Why SL should have a National Police Academy

Speech made in Parliament, Oct. 6, on the occasion of the second reading of the National Police Academy Bill by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, MP

Mr. Deputy Chairman of Committees, I had intended to speak on the principles of this Bill, but, after having heard the speeches before me, it may be worthwhile to spend some time responding to some of the suggestions and the arguments made. I do not think I want to engage in the game of atrocity snap that the Chief Opposition Whip began, because it would be only too easy to refer to problems with the Police at the time when he was a very junior Member of Parliament who, of course, was not able in those days to protest against the excesses.

But, listening to the speech of the Hon. Member on the National List from the TNA, I think what we are missing is a historical perspective on the role of the Police. I was glad though that he mentioned that the role of the Police for a long time in this country, indeed from the day the Police was set up, was as a tool of government to oppress the people of the country. That is why I thought that the rather facile distinction he made between the military and the Police was out of place.

Police abuses

Unfortunately, we know that the role of the Police, not only in this country but in many other countries worldwide, has contributed to excesses and it is the role of the government, the legislature and the institutions such as the Police Academy to reduce these abuses as much as possible.

I think we in Sri Lanka have suffered much because of the events of the last 20 or 30 years. Of course I have a certain sympathy for the Hon TNA member because much of the institutionalization of Police abuses took place with regard to ethnic tensions, not only in the ’50s and ’60s but most appallingly in the early ’80s.

Tamil politics

None of us can forget that perhaps the worst instance of Police being used as a political tool was in Jaffna in 1981 with the attacks on Members of the TULF and the burning of the Jaffna Public Library. But, though Police officers were held to be the tools, the actual inspiration came from ministers in the government. That institutionalization continued over the next few years because when the courts found against the Police for the violation of human rights, government had absolutely no qualms whatsoever about promoting the Police officers concerned and indeed paying their fines.

It made it very clear that with abuses such as in the ‘Pavidi Handa’ case and in the violation of the rights of the mother of the then Inspector-General of Police, Rudra Rajasingham, government thought it was perfectly okay that rights had been violated. Those institutionalized problems are things that we have needed to address, but it has been difficult.

The Hon. Member referred to the paucity of Tamil policemen and, of course, this is a matter of enormous concern. But, I wish that occasionally he would try to look at the positive side of things. It is very easy to spell out percentages. But, even he can realize that noting the number of Tamil policemen has doubled in the last few months is another way of expressing the same statistic. We know it began from a terrible low. This was not the fault of government. Nor was it his fault, since he, perhaps alone, amongst the members of his party cannot be associated at all with the excesses of the LTTE in the days when it unfortunately dominated Tamil politics. And he must be aware that it was the killing of Tamil policemen by the LTTE that inhibited Tamils from joining the Police.

I know this perfectly well in that in 2007, when I began my work at the Peace Secretariat, one of the first things I agitated for was the increased recruitment of Tamil policemen. Indeed the government had started it already. It had opened the new Police College in Kallady in the Eastern Province. Seven hundred and fifty Tamil policemen passed out.

I asked whether I could publicize this fact and I was told, “Please do not use their pictures because they will be the subject of the LTTE threats and perhaps even killing.” Indeed, when we tried to continue with the recruitment of Tamils, there were very few applications and some of my rather myopic NGO friends said, “No, no, Tamils do not want to join the Police.” But the answer was very simple. It was because they were frightened of what the LTTE might do to them. This is now crystal clear because one of the great successes of the destruction of the LTTE is that the minute the LTTE was removed as a threat in Sri Lanka, - even though I am afraid some people are trying to resurrect it abroad - the number of applications to join the Police on the part of our Tamil fellow citizens increased dramatically.

Ethnic tensions

I hope very much then that my TNA friend will encourage such matters and not continue to spell out dichotomies that we must all work together to get rid of. In this context, it is worth remembering that, while abuses of the Police as well as abuses by the Police have occurred, it is incumbent on all of us to make it clear that this has a very little to do with ethnic tensions.

When we welcomed the visit of the United Nations Special Representative on Torture, he issued a very helpful report with very practical suggestions as to how the situation might be improved. He made it very clear that torture was not, as some people in the LTTE and their supporters suggested, an instrument of ethnic oppression, rather it was much more prevalent in other parts of the country.

In this respect, we have to remember, although we cannot for a moment condone it, that in addition to legal provisions that will make it absolutely clear that torture should not be tolerated, we have also got to improve training. For many years, I used to argue that our military had improved considerably from the situation in the ’80s because of deliberate training, because of increased understanding of what it means to be a national military officer working in a context of rules, and it is for that reason that we can continue to be proud of the record of our military in fighting a very brutal terrorist organization.

Professional training

But the Police had greater difficulties and the Police Officers with whom I discussed this when I chaired a Committee on improving the Human Rights situation with regard to the Police, pointed out that Police training had been neglected in the last 10 or 20 years, not only with regard to human rights training but with regard to professional training. As the Hon. Member suggested, the Police must be better investigators, better interrogators and better prosecutors as well. When I looked at what he too pointed out on what seemed the low rate of conviction - though I should note that it was not so very different from that in other countries - we gathered that one of the reasons was the lack of training in things like prosecutions. The senior Police officers pointed out that when young Police officials are not trained in interrogation, and do not have the senior detective course that they the seniors had been given, they might resort to other techniques.

Modern world

I think it is important then that we have this National Police Academy. It aims not only at professional development but also the soft skills that have been introduced so successfully into all military academies in Sri Lanka where officers have to think, have to communicate effectively with the citizens amongst whom they serve. I think it is vital that the Police Academy, which I hope we will all support today, will help to professionalize our Police in a way that we have managed so successfully with the military. We have to understand that in the modern world, the role of the Police is also increasingly sophisticated and the dichotomies that the Hon. Member before me suggested are no longer valid. Their role is enormous. They have to be trained well and I hope that we can all support this Academy.

I beg your permission, Sir, also to table the speech I made about the actual content of the Academy and the way it can contribute. Thank you.

To be continued