| by Mahendra de
Silva
( December 11,
2012, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Today Sri Lankans who are living abroad watch
with sadness and anger what is happening in our country. Whenever I meet
Sinhalese Buddhist Rajapakse supporters they ridicule me for expressing my
views about Sri Lanka. They say that one should come to the county to
understand the developments taking place. They talk of new roads, skyrise buildings,overhead
bridges, luxury cars and also the cleanliness of Colombo city. According to
them very soon Sri Lanka will be far ahead of Singapore When I ask about
freedom and level of democracy, media freedom in the country they again get
excited. What freedom? When Tamil Tigers were killing our people daily, did you
talk about freedom? We all lived in fear. How many innocent people were killed
by Tiger bombs, in trains, buses and everywhere? No one talked about our
democracy and freedom then. It is Rajapakses who saved us from a disaster. None
of the other leaders, JR, Chandrika, and Premadasa could save us. We have to
worship Rajapakses for saving our country. They deserve to rule the country for
generations. I have come across even
highly educated and intelligent Sinhalese professionals who subscribed to this
viewpoint. It appears that this regime can continue for generations to come
even if it becomes a total dictatorial state like North Korea so long as
mentality and attitude of majority Sinhalese Buddhists remain like this and
they are blind to injustices of Rajapakse regime.
 |
Devolution of power and allowing people in a particular region to make their own decisions on administrative and development matters is also a recognized component of democracy. Because of foolish communal minded Sinhalese politicians all Sri Lankans have had to suffer from communal disharmony and violence and unrest among minorities.
I was thinking
to myself the rationality of this argument in support of Rajapakses which is
quite prevalent with ordinary Sinhalese. It is a fact that ruthlessness of
Rajapakses had a positive effect in completely eliminating Tiger menace from
Sri Lanka temporally. But Sri Lanka had to pay a huge price in terms of
thousands of innocent Tamil civilians whose lives were taken in Vanni during the last stages of the war and
the resulting adverse publicity that SriLanka received. War could still have been
won more respectably if they had been little sensitive to human casualties. But
brutality in the way it was conducted
damaged the reputation of Sri Lanka as well as Sinhalese who were known as
peace loving followers of Lord Buddha. Further, War Crime charges were repeatedly
made against the Armed forces who made great sacrifices in the belief that they were liberating the country. In my view we could have
minimized the damage to a great extent if the SriLankan Rulers of the day had acted
conscientiously. A good leader, who has
all the powers needed to make a difference to the lives of people in his care should have understood the sufferings of Tamil
people due to decades of war. A leader conscious of his position duty had the
responsibility to all his citizens and not only those who had the power to vote
him into the leadership position. How
great it would have been for Sri Lanka if Rajapakse had made use of the golden
opportunity he got to unite the country. His heart should have felt for the thousands of refugees in Vanni camps. If he
was conscientious enough, the first thing MR should have done after the war would
have been to admit that innocent civilians were lost in the war. When there were claims of misconduct or war crimes a proper enquiry should have been made and the
culprits punished. A rapid compensation
and settlement process should have taken place immediately after the war. Instead of which the ruler has built unproductive
ports and airport at places like Hambantota and has opened new airline
Mihin Air in his own name,
wasting billions of public money. A conscientious ruler would have spent that money to develop
North and East ruined by war and also to uplift the morale of Tamils who had lost everything in their procession due
to war. It is natural that they would
harbor an ill will towards SriLankan government for what has been happening
there. Goodwill gestures by government would have brought about a huge attitude change in Tamils within the
country as well as within the Diaspora outside Sri Lanka. Our Buddhist priests
and ordinary Sinhalese people should have been at the forefront in going to the
refugee camps helping Tamil people who lost everything due to the war. Act of
Kindness by Buddhist priests and Sinhalese towards Tamils would have done much
more to spread Buddha’s message across North and East, than building Buddha
statues and temples all over Northern peninsula. Even the war crimes charges
and the very bad publicity Sri Lanka and Sinhalese Buddhists received after the war
would have been minimised if Sir Lankan government had taken concrete steps to achieve real national
reconciliation and rebuilding of war-torn territories. Rajapakse would have
been hailed like Nelson Mendela, if he had acted as a statesman at least after
the war. If he worked towards winning hearts and minds of all the people
including Tamils after the war, Rajapakses could have stayed in power easily
without having to do all the bad things they do today to stay in power.
Again coming
back to the rationality of the argument that Rajapakse’s can do anything
because they liberated the country from Tamil Tigers, counter argument could be
made that if someone saves a another from a disaster in order to pay gratitude
is it necessary to allow liberator the liberty to do anything as he likes to
the victim ! In Sri Lanka the liberator
who saved the county from the clutches of Tiger monster is turning to be a
monster. Liberator has shut down the free media in the country. Liberator has
killed, harmed or chased away anyone challenging his decisions. Remains of democracy
and independence of judiciary which have been still surviving in the country is
to be taken out completely. Liberator has eliminated any opposition in the
Parliament by buying out Parliamentarians by offering lucrative deals using
public funds. Parliament has become a rubber stamp of Rajapakse, who has
ensured a Parliament with his clowns who would do anything for him. He is also
in the process of buying members of the judiciary with various bribes.
Liberator would try to attack people who do not bow down to his wishes or try
to work according to their consciousness. Liberator would take revenge against people who become a threat or are likely to
be a threat to him, with fictitious
criminal proceedings. Best examples of
this are former army commander Sarath
Fonseka and present Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayke. Liberator ensures that all his die-hard
followers and admirers are protected from the arm of law irrespective of whatever
they do. Liberator has released rapists, murderers and drug dealers from
criminal proceedings because they are his supporters.
Rajapakse
supporters who boast about Sri Lanka becoming a Singapore, do not realize
although democracy is restricted in Singapore, one thing that happens with
certainty is that the rule of law is
applied to everyone on equal footing. When former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan
Yew left his office after making Singapore one of the greatest and richest
countries in the world, he did not
appoint his son or a relative to
be his successor. Corruption is lowest in Singapore compared to rest of Asia. Can
anyone truly believe of Sri Lanka becoming a Singapore with the level of
corruption, nepotism, and indiscipline rulers of present day Sri Lanka?
At least now the
Sinhalese Buddhists should understand the damage happening to our county under
the present corrupt leadership. They should realise that democracy we enjoyed
under British rule and post-independence governments all this time is in last
stages today. Are they allowing the liberator to continue to undermine our
traditional values, rule of law, independence of Judiciary and of the Public Service?
Are we allowing liberator to use the
police and armed forces as his private army. Are we allowing liberator’s puppets to be the
judges of Supreme Court and other courts? We also should remember that birth of
another Prabakaran is not far away if we alienate Tamils the way we do now and
the birth of another Wijeweera if the Liberator runs the country this way. The
mentality that Sri Lanka belongs to only Sinhalese Buddhists should be done
away with in modern 21st
century. Treating everyone on equal footing, irrespective of racial or religious origin is an accepted norm of a democratic country.
Devolution of
power and allowing people in a particular region to make their own decisions on administrative and development
matters is also a recognized component of democracy. Because of foolish communal minded Sinhalese
politicians all Sri Lankans have had to
suffer from communal disharmony and violence and unrest among minorities. At
least now we should learn from past experience that real peace is possible only
when there is communal harmony and satisfaction among all communities. We
should realise that one of the culprits of present day unruly behavior of
governing politicians is the monster Constitution
which gives unlimited powers to the President. These powers would make even a good man an
evil dictator. Even if we change the
present rulers very soon we will find the new rulers would make use of the huge
executive powers vested in the Executive President fully to continue along the
same path of dictatorial rule. Politicians promise to change the Constitution
when they come to power, but when they get the taste of power, they do want to continue to enjoy it and make as much
personal gains as they can, not only for themselves but also for heirs and descendents. Therefore the most
important task facing this generation Sri Lankans is to make sure that whoever takes over power
again does it under a new democratic Constitution modeled with full of safeguards to protect Sri Lanka
from corrupt politicians.
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 Today Sri Lankans who are living abroad watch with sad...){kind=link}