"Special Rapporteur on Torture to Visit Sri Lanka"

By Darmitha-Kotte

A news item from the UN appeared in the Daily News of 3rd November, 2006 which states:
" The Special Rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, will visit Sri Lanka from January 27 to February 2, next year at the invitation of the Government. Nowak will meet with Government officials, including the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defence, Public Security, Law and Order, and Justice and Law Reform; the Judiciary; the Human Rights Commission; parliamentarians; the prosecution service, and representatives of non-governmental organizations and international organizations in order to gather first hand information. He will also visit detention facilities. Nowak will submit a report, including his conclusions and recommendations to the United Nations Human Rights Council. " (end quote)………………….

Why would a Special Rapporteur on torture visit Sri Lanka of all countries? What the article says is that the Sri Lankan Government has invited him to visit this country. However, it seems there is more to it than meets the eye. If there is no mistake, western parties with vested interests have made representation to the UN about "abhorring incidents of torture in Sri Lanka" and requested such a visit. On the part of the Government as always, we welcome anyone who wishes to visit us, conduct investigations which means they gather as much information which is relevant (as well as more irrelevant) to their TOR and then "sling mud at us" in the reports they make! Being Asians we will naturally bend over backwards and treat these VIPs with utmost respect, even offer them services and information they don't even ask, "open out all security/confidential information" to them (for their database) and in the true colonial servile mentality of us Sri Lankans, we will shake hands, grin and admit that "we have made mistakes." That is exactly what these visitors expect of us!

On this very special trip Mr. Nowak should interview two or three special persons who could enlighten him on torture in Sri Lanka - the politician/s who supervised Batalande atrocities (for incidents between 1978-1994) and Velupillai Prabhakan of LTTE fame for 25 years of torture meted out to Tamil civilians in the North and East. After meeting these two or three individuals, there is no doubt that Mr. Nowak will be able to write an excellent report on Sri Lanka. A separate volume will be needed to write only on the atrocities committed by Prabhakaran-of the famous "lamp post killings" during the early 1980s to instill fears in Hindu Tamils; mutilations; murder; child conscriptions (as well as torture &murder to parents who refused to give their children); cutting off of hands for those Tamils who defied the LTTE ban to vote in a democratic election; throwing of infants into cauldrons of boiling oil while their parents watched helplessly; torture meted out to their own cadres who failed their "missions"; dumping of Tamils into dark rooms after they are kidnapped and kept without newspapers or radios until "the whole brainwashing course of hatred" was successfully completed against the Sinhalese to name only a few of their glorious doings. Mr. Nowak should also make a request from Prabhakaran to visit some of his torture houses to get first hand information that he would really like to have.

"Special Rapporteurs" make it a "special mission" for visits to developing countries on the directions of western powers to put undue pressures on these governments but do they visit torture houses & prisons run by the UK and the USA? Numerous are the horror stories we have read and also seen on TV about prisons in the US and UK and the inhumane tortures they have inflicted on the Muslims, Vietnamese, Japanese, Black Americans, and Africans living/ who lived in the "apartheid zones" of the African sub-continent. Those of us who live in developing countries are considered to be uneducated and uncivilized and therefore would very well resort to "uncivilized acts" but when highly civilized countries like the UK or USA commit crimes they are probably "carrying out God's instructions" because these leaders seem to have constant communication with God-therefore, they are not reprimanded and there are no sanctions against them!

"Justice" in the world whether past or present, seems to be coloured "white" to say the least.