{"id":100685,"date":"2020-04-02T17:00:47","date_gmt":"2020-04-03T00:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=100685"},"modified":"2020-04-02T17:00:47","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T00:00:47","slug":"sunil-rathnayake-pardon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/04\/02\/sunil-rathnayake-pardon\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunil Rathnayake Pardon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chanaka Bandarage<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Is\nSunil Rathnayake innocent?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Sunil\nRathnayake received a Presidential pardon just because the previous President\npardoned convicted Tamil Tigers, it is not a good reason for the pardon. \u2018Two\nwrongs don’t make a right\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The President, who is also the ex-Defence\nSecretary, would not have released Sunil Rathnayake unless that was the right\nthing to do.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is important to bear in mind that there\nare several military men currently held in the prison for wrongful acts\ncommitted in the military, but only Sunil Rathnayake was released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a well known fact that the military\nhas always held a firm belief that Sunil Rathnayake is innocent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current top security apparatus, who\nare held in the highest esteem in Sri Lanka, are believed to have firsthand\nknowledge about the incident. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the recently held Presidential election\ncampaign, Sunil Rathnayake\u2019s release was mentioned in Pohottuwa election\nrallies. Thus, it is possible to argue that releasing Sunil Rathnayake was a\nfulfillment of an election promise. The electorate was forewarned, yet they (69\nlakhs) reciprocated positively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources within the military, especially\nthose who had worked with Sunil Rathnayake, strongly and unequivocally state that\nSunil Rathnayake is innocent.  Their\nversion of the story is that Sunil Rathnayake was only involved in an act of eliminating\nthe  LTTE. The LTTE was acting brutally at\nthat time and it is well known that they had used various tactics to attack the\nmilitary.  These sources state that Sunil\nRathnayake had no desire to indiscriminately kill innocent Tamil civilians; in\nthe Miruseveli group,  there had been\nTamil Tigers in the group in disguise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The writer does not have firsthand\ninformation about the incident. He goes by what the rank and file and senior\nofficers of the military state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We should not forget that Sunil Rathnayake\ngrappled with the case for nearly 20 years. During that period he was routinely\nin and out of the jail. This is a significant period of one\u2019s life. During that\ntime he had had horrendous experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Empirical evidence about the Sri Lankan Army\nproves that the recent Army has never engaged in brutal acts. It has always acted\nas a humanitarian force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Sunil\nRathnayake is innocent, he should not spend an extra day in the prison. The quotation \u2013 \u2018it is better 100 guilty Persons\nshould escape than that one innocent Person should suffer\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dilrook Kannangara in his recent article (in\nLankaweb) states that Sunil Rathnayake seems to have received a weak defence. It\nseems that his case was inadequately presented to the courts, including the\nSupreme Court. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We, being a common law country, have an\nadversarial legal system. Like in inquisitorial systems (civil law countries),\nour courts do not actively become involved in prosecuting a case.  The onus is on the parties to adduce evidence, raise\nobjections and state the relevant law. The courts only act as the referee between the parties. The\nSupreme Court being the highest appellate body would only investigate errors of\nlaw and fact (if any) committed by the lower court, the High Court of Sri Lanka\nin this instance. Dilrook Kannangara seems to be saying that there had been a dearth\nin Sunil Rathnayake\u2019s defence. Then, the courts would have no other alternative\nbut to side with the Prosecution \u2013 the party that had made the stronger case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dilrook Kannangra is correct to state that\neven if the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court\u2019s conviction, the President in\nhis own prerogative as the Executive President has power to pardon a prisoner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a power given to the President under\nArticle 34 of the Constitution.  The\ncarrying out this power is no way a belittling of the judiciary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The notorious Royal Park murderer escaped the\ndeath sentence after he was released by the former President using the same\npower.  His death sentence was also\nupheld by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If innocent, pardoning of Sunil\nRathnayake was the right thing to do?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a separate question that needs a\ncareful review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some say that by pardoning him, the\ngovernment has given impetus to its enemies in the West and local (there are\nmany), especially the Tamil Diaspora; to wage a \u2018new war\u2019 against it. This\nargument has merit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government would have known that Sunil\nRathnayake\u2019s release would mean the facing of a barrage of new criticisms, both\ninternational and local. It would have known that certain western\ngovernments\/international NGOs sympathetic to Tamil Tigers and Tamil\nSeparatists would demand imposition of sanctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunil Rathnayake is a Ranawiruwa. There is\nno doubt that he would have contented to remain in the prison, just for the\nsake of the country. For him, it will be making another sacrifice for the\nmotherland. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A patriot would always give his life to\nprotect the motherland (eg Hasalaka Weeraya). Brave, innocent military men have\npurposely gone to jail to save their country and leaders who face false\/fake\nwar crimes charges and similar allegations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunil Rathnayake is that type of a man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government could have easily kept Sunil\nRathnayake in jail to the rest of his life. But, it did not want to do that. The\ngovernment was determined to clear Sunil Rathnayake\u2019s name \u2013 as it believed\nthat he is  innocent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government here was more concerned\nabout upholding its high morals and high principles. These are hard to find qualities\nin the current day and age. More than anything else the government wanted to do\njustice by Sunil Rathnayake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is ludicrous to say that the government\u2019s\nact was an attack on the country\u2019s minority Tamils. These are statements of\npower hungry politicians. They ought to be sensitive before using such dangerous\nrhetoric. They should know that their irresponsible statements could cause\nuntold harm to the country\u2019s  ethnic\nrelations. We have a fragile peace in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, the release of Sunil Rathnayake has\ngiven the country\u2019s enemies a new opportunity to wage new accusations. Tamil\nDiaspora now demands the revival of the old war crimes charges.  How far would their actions go, would Sri\nLanka end up receiving international reprimands\/sanctions; these are difficult questions\nto answer at this stage.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A school of thought is that the government\nshould have instead afforded Sunil Rathnayake excellent conditions in the prison\nand looked after his family well. The taxpayer would not have minded this. The\njustification to this argument is that the last thing the government wants is\nmore trouble. It already has enough on its plate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again,\nthe government seems to have been preoccupied with upholding Sunil  Rathnayake\u2019s rights and liberties -a\nRanaviruwa who had a brilliant military record. He was the winner of the prestigious\nRanasoora medal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One\ncould argue that the government has shown true bravery and a true desire to\nuphold justice. Another could argue that the government should have given\npriority to the country\u2019s interests over the interests of a single individual. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Different\npeople would analyse this differently, according to their own conscience and standard\nof measurement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chanaka Bandarage Is Sunil Rathnayake innocent? If Sunil Rathnayake received a Presidential pardon just because the previous President pardoned convicted Tamil Tigers, it is not a good reason for the pardon. \u2018Two wrongs don’t make a right\u2019. The President, who is also the ex-Defence Secretary, would not have released Sunil Rathnayake unless that was the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chanaka-bandarage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}