Terrorism is not just a bunch of crackpots blowing themselve sup on a crowded street like what happened in Karachi yesterday when Benazir Bhutto came home. It’s a disease that thrives in the hearts and minds of renegades and governments.

She was the first to state in 1990 that

In the name of protecting the Tamils, the LTTE has killed more Tamils than Sinhalese.
In the name of protecting the Sinhalese the SL govts have killed more Sinhalese than Tamils

See, the military doesn’t usually have to deal with warrants and burden of proof, normally. The police does. But when the situation is deemed a military situ the military has to cope with civilians, and it can’t strictly be done under military law.

I am against the er’s. I said so in my first comment. I think they need to be changed, so do you. Everything’s cool.. relax man.

I think that as a state and a society, we are far too tolerant (and sometimes even enthusiastic) about collective punishment. The same people who get livid when foreign embassies ask for fingerprints are perfectly content for a section of our own citizenry to be subject to far worse humiliation on a daily basis.

Yes, I understand that it’s a difficult situation and that unsavoury compromises have to be made for the sake of security. But there is a real danger in forgetting larger objectives and principles, and going too far. The PTA is obviously pretty broad, and allows for all manner of abuses. We must be vigilant about how it is used. Quite apart from the threat to our DVD collections, it provides some of the moral oxygen that the LTTE so badly needs.

I used to think that we were innocent until proven guilty. Now under wartime, we are potentially guilty until a (warrantless) search deems us innocent.

The sad thing is I’m increasingly getting an idea of what it must be like to be a Tamil Sri Lankan. I now live in (a mild) fear of checkpoints, of searches of my home, of the sight of machine-gun-toting soldiers wherever I go. I’m Sinhalese, and these things scare me. Now when I extrapolate my fear to a Tamil person who has been experiencing these hassles for 20-odd years, I begin to see why they are fighting for another country. Sure, I disagree with their methods of terrorism, but living as a minority under a majority that is suspicious of you can’t be all that great.

When I studied in the US, I was the victim of (verbal) racism and I must say that it makes you feel very small and scared, and angry too. For a moment you want to kill all the white racist bastards in the world because they made you feel so weak and helpless, so vulnerable. I guess the Tamils feel a similar thing sometimes, although I can’t speak for them.

FYI, Galleblogger, as I understand, your lawyer can’t help you in this situation, because warrantless searches are legal under the PTA and the Emergency Regulations. It’s actually pretty scary what they can do under the PTA:

They can detain you without charge for up to 18 months if they want to. They can enter and search any premises or vehicle without a warrant. They can keep you in remand until your appeal, with no option for bail. And the police officers/soldiers who carry out any investigations under the PTA are immune from prosecution. (I guess they could beat you and then claim immunity under the PTA?)

Your lawyer can come and watch, but won’t be able to do anything…

You can read more at:

http://www.tamilnation.org/srilankalaws/79pta.htm
http://www.sangam.org/FB_SL_LAWS/PTA.htm

(I couldn’t find a Govt site with the full text of the PTA – does anyone know of one? Can I suggest that someone starts some Wiki pages about the PTA and the Emergency Regulations?)

In the military, many of the regulations civilians would consider their civil rights or personal freedoms are restricted. For instance, soldiers cannot have their hair long, their shoes dirty, etc. Behaviour is also regimented, as is speech and many such things. There is rationing. There is no such thing as privacy and search of a soldier’s property can be done at anytime. Military regulations and laws also dictate how the military behaves at times of war. For instance, in Europe, you will see funny yellow signs on the roads with speed limits and flow instructions totally different to the road rules. These are for military convoys on combat ops. For exaample, if a NATO convoy was moving down the autobahn during wartime, they could use both sides of the autobahn, leaving only a single lane for oncoming traffic (out of a total of four). There are many such other laws thaat often clash with civil laws.

So when the military is on combat ops alongside the civil populace, certain measures are needed to bridge this gap. Are you with me so far? That was probably the basis for emergency/war regulations.

Now as an example relevant to our situ you can take curfews. A curfew is an imposition on our civil liberty; but for the military a curfew is a security measure and helps differentiate the baddies from the goodies. So how does one apply a curfew to the civil populace? You can’t leave it only to the military to decide what the law will be in regard to the civilians. So the parliament has to enact new laws (emergency ones) to coerce the population.

Since you obviously know enough about law to have heard of and understood the reasoning behind this system, Aadhavan, I do wish you would just come out and air your objections (if you have any) rather than feigning ignorance and asking loaded questions in an attempt to somehow trap me into saaying something you can object to. I didn’t think up these laws after all — lawyers and politicians did.

A thread cannot be properly fucked unless sittingnut appears.

Do you have a point, Aadhavan, or is it just a slow day at the office?

The security forces aren’t interested in a breakdown of civil liberties. They are merely interested in winning the war. It’s upto the GoSL to decide how and where military law meets civil law The ERs are part of that bridge. Remembr that the ERs are not martial law, but civil legislation by the state.

I was referring to tens of thousands of Sinhalese and Tamils disappeared under ER’s, both in the NE and the South. The violations under the JVP time were under almost identically worded emergency regulations.

I don’t think you can cherry pick clauses that are good and those that are bad. They work together and the overall effect is a complete breakdown of civil liberties in areas where the police and security forces wish there to be a complete breakdown of civil liberties. The sheer numbers of those disappeared are a damning indictment.

Aadhavan, when you mention the disaappeaarances of tens of thousands, do you mean in the past year or two? ‘Cos if so, I’d say that the period of ’87-’90 was far worse.

I am in general for the amendment or even repeal of the ER’s. I cannot say that I’m totally against all the clauses, nor can I say that it’s all necessary or good. Why didn’t I say so? It never came up. My comments were directed to Indi and GB and their seeming preoccupation with insignificant inconveniences thaat fly in the face of the massive hardships faced by people in the NE (civil & military).

Since there is no ‘if’ here (the emergency regs were passed by parliament and are therefore legal), what exactly is your point?

“i personally think freedom is to be defended in “small” things too.”

Absolutely. But defence must be effective. So an effective defence of your “small things” would be to fight or protest the emergency regs. Grumbling about them once they are law is both ineffective and immature.

“yes i savvy also that if ppl don’t stand for their rights, they will NEVER get them (even for small things)”

Again, yes, but my response was to your suggestion that a lawyer be called in, not on whether rights should be defended.

“searching private properties without warrants is a suspension of civil rights imo and it’s up to indica to decide what his blog is about.”

It is the emergency regs that are a suspension of CERTAIN civil rights. Searching private properties without a warrant is perfectly legal. Therefore it is the emergency regs that should be the issue. As for what the blog post is about, we’re all free to use are own interpretation (as we’ve both done), interact with each other’s opinion and so on, and if there is a misunderstanding of the originaal post, Indi can just say so.

“oh well, this little bird came to my garden and told me about some stories….”

I guess birdwaatching’s a much misunderstood hobby.

“p.s the missing sign doesn’t get u out of a fine (at least where i come from it doesn’t)….it is legally irrelvant if it’s there or not,”

Exactly my point, GB. The law often seems unfair, but it is the law. If you want to change the law there are avenues for that. Moaning on about it isn’t one of them, even though it sometimes feels good.

“i think you are too used NOT having your rights for so long,that MAYBE you’ve forgotten what they are……”

Not at all. I’m old enough to remember life before the war, I’ve experienced the war to sufficient a degree to understand just what we’re fighting for as well as what we’re up against. I fully subscribe to the notion that he who will sacrifice freedom for security deserves neither; but I’m a practical man, and I understand that you can’t have both all the time. So I think it’s sensible to decide WHICH freedoms we’re willing to put on hold to avoid losing them all.

“if”, ok? read carefully. luckily i have NEVER needed a lawyer for ANY legal jams, thank you.

you say”And this isn’t about what you would do in the circumstance or even about what Indi should’ve done, this is about taking a relatively insignificant incident and trying to shoehorn it into a major civil rights issue, when over in the NE people are starving, homeless, terrorised on a daily basis (and no, I’m not just pointing the finger at the Tigers here”

i personally think freedom is to be defended in “small” things too.

“Yes, it is the lawyer’s function to protect the accused, but when did things in SL function as they should. You savvy?”
yes i savvy also that if ppl don’t stand for their rights, they will NEVER get them (even for small things)

“But this blog isn’t about whether the cops are functioning properly, but whether the policy of the emergency regs is an unfair suspension of our civil rights.”

searching private properties without warrants is a suspension of civil rights imo and it’s up to indica to decide what his blog is about.

“And where do you get the ridiculous notion that people in uniform can do ANYTHING they like?”

oh well, this little bird came to my garden and told me about some stories….

p.s the missing sign doesn’t get u out of a fine (at least where i come from it doesn’t)….it is legally irrelvant if it’s there or not, even if it sounds strange and yes, sweet smelling air is a right too.

i think you are too used NOT having your rights for so long,that MAYBE you’ve forgotten what they are……

I did not claim those numbers. You asked for a source. If you have an agenda to push regarding the LTTE killings, come out and say it without attempting deception. It makes you look either inarticulate or an arsehole. Which one are you?