by Nilantha Ilangamuwa
"Nothing’s ever gone too far. Anything can be reversed; these are human decisions."
– Noam Chomsky (An interview with the Al Jazeera- Jan 12 )
( January 17, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) President Rajapaksa does what he wishes to do. Nothing to be surprised of, that is who he is.
He
impeached the Chief Justice saying that the law was so dear to him and
that he was a humble follower of the law in this respectful country.
Accordingly, he says that he followed the procedure as per the
constitution. Now he has installed another subject to the forcibly
vacated seat which we call the seat of the “Chief Justice”. One of his
brothers who is also a key player of this panoply of nepotism of the
barbaric raj claimed this as an aspect of “check and balance”. But as
happened in many other cases, he misused the power obtained through the
constitution, yet again. This is likely to be repeated by him to get rid
of political obstacles he would face in the future as well. How can you
predict the strength of a building which appears to be beautiful and
strong but is structurally outworn, unless you see the inside? You will
never comprehend through your bird’s eye view how the power beast
misused by the present ruling family cleared the way for the Chinese to
make
roads and wetland parks throughout the country.
Today,
he accomplished his barbaric mission against the chief justice, and he
installed a yes man according to his tradition. This is what his law is.
Don’t we have shame in ourselves to keep this kind of man as the
leader? Sri Lanka is under control by the slayer who assassinated the
last milestone of the nation. But we are in general yet to understand
what really is happening, and how these psychopaths eliminated
everything of real value to us.
For the country and its people it is now do or die situation. In other
words, the island nation has entered its dying point as a righteous
nation, due to the Rajapaksas’ egocentric politics and their harassments of truth. Like most of politicians in the world, they never
let the truth come out. What is wrong with this country? How come
Rajapaksa can still cynically manipulate the nation and her dignity? Why
are people in general yet to come out against this shocking
assassination of the dignity of our nation? If Mr. Rajapaksa followed
the so called “genuine procedure” to impeach the CJ, why did he deploy
brainless political puppets to attack lawyers, eventually leading some
of those innocent people to be attacked in public? The Police are
reported to have refused to even lodge a complaint from those victims.
If Mr. Rajapaksa was truly concerned about a genuine procedure to
impeach the CJ, why did he use or allow state media to come forward as
his mouth piece to personally insult the lady Chief Justice.
It looks as if those who personally insulted the lady CJ have forgotten
that they were also born to women who naturally earn the respect as our
first known human beings - Mothers. It is unbelievable as to how those
people who expressed politically and emotionally motivated opinions
through pro-state media in the last couple of weeks, could do so without
any hesitation or show of responsibility to the nation. At
some point it seems shameful to be a man if you happen to listen to
those headless chickens. Could we call it a constitutional problem? It
confirms to me the situation under Maoism in China where the general
saying was - women love emotions, men love flesh. The President himself
has proven how willing he is to eat flesh while sharing with his
political slaves.
It was in 2011 that the Government of Sri Lanka blocked several web sites including the Sri Lanka Guardian,
which I’m editing, claiming that we were insulting the leader and some
selected people in the Government. But to us we were reporting as is our
duty as free media, informing the public. However,
when you observe as to how the leader is manipulating the media, you
would identify with the real aspects of the crisis and his psyche that
manipulates the crisis. At the same time by electing a leader like Mr.
Rajapaksa we are showing where we stand as a country. Though many people
are looking at this crisis as a deadly constitutional or rule of law
crisis that we faced/are facing, it’s very clear that this is a
devastating shameful socio-political evolution that we have earned after
independence from the British.
There is no doubt, the crisis of constitution is much older than other
political developments, and it is a yesterday’s issue which is still
bothering us. Perhaps, it is true that there is no obligation if someone
claimed that that’s the root cause of the whole problem. However,
before and after creating the authoritarian constitution and dressing it
up in democratic clothes, the country went through many nightmares and
killed hundred thousands of people without any accountability. The
regime allowed the military and its supportive paramilitaries to take
over all norms of freedom and use them on innocent people. Crimes within
crimes, crises within crises, have emerged throughout the country.
Same aspects of this abuse occurred during the last war against the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which dreamed of a separate state and
fought for it for more than thirty years and was categorized as a
terrorists’ organization by many countries. However, the last war has
culturally changed the country’s structure and President and his forces
have opened for themselves enormous opportunities to do anything they
wished to. At the same time, it needs to be highlighted that at some
point political dissents were also speechless over the breaches and
misbehavior of the Liberation Tigers. The political framework created
and manipulated politics by the Tigers for three decades vanished in
2009, and then Rajapaksa becomes the man of the match and the successive
controller. Mr. Rajapakasa is not a statesman but an opportunist.
Mr. Rajapaksa, a long time ignorant man in the SLFP (The Sri Lanka
Freedom party), has changed his entire image and he is capable enough to
come forward as a Sri Lankan native man with the Asian smiling face.
The mustache has given him what his inside doesn’t have while the blood
color swell has given him a native appearance to go into public to spoil
and/or poison the general mind with his political falsest. In the same
way he has been lucky enough to have paralyzed the dopey
opposition which has no room but given enough space to steal its own
members to have legitimate power in the parliament to the President’s
will. In the same way he has trapped all the important people who have
the capacity to oblige and change the public mind, and the media too is
in his favor – all in the name of sovereignty of the nation. Thus, he
created a culture, which has two core notions, sincere ignorance and
conscientious stupidity. In these circumstances he was able to hide his
weakness and be a perpetrator to those who were victims of his misuse of
power.
In the same way, he shows that he has obtained his mandate from the
people by conducting dozens of elections, while using state resources
for political campaigns. Rajapaksa’s theory is simple to understand. He
never believed anyone expect his brother who is holding dual citizenship
and controlling the largest percentage of the annual budget, while
working as just a secretary to the ministry of defence. Rajapase’s
theory seems to be to use the people for his political advantage and
then kick them out whenever he wanted. To him people seem to be not
human beings but just objects. He did not value what others have been
done, he did not worry about taking revenge against the dissents, and he
did not hesitate to betray others to get rid of political obstacles. He
would use one of his close associates to get the job done, when he
wanted to wipe out opponents. Once his mission was accomplished he would
order fake investigation against his yes men while claiming before the
public that he is a dear man who would oppose any unlawful actions.
What’s quite amazing is that almost every crucial political step has
been seen as being taken by others not by Rajapaksas, though
Mr.Rajapaksa has ratified what others approved, including impeachment
motion against the Chief Justice which was signed by those who were in
the Government but not by any of the Rajapaksa brothers. Their
hands are ‘more clean’ than those of others who support the regime.
This is none other than political slavery of this nation to protect just
a most corrupted family in the history of Sri Lanka.
In these circumstances Mr. Rajapaksa has strong chances as well as
manpower to assassinate prime institutions of the state. He seems to
have well understood that the law could do nothing against him,
including according to the constitution. But
the crisis in Sri Lanka is one of conflicts between humanity and
inhumanity, justice and injustice, freedom and oppression, egoism and
law. The Law has changed in order to support the might. This is the
point the entire country took the wrong path. While most other developed
nations seem to have higher levels of respect for law, most Sri Lankans
believed in the people who came to power from time to time. Law has
been kept as a taboo subject in the nation. This has led to
unconditional power opportunities to wipe out thousands of unarmed
civilians.
There were two main political ideologies manipulating the society. One
was the myth of separate state within the country which was put forward
by militant organizations and the Tamil Diaspora. Second is Sinhalese
dominant political ego which led to the claim of unitary state, but it
is laughable because most of the proponents don’t know the difference
between the state and the government, leave alone belief and rule of
law. These
two notions have created political framework within the country and
divided it into two communities except for a few people from both
communities who tried to raise the fact that the dilemma we are faced
with is much deeper than bedeviled myth. The impeachment against the
Chief Justice and Rajapaksa’s ability to over throw the country’s first
female Chief Justice confirm that the country is clearly under
dictatorship.
Today, he accomplished his barbaric mission against the chief justice,
and he installed a yes man according to his tradition. This is what his
law is. Don’t we have shame in ourselves to keep this kind of man as the
leader? Sri
Lanka is under control by the slayer who assassinated the last
milestone of the nation. But we are in general yet to understand what
really is happening, and how these psychopaths eliminated everything of
real value to us. Now the nation is like a head without a brain.
Unfortunately we are ignoring the fact that others can feed you
knowledge but none can give you a brain.
(The writer can be reached at ilangamuwa@gmail.com)
THURSDAY, 17 JANUARY 2013 
Speaking at a presentation ceremony at the National Chamber of Commerce yesterday Rajapaksa said that he always responds to Ambassador Michele Sison that soldiers cannot be punished without due procedure being followed.
EPDP together with members of military intelligence unit staged protest on demanding to shut down the office of TNA parliamentarian S.Sridharan in Killinochchie.
