Hostage takers above the law?

Editorial-July  3, 2014

The Rajarata University has been closed indefinitely in view of a teachers’ protest against the recent hostage drama and death threats. Vice Chancellor Prof. Ranjith Wijewardena says some university teachers have informed him that they were roughed up during the recent hostage drama and even threatened with death subsequently. They are demanding that their safety be guaranteed and a peaceful environment created on the campus for them to resume work. This, we believe, is a fair demand. Teachers must be able to work without fear of being taken hostage or assaulted or even killed.

Student thugs are capable of carrying out their threats. Their handlers, it may be recalled, were responsible for harming university teachers, other intellectuals, undergrads, trade union leaders and artistes in the late 1980s. The assassination by the southern terrorists of Colombo University Vice Chancellor Prof. Stanley Wijesundera is a case in point. The fears of the Rajarata dons are, therefore, not unfounded and the police must not take threats to their lives lightly.

Issues that have led to teachers’ protests won’t resolve themselves while the university remains closed. What action will the university administration, the Higher Education Ministry and the police take to ensure the safety of the dons and non-academic staff? The identities of the hostage takers are known to one and all and why they have not been arrested is the question.

The government is apparently trying to use the Rajarata issue to its advantage. Higher Education Minister S. B. Dissanayake has claimed that the hostage drama could be considered a clear vindication of his vilification campaign against student leaders. He is apparently deriving some perverse pleasure from the atrocities students are perpetrating against teachers because they have been supportive of one another’s struggles during the past few years.

Instead of making a prompt intervention to have those responsible for the hostage drama dealt with according to the law and reopen the university the government seems to have allowed the situation to deteriorate further. It apparently wants public anger to well up so that it could go the whole hog to dismantle what remains of university student unions. That it is striving to put university teachers also on the Procrustean bed of conformity to render the groves of Academe malleable and subservient is only too well known.

Attempts being made in some quarters to suppress undergrads’ and teachers’ rights on the pretext of brining order out of chaos in universities should be defeated. Universities must be free and independent for them to think, innovate and lead. Undergraduates cannot be expected to be conformist. If they are not rebellious there must be something wrong with them either mentally or physically. Their right to protest against injustices, fight for their rights and voice their dissent peacefully must be guaranteed and their grievances redressed. Similarly, the dangerous elements amongst them advancing hidden political agendas and perpetrating violence against students and teachers alike must be severely dealt with.

The student thugs with a Boko Haram mindset responsible for the Rajarata hostage drama have, we repeat, committed a very serious criminal offence. Anyone who wants them forgiven and handled with kid gloves has no moral right to demand that the rule of law be restored and the prevalent culture of impunity done away with in the country.

Let the university authorities and the government be urged to do everything in their power to have the hostage takers arrested and prosecuted and reopen the Rajarata University without further delay. Keeping a university closed at least for a single day amounts to helping further the interests of disruptive political elements.