The above is an apposite comment on the state of our society today. But in fact it was written over twenty years ago in a public statement issued by over fifty academics of the University of Jaffna. It was the precursor to the founding of the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) on the initiative of Rajan Hoole and Rajani Thiranagama, both of whom were also signatories to that statement. Within a couple of years of the issue of that statement, Hoole was forced to go underground and Thiranagama had been brutally assassinated. Many of the other signatories had been terrorised into acquiescing with the very anti-democratic tendencies which they were protesting. The statement went on: "Thus if the people are to regain their lost self-will and dignity, they will have to move towards a collective response. We have to assert universal values to which we are both emotionally and intellectually committed. It is the lack of such commitment that enabled us to come to terms with murder, when it concerned others’ sons, and then, watch helplessly in panic when the cancer, allowed to grow, threatened our own sons.’

The Jaffna academics were voicing the same sentiments about the fascist forces in the North as did Lasantha Wickrematunga about the fascist forces in the South when he quoted in his final testament the celebrated lament of Pastor Martin Niemoeller about the Nazis:

When they came for me,

there was no one left to speak out for me."

Today, what our country needs are not apologists for the violators of human rights but men and women of courage who can stand up and speak out against violence and injustice to their fellow human beings, even to those they themselves disagree with. We need men and women like Rajani Thiranagama, the twentieth anniversary of whose assassination falls in September this year. Shortly before her assassination, she wrote: "A state of resignation envelopes the community. The long shadow of the gun has not only been the source of power and glory, but also of fear and terror as well. In the menacing shadow play, forces complementing each other, dance in each other’s momentum. The paralyzing depression is not due to the violence and authority imposed from outside, but rather to the destructive violence emanating from within the womb of our society." Thiranagama was talking about the fascist LTTE in the North then, but it applies with equal force to the fascist clones of the LTTE in the South today.

M C M Iqbal is a human rights advocate who functioned as Secretary to Commissions on Disappeared Persons. He is now one among many who have now fled the country following threats to their lives. In a recent statement, he states: The modus operandi of the widespread abductions and disappearances we witness in Sri Lanka today is similar to what we saw in the late 1980s and early 1990s. President Rajapakse, who was a Member of Parliament then, was in the forefront of the struggle against these incidents. Now his regime has become one of the world’s worst perpetrators of enforced disappearances. The government has demonstrated an utter lack of resolve to inquire and investigate into these incidents. It downplays the problem, denying the scale of the incidents and blaming unknown persons for them. Lawyers and other human rights defenders who assist victims are branded as traitors or otherwise penalised. Even UN officials and Parliamentarians who espouse their cause are named as supporters of the LTTE."

The LTTE must be held responsible for many abductions, disappearances and extra-judicial killings mostly in the North and East and in the border areas. But sadly the government has to take responsibility for the culture of impunity that now prevails on respect of several abductions, disappearances and extra-judicial killings that have been taking in the recent past and for which para-military and pro-government fascist forces are believed responsible. It was chilling to hear the reported interview given by Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse to the SBS, an Australian Broadcasting Station. In respect of the recent arrest of Vidyartharan, the editor of the Sudar Oli Tamil newspaper: "He is involved in the recent air attack and I am telling you if you try to give cover-up for that person you have blood in your hands. And if someone says he is arrested because he is in the media, that person also has blood on his hands." And it was the Defence Secretary who told a local broadcasting station soon after the attack on the MTV Studios that it was an inside job. He is a public official holding a responsible position. If he is making a responsible statement, it must be made not on surmises but only after the investigations have been completed. Is that, in truth, the position?

There is no substitute for a strict adherence to the rule of law and for transparency in all actions. That is the only way to uphold democracy even while engaging in a war on terrorism. The ruling party in Pakistan has just learnt to its cost what lack of transparency and political skulduggery can cause. Street protests have forced it into an embarrassing climb down after resisting norms of democratic rule. In Sri Lanka too, the open violation of the rule of law has spread itself into all areas. The brutal slaying of an abducted six year old child after a ransom demand was repulsive by any standard of morality. What makes it even more revolting is the growing suspicion that it was not one depraved individual who was behind it but a group with political connections. This was not the first time in recent years that young children have been killed by scoundrels with no scruples.

This violent trend in society can only be arrested by the government and the law enforcement authorities not only enforcing the rule of law but themselves adhering to it. Secretary-General Kofi Annan addressing the UN General Assembly five years ago stated: "The vision of ‘a government of laws and not of men’ is as almost as old as civilisation itself. In a hallway not far from this podium is a replica of the code of laws promulgated by Hammurabi more than three thousand years ago in the land we now call Iraq. Much of Hammurabi’s code now seems impossibly harsh. But etched into its tablets are principles of justice that have been recognised, if seldom fully implemented, by almost every human society since his time…. Yet, today the rule of law is at risk around the world. Again and again, we see fundamental laws shamelessly disregarded – those that ordain respect for innocent life, for the civilians, for the vulnerable, especially children….

"All over the world, we see people being prepared to further such acts (of violence) through hate propaganda directed at Jews, Muslims, against anyone who can be identified as different from one’s own group. No cause, no grievance, however legitimate in itself, can begin to justify such acts. They put all of us to shame. Their prevalence reflects our collective failure to uphold the rule of law, and instil respect for it in our fellow men and women. We all have a duty to do whatever we can to restore that respect….

"The rule of law starts at home. But in too many places it remains elusive. Hatred, corruption, violence and exclusion go without redress. The vulnerable lack effective recourse, and the powerful manipulate laws to retain power and accumulate wealth. At times even the necessary fight against terrorism is allowed to encroach unnecessarily on civil liberties…

"Throughout the world, the victims of violence and injustice are waiting. They are waiting for us to keep our word. They notice when we use words to mask inaction. They notice when laws that should protect them are not applied. I believe we can restore and extend the rule of law throughout the world. But ultimately that will depend on the hold that the law has on our consciences. This Organisation was founded on the ashes of a war that brought untold sorrow to mankind. Today we must look again at our collective conscience, and ask ourselves whether we are doing enough.

"Each generation has its part to play in the age-old struggle to strengthen the rule of law for all – which alone can ensure freedom for all. Let our generation not be found wanting."

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