TORTURE: ASIAN AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES | JUNE-AUG 2013
Pillay in Sri Lanka In these circumstances, it was remarkable that Dr. Navanethem Pillay made an official visit to Sri Lanka, which was noted to be the longest visit she has made to a single country, after assuming her current office. She concluded the visit with a comprehensive, comparative, and in-depth remark on the present political structure and its motivation in the island nation. “Despite the opportunity provided by the end of the war to construct a new vibrant, all-embracing state, [the leadership] is showing signs of heading in an increasingly authoritarian direction...,” noted Dr. Pillay. In her statement made in Colombo, she has given a drop of water to the people thirsting for justice and freedom. It is just a silver lining around a very dark cloud; a tiny hope for the hopeless. Her observations constantly focused on the root causes of the problem in Sri Lanka, and its institutional collapse. The President of the country later gave a feverish answer by saying that it is laughable to say that the country which is conducting elections in time and asking for power of the people is heading towards authoritarianism. Similar comments came from the former President of Sri Lanka, J. R. Jayawardhana, a few years after he created the most notorious constitution for the Island nation, in 1978, while introducing an Executive Presidency above the law. It was neither a module of Charles de Gaulle’s politics nor the module of the United State’s presidential system but a political curse which destroyed the last milestone of personal liberty in this country.
VOLUME 02 NUMBER 02 & 03
However, in his speech J.R.J said, “I think the UNP way was truly democratic, for they listened to the voice of the people, for ‘Vox Papuli, Vox Dei’, [the voice of the people is the Voice of God].” But at that time only few local people were able to recognize the true face of this untruth and almost no one from the international community opposed it. The result: over 30,000 forced disappearances in the southern part of the country, with the entire Island left to burn in the bloodiest civil war. Now, years later, for the first time, a key player in opinion-making in global politics, Navi Pillay, has come on track of the real problem faced by Sri Lanka, and she was able to articulate the crisis through ground realities rather than long distance predictions based on political gossip. The present political situation is leading us to understand and appreciate the importance of personal liberty. Quoting Benjamin Franklin, American political scientist, James Otteson, noted recently, ‘Liberty is also the thing that gives us dignity. We have human, moral dignity because we have liberty. So if we are giving our liberty away in exchange for security, we’re not only losing the liberty, but we’re also losing to that same extent some of our dignity. That’s a very high price to pay and once we give up that liberty it may be very difficult to ever get it back.’
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