Political Murders, The Commissions And The Unfinished Task

By Rajan Hoole -June 6, 2014 

Rajan Hoole

“ Now let us calmly define our position, Watson. Let us get a firm grip of the very little which we do know, so that when fresh facts arise we may be ready to fit them into their places. I take it, in the first place, that neither of us is prepared to admit diabolical intrusions into the affairs of men…” - Sherlock Holmes, in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot 

Impressions and Flawed Evidence

We argued in the last chapter that irrespective of the conclusions they reached, the commissions of inquiry marshalled a great deal of evidence. For those who think the issues important, there are valuable leads to pursue their own inquiries. Even discovering that the commissioners reached wrong conclusions by following their arguments is valuable in itself. Getting at the truth in any murder is important. It is a strange pathology of Sri Lanka’s polity that the very sections – the UNP and its media allies – who are the most keen to throw a veil over Athulathmudali’s murder were the ones who sang praises to his management of National Security while he was living. A political culture, in which the most fundamental human virtue of loyalty to one’s friends and colleagues is non- existent, can offer only tragedy. What dignity can a country lay claim to when investigations into the assassinations of its leaders regularly get bogged down in obstruction, obfuscation and falsification?

We will in this section explore the assassinations of Vijaya Kumaratunge and Lalith Athulathmudali. In both instances, the findings of the commissions have run into heavy criticism, and both had implicated leading UNP figures and prominent members of the Police Force. We will try as we have advocated, to go beyond the commission proceedings and findings, by making critical use of them. The exercise, we believe, gives us important insights into the Sri Lankan polity.

The task before the commissions was made extremely difficult by the fact that these violations and assassinations took place during a period when the Police were far from being impartial guardians of the Law. Inevitably, the public were quick to associate perceived motive with guilt. Presidential commissions too left much to be desired during the Jayewardene era and the findings of commissions suffered because the judges on them were seen to be under pressure to arrive at certain conclusions.

The period was also one where norms were not observed by security officials and often not with sinister intention but because work was heavy during the JVP insurgency. A commission when questioning a police officer in public, say, for not submitting the proper papers to the Attorney General in connection with certain detainees, can create an impression that is unfair to the officer. One police officer complained, “The JVP made two attempts on my life while I was going home. No one asked me about that. But now the Commission wants to know why certain papers were not in order.”                                                                                           Read More