There’s NO statute of limitations on crimes against humanity

by Kumar David

There is no statute of limitations for crimes against humanity in respect of place or time. That is, a judge in Argentina for example, can adjudicate on alleged crimes against humanity by the Franco dictatorship in Spain, or by Pinochet in Chile. Any liberal democratic country can act on its own or act in the UN Human Rights Council in respect, for example, of human rights violations by the Sri Lankan government during the period when Gotabaya Rajapaksa was Secretary of Defence. This is aside from the specific charges lying in US courts against Gotabaya for the murder of Lasantha Wickremesinghe. I am not sure whether the US courts will hold that Lasantha’s murder is a straightforward criminal offence or a crime against humanity. Either way social scorn makes it difficult for Gota or his family to live without opprobrium in the US. But for so long as antipathy to Tamils endures it may provide a temporary shelter. (Of course, it works the other way round as well).

Whoever controls the past controls the narrative of the future and determines a nation’s amnesty law. The identity of the killers who worked out of the Tripoli Market, the names of the officers who murdered the young Tamil men on the Trinco Beach and the identity of politician-officers who covered up for them is no secret. The press, the political classes and the relatives of the victims know it all. In this sense we can say that this is all a matter of public knowledge. Though it is obligatory that those responsible be prosecuted and punished we also know that this is unlikely. Though the global pressure to hold persons responsible for human rights violations to account, and though crimes against human rights have no statute of limitations in respect of place or time, nevertheless the mills of god grind slowly and one can only pray that they will grind exceedingly fine.

There is another disturbing example from Spain – the Amnesty Law enacted in 1977, two years after Franco’s death, which declared that members of the regime could not be prosecuted for crimes committed during the dictator’s reign or during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) which saw more than half a million deaths during Franco’s rise to power. The gist of it was, forget the past; make a fresh start with a clean slate. Torturers and murders from the Franco years were to be forgiven. I fear something similar is possible when assigning responsibility for the thousands of young men and women, mostly Tamils, held in prison under emergency laws for 10 to 20 years. It is certain that the Sri Lankan state will attempt to smuggle in provisions of this nature. The government of the day, of whichever rascals is in power, will attempt to pardon Lankan State officials who beat, tortured or murdered prisoners.

It is incumbent on every one of us to reject these attempts. It would be more useful if the Front-Line Socialists and the NPP/JVP activists associated with Aragalaya devote their efforts to preventing this instead of demanding a constitutionally superior extra-parliamentary status for themselves.

The United Nations as long ago as 2013 called on Spain to overturn the Amnesty Law that pardons crimes committed during the 36-year dictatorship of General Francisco Franco. Hundreds of thousands of died or disappeared during Spain’s civil war and subsequent dictatorship, but the crimes have been shielded under the Amnesty Law passed two years after Franco’s death. “It is regrettable the situation of impunity for cases of enforced disappearances that occurred during the civil war and the dictatorship. There is no ongoing effective criminal investigation nor any person convicted,” the UN said.

To move on to another but related topic of international accountability, I have long argued in these pages that globally, liberal opinion and democratic nations cannot and will not permit Sri Lanka to descend into anarchy and military dictatorship since it is one of the very few surviving post-colonial democracies. India is large, diverse and can look after itself. I am surprised not to have had any explicit support for this point of view in these pages and this is why I repeat it today. India too, for her own reasons, will not permit a military take-over or anarchy on her Southern littoral. For example, 2000 jawans were sacrificed to thwart Prabakharan and to keep JR in check. For all these reasons I am confident that both naked military dictatorship and an anarchist breakdown in Sri Lanka are unlikely. Outbursts of anarchy as in 1971 or 1989-90 will again be brought under control with international support. (I will take up relations with China anon).

To move on, what is the likely economic scenario in this country in say the 12 to 24 months ahead? The global context is uncertain. Most analysts predict a global recession, though a few analysts dispute its intensity. The global interest rate and inflation scenario is on the whole gloomy. I have written before about President Joe Biden’s populist-inflationary economic agenda and indicated that it will not let the rest of the world escape from the debt-trap it is mired in. The UK has suffered three prime ministers in the last year and PM Sunak seems at cross purposes with the Bank of England. Mitterrand has lost control of the domestic political narrative; Italy seems unable to form a government and Putin’s future is at stake. Very unusual times the like of which we have not seen since the 1920s and 30s. The background to all this is the prospect of a global economic recession or depression.

To be realistic then, we in Lanka have to expect a difficult two years ahead. Although the cuts demanded by the IMF have in fact already been passed on to the people in the form of steep price increases the following concerns remain. There is tension in respect of how demands on earnings derived from exports are allocated to different sectors – manufacturers, primary crop producers and financial services. And third there is the difficulty of persuading China to restructure Sri Lanka’s debt rather than simply rescheduling payments as it has insisted on doing up to now. The end result is that prudent strategic management of the economy is the priority. The President’s team, the Central Bank’s managers, and the private sector are not on the same page nor speak the same language. The point then is that there is no one boss and the President who should be exercising overall control does not have the team and the authority. He does not have people with the understanding, inclination and sobriety of how to pull it off. The game is likely to be amateurish and therefore messy. Predictions are fraught.

The last matter I wish to dwell on is the unexpected tensions that have arisen in the Chinese economic system; so serious that it has complicated the political future of President Xi Jinping. There are rumblings that his zero blowout Covid strategy has been a spectacular failure. Though he has secured a third term, confirmation of a life-presidency at the next party conference is unlikely. What are Xi’s achievements? Mao, though he fell psychologically in his later years, led the Chinese people to liberation from 1921-1949, Deng Xiaoping led the modernisation of the Chinese economy for nearly 30 years till his death in 1997.

Comparatively, what has Xi achieved? Just a cock-up of Covid policy to the point where his zero-tolerance approach lies in shambles, the economy has been damaged and young people are angry and revolting. All this may not be bad news for countries along the New Silk Road. Maybe China will be forced to accept a new and more generous approach to debt restructuring.