy into their way of thinking.

Meanwhile, elements of the Buddhist sangha have tried to impose their warped understanding of history to pursue an authoritarian path in the name of restoring social order.

I was reminded by one faithful follower of the Buddha’s teachings of something that happened two years ago I think when the Anunayake of the Asgiriya Chapter is said to have delivered an anusasana at an alms giving held by Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

This ‘high priest’ of the Asgiriya Chapter (did the Buddha envisage such differences in the Buddha sasana?) is said to have claimed that since some describe Gotabaya Rajapaksa as “Hitler” he should act like Hitler and rule the country with the help of the army.

I do not know how accurately the monk’s words have been paraphrased by this contact but such utterances are possible from those armed with a splattering of history.

Hitler used the democratic process and the Reichstag to come to power and then establish his fascist dictatorship that killed millions of people in Germany and in Europe bringing disaster to that continent.

Perhaps the Anunayake’s cursory knowledge of German history is based on his superficial understanding of Hitler’s Mein Kampf (My Struggle) in which he advocates a man of iron to restore Germany’s nationalistic pride and create an empire.

And how the 1000-year Reich end? Hitler committed suicide and his military leaders faced war crimes trials at Nuremberg. Perhaps the anunayake should ponder that!

But he is not the only monk who has made a mockery of the Buddha’s teachings. There are many more and of the virulent kind who have desecrated Buddhism by word and deed.

Still those like Galagoda-aththe Gnanasara thera who was sentenced to six years jail for contempt of court was freed by President Sirisena with a pardon though previously he allegedly engaged in inciting violence against ethnic Muslims.

This is not the only time Sirisena used this presidential prerogative. And now President Rajapaksa has resorted to pardoning a mass murderer who had been convicted by the highest court in the country for killing nine Tamils including children in Mirusuvil some 20 years ago. He was convicted last year after a trial lasting several years.

This unbelievable act gained notoriety as international organisations, civil society activists and human rights groups universally condemned the presidential pardon that dragged Sri Lanka to the nadir of civilised conduct and moral consciousness.

I have been besieged with questions that I cannot answer. Why has a murderer of the innocent unanimously convicted by a five-member bench of the Supreme Court been released at a time when the country is in the throes of a crisis and the attention of its rulers should be on fighting the virus and ensuring that its people have food, medicines and money to survive.

How could the dastardly conduct of a murderer draw the attention of the authorities over the plight of a struggling citizenry facing an unprecedented crisis?

These are questions being asked by Sri Lankans and others irrespective of their ethnicity and their status in society. Surely, they say, this presidential pardon is a slap in the face of the country’s judicial system where even the decision of the country’s highest court is summarily dismissed to save a killer? Are those in uniform above the law, they ask.

If that is how the domestic judicial system and its judges are treated how can the world believe that the country has a judicial system that can hold accountability trials on war crimes or violations of international law when that same system is treated so cavalierly?

Last week I was asked by a legal academic what bodies such as the Bar Association in the country are doing over such “unspeakable impunity and the arbitrary use of presidential power.”

I would not know for the unofficial bar appears to have taken a vow of silence.

But I know this. When a military officer stripped a young girl naked and got her to walk down the street in Kataragama during the 1971 JVP insurgency, fired at her with Sten guns and eventually she died, the two soldiers responsible were not glorified as heroes. Their uniforms did not save them. They faced justice and paid the price.

Buddhist monks were not spared because they wore the saffron robe. Both Buddharakkita and Somarama theras were convicted for the assassination of Prime Minister SWRD Bandaranaike –the killer Somarama was hanged while Buddharakkita, the Viharadhipathy of the Kelaniya Rajamaha Vihare died in prison.

If, as they say today, saffron robes can save convicted monks and military uniforms unrepentant murderers, they remind me of the words of Mark Anthony:

“O judgement! Thou art fled to

brutish beasts.

And men have lost their reason”

I do not have to recall them. They have been etched in my mind since my school days.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor, Diplomatic Editor and Political Columnist of the Hong Kong Standard prior to moving to London where he joined Gemini News Service. Later he was Sri Lanka’s Deputy
Chief-of Mission in Bangkok and
Deputy High Commissioner in London before returning to journalism.)