Weliweriya, Part And Parcel Of Life In SL? Sri Lanka’s Minister of External Affairs who also (to the eternal shame of his students) was a professor of law and a past Vice Chancellor of the Colombo University surpassed himself last week by his nonchalant announcement that the ‘Weliweriya incidents’ were ‘part and parcel of life’ (see Financial Times, August 8th 2013). A stupendously bad governance record This claim, which is as brazen as it is bizarre, deserves scrutiny as it sums up the entire thinking of the Rajapaksa administration which the Minister represents. It is not merely some off-the-cuff remark that came while he was attempting to explain that the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) will not be affected by these ‘incidents’ as he termed them. True enough, the Minister sounded a tad desperate when being asked as to whether pressure by visiting Heads of State would not intensify in regard to the stupendously bad governance record of this administration as a result of inter alia, the Weliweriya ‘incidents.’ That however does not justify nor explain such a response which is bad enough coming from a politician per se but incredulous when coming from an individual supposedly trained in law. But perhaps this is where the mistake lies; in assuming that these individuals are still aware of the law and its standards under which a Government sending out soldiers to shoot live ammunition into a crowd of protestors violates some of the most fundamental tenets, (language that this one time law professor would be familiar with), of rights to assembly, association and expression. Ministers would have resigned in other jurisdictions On the other hand however, the Minister’s preposterous claim is reflective of the reality, though not in a way that reflects well on his own administration nor in the exact sense that he meant. Weliweriya is indeed part and parcel of ordinary life under the Rajapaksa government. Citizens should expect routine violations of the law in the manner that state agents behave, whether in the case of the police or the army and in regard to Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim alike. In functioning jurisdictions, the outrage of soldiers killing protestors in cold blood, storming into the premises of a church, abusing the priests and nuns (even asking priests to kneel according to eye witness accounts), hammering innocent bystanders over their heads with guns and pursing journalists engaged in the legitimate duty of reporting, would have brought about the resignation of the Minister of Defence, the Army Commander and other inferior officials. Simply put, such outrages would not happen in the first instance as the perpetrators would know full well that they would be brought to a measure of accountability. Read more: colombotelegraph/index.php/weliweriya-part-and-parcel-of-life-in-sl/
Posted on: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 01:40:35 +0000
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