Governing Under Siege: Rules & Minorities
Dr. Rajan Hoole
The erosion of rules and legal accountability paralleled the State acquiring the self-image of a Sinhalese-Buddhist State. It resulted in governments with a siege mentality, protected not by professional and democratically accountable law enforcement agencies, but by agencies padded with sycophants. But once that is done, the temptation for abuse becomes too strong to resist. Jayewardene went the full length to make such abuse the art of governance.
Meddling with the security services may be partly attributed to the paranoia felt by governments after the attempted coup in 1962. But that too happened after the communal violence of 1956 and 1958 and when the polity seemed unable to resolve the Tamil question in a lifetime. Democracy was already sliding into crisis. But has the practice of padding the services with sycophants made the country or governments any safer?
It is police officers who made their way up the ladder when Athulathmudali was national security minister who connived with and failed to investigate his murder. Even more remarkably they failed to protect President Premadasa and left his murder a mystery.
The system is moreover one that has alienated the minorities, and the Tamils to a point of almost total exclusion. Has the loss of their services made the State any more secure?
The State appeared to miss Tamils in the security services rather late in the day. This was in the 1990s when the Army was losing many lives and Sinhalese youth were reluctant to join up. Attempts to recruit Tamils have been a failure and this is hardly surprising. No government should expect the Tamils to join until there is a political solution to restore among Tamils the legitimacy of the State.Read More
