Policeman at Lasantha Wickremetunge’s funeral.
There’s a been a lot in the news about the cops executing people or, as the media generously puts it, drowning or getting shot while trying to escape. Recently a police constable and his wife were killed in Kamburupitiya by a brutal armed gang. That was a terrible event, taking place in front of their child. The police, however, seem to have gone completely around the courts on this one, with all of the suspects dying, well, suspiciously.
It’s actually a joke the amount of times suspects are killed trying to escape. You’d think they’d learn by now, but the media persists in reporting that suspects led police to a weapons cache, then grabbed one and were shot. Or that they somehow drowned themselves while running away, or decided to start a shoot-out once they were clearly surrounded.
One would think that suspects would read these media reports and not run away from cops but nope, they seem to keep doing it. Sri Lankan cops can be brutal and, according to the latest Global Corruption Barometer, are widely perceived to be corrupt. Cops will routinely beat or torture confessions out of people and are quite pliable in the case of influence. At the same time, small town cops can actually be quite helpful and the high ranking ones can be quite well educated and intelligent.
This getting away with murder, however, is pretty bad as it means that cops basically have a right to kill. I mean, we’re not really in need of Judge Dredd level policing just yet. If the cops can’t bring people to trial, then maybe they should be on trial.
As a country, we never protested or marched on the streets asking for accountability from our politicians, armed forces, cops, etc for even rape or murder. The culture of impunity stems from the top. This trend can only deteriorate.
Someone said the recent killings of suspects could have been a case of getting rid of the sprats to protect the sharks.
Because we don’t put aside our petty differences to form a united front against common issues?
Ha ha rather nicely put.
Hav eyou met many of this type : “high ranking ones can be quite well educated and intelligent”?
I assume there must be some but can’t recall meeting any serving policeman who fitted that description. Then again I have not met that many.
During the JVP insurrection in the late 80s, it was quite common for JVPers to be killed in the crossfire when leading police/army to an arms cache or hideout. It was an euphemism then for execution, as it is now. Many innocent young people were killed back then, who didn’t have anything to do with the JVP, but were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I suppose that could be true today too.
And this is the government that says no human rights violations happened in the North. It’s funny that many people who are concerned about these things (though they do not do anything about it), are not at all concerned about human rights violations that might have happened in the North. One might think that a large percentage of people who are worried about human rights violations in the South would also be worried about human rights violation in the North. But, nope, doesn’t work like that. When Callum MaCrae wanted to visit the North, there were people around me, highly educated and relatively well off, said stuff like that he should be killed. You expect human rights to be upheld when people are such morons?
I used to get angry about this kind of thing, but lately, the more I learn about human history, I’ve come to realize that this is the normal state of things, and the level of peace and value for human life that can be seen in some Western countries (there too, only domestically) is an exception. They’ve somehow manged to create the kind of states that have never existed before. Since we can see them, since we know we won’t reach that level of sophistication any time soon, we’ll always be unhappy.
And many who are concerned about the north have seemingly forgotten about the things happened in the south and has no qualm about sharing their “common stage” with the alleged south-on-south perpetrators.
And about you getting angry or disappointed about things, well you should have realized that sooner.
How much justice was done regarding the things happened in the south?
SL Police (like many other government bodies) has a serious case of (can it be any worse?) systematic corruption. and attitudes.
There are inherent weaknesses in the SL judicial and prison system which has caused even cops to mistrust the system.
Err…? Have you read anything I’ve ever written? Except when it comes to economic policy and the spread of Islam, I’m pretty firmly on the side of liberals thought I might occasionally make fun of them for being moronic about some things (spending money on athletics, some guy moronically thinking that SL has a higher rape rate than India when calculating from his own stats it’d take 300 something rapes per day, thinking death penalty is not a crime deterrent etc.). In fact in the case of death penalty too I find I’m slowly moving towards the liberal side of things.
So, how much justice was done regarding the things happened in the south? Well, certainly not enough. But you can’t hold a double standard. If detention camps are wrong in the South, they should also be wrong in the North. You can’t have it both ways.
Well, hardly any justice happened regarding the things happened in the south.
And furthermore WE have hardly demanded any accountability for those things.
Number of politicians/people who were accused of death squad or vigilante activities got and will get elected without much question (many others are living quite well in various positions in the public or the private sector).
So we haven’t demanded much accountability from south-on-south have we? So why do you think we would demand a one from south-on-north.
And by the way quite a number of north-on-south things are also “forgotten” by us (provided they forget they eelam dream).
” Except when it comes to economic policy ”
well i guess you are missing the most important thing when it comes to being liberal.
And I did not accused you of being a liberal or leftist or a mix of both.
I’m simply stating that the things you find so infuriating/disappointing are things which has been there all along.
Lot of people who died during that time didn’t have a this sort of a cover story.
They were simply taken, in some cases tortured, killed and got dumped in rivers or burned near roads. The government official position was they were done by unidentified gangs. You can’t have a official story for dumping bodies on rivers or burning them roadside.
But I think Wijeweera and HB Herath (JVP Polt Bureau member) had this sort of colorful story about their deaths. Few other top leaders may have had a one but others simply didn’t have a one.
So sack, what exactly are you trying to say here? Should I be infuriated, or should I not be infuriated? Can you stick to your message? Because first you told me that that I should have got infuriated sooner. Now you are saying that the things I find infuriating are things which has been there all along as if to say that I shouldn’t get infuriated. So what exactly are you saying? What’s even more puzzling is that none of that makes any sense because what I said was I used to get infuriated but don’t get infuriated any more… ????
As for whether we have demanded any accountability for south-on-south things, well, you are doing it right now. You are just not loud enough, and not powerful enough to make change anything but still you are doing it. But you can’t hold a double standard whether or not your opinion matters. If you want accountability for south-on-south things, you should also want the same for south-on-north things and yes, north-on-south things too if those involved are still alive.
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>missing the most important thing when it comes to being liberal.
What, that you should fool yourself into thinking we can afford to run a welfare state being the third world country we are? No that doesn’t make any sense.
“So sack, what exactly are you trying to say here? Should I be infuriated, or should I not be infuriated? Can you stick to your message? Because first you told me that that I should have got infuriated sooner. Now you are saying that the things I find infuriating are things which has been there all along as if to say that I shouldn’t get infuriated. So what exactly are you saying? What’s even more puzzling is that none of that makes any sense because what I said was I used to get infuriated but don’t get infuriated any more… ????”
I didn’t say should get ” infuriated sooner”. I said you should have realized sooner. You should have realized sooner that “this is the normal state of things,”.
“well, you are doing it right now.”
Well I am not. I do sometimes feel that I should hate those guys but really, I don’t.
I don’t hate Ranil for connections to Batalanda but i hate him for trying ride the moral high horse after all that.
I don’t hate SF, Algama, Waidyaratne, Janaka Perera, Muthalif or Gadafi for their actions during that time.
I don’t hate Rajitha, Chandraprema,Ranjan W for their activities.
And I don’t hate ISU for their activities either.
“What, that you should fool yourself into thinking we can afford to run a welfare state being the third world country we are? No that doesn’t make any sense.”
Errr… o.O . Well when i say liberal I was referring to the economics that strongly supports market economy , private property rights and Individualism.
Now I’m even more confused. Let me try to make sense of this whole thing. First, I said I used to get infuriated about certain things until I realized that it was the normal state of things. A state of affairs that has existed for four years, or eight years is not the normal state of affairs in this context because I made a reference to human history. The CBK era was much different from this one, so I can’t be saying this is the normal state of things if I take the short term view. So I’m clearly talking with a long term view in mind. Long term in the sense thousands of years long. Therefore, are you telling me I should have read The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and A Peace to End All Peace by the time I was ten years old, or are you saying I should have born with that knowledge?
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Okay, here’s the thing. Writing about human rights violations in exactly the same way a person who is disturbed by such violations would write, and then saying you don’t really care, doesn’t change the fact that you actually wrote it. The simplest explanation for you writing what you wrote is you thinking what you wrote even if you deny that because some guy on the internet is making fun of you.
Secondly, you don’t need to hate the perpetrators to be disturbed by human rights violations. You also don’t need to hate the perpetrators to write about human rights violations exactly the same way a person who is disturbed by them would write. You also don’t need to hate the perpetrators to demand accountability.
See if you are serious about this, then you should at least pretend that you don’t give a shit about human rights, and the powerful should be allowed to do whatever the fuck they like to the powerless. Women should be raped on the streets and stuff like that. But given what you’ve already written here, you can’t convincingly do that here. So the stuff you wrote here about human rights violations, since this is a public forum, is indeed a demand for accountability.
If I find myself in the situation you are in right now, I’d kill myself. You don’t give a shit about south-on-north stuff. But since that is the case, if you reveal that you care about south-on-south stuff it will be revealed that you are hypocrite. Since that thought is undesirable to you, you try to say you don’t give a shit about south-on-south stuff either.
So here’s the deal. I’m going to accept your devil may care, screw human rights attitude that you pretend to have. But if I ever catch you complaining about human rights violations and the lack of rule of law and such stuff, I’m going to call you out on it.
I think you and I have a different way looking at things.
For example I think some of the things happened in the CBK era are not much different from the things happening now.
And I don’t see a huge difference between the things happened in SL during the past few decades and the things happened during the human history.
For example government killing opponents, anti government revolutions and people with power abusing their power are nothing new. Those things have been happening for a very long time.
So you should have realized that earlier.
And by the things you write, I assumed you were older.lot older. Not 10 or 12 years old. So when you say “lately”, i also assumed that you started understand things during the past year or two.
My sincere apologies if that was not the case.
And considering the second part of your long what ever it is, following I feel is very close to home,
“If I find myself in the situation you are in right now, I’d kill myself. You don’t give a shit about south-on-north stuff. But since that is the case, if you reveal that you care about south-on-south stuff it will be revealed that you are hypocrite.”
though I am not sure whether the “hypocrite” is the best word. What ever it is I am not going to kill my self over it.
While I am “concerned” (you and I may have different meaning for this word) about the “past”, I don’t want accountability for the very recent past (even if i wanted some people to be prosecuted, that would be because of some other reasons than human right violations).
Even if I wanted “accountability” for things two decades back, it want be the same “accountability” you are talking about here.
While I generally don’t like killings or torture (things which some would consider as torture and torture), I understand that those things are sometimes necessary.
And Sharanga, if you really want keep tabs on me, be my guest. Being who I am, am sure you will get the chance to call me out.
While you can have any wild guess or assumption on what I have written here, couldn’t it be possible that I wrote all these things just to screw with you.
Oh sure, I know you are screwing with me. I bet you know that I”m screwing with you. But I’m better at it than you are. You have got yourself in a pretty fucked up situation where human rights and rule of law are concerned. So if I ever see you whining about the government violating people’s human rights, I will call you out on it. Since human rights do not exist in a metaphysical sense their existence depends on people recognizing them. Since you don’t recognize them, for you they don’t exist. So you better find something else to save your ass when you say something like that.
I will kill myself if this happened to me. Totally. Perhaps it’s easier for you since you don’t have any sense of self-worth, and is too obsessed enough to read too articles dedicated to exposing Goebbels’ sex life.
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So, what do you think is the appropriate age to realize this is the normal state of things? By what age do you think person should have read something like the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and similar books on other major empires and civilizations, and about human evolutionary past to come to this conclusion? 13? 15? 18? 21? 25? 30? 35? 40?
Well Sharanga, everyone who reads what you write will know who’s screwing who.
And in my opinion, no one has to bother much about screwing you since you seems to be going through a healthy dose of self-screwing.
From a so called liberal but with exceptions like bit of racism, pinch of homophobia and small case of not knowing what liberal economics means, to the guy who thought Goebbels was a gentleman (apart from his nazism that he was loving faithful husband), to the guy who goes around calling everyone “morons”, I shudder to think about my future with you watching over me.
“I will kill myself if this happened to me. Totally.”
Glad I am not that fragile.
“Perhaps it’s easier for you since you don’t have any sense of self-worth, and is too obsessed enough to read too articles dedicated to exposing Goebbels’ sex life.”
And now you know all about me and my pastimes. Congratulations.
“So, what do you think is the appropriate age to realize this is the normal state of things? By what age do you think person should have read something like the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and similar books on other major empires and civilizations, and about human evolutionary past to come to this conclusion? 13? 15? 18? 21? 25? 30? 35? 40?”
I don’t think you need to read books to learn about human nature. And I don’t think you need to read about the Roman empire to learn about humans.
And I am not the one who started this discussion about the apparent maturity age. But I assume you are not a teenager. I assume you are at least in your 20s.