Editorial-September 9, 2014
The much-maligned Customs Department has, of late, received plaudits for a series of detections. Attempts to smuggle in large quantities of narcotics, cigarettes, gold etc have been foiled and many culprits nabbed at the Bandaranaike International Airport and the Colombo Port. However, the fact that the country is still awash with narcotics makes one wonder whether the Customs are only scratching the surface.
The Customs also help the state rake in millions, if not billions, of rupees by way of fines on racketeers. But, it is puzzling why they are wary of sharing with the media or at least posting on their website the names of the smugglers who are fined and released. The law doesn’t prevent them from naming the culprits and the public has a right to know who those lawbreakers are. After all, no less a person than Director General of Customs Jagath P. Wijeweera said in answer to a question raised by this newspaper when he met the press prior to the grand opening of the new Customs building last July that there is no reason why the smugglers who are found guilty and fined shouldn’t be named. But, all our efforts to obtain such information from the Customs have been in vain.
Why can’t the Customs make the process of nabbing and fining smugglers transparent? Is it that the lawbreakers throw money around to avoid being named and shamed? If a poor villager, troubled by hunger pangs, steals a few coconuts, he is hauled up before courts and his identity revealed forthwith. The same goes for boutique keepers who sell goods past the shelf life. But, the names of wealthy crooks who deprive the state coffers of billions of rupees through their well-organised smuggling rackets remain closely guarded secrets!
Let the Customs Chief be urged to instruct his subordinates to cooperate with the media and name the smugglers found guilty and fined so that the public will know who the culprits are. Perhaps, these racketeers are posing as respectable citizens with the help of their ill-gotten wealth and preying on unsuspecting people. They have to be unmasked and the Customs are duty bound to help the media do so.
Fearing another 9/11
Eleven aircraft are reported to have gone missing in Libya. Defence experts believe that terrorists have taken them away to launch strikes similar to the 9/11 attacks, the 13th anniversary of which falls tomorrow.
The situation in Libya is so chaotic that nobody knows what is happening there and opinion is divided on the reportedly missing aircraft, but a section of the international media insists that they have actually been removed from the Tripoli airport which has come under attack on several occasions during the last few years. This is a frightening proposition for the world powers threatened by al-Qaeda and IS.
The slain dictator Gaddafi was also accused of sponsoring terrorism and he incurred international opprobrium for giving a bear hug to the Lockerbie bomber when the latter arrived in Tripoli after being released from a UK prison purportedly on medical grounds. The international community, however, had some control over that eccentric dictator who held his country together though the methods he used for that purpose were frowned on by the civilized world. But, today, anarchy reigns in Libya, which is riven by tribal violence. It has become one of the most dangerous places in the world so much so that even the westerners who backed the anti-Gaddafi forces are scared of visiting it.
There may be doubts about the veracity of the story of missing aircraft, but the fact remains that anything is possible in Libya. It is high time those who engineered Arab Spring uprising in that country and backed militiamen to overthrow the Gaddafi regime, promising the Libyans a better future, did everything in their power to bring order out of chaos in that strife-torn country. And fast.
