UNP’s sins and Chandrika’s mistakes

By Helasingha Bandara

(August 31, Colombo,Sri Lanka Guardian) Despite a few things having gone radically wrong for the government during the past three months, many intellectuals are still very reluctant to criticise the President and his close colleagues with the hope that he or they would get it right soon. Police brutality and indiscipline, intolerance of dissent, arrogance and the dictatorial attitude of the government ministers and their colleagues, corruption and nepotism are some evils that raised their ugly heads in the recent months. As the head of the government the President is held responsible for these, no matter who has committed them. Yet we believe it is unfair to go at him all at once without giving him sometime and a breathing space to think it over and address these evils. After all, he has allowed all Sri Lankans to walk about the streets of the country without the fear of being blown to pieces. Just three months ago everyone feared to get out of their homes. This has been an incredible achievement on his part considering the fact that the LTTE was the most sophisticated, brutal and well equipped terrorist organisation and was perceived to be invincible. Sri Lankans simply cannot overlook that achievement and forget it so soon. Yet the President should know that it is our nature to forget pretty soon. He also should know that every evil of the Government is not compensated by the defeating of the LTTE.

UNP allegedly killed 30,000 young people during the second JVP insurrection. The majority of them died for verbally opposing the UNP government by cheering JVP actions, not for joining any action of the JVP. Some died because the UNP sinner politicians wanted to erase any future political opposition. Most people who were killed in order to achieve this goal belonged to the SLFP. For example, H.B Wanninayake, a former Minister of the UNP government, managed to kill many young people with the help of his two brothers and the Nikeweratiya police. Some of the murdered were from his own village and some of them were his relatives. They were not JVP activists but the coffee shop cheerleaders (kopi kade kaiwaru karayo) .They had suffered discrimination at the hands of Wanninayaka of the Jayawardana Government for over 10 years for supporting the SLFP. The only way to express their anger and frustration was to cheer whoever went against the government. Although Wanniya died like a dog before even reaching 70 the real killers are still at large. No one was brought to book for the killings although there had been some sort of police investigations some years later.

The world rejoiced hearing the sentence of five years rigorous imprisonment for Douglas Pieris for kidnap and murder during the UNP terror regime. The sentence does not justify the crime he committed. At least justice has been done by the guilty verdict. He may come out within a couple of years. Yet society would brand him a murderer. He and his family will always be outcast by society. That would be a sufficient punishment for the crime that he committed. After twenty long years the killers were brought to book by this government. Does it not deserve credit for doing so?

Chandrika managed to bring back law and order into the country when she became President. She dispelled the fears of the masses about the security forces. Her biggest mistake was that she did not take sufficient action to deliver justice to the parents whose children were killed by the UNP politicians and the security personnel. Perhaps she was unsympathetic towards the JVP with the mistaken belief that the JVP killed her husband. The point she missed was that the majority of the youth who were killed did not belong to the JVP but to the SLFP. It was alleged later that Premadasa, and Ranjan Wijerathna were behind the murder of her husband. Perhaps they were both dead when this came to light. That may have made her indifferent towards devising a proper strategy to investigate other crimes. She should not have relaxed until all killers were brought to book. As mentioned earlier we forget quickly. Thus we forgot that it was she who established law and order after two years of immense terror. Had she continued to pursue the killers she would be remembered until today because the cases could still be going on.
A great opening has emerged for Mahinda Rajapaksha to keep himself in the limelight. We all have seen the manifestation of people power against injustice in the Angulana double murder case. People support the government for delivering justice. In this backdrop the president should open up all buried murder cases of the 89/90 era. There are many killers of that era still avoiding justice. Keep getting them netted. As long as these cases come to light people of this country are reminded of the terror rule of the UNP which cost them the reign. If Rajapakshas do not let the people forget the terror regime of the UNP their dynasty can bury UNP forever.
-Sri Lanka Guardian