Editorial- April 28, 2014
The sinking of the Sewol ferry with 300 passengers aboard, most of them schoolchildren and teachers, has sent a political tsunami of sorts across South Korea. Heart-rending images of lifeless bodies of victims trapped in cabins of the ill-fated vessel continue to emanate and protests are still on. Prime Minister Chung Hong-won has announced his resignation over his government's poor response to the disaster, which has left about 200 people dead according to official figures released so far.
The Korean PM's statement giving reasons for his resignation deserves to be framed and hung in the offices of all heads of state, especially in this part of the world. He has said: "Keeping my post is too great a burden on the administration .... On behalf of the government, I apologize for many problems from the prevention of the accident to the early handling of the disaster. There are too many irregularities and malpractices in parts of society that have been with us too long and I hope those are corrected so that accidents like this will not happen again. "
Some leaders resign, taking the responsibility for omissions and commissions which, in some cases, should, in fact, be blamed on others, because it is not greed for power and wealth that has driven them to take to politics. Resignation may come as a relief to them.
Leaders we are burdened with would stick to their positions like limpets even if the ship of state steered by them were to capsize due to their fault, so to speak. They won't care whether keeping their posts is too great a burden on their governments and will do everything in their power to remain in power. A Head of State, it may be recalled, once flew out of the country while a vital oil installation was burning after a terror strike which occurred owing to a serious security lapse.
Only one leader had the courage to step down, taking the responsibility for a disaster of a different nature. Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake resigned in the aftermath of the 1953 hartal which led to a brutal crackdown; the police shot dead some protesters and injured hundreds more. (Head of the UNP Leadership Council Karu Jayasuriya was spot on when he said the other day that the executive presidency would not have caused so much of concern to anyone if Dudley had been the Head of State!) All his successors have either resorted to questionable methods to retain power or made abortive attempts to do so. One of them even had to be 'retired' by the judiciary and another has done away with the constitutionally prescribed presidential term limit.
Another reason for the South Korean PM's resignation is said to be misleading information his government provided to the families and relatives of the victims immediately after the ferry disaster. A claim was initially made that all students had been rescued. All hell broke loose when the truth became known. But, our leaders are free from such trouble. We have had in this country a separate ministry that specialises in disseminating misinformation which would put even Goebbels to shame posthumously. Successive governments have made use of this institution to make mountains out of molehills and vice versa, depending on the political needs of the powers that be.
The difference between statesmen and politicians is that the former have their resignation letters ready to be tendered should anything go wrong and the latter demand others' resignations and save their skin.
