Sri Lanka lifted draconian emergency laws imposed nearly 30 years on Thursday - but similarly tough powers remain available to authorities under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).

See reports by AFP, AP and Reuters.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa announced the lifting of the emergency regulations in Parliament.

The laws, which give security forces sweeping powers of arrest and detention, have been renewed on a monthly basis - with only brief breaks - since they were first imposed 28 years ago.

The government move comes ahead of next month's United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva which is expected to discuss Sri Lanka's human rights record.

It was not immediately clear how many people are currently being held under emergency laws, and if they would be freed or re-detained under the PTA once the emergency is allowed to lapse at the end of this month.

The PTA allows arrest, confiscation of property and life imprisonment for those involved in "terrorist activity" - which is open to interpretation.

For example Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa said of recent angry demonstrations outside military camps:

“Surrounding camps of security forces is a major offence and it is taken as a terrorist act for attempting to attack law enforcement institutions."

What the Emergency Regulations allowed:

A suspect detained under the emergency laws can be held up to one year without appearing in court and can't be released on bail. But thousands have been detained for without charge, hundreds for many years.

The law also enabled the authorities to displace civilians from their lands and declare high security zones and even to bury dead bodies without a post-mortem, lawyer Jagath Liyanaarachi said.

The military is involved in maintaining law and order in place of police and the authorities can ban rallies and demonstrations under the laws.

 

Sri Lanka will not repeal its draconian security legislation to satisfy demands by India, the United States or Britain or keep them ‘happy,’ Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa was quoted as saying.

Only his brother, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, knows what is best for the country, he reportedly asserted.

See reports by The Sunday Leader and ColomboPage.

Since the end of the armed conflict, Sri Lanka has been under pressure from the international community to repeal the Emergency Regulations, which give sweeping powers to its military and police.

Along with the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), the Emergency Regulations have long been criticised by international human rights groups for the immunity they grant to security forces who commit rights abuses.

Amnesty International says of the ER and PTA:

"Successive governments have used national security as an excuse to introduce a range of broad of emergency regulations."

"This has led to the erosion and even suspension of people’s rights to freedom of thought, conscience and expression, as well as their right to live free from arbitrary arrest and detention."

"The national security laws grant state authorities sweeping powers of detention and permit people to be held in secret locations.

"Security agents, often without proper uniforms or identification, can detain and hold suspects for months or years without a warrant or being produced before a magistrate."

See the statement, and find a link to the briefing paper 'Forgotten prisoners: Sri Lanka uses anti-terrorism laws to detain thousands', here.

The extension of the Emergency Regulations requires parliamentary approval every month.

However, ER has almost always drawn consensus from Sri Lanka's Sinhala parties and pro-government paramilitary group-cum-political parties, while mainstream Tamil parties have opposed.

Recently a US congressional committee voted to ban aid to Sri Lanka unless, amongst other key issues such as accountability for war crimes, the emergency regulations were brought to an end.

India has also called for an end to the powers. Foreign minister SM Krishna raised the matter with his Sri Lankan counterpart, GL Peiris, in May this year - the second anniversary of the war's end (see BBC's report here).

Sri Lanka's hardline regime has repeatedly pledged to repeal the state of emergency.

But, “despite the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009, the government has failed to demonstrate its commitment to human rights and the rule of law by getting rid of the PTA,” Amnesty International's Sam Zarifi said earlier this year.

Mr. Gotabhaya’s comments comes less than a month after Prime Minister DM Jayaratne told parliament that "steps have already been taken to lift emergency regulations in consultation with the (National) Security Council". 

Sri Lanka first introduced a state of emergency in 1971, since which time it has been in place almost continuously. It was repealed during the Norwegian-brokered peace process but was reinstated in 2005.

Sri Lankan security forces have an overbearing presence in many Tamil-speaking areas where 'grease devils' - night prowlers - are terrorising villages.

Until very recently, the term ‘grease devil’ had not appeared in international reportage on Sri Lanka. However in the past few weeks it has been associated with an epidemic of terrifying attacks and attempted attacks by night prowlers on women, largely in Tamil-speaking areas. Wearing masks or face paint, they either break into female-only houses and residences, or loiter in areas frequented by women.

The incidents have not only caused panic amongst residents in Tamil, Muslim and Upcountry Tamil villages (mainly, but not exclusively), but also anger - which has been directed, tellingly, at the security forces who are seen to be protecting the prowlers.

Sri Lanka has been making much of supposed local superstitions. But people are terrorised by the attacks themselves, not paranormal readings of the perpetrators. Indeed, they have often chased after - and sometimes apprehended - the prowlers when they encounter them.

It is no coincidence the wave of attacks comes as Sri Lanka’s authorities are under international pressure to repeal draconian Emergency Regulations and reduce the overbearing military presence in the war-shattered Tamil areas. In short, the ‘grease devil’ phenomenon has emerged as an all too convenient justification for Sri Lanka’s security establishment to continue its massive deployment in Tamil areas.

This is no conspiracy theory. ‘Grease devils’ pursued by residents have often fled to local military camps or police stations. Those caught in the Tamil areas are usually Sinhala speakers. In one instance the captives admitted to being members of the paramilitary Civil Defence Force, which also comes under the Defence Ministry. In several instances, furious residents have attacked police officers or besieged police stations and military camps when security forces are seen to be habouring the prowlers. Security forces have responded by firing on protestors.

Rape and sexual abuse against women is a commonplace in Sri Lanka’s former conflict zones in the Northeast. As Aljazeera television reported this week, civil authorities have received hundreds of complaints against the security forces since the end of the war in 2009 in the north alone. Rape and sexual abuse were also widely reported in Sri Lanka’s militarised camps where the entire surviving population of the Vanni was held for several brutal months. Sexual violence by security forces against Tamil women predates the armed conflict, and it was a routine during Sri Lanka’s counter-insurgency operations.

All of which makes the present terror amongst residents in Tamil-speaking areas especially notable. Even as the very real attacks have escalated, the ‘grease devil’ argument has been advanced in official briefings and state media which repeatedly discount claims – attributed to residents - that the attackers are not human. One top police officer even blamed the Tamil Diaspora as the source of such ‘malicious rumours’.

Yet it is the sudden spate of attacks, taking place simultaneously in so many places in Tamil-speaking areas, that remains unexplained. And despite the long prevailing and heavy security presence, the security forces are seeming unable or, as the residents would have it, unwilling, to stop the prowlers.

Sri Lanka is infamous for its culture of impunity. For decades security forces and allied paramilitaries have carried out extrajudicial killings, abductions and disappearances, as well as rape, sexual attacks and torture. Yet there have only been a tiny handful of arrests and even fewer convictions. Amongst the thousands of victims are parliamentarians, aid workers, journalists, priests and ordinary Tamils merely suspected of being enemies of the state.

Extrajudicial violence is thus a much used instrument of Sri Lanka’s governance. The spate of murders and disappearances that gripped Jaffna in January during the run up to the local government elections is a case in point. The attacks stopped when the government, for other reasons, decided to delay the polls anyway.

Sri Lanka’s Tamil-speaking citizens are today being presented with a stark choice: either live with the continued heavily militarization of their areas, or risk attack by ‘grease devils’ - which the authorities smugly, and quite unnecessarily, point out are ‘merely’ human.

In a statement, UNP deputy leader Karu Jayasuriya, called upon fellow UNP members to unite with haste in order to rescue Sri Lanka from this 'strange and dangerous juncture'.

See extracts below:

"Sri Lanka stands poised at a strange and dangerous juncture of her history, this has now become glaringly apparent to all those of us who live here. There is a serious absence of accountability and transparency in matters of governance that have effectively sidelined the vast majority of the citizens in the decision-making process."

"We live in a country where the state apparatus uses its defeat of terrorism to unleash terror of its own. It has used the blanket of national security to infringe upon all the freedoms it claims to be fighting to secure. With regard to the issue of post-war reconciliation among communities, the government has chosen a path of scandalous sidetracking, taking refuge in setting up various committees and other bodies that have no teeth, refusing to deal with issues head on by discussing the just claims of the minority and arriving at an equitable long term political solution."

"I firmly believe that there are better days ahead for our party and we should to whatever it takes to rebuild this party to be the best it can be. In this regard, as I have said before, if what the UNP needs is for me to leave the party, I will do so. By the same token, I will not shun any role that the party believes befits my expertise, experience and general disposition".

 

Over recent weeks, several parts of Sri Lanka have experienced a spate of sexual assaults against women. The attacks are alleged to have been carried out by masked men, known as 'grease devils'.

Curiously, the incidents are occurring despite a heavy police and military presence.

DIG Pujith Jayasundara, of Batticaloa police, addressing a crowd of angry Batticaloa residents, shared his professional opinion:

“The evil forces of the Tamil diaspora, resentful of the President’s development programme in the North and the East, are deliberately spreading malicious rumours about a grease yaka,” he said.

“We won the war, and these people [the Tamil diaspora] are telling us stories of grease devils. Vakarai was once a terrorist area. Now it is ours.”

“The grease yaka is the work of people who cannot bear to see our people living in peaceful co-existence. The people must co-operate with the defence forces to put an end to this problem.”

The on-going attacks have led to widespread fear and public outrage at the police's seeming inability to apprehend those responsible.

The 'grease devil' phenomenon has led to much speculation among Sri Lanka's media. 

The phenomenon is said to have first arisen from Kahawatter, Ratnapura, where an army deserter murdered seven elderly women over a year. The day after his arrest, another man was arrested for the murder of an elderly woman. He too was found to be an army deserter. 

Human rights groups and others are again calling for the death sentences passed on three Tamils for their alleged involvement in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi to be commuted.

The renewed calls come after Indian President Pratibja Patil's recent rejection of their clemency pleas paved the way for their executions.

Rajiv Ghandi was assassinated in 1991 by a female suicide bomber said to be from the LTTE.

The three Tamils currently facing execution - Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan (known by single names) - were amongst 26 people sentenced to death by a special court in 1998 for their alleged involvement.

Following an appeal the Supreme Court ruled that 19 were freed, having served their sentence, three were commuted to life sentences and only four of the death sentences were to be upheld - the three afore mentioned and Nalini, Murugan's wife.

The sentencing occurred under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987 (TADA).

Amnesty International argues the law “contained provisions that were incompatible with international standards for fair trial.”

Human rights groups and activists have long also criticised the original trial and investigation as deeply flawed, highlighting the use of torture to elicit confessions.

This week Amnesty International called for the death sentences to be commuted and urged fellow activists and supporters to take urgent action. (See statement here). 

“Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases as the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

“The eleven-year delay in announcing the verdict of the mercy petition and the resultant stay on death row may further amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

“The Supreme Court of India has itself commuted death sentences in a number of cases due to prolonged delay in deciding mercy petitions.”

Last week The Hindu newspaper, a strident critic of the LTTE, also joined the protests. In an editorial titled 'No to Death Penalty', the paper argued (see full text here):

"India must make a clean break with a savage tradition by abolishing capital punishment. An immediate moratorium on executions should be the first step."

"Internationally, there is an increasing trend towards abolition, with 96 countries doing away with it and 34 countries being abolitionist in practice by observing official or unofficial moratoria on executions. Each of the three UN resolutions calling for a moratorium has seen more countries backing it".

Several parties in Tamil Nadu have also called for the commuting of the death sentences issued.

Asked for his reaction at the news of this latest rejection, DMK chief Karunanidhi said, "There are no specifics. I have always opposed death sentence. It applies to them also."

Other Tamil Nadu politicians, MDMK General Secretary Vaiko and VCK leader Thirumavalavan have expressed their condemnation of the central government's stance on the issue.

"The Centre can stop the hanging any moment and it has the powers to do so. The State Government should take steps to wipe the tears of the three accused, who were facing the gallows" said Vaiko.

Arguing that the "death itself as punishment is barbaric", Thirumavalavan accused India's central government of anti-Tamil policies influencing justice.

"The Centre has exposed its anti-Tamils stand by insisting that they should be sent to gallows" he argued.

Grass-roots Indian activists are also reported to be planning protests and vigils in order to raise awareness and exert pressure on the Indian government.

See online petition here.

The investigation and trial of Rajiv Gandhi's death was far from transparent, rights groups have long argued. 

The intial police investigation into the killing, carried out by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) appinted by the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigations) accused 41 persons of involvement in the murder in 1992. The accused included three top LTTE leaders and 12 alleged LTTE cadres.

Two, including the suicide bomber - known as Thanu, died in the blast. The remaining ten alleged LTTE cadres, including Sivarasan,accused by the police of masterminding the operation, died during a police raid. The police stated the ten had committed suicide.

Twenty-six individuals were eventually brought to trial in a special court and sentenced to death in 1998. The judge reported took only two hours to decide upon the sentence.

The blanket sentencing of the accused shocked India. Lawyers for the defence lambasted it as a 'judicial massacre'.

The trial, which had occured under the TADA, came under heavy scrutiny and was criticised for its inherent secrecy, the lack of right of appeal to the High Court and that the prosecution's case had relied entirely on circumstantial evidence.

Crucially the Supreme Court later acknowledged that all 26 should never have been convicted under TADA. Although it aquitted them of all charges under that particular legistlation, the four death sentences were upheld under the crimininal conspiracy and muder provisions of the Indian Penal Code.

The SIT chief who conducted the original police investigation later admitted to the Frontline magazine, "it would have been near impossible to secure convictions without the special provisions of TADA".

Nalini's sentence was eventually commuted in 2000, following Sonia Gandhi's reported appeal to the President, K. R. Narayanan. Sonia Gandhi is alleged to have held a private meeting with the president, where she called for Nalini to be spared execution, so that her child would not be left an orphan.

In an interview with The Sunday Leader newspaper, the Global Tamil Forum’s spokesman, Suren Surendiran, set out the organisation’s goals in Sri Lanka:

We want people to feel free to speak and feel safe to raise their children without fear. We want the people’s will and their democratic rights restored,

We want the army occupation of the north and east to end. We want the emergency rule and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) revoked.

We want to know the names of persons held without proper legal process and for these people to have access to legal counsel, to their families and humanitarian agencies. We want these persons either be charged under the laws of the land or be released forthwith.

We want government sponsored colonisation to stop immediately. We want the people to have their lands and homes back and be resettled where they originally lived.

We want structured and well funded rehabilitation and resettlement programmes to be implemented without government interference or corruption. We want planned and well founded reconstruction programmes to be implemented in the war affected areas.

We want the disparity in development between the regions of the island to be minimised, basic priorities of all people (e.g. education, health, employment etc.) to be treated as priorities and dealt without corruption.

We want justice for all the wrongs that were done to our people in the name of war on terrorism.

We want all allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity against both parties to the armed conflict be investigated by an independent international body.

We want a credible and genuine political process to be initiated with international sponsorship, unlike the ones that the Rajapaksa regime introduces when pressure mounts (e.g. the APRC, negotiations with the TNA and now the Parliamentary Committee etc.) to seek a durable political settlement to resolve the long standing and genuine grievances of the Tamil people and all people.

We want all of the above to be a part of the process that will lay the foundations for a long lasting reconciliation process that will enable people to live side by side as friendly neighbours. Above all we do not want the Sinhala people to feel as an ‘out-class’ from the international community for the colossal mistakes and wrong doings of a few in the government.

Whilst there he compiled this three-part report examining life for the Tamil people post-conflict.


Tamil anger at army's influence in Sri Lanka


The first report from Jaffna examines the increased presence of the military in Tamil areas, more than 2 years since the end of the fighting, much to the anger of the Tamil people.


Rape and sexual abuse of Tamil women



The second report explores the treatment of Tamil women who have found themselves increasingly vulnerable to sexual abuse, with cases involving both members of the army and government officials.


Scars of war remain



The final report looks at the trauma inflicted by the war on the mental health of the Tamil people and the government is not only slow in helping those affected, but in some cases blocks attempts to help those affected. 

Sri Lanka's defence secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, has again condemned the international community and the Tamil diaspora for insisting on an independent investigation into war time atrocities.

Though such remarks are routine, his recents comments were notable for the reason he attributed to the international pressure.

"There is a hidden agenda behind these allegations. Their main requirement is to change the president and the government who are not fulfilling their desires," he said.

“They know the credibility of our replies. Yet these forces are not satisfied with our responses."

"No matter what we do there is no end to these allegations," he added.

Sri Lanka's foreign secretary echoed Gotabaya's lament when addressing the KDU Symposium, ‘Challenges of Post Conflict Sri Lanka’.

GL. Peiris, who has remained conspicuously quiet in recent weeks, condemned international criticism of the Sri Lankan army’s conduct during the war and afterwards.

Sri Lanka's military continues to saturate the Northeast, dominating economic activity and stiflying political activity. It also refuses to withdraw from hundreds of villages, preventing hundreds of thousands of displaced Tamils from returning home. 

“The armed forces play the most crucial role in facilitating civilians affected by the war to bring them back to their normal lives. Their basis infrastructural needs and houses are been build by the forces. They have the confidence, trust and the respect of the people therefore it is easy for them to accomplish the tasks” said Peiris.

He added: “The perfect rapport between the political and military leadership enabled us to win the war. We handled the international affairs well especially with India also the domestic affairs were well handled by President Rajapaksa.”

No doubt the war time military commander, General Sarath Fonseka shares Peiris' sentiments, from behind bars, where he ended up for having the temerity to run against Rajapaksa in the 2010 election.  

Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Ashok K. Kantha’s address to mark his country’s 65th independence anniversary was starkly at odds with international opinion, disconnected from political developments at home, and elided the enduring humanitarian and ethnopolitical crises in Sri Lanka.

Amid mounting evidence of war time atrocities by Sri Lankan forces – most recently highlighted by Indian media - the international community is taking an increasingly tough stance on Sri Lanka’s refusal to countenance accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is also increasingly critical of Sri Lanka’s refusal to seek a political solution to Tamil grievances, and its militarised rule in the Tamil areas.

Yet, even as the United States, Britain and other liberal democracies are increasing pressure on Colombo over these issues, Mr. Kantha instead opted to commend Sri Lanka for its “commitment to heal wounds” and its “progress towards reconciliation and development.” While the international community is agreed that command responsibility for the systematic mass killings of Tamil civilians goes to the very top of the Sri Lankan state, Mr. Kantha praised the “vision and leadership that resulted in an end to armed conflict.”

He even claimed Sri Lanka was “poised” to reap a peace dividend, even though the Northeast, where his government has been attempting – strikingly unsuccessfully – to launch reconstruction programs, is marked by insecurity, fear and widespread suffering. Mr. Kantha made much of India’s financial assistance and development plans for the Northeast, but these remain moribund even two years after the ‘peace’ he spoke of supposedly began. For example, India’s project, pledged last November, to build 50,000 homes for the war displaced has stalled amid Colombo’s barely disguised interference. Hundreds of thousands remain homeless, many living in shacks in the jungle, while the military continues to occupy their homes.

Yet Mr. Kantha also claimed “India is seeking to play a role commensurate with her size, potential, civilisational heritage and destiny.” In fact, despite the international community’s stated expectations that the South Asian heavyweight take a lead role in ensuring Sri Lanka delivers on accountability, a political solution and the humanitarian crisis in Tamil areas, India has been singularly unable to influence Colombo. That Mr. Kantha’s speech glossed over these issues only underscored this.

Ironically, it is within India that these issues have been taken up most vocally in recent weeks. Both of India’s main opposition parties – the BJP and CPI(M) – have unequivocally backed an international investigation into Sri Lanka’s mass killings. The polity in Tamil Nadu has taken a unified and active position on the same and the government there has repeatedly called on Delhi to impose sanctions. From the grassroots to the chief minister’s office, there is overwhelming support for decisive action, and it is growing in other parts of the country. Indeed, few in India outside the government would support Mr. Kantha’s stated positions on Sri Lanka.

India’s strategy of offering Sri Lanka seemingly unending largess and cajoling Colombo to change was never going to work. Delhi has justified its light touch approach on a fear of encouraging China’s influence – a rationale offered recently by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to the derision of the opposition BJP. And it has demonstrably not worked (Sri Lanka has openly allied itself with China – though whether Beijing will stand by Colombo against the rest of the international community very much remains to be seen). In terms of geopolitics, development of the Northeast, or political change in Sri Lanka, rarely has an aspiring great power’s efforts been thwarted so comprehensively. As such, Mr. Kantha’s independence anniversary speech ultimately revealed more about India than Sri Lanka.

Speaking to Groundviews, Gnanasundaram Kuganathan, the editor of the Uthayan newspaper in Jaffna who was severely injured in a beating by pro-government paramilitaries, vowed to continue reporting on 'activities against humanity'.

“It’s a miracle that I survived. I was beaten almost to death. Many attempts have been made to kill me, so that my writing will come to an end! I did not think that, I will survive. The God has saved me to serve the people through journalism. I am slowly recovering. Today, I am blessed to be alive. I have highlighted many issues in my writing. I want to continue to highlight the activities against the humanity, but I am not sure whether I will be able to hold the pen again, because my right hand fingers are frozen” said Gnanasundaram.

The veteran journalist was viciously attacked shortly after the TNA's stunning election success in July.

“It was a Friday. On 29th of July 2011, I was walking home for dinner from the office. I shouted “அம்மா”  “அம்மா” ~  Amma”, “Amma” (Mother, Mother) after the two young men hit me with iron rods on my head and right hand. I ran into my house, I was in critical condition, and later I was admitted to the Jaffna Teaching Hospital (Intensive Care Unit) by my fellow journalists. I was unconscious for three days at the intensive care unit of the hospital. I can identify the two young men who have brutally assaulted me. One person is a tall man and the other is a short man. Both men are below 30 year old”

See full article in Groundviews here

The attack was condemned by Reporters Without Borders, the Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance, and Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka.  

Sri Lanka’s much vaunted Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Committee (LLRC) said Thursday it won’t be rushed by anyone into submitting its report.

The magnum opus is due on November 15.

Amid growing international outrage over war crimes and crimes against humanity in the final stage of Sri Lanka’s conflict, the LLRC’s report has strangely emerged as a central device.

The LLRC was set up by Colombo as a delaying tactic to fend off international pressure for both a domestic investigation into the atrocities and a meaningful reconciliation process i.e. a political solution.

Unsurprisingly, the due date of its report has been pushed back repeatedly.

But as evidence of mass killings of Tamil civilians has meanwhile continued to mount, so have demands for a thorough and independent – i.e. international – investigation.

Sri Lanka has meanwhile continued to insist its ‘domestic mechanism’ was sufficient.

As such, rather than serving as a distraction until the international community’s attention drifted elsewhere, the LLRC report now has all eyes on it.

But the LLRC itself seems blind to the context.

“No one can tell us what to do or when we have to do it,” LLRC spokesman Lakshman Wickremasinghe told the Daily Mirror on Thursday.

The LLRC has never come under pressure from the government and said the government is unlikely to request the commission to complete its report in a hurried fashion, he added.

“The commission’s due date is November 15 and that is when we intend on handing in the report as we are duty bound to give it by then.”

Meanwhile, here’s a reminder of the photograph that captured the LLRC’s work ethic (see Athirvu's report and a translation here).

It was taken in Mannar in January 2011 as the panel is being addressed by tearful women who had lost their husbands and children, and relatives of those ‘disappeared’ in military custody.

Sri Lanka’s main stock index rose 3% on Thursday – as foreigner investors sold a net $2 million worth. See Reuters’ report here.

Sri Lanka’s stock market has soared since the end of the island’s war, driven by proxy government buying through state-owned funds.

At the same time, there has been a net foreign outflow.

Whilst foreigners buy tactically, especially when stocks fall, they sell when the market rises.

Thus far in 2011, foreigners have net sold over $9 million – having sold a record $240 million in 2010.

Despite the war ending that year, 2009 ended with a net foreign outflow of $103 million.

Before then, from 2001, foreigners had been net buyers of Sri Lankan stocks. (See Reuters' report here.)

See our earlier posts:

Sri Lanka’s stocks: a closer look (Jan 2011)

Foreigners sell, state buys (Oct 2010)