Thugs and toys
Editorial-April 20, 2014
The Constitution tells us that only the Executive President enjoys legal immunity in this country. But, in reality, all ruling party politicians are above the law. The police act against them only when they become too embarrassing to their political masters and threaten the interests of the government in power. The powers that be defend them to the hilt when they get into hot water by unleashing violence while doing ‘political work’ for the party.
On Thursday, we saw a group of local level UPFA politicians and their thugs in action in Hambantota, surrounding and attacking as they did some UNP MPs following the latter’s visit to the Hambantota Port. That incident could not have come at a worse time for the government, which is troubled by a damning UNHRC resolution in Geneva and international pressure being brought to bear on it to conduct a probe into allegations of human rights violations. The UNP has already threatened to internationalize the incident unless the perpetrators are brought to book. The main Opposition party cannot be blamed for such action, given the culture of impunity which has stood the UPFA politicians and their private armies in good stead. On the other hand, the SLFP, too, has a history of rushing to the UNHRC over attacks of that nature, hasn’t it?
Hambantota Mayor, Eraj Fernando, who was seen with a pistol at the scene on Thursday, has had the audacity to claim that the gun he brandished in full view of the public, the media and the police was only a toy. The problem with the ‘toy pistols’ in the hands of government politicians is that they kill. Fortunately, on that day, there was no need for the government thugs to fire their ‘toy pistols’ as there was no resistance whatsoever; the UNP MPs under attack had the wisdom to flee without risking their lives.
Simply because the gullible electors fall for their wiles and blindly vote for them UPFA politicians seem to think that the masses are real asses or, to borrow a term from one of our columnists, ‘voter buffaloes’. This is the first time we have seen a grown-up ruling party politician with a ‘toy pistol’ running behind a bus carrying a group of Opposition MPs pursued by a group of thugs. Either he is a liar or the people of Hambantota have elected a fool as their Mayor? People deserve to be judged by the representatives they elect.
What really matters is not whether the weapon in the Mayor’s hand was a toy or not but what he did with it. He was obviously part of a mob that carried out Thursday’s unprovoked attack in spite of his claim that he was there to protect the beleaguered MPs. A person who commits a crime, say a bank heist, with the help of a toy gun cannot get away with his offence by claiming that the weapon he used is not real, can he? Hereafter all armed robbers caught by CCTV cameras in action may trot out the same lame excuse in extenuation of their crimes.
Those at the levers of power and at the helm of the police must be descendants of the bovine King Kekille, who, according to legend, always punished the wrong party in a dispute and let the culprits off the hook. Instead of having the stone throwing goons and the Hambantota Mayor and the police personnel who never so much as lifted a finger to help the UNP MPs under attack dealt with severely, they have reportedly ordered that the alleged lapses on the part of the victims’ security personnel be probed. We believe the guards, if any, of the UNP MPs acted wisely and sensibly without offering resistance and removing the victims to safety.
The least the government could do to prove that the rule of law is not as dead is to ensure that the attackers are brought to justice immediately.
