In May 2009 and for a few
months thereafter Colombo appeared (as it had appeared for several years) like
a besieged and threatened city. ‘High Security Alert’ seemed to be written all
over the face of the capital. There
were those who took umbrage at what was seen to be infringement on freedoms and
the deliberate gagging of democracy.
Fortunately such people don’t always end up having to defend a nation
and the citizenry from ruthless terrorists or negotiate the terms of plunder
and subjugation with big-name bullies in the international community.
It is good, however, that
they do what they do, because even while extraordinary circumstances call for
extraordinary measures, someone has to keep reminding people that there is a
thing called ‘ordinary’ and as such ‘ordinary measures’ too; ‘extraordinary’
has a relatively short life expectancy and in the case of Sri Lanka, May 2009
was scripted to happen as far back as November 2005. Sure, their objective was less about
democracy than about giving the LTTE breathing space and yes, their shrill
whines on these matters are still the product of regime-hate and determination
to win for Eelam myth-mongers what Eelamist-militants could not achieve through
30 years of terrorism. That’s beside the
point.
Since May 2009, it is
clearly evident that the city landscape has undergone and continues to undergo
a massive overhaul. The barricades are
all but gone. Checkpoints and checking have almost disappeared. Surveillance seems to have gone
underground. ‘Extraordinary Measures’ on
the other hand are quite visible on the streets. Both the attack on protesting
garment industry workers in Katunayake as well as the attack on a TNA meeting
by soldiers prove (if proof indeed were necessary) that the Government has not
retired the coercive instruments available in the state apparatus.
Now it is usual for
regimes to switch to coercion when its ideological sway on a population starts
slipping. Jittery politicians however
tend to trip the political clock. They tend
to lose faith in their constituency long before the constituency begins to lose
faith in them. This government is
betraying exactly this. The use of force
is legitimate in a just war. Nothing else.
The use of force is contemplated when political control slips or is seen
to be slipping. That’s the politician’s problem and not something that the
citizenry needs to worry about.
I have, from the time the
CFA was signed, insisted that if the path of negotiation is to yield any
lasting benefits, then demilitarization should be paralleled with moves towards
democratization. I have also argued that the process of democratization should
not be abandoned after the military threat is met and eliminated. Things don’t happen overnight, I know. On the other hand, we’ve had 769 nights since
May 19, 2009. In general I am in favour
of incremental change, especially given the dynamics of Sri Lankan
politics. I am not in favour, however,
of ‘dead-slow’!
I know that Sri Lanka has a
constitution that is made to make dictatorships and also designed to ensure a
weak opposition. The 1978 constitution
was anti-democratic. Subsequent
amendments made it worse. The 17th Amendment which sought to correct
in favour of democracy and citizen was flawed. The 18th Amendment
threw baby with bathwater. We not only have a weak opposition but one which has
shot itself in the foot over and over again by playing petty politics and
pandering to the whims and fancies of forces that wanted the LTTE to prevail
over the security forces; it was and is motivated by opposition for the sake of
opposition and political chair-switch as opposed to championing the national
interest. Karu Jayasuriya’s ‘Private
Member’s Bill’ pertaining to Freedom of Information was a welcome move, in this
context.
The Government using
superior numbers in parliament defeated the Bill. Perhaps the reason was a simple matter of
being scared that the opposition, by getting a bill passed, would score points
and claim that the Government’s popularity was on the decline. That’s petty of course but then again
politicians are anything if not petty.
The Government has stated that it will come up with its own Bill on the
subject and the generous response would be ‘that’s something!’ Common sense says, ‘go tell that to the
mountains!’
There is absolutely nothing
wrong with this Bill, but by rejecting it, the Government seems to be wary of
the investigative potential in it. It
indicates that there’s something to hide and fear that the hidden will be
unearthed. It also could indicate a
desire to keep the lid on certain activities that are planned.
We are in post May
2009. We are more than two years into
post-Prabhakaran. We are not in post-Eelamism or post-LTTE. There is still ‘threat’, that’s very
clear. We are however in a Sri Lanka
that is not only about countering separatism but a Sri Lanka of
having-to-live. This Bill in no way
compromises efforts to counter malicious moves here and abroad that are
motivated by regime-hatred and/or desire to divide the country, directly or
incrementally (by ‘fixing’ Eelam boundaries through devolution, for instance,
as per the Chelvanayakam Option of ‘A little now, more later’). It contains caveats related to national
security.
We have come far enough on
the post-Prabhakaran road to warrant a removal of physical barriers. The political barriers must now be lifted;
incrementally, if necessary, sure, but they must go. The Government needs to recognize that its
sincerity regarding a ‘New’ Sri Lanka and one that deserves the ‘Miracle’ tag
is under scrutiny, not by its enemies, but its friends and of course that the
general public has the right to indulge in such scrutiny regardless of
‘constraints’ that politicians face.
MahindaRajapaksa could be
remembered as the man who united the country and brought about peace after
thirty long years of misery. He could
also be remembered as the man who secured national boundaries and then buried
democracy within those lines. It’s about
legacy, Mr. President. That’s as far as
you are concerned. As for us, how history remembers you is a matter for
history; for us, it is how life unfolds and stops. Or is stopped. Defeating the LTTE and giving us breathing
space is appreciated and applauded. Rewarded too. That’s no license to gag the
people.
*This article was first
published on June 28, 2011 in the Daily Mirror, for which I wrote a weekly
column titled ‘Subterranean Transcripts’
Malinda Seneviratne is the Editor-in-Chief of ‘The Nation’ and can be
reached at msenevira@gmail.com
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