So, if counsel who appear for persistently thorn-in-the-side newspapers or defend terrorist suspects are labeled as traitors, what label may we pin on lawyers who are 'handsomely retained' (as the legal parlance goes) by errant arms of the state military apparatus to cover up extra judicial killings? Should we call them patriots in the misguided belief that they are acting out of loyalty to their keepers? Or should we hold them equally culpable as the killers whom they try so unconscionably to absolve?

And again, what label is appropriate for those professed 'state lawyers' whose actual role is not as the court's amicus but rather, to systematically cover up horrendous human rights violations perpetuated by state forces, whether before ordinary courts of law or politically compromised Commissions of Inquiry?
Do these individuals act out of love for their country or to advance their own promotions, perchance and to ingratiate themselves with the government of the day through sheer self interest? These are most amusingly rhetorical questions indeed.

Public outrage and legal responsibility

Years ago, when the horror of a teenage Tamil schoolgirl being raped and killed by Sinhalese soldiers and policemen attached to the Chemmani check point, (who then also killed her relatives who had come to look for her), swept through the country, the dynamics were indeed different. Lawyers looking after the interests of the aggrieved parties as well as the indefatigable state counsel who prosecuted the Krishanthi Kumaraswamy case in the High Court and ultimately procured a conviction of the accused soldiers, were publicly applauded. They were not called traitors for trying to ascertain the truth.

The judges presiding over the Trial-at-Bar who handed down the convictions (affirmed in appeal) were not regarded as traitors. Independent witnesses of Sinhalese ethnicity, who were key in securing the convictions, were not regarded as traitors. Civil society who supported this case throughout the High Court trial was not demonized. This country would have blushed for shame if that was so. We did not need either the West or the East to tell us that this was an atrocity that ought not to have happened.
It was similarly so in the eighties when more than fifty two schoolchildren of Sinhalese ethnicity living in a remote Southern hamlet were 'disappeared' by soldiers of Sinhalese ethnicity acting in collusion with the principal of that school, also of Sinhalese ethnicity. These abductions, (the bodies of some children were never recovered), were due to a private grudge that the principal had against those schoolchildren with however the 'terror cover' of the second Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna insurrection being used for that purpose.

In these two rare high profile instances where public outrage led to legal responsibility being enforced on the perpetrators, the dynamics were simple; unforgivable abuses had been committed during the course of conflict as is apt to happen and those responsible were punished. It is true perhaps, that the relevant prosecutions were not picture perfect; they seldom are, in any event. Only junior soldiers were made liable while superior officers escaped unscathed. But at least and undeniably, some degree of responsibility was enforced. There was no call for international war crimes tribunals because there was no occasion for such; instead, the domestic law was sufficient for the purpose. The collective reputation of the forces did not suffer as a result.

Recollecting grave crimes in our public memory

Lawyers who appeared for those victims did so out of a sense of duty and not for huge sums of money. Perhaps the reality may be different now in regard to some lawyers who profess to appear for 'human rights' causes only when massive fees are paid. Perhaps again, the 'commercialization' and 'politicization' of civil society in recent years may have resulted in self serving agendas on the part of some.
But, though those who perform as the cleaners of state perpetuated extra judicial killings may shout about the real or perceived misdeeds of their opponents from the rooftops, this is little reason as to why the violations themselves should be brushed under the carpet.

The grievous executions at point blank range of five Tamil students in Trincomalee in January 2006 and of the fifteen aid workers of Action Contra L' Faim (ACF) killed in Mutur in August 2006 (this month marks the third year anniversary) are recent cases in point. The full report of the 2006 Commission of Inquiry, which investigated these and other cases but was stopped midway in its proceedings, has not been made public. The authenticity of extracts of the report that have been conveniently 'leaked' to selected newspapers are being denied by some Commission members, whom we assume, (this being the kindest interpretation), lack sufficient courage to make their dissatisfaction public. But more to the point than aggrieved egos, should we just brush these cases away and forget about the gravity of the crimes thereto?

The latest report of the University Teachers for Human Rights (Special Report No 33; A Travestied Investigation, Erosion of the Rule of Law and Indicators for the Future of Minorities in Lanka) details with painstaking rigour, the chain of responsibility in regard to the murders of the fifteen aid workers. A further feature of this report is its detailing of the family members of the victims being coerced to sign letters which call upon ACF to give them fair compensation. These letters also quite absurdly (if not revealingly) compliments official counsel in the case before the 2006 Commission of Inquiry for being impartial in their conduct and for being kind to the family members when they came to give evidence.
It is too much now to expect that these crimes will be effectively inquired into by courts of law and the perpetrators brought to justice. The least that we can do in these very difficult times is to ensure that the fate of these as well as of other countless innocent victims who have died at the hands of one or the other protagonists to this conflict, should live in our public memory.

The deification of the military and a nether-world of existence

From this deification of the military during past decades, we have now drifted into a dangerous nether-world of existence where the law and the courts are being replaced by extra judicial means of means of control, even normally. The increasingly common killings of suspected criminals by the police and the advocacy of a military approach to tackling the underworld illustrates this phenomenon.

This militarization of law enforcement has specific consequences. This week's assault and detention of an information technology student by police officers reportedly led by the son of a senior police officer, due to a private grudge between the two students is a good example. High level probes will most probably not result in the punishment of the miscreants.

With the ending of active fighting in the North and East, it is time that the majority of decent and rational people in this country, (and not only racists at both sides of the ethnic spectrum), assert themselves on what they want from this society that they live in. The UTHR's signature warning articulated by Dr Martin Luther King, that 'we have to repent in this generation not so much for the evil deeds of the wicked people but for the appalling silence of the good people' rings more potently true now than at any time before.