Presidential Pardon to Corporal Sunil Rathnayake?
Sri Lanka faced a thirty year old war with Tamil terrorists. Terrorists had no scruples in breaking the age old international rules of war honored by all countries irrespective of whether they were democratic, socialist, capitalist or even communist countries like the Soviet Union or Cuba. Some think, especially in biased situations, that releasing of a convicted person from his or her prison terms or death sentences is another crime or matter for politics to be discussed by the politicians and human rights activists. Most probably however, it is a matter for the unbiased and educated general public and matured society to decide and weigh and come to their own terms and conclusions. It is not a matter for political parties or any international or local body to influence the mandate of the general public because decisions of this nature should always be taken by the general public and by the general public alone.
Pardons of this nature has been experienced in Sri Lanka from time to time and it is nothing new. In the past, successive kings, governments, and even colonial rulers who ruled this country for centuries had executed their royal and presidential pardons. In the recent past, specially after the presidential rule came into force with J.R Jayawardena at the helm such high profile pardons or paroles have cropped up many times since the late 70s .It started with the unjustifiable pardon, as many think, proffered upon Rohana Wijeweera, the leader of the newly labeled leftist party called JVP. President R. Premadasa extended his presidential pardon in April 1990 to Vijitha Rohana Wijemuni, who assaulted Indian Prime Minister late Rajeev Gandhi in a military guard of honor in July 1987. President Maithreepala Sirisena will go down in history for his scandalous and unimaginable pardon given to Jude Jayamaha in late 2019 who was convicted of third degree murder and was serving a life sentence at Welikada prison. Further, when President Maithripala Sirisena released LTTE suicide cadres, deadly LTTE Tamil terrorists and its sympathizers who had been convicted of complicity in terror acts was welcomed as so-called reconciliation. However, the members of the armed forces were to be jailed by that government in name of ‘accountability’.
Although these three cases of Presidential pardons were viewed by many legal eagles as highly irregular, they did not create much of a stir in the local and international press. Most probably the reasons for this lack of attention is because these decisions were taken by politicians for reasons known to themselves alone!
Notwithstanding the pandemic COVID- 19, the local and specially the international press had many “holier than thou” comments on the presidential pardon given to Corporal Sunil Rathnayake by newly elected president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The reason for this undue attention is definitely because his decision to pardon Corporal Rathnayake, overriding all the comments and judgments of the Sri Lankan courts of law was a decision taken for the people who demanded fare play and justice! .
The intention of this piece of work is not to justify or glorify the work done by this Corporal but to analyze the justice and rationality behind the Executive President’s pardon extended towards the Corporal over and above the legal justifications. In the first place the incidents that occurred at Mirusuvil on 24th December 2000 which was a High Security Zone could not be authentically proven in any court of law. Incidentally there are many, many similar presidential pardons throughout the world. Finally we should definitely take into account, the justifiable necessity to honor the call of the local citizens for justice and fare play.
Factual Incidents in High Security Zone
It is essential and worthwhile to go through the sequence of events that had occurred within the High Security Zone (HSZ) on that eventful day, in Mirusuvil close to Jaffna. It is a very common fact that the general public using their common sense, stay out of any HSZ in a war torn area and to enter such an area declared as out of bounds by the army would be courting death!
The next amazing fact is the knowledge gained by the Sri Lankan intelligence services that Prabhakaran and his terrorist carders forcibly trained very young Tamil girls and boys, some of them just six years old to take part in military activities such as combat, sentry duties, logistics and primarily to spy and gather intelligence for terrorist activities.
It is also a well-known open secret that the deadly no-nonsense, Special Operation Platoon, SOP of 6th Gajaba Regiment of the Sri Lankan Army who did not take any chances ,was in active operation during this time period in the Murusvil areas of Jaffna .
Amidst all these operations, on this particular day of 24th December 2000 eight Tamils had entered the military high security zone in Murusuvil on the pretext of collecting firewood. It would be highly questionable to the mind of any sane person, legal or otherwise as to why eight men accompanied by some very small children entered a high security zone instead of women who usually take on the task of collecting firewood in any community throughout the Eastern world. This is highly questionable, isn’t it? It was also very unusual for any terrorist group to put the lives of little children aged between 5-15 years by ordering them to stealthily enter such a HSZ to collect firewood. If that was the necessity, these little children and their mothers could have easily gathered any amount of firewood from other areas of Jaffna instead of entering a HSZ at the risk of their lives. The other highly questionable fact is that these eight carders including the children seems to have travelled 25 Kilometers that is from their village called Uduppitty to Murusuvil where the HSZ was situated.
The judgment of the court does not say that Corporal Ratnayake personally involved in the killing of eight people who presumed to be trained LTTE Tamil terrorists. Further, if charges were brought against all six soldiers who were supposed to be involved in the incident at that time; why did only five soldiers get acquitted on the ground that their identities could not be established and only Corporal Ratnayake was convicted? Another, question is that how it was possible for Corporal Rathnayaka to kill all 8 people, alone dig a large pit to hide dead eight bodies and dig another large pit to bury the bicycles, and slaughter some goats and put into the cease pit while all other soldiers stood simply and watching on the whole drama.
Weren’t the above mentioned facts questioned in a court of law? Didn’t the answers to these questions probed during any trial in a court of law or were the answers to these questions important only to the common people of Sri Lanka? Meanwhile, the legally appointed defense team must have also found it difficult to come up with factual answers to the simple questions raised above! That may be the reason why this legal defense team made this weak and unstable statement at the closing of the case, “since over thousands of soldiers had to die during the war no soldier shall be prosecuted by the judiciary”!
However, the elite SOP units for which the Corporal was attached to must have found the logical answers to the above questions and must have analyzed them with the prevailing ground situation at that time and seems have reacted swiftly to save thousands of lives of brave soldiers stationed behind the enemy line of the high security zone. In this instance, if the army hadn’t reacted swiftly in the war torn battle ground on that day, these veteran soldiers in question might have been decorated today as war-heroes who made supreme sacrifices to our motherland and may not be labeled as murderers today by some sectors who seems to have had unfathomable interests. Notwithstanding vested interests!
Similar Pardons
Granting royal and presidential pardon to their own valiant war heroes is not uncommon in a war situation whether it is a post-war situation or not. Unlike other countries who constantly engage in various wars directly and indirectly, Sri Lankans experienced only one war in the recent history for three decades with the Tamil terrorists. At the end of a war, which is the case in Sri Lanka or during the war, granting Royal or Presidential pardon are not unusual in selected specific cases where it serves the national interest.
In the middle of 2019, the President of the United States personally interfered with three alleged such cases leveled against American soldiers and managed to grant full executive Presidential pardons to two American soldiers and they were restored in their ranks of the American Navy. One of the soldiers who was granted the presidential pardon had served six years of his 19 year sentence rendered after he was convicted of murder charges for ordering soldiers to shoot at unarmed civilian men in Afghanistan, killing two men. The other security forces officer had been waiting for a military trial after being accused of an extrajudicial killing of a suspected bomb maker in Afghanistan; he was charged with premeditated murder of a Taliban terrorist.
Similarly, President Trump reversed the demotion of Navy SEAL, who was convicted of posing with the corpse of an enemy combatant in Iraq and later he was acquitted of all murder and other charges.
Earlier in 2019, American President extended his presidential pardon to a former first lieutenant in the American Army who was in prison for killing an Iraqi civilian during a severe interrogation.
In a similar way, then UK Prime Minister, Theresa May was formulating to pass a parliament bill to extend the Royal pardon for all UK soldiers who were prosecuted for allegedly committing nefarious acts in the operation for the sake of national interest.
Interestedly, however no human rights campaigners of the UNHRC, Amnesty International, or NGOs who are in the successful business of human rights and geopolitical conspiracies make a big noise and cry unlike the way they went all-out when people asked for the Presidential pardon for the Corporal Rathnayake of the Sri Lankan Army.
The People’s Wish and Pardon
The people of Sri Lanka suffered a bloody 30 years of Tamil terrorism. They faced all sorts of inhuman terrorist acts all over the Island for three decades. Suicide bomb attacks, bombings of all kinds, attacking villages, attacking religious places, airports, seaports, bombing at market places, schools, public transport, and banks were common as a part of the day to day life. People in the Southern part of Sri Lanka suffered more than the people in the North and East which was the breeding ground of Tamil terrorism. The deep scars of war in the hearts of the Sinhala people in the Southern part of Sri Lanka had not healed with the so-called one sided reconciliation process which was only focused and aimed at the people in the Northern part of Sri Lanka. Under these uncertain circumstances, people lost their faith in the system but placed their trust and faith only on their wishes. Six million nine hundred thousand people cast their beliefs and wishes at the new light in the tunnel. They wished and trusted in the constitution of Sri Lanka and gave the mandate to act upon it.
The people of Sri Lanka has empowered their President under Article 34(1) of chapter VII of the 1978 Sri Lankan Constitution to execute the Executive powers to grant pardons to any convicted offenders. The Sri Lankan President’s powers to such presidential pardon should follow through a strict process that passes through the Attorney General, to the Minister of Justice for recommendation and thereafter to the President. The President, in his presidential campaign promised to exercise such powers if he was empowered and elected. The people of Sri Lanka extended their mandate by empowering the elected President to grant pardons to anybody with the blessings of the people.
Accordingly, the executive presidential pardon granted to the former Corporal of the Sri Lankan army is constitutionally legal. The intended provisions and proposals of the constitution are there to be used as and when necessary. The necessity is not to be political and also not to be personal but always it should be the wish of the people.
So, the peoples’ wish to pardon the Corporal was accomplished through the constitution by the peoples’ President.
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