Is Sri Lanka’s President a law abiding servant of the people or....?

By Helasingha Bandara

(February 10, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) People the world over may wonder as to whether the Sri Lanka President who dresses in immaculate white to symbolise purity, honesty and justice is really a law abiding servant of the people or a revengeful, dishonest, deceitful and scheming brute? Is Mugabe of Zimbabwe a close parallel?

There are many high calibre party leading eye witnesses (Mano Ganeshan, Rauf Hakim etc) who claim that General Fonseka was assaulted and dragged by the feet by the army officers who were sent to arrest him probably by Gotabaya Rajapaksha. They may give evidence if their safety is guaranteed. Assault on any person whether guilty or not of any offence is illegal in the civilised world. Therefore the President should order the immediate arrest of the soldiers who assaulted General Fonseka and either court marshal them or indict them in public courts to be transparent to the public and to prove that the President is a law abiding citizen.

If he uses the state media to cover up and justify everything with cooked up stories, that necessarily means that he is prepared to be dragged away and treated like a dog some day in the future. “They came for them the other day, I ignored until they came for me”

Mahinda Rajapaksha has had a resounding victory at the presidential election. Despite the usual allegations of the opposition the people of the country by and large believed in the results. He therefore needs not go on harassing, degrading, harming or insulting the opponents. Those who opposed him have the democratic right to form a different opinion. They were not just a bunch of ordinary individuals, but leaders who managed to win four million people over to them. When the government hurts the leaders of the opposition they invariably hurt four million supporters that voted for them. It is not hard to imagine the future impact of the stupidity of the state action. The silence of the lambs is always misleading. Rajapakshas may think that they have absolute power in hand. This can be true at present. Yet it may be a different story tomorrow unless they rule the country justly. If the people who oppose unfair treatment of the opponents by this government (harassment, abductions, arson, murder and intimidation) decide to agitate against the government the government cannot kill all of them.

We have just been happy that one war is over. Is MR trying to create another? This time it may not be one race against another but all races against a king and his courtiers. So far it was only the Diaspora Tamils who voiced opposition to Sri Lanka Government around the world. If the Government does not show that they have the sense of magnanimity it is likely that people of all ethnic backgrounds of Sri Lanka origin will begin to voice their opinion all over the world against a brutal regime. It will be a hard task for the Government to contain such an uproar.