Thirteen-Plus: Good For All Of Sri Lanka And All Sri Lankans
Sinhalese React to Police Brutality and Inaction
The recent pre- and post- Uva election violence saw the police being mere spectators to horrific violence. Neither the police watching nor the cameras whirring, both in front of police stations in the presence of policemen, was a deterrent. The Sinhalese are shocked. Colombo Telegraph reported that “Senior legal professionals have condemned the attack on journalist Chandana Kuruppuarachchi that occurred a few days ago while expressing their regret over the law being made redundant.” And that the Lawyers’ Collective “condemned the killing of a suspect in police custody at Cinnamon Gardens while being taken handcuffed and the brutal attack on a girl at the Ratnapura Bus stand by a police officer in the view of the public.” Several such similar events of the Sinhalese ruing the loss of democracy and the eviscerated rule of law may be cited.
When Appapillai Amirthalingam when Leader of the Opposition was slapped by a policeman in Jaffna town, where were the good Sinhalese who object to the assault on Vass?
Democracy for the Sinhalese only?
Experience shows that the concern for old values by the Sinhalese in general and the legal profession in particular, is really a concern only for Sinhalese rights. Recall the condemnation of the UN Report by the BASL even before we had seen the report. Tamils have suffered a lot more than assaults. But who among the Sinhalese is giving voice to the Tamil downtrodden? There are indeed some but they are too few to count and really serve the purpose of keeping Tamils from boiling over in the name of not hurting those Sinhalese who do not approve of the violence against minorities.
The larger Sinhalese objection is really to their own rights being taken away and not a principled stand for justice.
Pan-Lankan Youth Organization for Unity – Serving what Purpose?
Consider the case of a young Tamil man who dedicated himself to a united Sri Lanka, recognizing that there are good Sinhalese with whom Tamils must make common cause, and therefore dedicated his all to a pan-Lankan youth organization standing up for unity. After his term of office at the top there ended he returned home to work in his village in the Vanni and was personally witness to the gang rape of a middle-aged Tamil woman by several Sinhalese soldiers – this rape was well after the rapes and murders of 2009 and cannot be put down to the heat of battle but rather is part of the systematic, planned subjugation of the Tamil people by the Sinhalese state.Read More
