Those killer VIP ‘Escort Squads’

Mike Dukakis, one time US Presidential Candidate and former Governor of the State of Massachusetts, took the ‘T’ to office everyday he worked.  ‘T’ as in the Subway.  We don’t know how he would have travelled had he defeated George Bush (Snr) in 1988 of course, but being Governor he could very well have been chauffeur-driven to work and back home.  That was long before 9/11 and panic of terrorist threat, so his security detail (if indeed he had one) would have been modest. 

This is 2012. Sri Lanka.  Until the war ended in May 2009 almost every single minister had a security escort as they whizzed around Colombo.  The bheeshanaya of 1988-89 which prompted those in power to tell their underlings ‘It’s every man for himself’ spawned many private security squads.   

Back then it was necessary.  This persisted until the end of the war.  People were inconvenienced and they grunted about it; after all terrorists targeted everyone and not just high-profile politicians.  It was a reality that people, by and large, learned to live with.

With the end of the war, the country has seen a gradual and determined phasing out of (at least) overt surveillance systems.  Escort squads have been downsized.  Commuters are not trumped by ‘movements’ on a daily basis.  The people are not ungrateful. 

On the other hand, a few weeks ago, a vehicle in a convoy escorting a VVIP knocked down an old woman who was trying to cross the road with her grandchild.  The child survived but the grandmother died.  Last week a vehicle carrying the security contingent of UPFA parliamentarian Roshan Ranasinghe crashed into a three wheeler at Jayanthipura, Polonnaruwa, killing one woman and injuring four others, including a five-year-old boy.   The three wheeler driver was violating the 3-passenger rule, but that’s hardly the point.  These are not the only occasions when ‘squads’ have been involved in accidents; these are not the only two people who have died.  Some might say ‘pedestrians and others need to get out of the way’, but why should they, on the other hand? 

These escort vehicles travel at dizzying speeds, violating speed-limit laws.  Some might say that the high and mighty are a busy lot and need to get from A to B really fast so that their productivity (in serving the people) can be optimized.  Well, the people who have died will not get served, that’s the bottom line!

It gets worse during election time, with almost all candidates whizzing around their respective electoral areas escorted by any number of cars, three-wheelers, vans and motorcycles, with or without permission from relevant authorities.  The public has to pay for their ‘show of strength’.  Pedestrians are always at risk.  The respective politicians, one must concede, are but mimicking their superiors and expressing, in a way, their aspirations. 

It is time to do away with all VIP and VVIP ‘movements’ except for those necessitated by ceremonial concerns, for they have very little to do with security-prerogative and are mostly about flouting power and position.  This is not to say that the President and other VVIPs do not have security concerns for we are not in 1988 but in 2012, i.e. in a threat-filled political world and anyway ‘political assassination’ pre-dates 9/11 by millennia, but there is a thing called ‘sense of proportion’. 

President Mahinda Rajapaksa must take the lead.  He can do it, for he is not known for airs and fixations about position-grandeur.  He has a considerable reputation of being a ‘man of the people’, a ‘one-of-us’ and is comfortable mingling with ordinary folk.  He, more than even the politicians in his party, would know that in peaceful times these kinds of ‘collateral’ are unacceptable. 

We can’t say ‘Take the T’ or ‘Take the Tube’ or ‘Take the Subway’ because we don’t have any.  We won’t say ‘Take a tuk-tuk’.  We will say ‘Take a break!’