On the surface, Sri Lanka seems an idyllic and relaxed tropical country in the Indian Ocean, an island getaway with its beaches, forests, and Buddhist temples — almost peaceful and removed from the rest of the world. But underneath the façade of democracy lies an authoritarian government with a human rights record of persecuting minorities, suppressing any political opposition, and recently, attempting to contain the COVID-19 pandemic using draconic measures.
The government’s long, drawn-out ethnic cleansing campaign against the country’s ethnic Tamil minority, which began with the pogroms now known as Black July in 1983, and culminated in the Mullivaikal massacre of 2009, resulted in the death, displacement, and disappearance of hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians. More than a decade later most of them have still not been accounted for. The government continues to deny that they died or disappeared. As former US President Barack Obama recently acknowledged, the ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka represents one of the great failures of international peacekeeping.
Sri Lankans of various religious ethnicities commemorate on April 21 this year the first anniversary of the devastating Easter Sunday attacks that killed at least 265 people. Mob violence and anti-Muslim rhetoric have since intensified as hundreds of Muslims were detained and arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act without credible evidence.
Militarized pandemic response
Today the architects of the Tamil genocide continue to run the government. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, defense secretary during the end of the war, is now President, and his elder brother Mahenda Rajapaksa, then President, is now Prime Minister. Their response to the COVID-19 pandemic has also been marked by a disregard for the human rights of the country’s minorities.
The first local case was reported on March 10, 2020. As of December 10 30,072 cases and 144 deaths have been reported. Instead of a body of public health and medical experts, the Sri Lankan government delegated managing the pandemic to an executive task force. Many organizations have expressed concern at the number of military personnel included in this task force, many of whom stand credibly accused of war crimes and grave human rights violations.
Lieutenant General Shavendra Silva, Sri Lanka’s army chief and head of the National Operation Centre to curb the spread of the virus, was banned from entering the United States this year “due to gross violations of human rights.”
Silva was commander of the Sri Lankan army’s 58th division during the final stages of the war. The division stands accused of having conducted mass shellings in no-fire zones. Kamal Gunaratne, current secretary of defense, was commander of Division 53, which in 2009 launched repeated attacks on civilian hospitals and food distribution points, resulting in tens of thousands of civilian casualties. Sumedha Perara was commander of Joseph Camp, a site for interrogation and torture of suspected cadres of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a militant organization, from 2010 to 2012.
Ten days after the first local case was reported, the government imposed a police curfew, which it has extended, modified, and cancelled at will since. The government has used the need for distancing to curb the spread of the virus to brush aside the lack of a legal basis for the curfew. In addition to the curfew, the government has granted the police and military the power to arrest civilians without a warrant.
As of late November, over 60,000 civilians have been arrested for violating curfew. In the minority-dominated North and East, increased police and military presence has come with a wave of gratuitous violence. Little has been done to ensure adequate food supplies and distribution. The sudden lockdowns have left many on the brink of starvation. Several reports have emerged of Tamil activists and aid workers being arrested for delivering food supplies to those in need. Police and military personnel have gotten drunk and assaulted Tamil civilians. Navy personnel even bit an innocent fisherman. Police have broken into houses without a warrant, destroyed property, and assaulted women.
Sinhalese oppression of Tamils and Muslims
The Sinhalese-dominated government has used distancing and curfews as an excuse to crack down on Tamil civilians holding memorials for their dead. Even gatherings abiding by curfew and distancing rules have been relentlessly dispersed. Special police units have been paid for by the government to take down posters in remembrance of Tamil martyrs or freedom fighters.
In recent years anti-Muslim sentiment has also been on the rise in Sri Lanka. In 2018 a two-week spate of riots, in which Sinhalese mobs attacked mosques, Muslim shops and houses, broke out in Ampara district and spread up to Kandy in central Sri Lanka.
After the Easter Sunday bombings of 2019, mob violence and anti-Muslim rhetoric reached even more unprecedented levels. Hundreds of Muslims were detained and arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act without any credible evidence. The government banned wearing headscarves. Influential Sinhalese monks and politicians called for the death of Muslim civilians and a Sinhalese-only government. Muslim cabinet ministers were forced to resign. Muslim houses and businesses were attacked by mobs all over the North-Western provinces.
Although coronavirus victims can be safely buried, the government continues to insist that Muslims who die of the virus have to be cremated. Cremation is forbidden in Islam and a clear violation of the right to freedom of religion.
In May when Fathima Rinoza — a 44-year-old Muslim mother of three in the capital city of Colombo — died of COVID-19, her son was called to the hospital to identify the body by a group that included police, military, and hospital personnel. He was denied his rights to bury the body and was forced to sign a form agreeing to have his mother cremated. On the same day and in the same city, 64-year-old Abdul Hameed Mohamad Rafaideen died as well. Although it was never established that he died of COVID-19, the authorities made his son Naushad (who cannot read) sign papers authorizing his cremation.
On April 9, 2020, Ramzy Razeek, a retired government official with a large following on Facebook, was arrested after criticizing the government for religious discrimination in a post. He was only released in October. Hejaaz Hizbullah, a prominent human rights lawyer, was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department after being told that health ministry officials would be visiting to test him for COVID-19 exposure. The police said that the arrest was in connection with the Easter bombings. His trial has been continuously postponed while he remains in detention.
Out of 180 countries, Sri Lanka has been ranked 127 on the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index. It is among the least safe places for journalists in the world. In October this year alone there were four instances of assault against five journalists on the island, all of whom had to be hospitalized. Since the first curfew in March, civilians and journalists criticizing the government’s response to COVID-19 have met consistently with arrest and intimidation.
In October the 20th amendment to the constitution was passed. The amendment grants the president a wide range of new executive powers, including the right to appoint all judges of the superior courts and the election commission. It also abolishes presidential term limits and allows dual citizens to hold office (Gotabaya had to give up his US citizenship to run for office, but now his relatives won’t have to).
Today, as Sri Lanka grapples with a second wave of the pandemic amid the rise of authoritarianism and Sinhala majoritarianism, international intervention is urgently required. ●
Ashik Kumar is an independent journalist. His work has appeared in Caravan, The Wire, and VICE India.
