Anger swells over impunity in post-war Sri Lanka

Source: Reuters

COLOMBO, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Criminal impunity has become an increasing target of public anger in Sri Lanka since the end of a 25-year war in May, which exposed the extent to which the rule of law has eroded in the Indian Ocean island nation.

Sri Lanka, since it first battled Marxist insurgents in 1971, has had a history of criminals or members of the security services carrying out executions or torture with tacit backing from the nation's influential and politically-connected quarters.

But with the war no longer providing an excuse for acts motivated by personal, business or political reasons, public patience may be running out over impunity -- a challenge as Sri Lanka tries to reinvent itself as an investor-friendly nation.

A recent spate of violent incidents implicating police has spawned a wave of public fury and angry editorials -- rare under a government that in wartime was quick to brand critics traitors.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSCOL481004._CH_.2400

This war was originally about the severe repression of the Tamil community by the Sinhalese community. when a linguistic/ethnic/religious group's cultural institutions/heritage is burned down, when education in their language is outlawed, when members of the group are attacked by state agents and by non-state agents acting with impunity, when opportunities are denied to members of the group, that's what we generally call persecution.

Like many such situations, it didn't arise out of thin air. What had been a privileged group under colonial rule (see Guyana, Rwanda ...) became the target of hatred in the post-colonial era. But there is no doubt that atrocities were committed against the Tamil community.

And like many such situations, the struggle for equality became subverted into something far darker and far removed from the initial goals. The fact remains that there was a just cause at the root of the Tamils' struggle.

I have friends who lost family members. I had a client who was so traumatized by the gang rape she endured at the hands of the military (after her husband "was disappeared") that she could not talk about it, and in fact likely couldn't admit it to herself; if she had, she would have done what her friend who had suffered the same abuse did: drink Drano. She was lucky to have a devoted sister, and lucky to make it to Canada, and "lucky" to have chlamydia, which no young married Tamil woman would have had, providing evidence of her abuse.

I have no idea what anyone might think beachfront property has to do with any of this.