Rajapakse government is a whited sepulchre
Good evening I like to thank the Platform for Freedom and all those who are here, for not only keeping Lasantha’s memory alive, but for also fighting for justice, on his behalf.
It has been 36 months now since Lasantha was killed. The investigation, despite the evidence in the hands of the police, has been nothing but a clumsy cover up. Instead, the regime has become a refuge for rapscallions and criminals. A whited sepulchre.
The government however, continues to send their mouth-pieces to international forums like the UN, Human Rights Council and the Committee Against Torture to try and white wash themselves. And the issue of accountability is always off the table. Recently the government claimed that journalist Prageeth Ekneliyagoda has not disappeared but has taken refuge in a foreign country.
These are well known tactics. Just two weeks after Lasantha was murdered, Minister Keheliya Rambukwella told a media briefing, that the government was aware of the identity of lasantha’s murderers, and that the president would make the facts known on February 15, 2009. Well, it is now nearly February 2012.
In fact, at that time, I wrote to both the Inspector General of Police, and to President Rajapakse, asking them to reveal what they knew about my husband’s murder, just as much as Mrs Sandhya Ekneliyagoda is now asking the government to reveal the so called whereabouts of her husband.
We are not even two weeks into the New Year and already there have been two abductions resulting in murder.
I have no doubt these murders will NOT be properly investigated. As a sop to our sensibilities, some of these murder victims have been labeled as alleged drug dealers –as if somehow, that gives the government the license to act with impunity and to turn Sri Lanka into a lawless banana republic.
It is not even within the understanding of those in power to realize that often admission of fault is the first step to reconciliation and healing. Instead the government is happy to continue calling the war a humanitarian operation first with zero civilian casualties and later admitting to some unavoidable casualties. President Rajapakse himself has denied in the media that there have been any killing at all in Sri Lanka in the last few years and recently his cousin and Ambassador in Washington DC Jaliya Wickremasuriya denied that there is any violence against women in Sri Lanka. The video of the Ambassador’s comments was posted by the Washington Times on December 27th just two days after a young Russian girl was brutally attacked and raped in Tangalle and her friend – a British national was murdered.
As you say, the sun certainly will not shine on a country where impunity reigns. Tourists will not come to a country where murders and rapes are not transparently and properly investigated.
I sincerely do not believe that Lasantha nor anyone else, unless they are lackeys of the government, will get any justice under this regime.
Countless times after a murder or an abduction civil society, the media, and human rights organizations have stood up and said enough was enough, but we will not be ethically vigilant if we do not realize that it will happen over and over again with demonic repetition.
And that is why it is important that as much as we embrace dialogue and now look forward to reconciliation and compromise that we stay true to our principles and to our sense of outrage and make sure that we are not engaging in an indecent compromise or a rotten compromise with a regime that cares little for human dignity, justice and accountability.
Thank you
Speech by Lasantha’s widow and journalist Sonali Samarasinghe Wickrematunge at a protest meeting held in Colombo on January 11, 2012 to mark her husband’s third death anniversary. The speech was delivered over skype. Opposition Leader Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe Dr. Nimalka Fernando of the Women’s Political Academy, Mr. Mano Ganesan of the Civil Monitoring Mission, Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu (Centre for Policy Alternatives), Mr. J. C, Weliamuna (Lawyers for Democracy), Mr. Sudarshana Gunawardana (Rights Now), Mr. Britto Fernando (Families of the Disappeared), Mr. K. W. Janaranjana (Ravaya Newspaper), Mr. Chandragptha Thenuwara (Citizen’s Rights), Mr. Sunil Jayasekera (Free Media Movement) and Mr. Herman Kumara (Land Forum) also spoke. The meeting was organized by the Platform for Freedom – a coalition of Civil Society Organizations in Sri Lanka established in January 2009 to campaign for Right to Live and Freedom of Expression with the participation of trade unions, media organizations and political parties.