Colombo crackdown

A sudden, indiscriminate crackdown on Tamils in Colombo leaves the governments credibility in shreds.

in ColomboA Sri Lankan

PERIODICALLY, opposition parties in Sri Lanka hurl the incredible charge at the Mahinda Rajapaksa government that it has entered into a secret pact with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). This is despite the fact that the government forces and the Tigers have been engaged in an intense, undeclared war for over a year now. Amazingly, the government lends credibility to the allegation with its senseless and inexplicable actions, or non-actions, from time to time. The latest crackdown in and around Colombo, in which over 2,500 Tamils were rounded up by the security forces and the police in their search for lurking Tigers, best illustrates the point. It is the largest ever swoop in the two-and-a-half-decade-old history of the ethnic conflict of the island nation and the best gift the beleaguered LTTE could have asked for from the regime.

The indefensible action was all the more baffling as it followed the November 27 Heros Day Speech of the LTTE chief, Velupillai Prabakaran, in which he clearly acknowledged the complete isolation of the Tigers from the rest of the world. The ink on the script of Prabakarans speech, painting the whole world with the brush of Sinhala chauvinism, had barely dried when the government chose to strike at Tamils indiscriminately. The authorities raided every conceivable nook and corner in the national capital and its suburbs and picked up individuals on the basis of their ethnic identity. The principle that was followed was you are guilty unless proved otherwise. The state of Sri Lanka demonstrated that it was no less biased than the LTTE supremo, who has sought to nourish his campaign for a separate state by bracketing a whole ethnic group as racist.

The governments move comes less than six months after it packed off 300-odd Tamils from the North and the East residing in lodges in Colombo. There were no takers for the explanation that the government was only trying to facilitate the travel of those Tamils from the North and the East who could not provide a valid reason for their stay in the national capital. National interest was invoked to justify the move. Acting on a public interest petition from the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), a Colombo-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), the Sri Lanka Supreme Court chastised the government and ordered it to bring back the hapless citizens. The President ordered a high-level inquiry to determine the culprits behind the costly political fiasco, but nothing is known about the outcome of the inquiry. Obviously, the government does not seem to have learnt much from the episode.

Of course, the government has an explanation for the recent arrests once again the ubiquitous national interest and the interest of the public in general. The dubious logic implies that every Tamil is a potential LTTE cadre and hence a threat to the larger public interest. The trigger for the crackdown is supposed to be the twin blasts: a physically challenged suicide bomber targeting the life of Social Welfare Minister Douglas Devananda in his office in the national capital and the parcel bomb in an apparel shop on the outskirts of Colombo the day after Prabakarans diatribe. But the target of the paralytic woman suicide bomber was a prominent Tamil Minister and the market in Nugegoda is by no means an area dominated by any particular ethnic community.

Documents unearthed by opposition parties and tabled in Parliament show that the twin incidents provided a cover for the mass detention of Tamils. The large-scale arrests were the consequence of a policy decision at the highest level. The first acknowledgement of blunder came from none other than the President himself. A day after families of the detained Tamils made vain attempts to march to the presidential palace, Mahinda Rajapaksa instructed the Inspector General of Police to release persons detained during search operations if there are no charges against them. The directive came following representations made to him by Arumugam Thondaman, a Minister from the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), who met the President with relatives of the detained persons. Does it require the authority of the Executive President, the most powerful office under the Constitution of Sri Lanka, to instruct the police to release the innocent from jail?

President Rajapaksas office said that along with issuing the directive to release persons detained without charges, he also underlined the need for public support for the security forces in their attempts to strengthen security and called for the formation of peace committees in Colombo and elsewhere to ensure that people were safe. Such a campaign should have preceded and not followed the clampdown and in any case should have been an ongoing and continuous process.

The current state of tension in the island nation did not develop overnight. The armed forces and the LTTE have been engaged in fierce battles for over a year now and terror strikes were widely anticipated, particularly in urban centres such as Colombo. For several months now, the national capital has looked like a garrison town with checkpoints and bunkers every few metres. The Chief Justice was so irked by the unending checkpoints in the city that in the first week of December, after the parcel bomb incident of November 28, he ordered the authorities to dismantle all of them as a relief for the ordinary citizen.

The government was forced to admit its blunder after a furore in Parliament and howls of protest from all quarters. Government Chief Whip in Parliament and a Minister, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, said in a news conference on December 4 that the government had released 2,352 people out of a total of 2,554 persons taken into custody during the search operations. He was at pains to emphasise that 1,959 people were released on the day of arrest itself and another 393 were released following identification.

The remaining 202 people were remanded or kept under detention pending further investigations. No answers were provided as to why the authorities were compelled to release over 80 per cent of those detained within 24 hours of the arrests. Fernandopulle even made light of the arrests, saying: Such incidents are of common occurrence even in countries like the USA, the U.K. and India. The Presidents directive and the statistics doled out by his Minister did little to reassure panic-stricken citizens as hundreds of affected families ran from pillar to post in search of arrested relatives. The governments credibility was so badly battered that the Centre for Policy Alternatives, followed by the CWC, chose to knock on the doors of the Supreme Court. On December 7, the apex court took cognisance of the CWC petition.

R. Yogarajan of the CWC told Frontline: We were flooded with petitions and complaints from panic-stricken Tamil families whose relatives were detained by the security forces and the police. We chose to approach the Supreme Court as the government statement to Parliament on the subject was misleading and the phenomenon of detention of innocent citizens has been witnessed for some months now. Thanks to the Emergency Regulations, any Superintendent of Police could seek from the Defence Ministry orders to detain a person for a period of 90 days without producing him in a court of law. The period of detention could be further extended for another three months. We are aware of some cases where persons are languishing behind bars without any charges. Detentions are not exactly a new feature in Sri Lanka but the current regime has gone to extremes.

The CWC petition contended that the unconstitutional and unconscionable attitude that is reflected from the general treatment meted out to Tamil persons in Colombo and the alarming trend of disregard for the principles in (a) to (e) above, are perhaps best epitomised by a directive given by one Mr. Tennakoon, Superintendent of Police, to Officers in Charge (OICs) of Police Stations in the Nugegoda area dated 10th November 2007, questioning what is perceived as inaction by certain police stations in arresting Tamil people on suspicion. The said directive requests the OICs to provide a written document justifying reasons for not arresting Tamil people in the area, under pain of adverse consequences in the absence of compliance.

Tamils register themselves

Two of the specific cases documented in the petition highlight the thoughtless and high-handed approach of the security forces and the police. Santhappan Indrani of 7A Lockhill Colony, Kotagala, travelled to Colombo on November 27 with the intention of proceeding to Doha, Qatar, for employment. She had received the relevant travel documents from the sponsor. She stayed in Colombo at the residence of her aunt at 33 Mahinda Place, Kirulapone. She was scheduled to leave for Doha on November 29. She went out to call on her son in Maharagama. On her way back, she was detained at the checkpoint in Kirulapone by the police. She showed her national identity card explained why she was in Colombo and said she could if necessary produce her passport, ticket, appointment letter and the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) receipt.

But the police would have none of it. Santhappan Indrani was arrested and taken to the Kirulapone police station, detained there until December 1 and subsequently transferred to the Boosa detention camp for an undisclosed period. She was not handed any detention order nor given any reason for her continued detention. Her friends managed to track her down and took up the matter with the authorities. She was released on December 5 after being produced before the Chief Magistrate Colombo.

Citing another instance, the petition said: Sellasamy Thirukeswaran, Member, Municipal Council (MMC), and Assistant Secretary of the Petitioner, and S. Govindaraj, Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Petitioner, visited the Pettah police station as part of the survey conducted by officials of the Petitioner, in response to the public representations and the concerns held by the Petitioner as to the gravity of the situation. It was consequently reported to R. Yogarajan that four persons who had undertaken the period of penance to proceed on a pilgrimage to the sacred shrine of Sri Sastha in Sabarimalai in Kerala, India had been arrested as they were suspected of being Black Tigers on the basis of the black coloured clothing they had worn as part of the rituals of the pilgrimage. They were detained in the cells of the Pettah police station.

R. Yogarajan had to visit the police station and explain the reasons for wearing the black clothing and S. Govindaraj was able to sign bail bonds for the four persons, namely, V. Sukumar, Sathasivam Muniyandy, Baskaran Thiruchelvam and Thushara Dushyantha Denipitiya. This was a typical case of not understanding the culture of the Tamil and Hindu people and further evidence of the arbitrary, unreasonable and baseless grounds on which such arrests are conducted.

Responding to the petition, the apex court directed the government to release all those against whom there were no serious charges by December 14, when the case is posted for further hearing. When the court was informed that 102 persons were in remand only because they could not afford to pay the bail amount stipulated, the Chief Justice asked the government to waive the bail fee and release them on the personal guarantee of the Attorney General.

Further, the court has agreed to formulate a proper and transparent mechanism and procedures within a determinate time frame with regard to future arrests and detentions.