RAGE AGAINST RAPE & KILLING OF THANGJAM MANORAMA

A NEW LEVEL OF RAGE

Protests against rape and killing by the Assam rifles in Manipur

Newsletter May-Aug 2004

16 July, 2004 is not a day we are likely to forget easily. When we awoke to images of 12 women activists in Imphal, standing naked in front of the headquarters of the Assam Rifles Headquarters at the historic Kangla Fort Camp in the centre of the city, shouting slogans and carrying a banner which said, ‘INDIAN ARMY – RAPE US’. Subsequently, indefinite curfew was imposed in Imphal and Greater Imphal areas.

What triggered such a strong protest was the arrest from her home of Thangjam Manorama alias Henthoi, a 32-year old woman from her home by the 17th Battalion of the Assam Rifles. The morning after, on July 11th, she was found dead near Ngariyan Mapao Maring village, her body abandoned, uncovered by clothes, and bearing tell-tale signs of brutal torture ~ many scratches, a deep knife wound, and seven bullet wounds on her back.

All over the state of Manipur, a series of protests followed. Citizens cutting across community and party barriers, young and old came out to voice their anger. At several protests, about forty men and women were injured in police firing and many parts of Imphal was placed under curfew. For a couple of days, schools, colleges, government offices, banks and business establishments remained closed. A ban was immediately imposed on cable television. And ironically the streets had 24-hour patrolling by more security forces: of the Indian Reserve Battalion, the CRPF and the State police.

Yet, the sad fact of the matter is that Manorama’s case is just one more in a relentless series of atrocities -encounter deaths, extra judicial killings, disappearances, arbitrary arrests, rape and torture - meted out to the people by the security forces in areas where they enjoy impunity under the legislation like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) 1958.

The AFSPA, introduced in Assam and Manipur in 1958, was amended in 1972 to apply to all the seven states of the north east, in the name of maintaining law and order by the State. One of the most repressive laws passed by the Parliament, the AFSPA contravenes all democratic norms, gives the Central Government, in consultation with the Governor, the right to declare an area "disturbed" and impose the Act, even if the State Government does not deem such action necessary. While the Act specifies how it can be put into force, it fails to specify the conditions under which the authority would be justified in making such a declaration. And, unlike a state of emergency which, under the Constitution, can only be declared for a limited time, the AFSPA can be enforced for an indefinite period, without review. De facto serving to promulgate martial law through the back door. This is contrary to the Government's submission at the UN Human Rights Committee on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights where it has claimed that ‘the propriety of and the bona fides of the exercise of the power in this regard is always subject to judicial review’.

Once in force, the AFSPA gives unbridled powers to the armed forces personnel. Under the Act, even a non commissioned officer is granted the right to shoot to kill on the mere assumption that ‘it is necessary to do so in order to maintain the public order’ and need only give ‘such due warning as he may consider necessary‘. It also gives armed forces personnel the right to enter, search and arrest without warrant, any person against reasonable suspicion that ‘he has committed or is about to commit a cognisable offence or use any amount of force necessary to effect the arrest’. Additionally, the Act merely states that after the military has made an arrest under the Act, they must hand the person over to the nearest police station with the ‘least possible delay’. But no definition of what that term constitutes is to be found in the Act.

Further, the AFSPA gives armed forces personnel near total immunity for their actions. It clearly establishes that no prosecution, suit or other legal proceeding can be brought against any personnel acting under the Act without the permission of the Central Government. Thus, excluding the possibility of enquiry or investigation into the legality of their actions or redressal for excesses committed by them, and failing to provide any safeguards against violations of the peoples’ rights.

Needless to say, such a draconian law denies citizens and victims fundamental rights and liberties guaranteed to them by the Indian Constitution. Not surprisingly, the saga of atrocities by the army is almost as long as the saga of protest against the law itself all over the north east and elsewhere in parts of Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir where it has been intermittently imposed. In addition have been national campaigns to quash the AFSPA including a petition in the Supreme Court challenging its constitutionality filed by Peoples’ Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) and the Naga People’s Movement for Human Rights. Over the past almost 50 years, women in the North East have been subjected to rape, molestation and humiliating forms of sexual violence such as stripping, being made to deliver babies in the open with soldiers looking on, and being raped in churches. Security forces have rarely been brought to book due to the impunity afforded to security forces in the name of curbing "insurgency". Members of Saheli, who have been part of fact-finding teams to the North East since 1997, have assisted in documenting these violations, and alongside campaigning for justice to be done.

In Manipur itself, recent protests against AFSPA include a demonstration by more than 30 women on 9 April 2004, in front of the Raj Bhavan wearing black tapes on their mouths. And only a few days before the Manorama killing, more than twenty elder women leaders had protested before the gates of the very same Kangla Fort headquarters of the Assam Rifles. And then of course, is the unrelenting hunger fast unto death of Ms Sharmila who has been on a hunger strike against the AFSPA since 6 November 2000!

It is time all groups and individuals who believe in preserving the democratic rights of citizens strengthen their voices against draconian laws like AFSPA, POTA and TADA. Even as this newsletter goes to the press, a large demonstration was held in Delhi against the atrocity of Manorama's killing. Meeting, discussions and debates are leading up to building the campaign further and broadening its base. If the images of atrocities against war criminals by the US and UK armies in the Abu Gharib jail in Iraq, could evoke worldwide condemnation, Manorama's death must not be in vain.

Box

Do you know:

• That 38 million people of our country residing in the North East are forced to live under a military rule and an undeclared Emergency.

• That this military rule has been carried on without a break for 46 years.

• That even a non commissioned army officer of the lowest rank has the power to shoot to kill anybody, to forcibly enter any house, to destroy any building and to arrest anyone without warrant.

• That to take such action the officer needs no permission from a superior and is not answerable to anyone.

• That people have no right to approach the court and launch prosecution for atrocities committed by any such officer.

• That all this is sanctioned by a law called the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act which came into being in 1958.

• That despite an eight year ceasefire and efforts towards a peace process between the Government of India and the NSCN, the army is still deployed in Naga areas.

A meeting was held in New Delhi on 29th and 30th July 2004 to Demand the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.