Sri Lanka: The Sarath Fonseka Riddle
22-May-2012
Guest Column by Dr. Kumar David
Why did President Mahinda Rajapakse, this week, release on presidential pardon, his arch rival and supposed war hero General Sarath Fonseka (SF), imprisoned by a military tribunal in a process which most perceive as a kangaroo court, and on charges that carry little credence in the public mind? Questions of miscarriage of justice to one side, this column will examine a few theories in circulation in Colombo about this turn of events.
The straightforward explanation is that SF is quite ill and it would be politically problematic if he died in custody. If this were to happen rumours that the government had eliminated him would be impossible to scotch. Fear of state sponsored abduction and assassination is abundant in Lanka since the middle of the President’s first term in office, but till recently have remained allegations with no hard smoking-gun proof. The abduction, and subsequent release from illegal detention in a clandestine location, upon the intervention of the Australian High Commissioner, of a Frontline Socialist Party (New-JVP) leader a few weeks ago, blew the regime’s cover sky high. The point is that the government’s credibility has evaporated, and even if SF died in custody of natural causes, the government will be denied the benefit of the doubt in the public mind.
Though the Rajapakses are probably not aware of it, events last week in Chile show how long the posthumous arm of the law can be. Nobel Prize winning Pablo Neruda, Chile’s most famous poet, was allegedly murdered in a clinic by Pinochet contracted doctors one week after the 1973 coup. Other Pinochet opponents have also been murdered at this clinic in the same way - a doctor walks in when no one is around and quickly administers an unexplained injection to the stomach. At least one such allegation was held up by a court of inquiry. After nearly thirty years, the Chilean justice system reopened the Neruda case last week. It is no good having high profile political prisoners and prisoners of conscience dying on your hands, even if you don’t bump them off!
