COLOMBO : Forty nine civil society organizations and 57 individuals,have urge the government to stop the militarization of education through the Kotelawala Defense University Act and stop endangering the safety of activists who led the protests against the Act by continuing to detain them.
In a statement issued by the signatories to the petition, it is said : We understand that the ruling party’s attempt to pass the Kotelawala National Defense University (KNDU) Act in the parliament is a step towards militarizing civil space. We strongly condemn expediting the enactment of such an Act, especially amidst a pandemic and repression of student activists and university academics who oppose it. Also, we emphasize that the government should be responsible for endangering the health of the student leaders who led the protests against the Act by imprisoning them on false charges during a pandemic.
As civil society stakeholders, we have continuously advocated protecting the democratic space, human rights, the rule of law, and reconciliation in this country. This is not the first time we have protested the attempts of militarization of the civil space. We have continually paid attention to the increasing militarization responses, especially with the appointment of task forces consisting of military leaders and members for fields such as agriculture, education, conservation of cultural heritage and health, after the current government came to power. We extend our support to the people’s struggle against the efforts for the militarization of education.
We have observed that the content of this Act is a sharp attempt at the militarization of education.
According to the proposed KNDU Act, Kotelawala Defense University becomes an independent university entirely controlled by the Defense Ministry and the military, which is not accountable to the 1978 University Act. Currently, Sri Lanka’s state university system is controlled by the University Grants Commission (UGC). However, with the enactment of the proposed KNDU Act, a parallel military university system with equal powers to the UGC will be created. That university system is governed by a governing body consisting of senior officials from the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces.
In this military structure, our observation is that the Act contains provisions that make students entirely subject to military discipline. “When the minister is of the view that any situation within the university tends to endanger national security or thereby tend to undermine the proper functioning of the university, the minister can direct the board to take such action as he may deem necessary to control the situation.”
We opine that this affirms that students who enter this system are completely deprived of the opportunity for student activism, which they would enjoy in a democratic context.
All stakeholders, including university students, have the right to protest this, and we oppose any attempt to suppress the university academics and student activists who led the dissent. Many incidents of arbitrary arrests and grilling of student activists and academics on false charges have been reported.
