.

The need of the hour

When will Sri Lanka’s leaders learn to stop inflicting new injuries on the nation and get on with the business of healing the grievous wounds the country already bears by approaching our problems in a spirit of conciliation? We say this in the context of last week’s television address to the nation by President Chandrika Kumaratunga when she abruptly turned around from the stateswoman-like stance she adopted in her acceptance speech in December.

Nobody wants a loose cannon leading this country and the sooner the president and her advisors remember that, the better. She must also remember the wisdom of the old Sinhala adage that the king’s dog is more ferocious than the king. That was perhaps why the state-run Daily News, seizing on what it claimed was a remark made by the president during her television address, ran an intemperate attack on President’s Counsel Desmond Fernando under a red headline "Pseudo human rights lawyer caught dancing naked.’’ (The italics belonged to the original)

Whoever directed that vicious attack must surely be eating crap right now. Yesterday the paper published what it called was a "clarification’’ quoting the lawyer concerned saying that he did not appear on MTV or any other television station for that matter and said anything about the president’s brain being smashed to smithereens. But there was not even a word or apology or an expression of regret of what it had done. Had the privately owned media been guilty of such an offence, the public will have little doubt about the kind of reaction that would have provoked. A fine example has already been provided by what the president had to say over national television last week.

There is no point harping over that performance any longer. The many factual inaccuracies in the allegations loosely made will be made public by those affected as Mr. Desmond Fernando has already done. What is astounding is that these performances go on while the Tigers are pounding on the gates of Elephant Pass and suicide bombers are exploding themselves in Colombo. The instability inherent in incidents like those that occurred on Wednesday at Flower Road and at Wellawatte where Mr. Kumar Ponnambalam was gunned down must surely hit all of us between our eyes. At such a time, the kind of rowdy behaviour seen in parliament on Thursday is, to say the least, most deplorable.

Loose talk, unfortunately, seems to be a hallmark of many of our leaders. No elephantine memory is necessary to recall the extravagant promises made by the so-called UNP "rebels’’ to take over Sri Kotha on December 22. Why they had to wait till December 22 if they commanded the allegiance of the majority of the party is in itself a question. Quite obviously they were firm believers in the dictum of vaasi paththata hoiya and expected UNPers by the tens of thousands will desert the party’s leadership. That they were waiting for an election result to take over Sri Kotha is a comment on their own bravery. But even after the election was comfortably won by the candidate they supported, there has neither been a takeover of Sri Kotha nor any further talk about doing so.

The threat to bring a resolution to expel Dr. Jayalath Jayawardena from Parliament is very similar. The country will watch with interest whether this would be as good as the promise to take over Sri Kotha. We do not know whether Jayawardena has been talking to Tamil Chelvam, Lawrence Thilagar or anybody else. All we know is that he has repeatedly gone on record saying that his visits to the Wanni were authorised by the Ministry of Defence. It is also well known that his driver was taken to custody after one of those visits and held in detention for several months. He was released on a Supreme Court order following a fundamental rights action and the state was ordered to pay compensation.

If there have been secret talks with the LTTE, it is now clear that the government too has been engaging in such an exercise with no less than the president saying that the good offices of Norway and the Commonwealth Secretariat had been employed for the purpose. Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe sees this as a breach of the agreement between the government and the UNP brokered by Dr. Liam Fox which provided for the opposition to be kept apprised of developments. That had apparently not happened. If there are opposition contacts with the LTTE, and the government’s security apparatus keeps itself briefed on such links, all to the good. But covert operations of state intelligence must not be abused for political purposes.

What is necessary today is close co-operation between the government and the opposition and public support to the elected government to firmly face the very real threats the country faces. The LTTE is confronting the army militarily at Elephant Pass while its terrorists are hell bent on destabilising Colombo and other parts of the country. The public duty of us all is to co-operate fully with the authorities in ensuring the safety and security of everybody. The way the people behaved during the sudden curfew imposed over Colombo and Dehiwela - Mt. Lavinia on Friday was exemplary as was the way in which the government presented the need for that exercise. If our leaders in parliament and elsewhere adopt a non-abrasive style towards one another in dealing with the daunting challenges facing the nation, the sooner they will be overcome.

| NEWS | PROVINCIAL | POLITICS | DEFENCE | FEATURES | LEISURE | BUSINESS | SPORTS | ADS |