( November 04,
2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Unwittingly or otherwise, the Sri Lankans
are on the brink of saying goodbye to the last dregs of pluralism and democracy
if there had been any. All indications are that Sri Lanka is on the way to a
military dictatorship, to be ruled by a junta of sorts, with the commander in
chief Mahinda Rajapaksa with his brother as secretary for defence having
assumed tremendous political power far in excess of his office with the rest of
the siblings and children taking over power in a smooth transition. The current
conditions point towards such a change if the Rajapaksa clan are to remain in
power notwithstanding the pending UN resolution in regard to the war crimes and
the crimes against humanity, and more importantly, if there is to be the
prospect of an uprising, with all indications pointing towards it.
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"The Rajapaksa regime is well known for its racist agenda. Gothabaya's frequent racist rant against the Tamil speaking peoples and his latest request for the removal of the 13th. amendment are neither spontaneous nor erratic but apparently well planned and orchestrated being part of the plan to muddy the waters of any hope of reconciliation now having a ripple effect on the rabidly racist fanatical Buddhist monks nurtured in the Mahavamsa tradition of Buddhism peculiar to Sri Lanka and the chauvinist Sinhala polity that are prepared to welcome even a short sighted change provided that it would deny the Tamil people of even a semblance of political benefit."
It is quite
evident that dictatorships like China and Russia with blatant human rights
abuses, injustices, the numerous crimes against humanity and corruption will
back Sri Lanka in the event of a resolution adverse to Sri Lankan government
interests, not to mention other backward countries who fail to understand the
issues in Sri Lanka. India, to expiate their injustices in assisting Sri Lanka
in their war crimes merely to counter Chinese and Russian favours during the so
called war against international Tamil terrorism in early 2009, steeped in
corruption and bribery with its foreign minister having resigned in shame was
making meek overtures to implement the 13th amendment in the Sri Lankan
constitution as a palliative to please the Tamils.
India, lacking
in any moral courage, with its hypocrisy and the myriads of paradoxes can only
meekly request the implementation of the 13th. amendment but once Rajapaksa
takes it out of the agenda as intended, India with its lukewarm support to its
support for the UN investigations against human rights will have no stake in
the future of the Sri Lankan Tamils and will have no moral right to do so,
needless to say that China will be the principal beneficiary of such
transition.
The Rajapaksa
regime is well known for its racist agenda. Gothabaya's frequent racist rant
against the Tamil speaking peoples and his latest request for the removal of
the 13th. amendment are neither spontaneous nor erratic but apparently well
planned and orchestrated being part of the plan to muddy the waters of any hope
of reconciliation now having a ripple effect on the rabidly racist fanatical
Buddhist monks nurtured in the Mahavamsa tradition of Buddhism peculiar to Sri
Lanka and the chauvinist Sinhala polity that are prepared to welcome even a
short sighted change provided that it would deny the Tamil people of even a
semblance of political benefit. Their clarion call has now been taken up by the
other chauvinist constituent parties as expected giving the opportunity to the
Rajapaksa family to say that they had to give in to the overwhelming clamour of
the people. The spectre of the return of Tamil militancy has been continuously
flogged to win the support from the Sinhala polity for such change.
The final
assault to the any remnants of democracy, if any, are the latest assaults on
the judiciary over the last few months, the most recent being the state
sponsored violence on the secretary to the judicial Service Commission. In
train is the unprecedented move to remove the chief justice, Shirani
Bandaranaike by impeachment and to appoint a servile stooge perhaps Mohan
Peiris a former attorney who lied both in the UN assembly and subsequently in a
Sri Lankan court regarding the missing journalist Ekneligoda, one lie
contradicting the other. The Rajapaksas will go to any length to consolidate
themselves in absolute power while they have everything else going for them.
Rajapaksas'
vehemence was prompted by the urgent need to introduce the Divineguma Bill with
little or no public debate intended to centralise greater provincial powers in
the president than afforded currently in the provincial councils, a pretentious
exercise to devolve powers to the provinces but in no way meeting the national
aspirations and the deep rooted political grievances of the Tamil people.
Actually the Divinegama bill will replace the provisions of 13th amendment and
would eliminate any party being elected in the north in opposition to the
Rajapaksas. It is learnt that Divinegama though complex would be administered
by another Rajapaksa, Basil who has no other qualification except being a
Rajapaksa sibling. He is also universally known for his partiality for
commissions for any project approved by him. We are not aware whether the
commission has now been increased from the generally accepted standard of 10
per cent. The immediate need to impeach the chief justice has arisen from the
adverse decision on the Divinegama Bill by the Supreme Court and therefore
opportune to also further devalue and destroy the judiciary. It is two birds
with one stone, to use a cliché, coming fortuitously to move towards a
dictatorship.
The progressive
and the ruthless muffling of the media making them subservient on pain of
death, torture and disappearance had been achieved well in advance to make way
for the transition.
The erratic and
aberrational call to do away with the 13th amendment took no time to infect the
Sinhala chauvinists and the rabid Buddhist monks who took up the call as was
expected. The Rajapaksa family of humble rural beginnings is now well known to
have amassed colossal amounts of wealth in recent years deposited in foreign
banks and invested in the most lucrative parts of the world and what they now
require is absolute power to reign supreme over the people of Sri Lanka. They
have to now enjoy their newly found wealth and their supreme political power.
Their upstart opulent lifestyle both political and personal is conversely
proportionate and far more to that of the ordinary people who have to contend
with increasing poverty, rising prices and declining medical facilities in
every aspect of their life. They have however cricket a relatively new
phenomenon intentionally glorified to keep the undernourished people going,
like in Pakistan.
Any prospect of
reconciliation is a far cry except at deliberations at the UN assembly. Tamil
militancy may not re-emerge in the near future but such prospects and the
distrust for this kind of hypocrisy cannot be erased from the minds of the
Tamils.
( The writer editor,
Eelam Nation, an online journal)
 Unwittingly or otherwise, the Sri Lankans are on the brink of saying goodbye to the las...){kind=link}