Why do we need foreign judges?
DR.Vickramabahu Karunaratne -2016-08-11
Chief Minister of the Northern Province C.V. Wigneswaran is a sharp campaigner. Like many other campaigners for justice he too tends to come out with extreme statements; often to drive home a point. Rather than getting muddled up in the irreconcilable statements he makes it is really necessary to understand the injustice he is exposing. Recently Wigneswaran has said that accountability for the war crimes allegedly committed in the last phase of the anti-LTTE war must be established before the Sri Lankan Government formulates a new Constitution to address the basic political question.
Addressing the Tamil People's Council in his capacity as its co-chairman in Jaffna, Wigneswaran said that the Constitution planned by the government will not be drafted to the Tamils' satisfaction unless accountability issues were satisfactorily addressed prior to that. Apparently he had heard from someone involved in the Constitution-making exercise that the government is planning to brush accountability under the carpet by showing the international community that it is seriously working on a new Constitution to address the political grievances of the Tamils. The plan is to get the new Constitution passed by the March session of the UNHRC. By doing so, the government hopes that it can divert attention from the accountability issue and urge the Tamils to look to the future rather than look back at the past. Well, what is more important, looking to the future or investigating the crimes of the past? Mandela was eager to go forward to democracy and freedom rather than punishing political criminals.
Mara Ugula
Many people believe that the Constitution-making exercise is easy and it can be done with the majority in the Parliament. On the contrary the Joint Opposition is claiming the new Constitution will be the death knell of the Sinhala people. This is their main attack on the government. They claim that the Maithri-Ranil Government is betraying the Sinhala war heroes who died for a unitary Sinhala country. Wimal says it is a Mara Ugula, the death trap for the Sinhala patriots. War crimes are secondary in the agenda of the Sinhala chauvinists. The majority of Sinhala military women and men believe that those who committed war crimes are bringing shame to the forces, and what they did was fighting an enemy as a patriotic act. Even though not claimed to be war crimes, the killing of Lasantha, Ekneligoda, Raviraj and others was done by the military people under the cover of war. The victims were all pro-Tamil liberation people. But the Sinhala masses are eagerly waiting to hear the punishments for these killings.
Wigneswaran says that it is essential for any Sinhala-dominated government in Sri Lanka not to be seen letting down the predominantly Sinhala armed forces. Therefore, every effort will be made to dodge the issue of accountability or water down the accountability process. This thinking is closer to the vision of Mahinda Raj. Mahinda argued that being the hero of the Sinhala people after defeating the separatist Tamil liberators he could continue indefinitely on the Sinhala majority vote. This thinking collapsed like a house of cards. So, Wigneswaran is also using flimsy arguments. We must investigate war crimes. Why do we need foreign judges? We have independent minded among both Tamils and Sinhala people. To my knowledge Wigneswaran was an independent judge. So why do we look elsewhere? We have enough resources here.
