The President and Capital Punishment

Waiting for premeditated legal murder

Is the European Union (EU) some kind of arbitration body that is positioned above the Sri Lankan Parliament, its Executive President and the Supreme Court?  The question has to be asked in view of a report claiming that ‘the EU opposes Sri Lanka resuming judicial executions under any circumstances’.

Apparently the EU has told successive governments that it is opposed to the resumption of judicial executions and has consistently asked for the extension of the moratorium on capital punishment.  

The news value of this telling obtains from a recent statement made by President Maithripala Sirisena that those found guilt of drug trafficking should be dealt with the death penalty.  It is a sentiment that his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa has shared.  Rajapaksa is on record saying ‘there are times for example in the case of drug related crimes that I feel we should implement the death sentence’.  

Countries have cultures.  Countries have laws.  Countries have preferences.  The EU is fine with a lot of things that many people abhor.  The EU has consistently played approver of all manner of crimes against humanity perpetrated by the United States of America, for example.  If Sri Lanka (or any other country) ‘urged’ the EU to stop acting tail to the USA dog, will it listen?  No.  The statement is an insult to Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.  The President could (if he shows a lot more guts than he has so far) do what Robert Mugabe once did to Tony Blair, viz ‘You look after your country Blair, I will look after mine’.

Once he does that, however, he can return to the question of capital punishment.  He can ask himself whether capital punishment has any justification.  He can reflect on the moments when the cry for capital punishment is loudest and ask himself why.

Each time someone calls for the implementation of the death penalty or the lifting on what has in effect become a moratorium on capital punishment it has followed some gruesome crime.  The killing of a judge for example prompted the Bar Association to call for the resumption of premeditated legal murder (which is what the death penalty is).  Rape and murder of a child, similarly, results in similar calls.  Drug related crimes and terrorist attacks also see advocates of capital punishment becoming more vocal than usual.  What’s all that if not a deference to emotion rather than reason?  Surely something as serious and irrevocable as the death penalty should be free from ‘passion’, in either advocacy or objection?  

Let Maithripala Sirisena read Albert Camus’ ‘Reflections on the Guillotine’.  That was a text that prompted France to do away with the death penalty. Forget France, forget Camus.  The President can ask himself some questions. He can reflect deeply.  He can come up with some answers.  We can ask the questions from ourselves too. We can also answer.  

Does the punishment fit the crime, ever?  No. Is it a deterrent?  No.  If it is a matter of ensuring that society is protected from the wrongdoer, are there other options? Yes, imprisonment.  In the case of an error in judgment can it be revoked and the wrongly judged suitably compensated? No. 

President Sirisena cannot, like some of Sri Lanka’s staunchest patriots, object to something simply because it is proposed by an interfering group of countries that have always treated countries like Sri Lanka as subordinate entities. So the President should tell the EU where to get off, not for what is advocated but for the advocacy.  He cannot tell the people of Sri Lanka where to get off, however.  He cannot ask reason to take a break.  He cannot ask morality to retire. 

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Did the European Court of Justice slip Mahinda a trump card?

Here’s the ‘word on the street’ or rather ‘word on the walls’ on Saturday October 18, 2014: ‘යුරෝපා සංගමය LTTE තහනම ඉවත් කරයි…රනිල් යුරෝපයෙන් වැඩ අරඹයි’ (The EU lifts LTTE ban – Ranil embarks (on campaign) from Europe).’ 

It is a neat juxtaposition.  The first part is true in part.  The European Court of Justice (ECJ) annulled the EU regulations proscribing the LTTE but did so with an important rider, ‘on fundamentally procedural grounds’ with the decision ‘not implying any substantive assessment of the question of the classification of the LTTE as a terrorist group’.  The said measures annulled, moreover, will remain temporarily ‘to ensure effectiveness of any possible future freezing of funds’.  ‘Ban lifted’ is a fair claim but one which without details.  Furthermore, ECJ is not European Union (EU), after all the decision went against an EU body, the Council and Commission of the EU. 

The second part is pure conjecture.  There’s absolutely no evidence that Ranil did or said anything that could have moved the relevant judges.  Indeed, if that was the case it indicates considerable political and intellectual weight which makes his abysmal performance on all fronts here in Sri Lanka hard to understand.  What impact other less visible moves by the movers and shakers of this world had on this decision we do not know but it is certainly not profitable to indulge in conjecture about such machinations. 

Now it is true that Ranil and the UNP have always been the darlings of the West, in particular the USA.  It is also true that the USA and EU have been particularly pernicious in their dealings with Sri Lanka for reasons that have more to do with Sri Lanka having a leader who is not pliant enough to their liking.  These countries and their official and unofficial agents have been very cosy with big names in the UNP as well as those in the NGO sector that focus on human rights, good governance etc., again notorious for regime-hatred and for this and other reasons quite partial to the LTTE. 

So although it’s quite a stretch to link Ranil to the ECJ decision the line resonates well with entrenched perceptions about Ranil, the West and the LTTE.  What are these perceptions?  It has many parts.  There is the perception that only Mahinda Rajapaksa (with Gotabhaya Rajapaksa of course) can preserve the hard won victory over the LTTE.  This has much to do with their role in that victory as the track record of the Ranil-led UNP.  The Ceasefire Agreement, the Millennium City betrayal, hobnobbing with federalists who spared no pains to undermine the military offensive against the LTTE etc. gives credence to this view. 

If victory is to be preserved, furthermore, it is perceived by many that the LTTE should remain a non-factor.  EU/USA salutation of lies spewed by pro-LTTE is also seen as something that does not help.  These countries have been comfortable in echoing the devolution demands of pro-LTTE and pro-Eelam elements which, in the post-Prabhakaran reduced-circumstances they find themselves in, take the form of exacting police and land powers. 

More than all of this is the terrible memory of LTTE-terror.  Any association with any process that indicates even an outside chance of an LTTE resurgence in even the mildest form can worry an electorate that has suffered three decades at the hands of terrorism.  It is a worry that the ruling party can and will play on.  All the more reason for Ranil, the UNP and the rest of the Opposition to make a clear break from the past ideologically and politically and make that break stick in the minds of the voter.

The fact is that one of the biggest mind-blocks for the floating voter is the UNP’s flirtation with federalism and federalists, widely seen as gentrified name boards for Separatism and Eelamists respectively.

People can and will ask, ‘how about the merger of the North and East, how about police powers and how about land powers?’  They will add, ‘Why should we believe them?’  They will think, ‘Their masters in the West will dictate the solution to them and it will be 13+/federal.’

Thus, even though ‘preservation of hard won victory’ is no license to be corrupt and dictatorial or justify giving the finger to ‘Law and Order,’ the perception of politicians in general as being opportunists and corrupt (the UNP was not a Party of Saints while in power and the JVP too has a bloody history) is enough to see ‘no difference’ or ‘insignificant difference’ with the regime.  Not enough to oust this other perception about ‘victory’. 

There’s only so much political fuel that ‘victory’ can make.  The ruling party has all but exhausted victory-credit.  The ECJ decision, the way it is read and marketed, and politically linking the UNP to the decision however amounts to a ‘reload’ of the victory credit card.  The UNP and its leader have to come out strong on the implications of the ECJ decision on prospects for peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka.  It will take some convincing of course to show that the decision is not as dark as it is or will be made out to be and that’s because of the UNP’s flirtation-history.

As things stand, no one can bet on anyone to do or not do anything.  Can we believe the Rajapaksas, one can ask.  What is the guarantee that the Rajapaksas will remove the 13^th (if that’s what is ideal)?  The answer would be ‘We can have more faith in them than a Ranil-led UNP in this regard’.

Someone might say, ‘the Rajapaksas have tested the people’s patience, I think the rajapaksas have tested the people's patience, they insult the people, there’s anarchy, no law and order’ and add to that list of woes.  The tragedy is that such objections can and will be met with something like, ‘True, but not new to Sri Lanka – wasn’t great either under the UNP’.  That’s never excuse enough, but when picking between two bad apples, there are certain kinds of badness that gives out a foul odor – in this instance the greater perceived likelihood of an LTTE resurgence. 

What’s come out of Europe is a trump card.  It’s one that has been given to Mahinda Rajapaksa because he, more than Ranil, is seen as preserver of sovereignty, defender of territorial integrity, objector to federalism and crippler of separatists.

Dayan Jayatilleka recently wrote, ‘Defeating a war winning President against the backdrop of a growing economy would be a tall order in any society.’  Add this ‘EU Gift’ and it could be a no-contest unless Ranil and the UNP make a believable case for ‘changing of ways’.    

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The European Union made me laugh (for a while)

When Barack Obama was named winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace, I laughed.  I likened the decision to offering a ‘Man of the Match’ before the toss of coin in a cricket match.  When Liu Xiaobo was named as winner the following year I was amused.  It was "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China".  I was amused because no North American or European Union writer with ten times Xiaobo’s skill writing extensively on the horrendous crimes against humanity perpetrated by the governments on these continents would ever get a Nobel Prize.

This year they gave it to the European Union and I laughed and laughed and laughed.  The EU is on the verge of bankruptcy and its global role has been reduced to one of raising hand to whatever the USA proposes and defending verbally or with silence when silence is a crime all manner of terrorist acts authored by Washington and executed by its potent massacre-squads.  The EU is complicit in crimes against humanity and genocide in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, not to mention the orchestrated violence in Arab, which Washington spin doctors had the audacity to call ‘a spring’!  Rev. Jesse Jackson said ‘Those who own the drones are guilty (of crimes against humanity)’; the cheering squads are guilty too.   

‘Just another of those things,’ I told myself and duly forgot about it. 

I had forgotten about the Nobel Prize until last week, when I received an invitation from Bernard Savage, Ambassador, Head of Delegation of the EU to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, no less.  It was for a cocktail reception.  And the occasion….(hold your breath now!)….’To celebrate the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize 2012 to the European Union’.  No, I didn’t puke.  I guffawed. Uncontrollably. 

‘Just another of those things,’ I told myself and duly forgot about it. 

They didn’t let me forget.  Two days later I get a ‘gift pack’ from the same office; a card holder, a desk calendar, a t-shirt and a pen drive (see pics).  I stopped laughing at this point. 

Why on earth should I wear a t-shirt with an EU logo? I am not a citizen of an EU country and moreover people like me (brown skinned, born in Asia, Africa and Latin America) are not just discouraged from applying for citizenship but are obstructed, legally.  The racism in Europe against non-white is matched only in North America.  So this was not a come-hither, do-this, now-wear-the-t-shirt kind of invitation.  It’s more like some nosey-parker coming here, doing ‘that’, getting the t-shirt and saving the story in a pen drive, except that the EU Mission in Colombo wants me to be brand ambassador of sorts. 

The desk calendar had beautiful pictures, all drawn by a Sri Lankan child from Mawanella, all ‘signatured’ with the EU logo and ‘European Union’ in large font (English) and smaller fonts in Sinhala and Tamil.  It’s not that the child or those depicted in the drawings have anything common with Europe or that they are on the same footing with children in that part of the world.  The EU has graphically ‘owned’ these people and got an innocent Sri Lankan child to endorse the fact! 

It is not one of those things.  It is no laughing matter. 

It didn’t end there.  The EU Mission then sends me a greeting card. ‘Seasons Greetings,’ it said.  What season, I wondered.  Perhaps they believe this is the season for humiliation and plunder, the season for taking me for a fool and the season for getting me to inhabit their version of my reality.

I thought this was it.  I thought wrong.  On Thursday I get a ‘Media Pack’ from the EU about the Nobel Prize, replete with a ‘fact sheet’.  It detailed ‘how the EU works’, the policies and activities of the EU, and how the EU ‘spreads peace and democracy’.  It took the cake.  A sunshine story if ever there was one!  Nothing of its considerable track record in plunder and genocide, the unwashable blood of all the continents on its hands, the policy of supporting tyrants and endorsing genocidal action in the name of democracy, in the name of peace, and the rampant racism and Christian fundamentalism that defines these countries. 

To cap it all, the ‘media pack’ had a beautifully done cover of a white boy and a Sri Lankan girl placing ‘EU stars’ on a Sri Lankan beach. 

I had long since stopped laughing.  It was tough not to puke.   

[Published in 'The Nation', December 9, 2012] 

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