Online Reporter
The Herald, 4 August 1989
SRI LANKA, beset by two vicious wars and its population in fear, is heading for collapse, Western and Asian diplomats say.
“It’s heading downhill fast. The economy is shrinking daily, politics are a mess and society is breaking down. It’s very hard to see how the slide can be halted,” said one senior Asian envoy.
“What it has come down to is that power really does come from the barrel of a gun,” said a Western colleague. The guns are in the hands of Tamil militants in the north fighting Indian troops that Colombo has tried and failed to get out, the People’s Liberation Front (JVP) and security forces widely accused of running death squads.
Many Sri Lankans say the only certainty in their lives is fear. Indian troops were brought under an accord signed two years ago to help end a Tamil rebellion in which thousands of people, including 1 000 Indian soldiers, have been killed.
New Delhi has just withdrawn a token number but refuses to withdraw them all, saying a bloodbath would ensue as Tamil militants thrust to take power in the north. The front wields considerable control over large areas of the south, killing in gruesome ways security men, officials, suspected informers and alleged criminals.
The security forces, according to human rights activists and ordinary citizens, are trying to crush the front by fear. They say the favoured method is to tie a tyre to the torso of a suspected rebel with wire, burn him and leave the charred corpse as a prominent warning not to help the front.
“If my neighbour is angry with me, all he has to do is tell the police my son is JVP and that’s the end of him,” said one woman who lives just south of Colombo.
One policeman in the area said that often front suspects would be released by police, only to be picked up and killed by the death squads.
“Some JVP rounded up in a sweep plead with us not to release them. They know what’s going to happen,” he said.
Colombo human rights lawyer Prins Gunasekera has had three assistants killed in the last year.
“The human rights record of this government is putrid and getting worse,” he told reporters.
Lesson for today:
- The article highlights how quickly a nation can descend into chaos when political institutions fail and violence becomes a primary means of control. It reminds us that in any conflict, civilians often suffer the most, and human rights can be severely compromised.
- It underscores the importance of strong, transparent governance and the rule of law in maintaining societal order. The widespread fear among civilians, the use of death squads, and brutal tactics by both rebels and security forces show the devastating impact of war on ordinary people.
- The work of individuals like lawyer Prins Gunasekera, despite personal loss, shows the critical role of human rights defenders in exposing abuses and seeking justice.
