Gotas (other) War

2015-08-10
he former Defence Secretary and the
former presidents brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa is touted for
giving leadership to defeat the Tamil Tigers.
After the then government jailed and stripped military honours
of former army chief Sarath Fonseka, Gotabaya and his elder
sibling, ex-president Mahinda claimed for the exclusive rights of
the military victory. Gotabaya, indeed, played a major role in the
military success; more than anything, he, somehow, managed
to formulate a unified military strategy involving three forces; no mean feat
when his commanders of the army and navy did not see eye to eye. He also
defended senior military officials who were unduly victimised, thereby
serving as a bulwark against personalised witch-hunts that occurred time
and again in the military establishment. That helped the security forces
retain experienced senior officers, some of whom later served as division
commanders during the final phase of the war.
That, however, is only one side of the story. Prageeth Ekneligoda and
those young men who were last seen in underground prison cells in the
Trincomalee Navy camp would have told the other side of the story, if they
had a chance to live.
Gotabayas tenure as the Secretary of Defence was marred by grotesque
human rights abuses; abductions and enforced disappearances became a
state policy; newspapers and television stations were attacked; political
dissidents and ordinary Tamils were killed and abducted; parents of missing
youth were terrorised.

Gotabaya brushed aside allegations about those incidents with contempt

as if they were a figment of imagination. The Defence Ministry labelled
lawyers who made representations on human rights as traitors. Military
intelligence units were deployed to threaten and abduct critics. Any
discussion on military abuses and excesses was considered a taboo and
noncompliance was dealt with white-vanning.
No military is foolproof from abuses, especially when it is forced to fight a
maximalist terrorist group. And Sri Lanka is not an exception. However,
when aberrations happen, civilised nations investigate and hold those
responsible for their infractions accountable. However, rather than facing
those hard facts of gross abuses, Gotabaya chose to suppress discussions
on those matters with the use of overt and covert threats, and brute force.
Those who were lucky to be alive, such as journalist Tissanayagam got a
show trial. Many others, mainly Tamils simply disappeared.
Even torture victims who filled Fundamental Rights applications
disappeared. Tamil businessman, Ramasamy Prabakaran, known as Majestic
Prabha, who was arrested, tortured and later released by the Terrorist
Investigation Division was abducted again, two days before his FR petition
was due to be taken for hearing. He was never seen again.

"Omnipotent Gotabaya Rajapaksa ran the show in the Defence

establishment; he called the shots and decided our life and
death. He should know the answer. If he wanted to genuinely
investigate any of those crimes, he could well have done so. But,
he did not. "
Gotabaya Rajapaksa is the chief architect of the culture of impunity that
defined this country for the last ten years. First, he gave a carte blanche to
the military. However, he cared less that once arbitrary violence is
instituted as a state policy, it takes a life of its own; at first, abductions were
a policy purportedly to disrupt LTTE cells and sleepers. Then, it became a
lucrative business model for
nefarious officers, who made their
ill-gotten fortune by ransom taking
and extortion.
Perhaps, Mr Rajapaksa did not
take stocks of the repercussions of
his policy. However, disturbing
details of the past abuses and
cover-ups are now coming to light
after the change of the regime in January.
In the first place, abductions and assassinations of dissidents is not a policy
of a civilized state. However, since the acolytes of the former regime tend
to argue those were a necessary evil in the fight against terrorism, can
someone tell me which ones of the following would have served national
security: Disappearance of Ekneligoda, Lalith Kumar and Kugan
Muruganandan, the latter duo were pasting posters of the breakaway group
of the JVP in Jaffna when they disappeared; killings of Sampath Lakmal and
Lasantha Wickremethunga; attacks on Uthayan, former Sunday Leader, and
Sirasa, the massacre of Aid workers in Muttur and students in Trincomalee;
regular abduction of Tamils for ransom; massacre in Welikada prison;
killings in Rathupaswala, etc.
Those incidents are manifestations of the arbitrariness of the national
security state that Gotabaya built. Official and unofficial security organs of
that State were a law unto themselves. We do not know yet about the full
scale of the horror and cover up in the past.
However, following are some of the recent breakthroughs in the on- going
CID investigations.
The disappearance of Ekneligoda: CID arrested two former Tiger cadres,
Nagulan and Satya Master over the abduction of Prageeth Ekneligoda. The
two men have reportedly admitted abducting Ekneligoda on January 24,
2010 and handing him over to a military camp in Girithale, North Western
Province. The CID is expected to grill two senior military officers who were

attached to the camp.

Abduction and illegal detention of young men in the Trinco Navy Camp in
order to obtain ransom: the CID has made submissions to the Court over
the abduction and detention of youth in the Trinco Navy Camp by a group
led by the personal security officer of former navy chief, Admiral Wasantha
Karannagoda. CID implicated that the former Navy Chief himself was aware
of those abductions that took place in 2008.
Alleged homicide of Wasim Thajudeen: CID says that the death of former
Rugby captain Wasim Thajudeen was not an accident, but a homicide. It has
now been established that the Ruggerite had been abducted by a Landover
Jeep registered under the Sri Lanka Red Cross, which was released for the
use of a NGO run by a VVIP family. The initial report of the Judicial Medical
Officer had noted that the victim had been hit with a pole on the head, neck
pierced with a sharp object and leg muscles cut with a broken glass. Those
findings were somehow disregarded by the law enforcing agencies in 2012.
The body of Thajudeen is expected to be exhumed on Monday (10) under a
court order for further examination.
There is one poignant question that need answers. Since it is down rightly
nave to believe that the investigative skills of the CID increased by leaps
and bounds overnight, it is obvious that someone who wielded enormous
power had stood on the way of those investigations in the past. The
question is: Who is he?
Omnipotent Gotabaya Rajapaksa ran the show in the Defence
establishment; he called the shots and decided our life and death. He
should know the answer. If he wanted to genuinely investigate any of those
crimes, he could well have done so. But, he did not.
Of course, the previous regime suffered from a marked deficit of political
will to find the truth and hold those responsible for rights abuses blamed on
the military.
Investigations held under the Rajapaksas were a farce. They were generally
announced on the eve of UN Human Rights Council sessions and were
meant to dupe the international community.
However, it is not just the absence of political will. Investigations were
deliberately curtailed whenever they became inconvenient to the
authorities.
They were also called off when some ambitious officers ventured into areas
considered inconvenient to the former regime. For instance, the
investigation into the disappearance of Ekneligoda was called off, earlier on
a political directive after the CID traced the last caller to the disappeared
journalists phone. In another, CID investigations into the Navy abduction
ring headed by Lt Commander Sampath Munasinha was disrupted by the
transfer of the investigating officer Sub Inspector Nishantha Silva on several
previous occasions. Also, over the past seven years, Court hearings were

held in closed doors, thereby barring media. The main suspect Sampath
was also enlarged on bail.
Independent institutions that were meant to protect fundamental rights of
the people also became victims of Rajapaksas absolutism. It is only now
that the National Human Rights Commission has found courage to implicate
the military in the killing of three civilians in Rathupaswala in August 2013.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, instead of taking disciplinary measures, appointed the
military officer who oversaw the carnage to a diplomatic posting.
There are other reasons that explain the scant regard for the due process of
law: there are allegations of complicity. Prison officials who have now come
forward to give evidence about the Welikada prison riot say that prisoners
who were massacred there were singled out and taken from their cells,
based on Gotas list.
The new government appointed a Commission to investigate the prison
massacre; the report of the Commission was submitted to the President and
the Prime Minister. However, the government, which has published some of
the recommendations, has not released to the public the full report and its
findings. An on-going police investigation has been cited as an excuse.
However, if Sri Lanka is to arrest the culture of impunity that reigns in the
country, the government should commit itself to a full disclosure of rights
abuses in the past. And it has to hold the killers and their political and
bureaucratic bosses accountable. Mr Gotabaya Rajapaksa surely has a lot to
explain. - See more at: http://www.dailymirror.lk/82765/gota-s-otherwar#sthash.QzhsteoE.a4UDTmat.dpuf
Posted by Thavam