Impunity has long been the rule in Sri-Lanka where violations
of international human rights law and international humanitarian law are concerned,
because successive governments wanted it
that way.
State Agents have intervened directly in some cases to eliminate witnesses through bribes, threats,
harassment, intimidation and violence, including murder, to discourage police investigations,
and to mislead the public.
Officials and other influential people have taken full
advantage of significant flaws and inefficiencies in Sri Lanka’s justice system
to prevent prosecutions.
The failure of the formal justice system to check grave
violations of human rights has been a focus of domestic and international
pressure on the Sri Lankan government for decades. That pressure has sometimes led
the government to appoint ad hoc commissions of inquiry to look into particularly
high profile cases. These have proved equally ineffective in combating impunity.
Commissions of Inquiry have not worked as mechanisms of
justice in Sri Lanka. Presidential Commissions have proved to be little more than
tools to launch partisan attacks against opponents or to deflect criticism when
the state has been faced with overwhelming evidence of its complicity in human rights violations.
The Sri-Lankan government is adept at using deceptions and delaying tactics in order to avoid bringing perpetrators of violence
to justice, when the perpetrators are connected to the government.
According
to Human Rights Watch:
The government has failed to bring to justice those
responsible for any of the killings or enforced disappearances of journalists
in recent years. For example, the investigation into the January 2009 killing
of Lasantha Wickremetunga, the outspoken editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper,
has produced no arrests.
British tourist Khuram Shaikh was on holiday from his
work as a Red Cross prosthetics worker in Gaza when he was brutally murdered at a resort hotel in Sri-Lanka in December 2011. His
Russian colleague, Viktoria Aleksandrovna, was gang raped in the same attack.
All eight suspects have been released on bail with no
date listed for the trial. The chief suspect, Sampath Chandra Pushpa
Vidanapathirana, a well-connected local government politician, has returned to
work.
Sampath is a son of a close associate of Mahinda
Rajapaksa. Sampath’s family is involved in thuggery,
gang activity and violence in addition to politics!
Two Suspects - The Murder Suspect (Sampath) with a War
Criminal
Khuram Shaikh family's MP, Simon Danczuk, fears
"political interference" may be responsible for the lack of progress,
and wants David Cameron to consider boycotting the Commonwealth heads of
government meeting in Sri Lanka this year in protest.
"Despite assurances from the government that there
would be a swift and straightforward trial, this is going nowhere and ministers
and police are sitting on their hands," he says.
"David Cameron should think twice about attending
this meeting while British nationals are being brutally murdered in Sri Lanka with local politicians implicated
and their government is not even prepared to investigate properly."
The Rajapaksa regime has recently removed the Chief
Justice and appointed one of its cronies, Mohan Peiris. Peiris has no credibility
and he is an accomplished liar.
A culture of impunity continues in Sri-Lanka while the civilized
world looks on…
Useful
Links:
