Govt. in a spot

Saturday 27th February, 2021

The rejection by the SLFP of the final report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI), which probed the Easter Sunday carnage, has come as no surprise. It could not have done otherwise; its leader and former President Maithripala Sirisena is among those the PCoI has held responsible for the serious lapses that made the terror attacks possible. However, if the SLFP thinks it can defend its leader simply by rejecting the commission report, it is mistaken. Attorney General Dappula de Livera will decide whether to institute legal action against those named in the report; he will do so after perusing the report and other documents related thereto.

Sirisena, while he was the President, used to brag that he had a sword (read executive powers), which we jokingly likened to King Arthur’s Excalibur. He said he would not hesitate to use his ‘sword’ for the benefit of the people. In reality, he behaved like a child wielding a Samurai sword. He did not know how to exercise the executive powers which a leader must not monkey around with. The Easter Sunday attacks would not have happened if there had been a sensible President. Terrorist attacks are difficult to prevent, but in the case of the Easter Sunday carnage there had been several warnings.

Others in the yahapalana government were also responsible for the serious lapses that led to the terror strikes. The then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe became the de facto head of state thanks to the 19th Amendment, which stripped the President of some vital executive powers and vested them in the Prime Minister. Wickremesinghe had the police, especially the CID, under his thumb. The entire Cabinet of ministers at the time was also responsible for the massive security failure that enabled the NTJ terrorists to strike at will.

The UNP is paying for its sins in the political wilderness. Some prominent UNPers who were in the yahapalana government, which failed to prevent the terror strikes, are now in the SJB. They seem to think the people have forgotten their past. They cannot absolve themselves of the blame for the UNP-led administration’s serious lapses on the national security front, but they have shrewdly put the incumbent government on the defensive over the PCoI report. These worthies have adopted a ruse pickpockets employ to make good their escape. When a pickpocket has to outrun his pursuers, he bolts, shouting ‘pickpocket, pickpocket’ so as to dupe others into believing that he is also one of the good guys. The SJB, which is the UNP in all but name, is now demanding to know the truth about the Easter Sunday carnage, which they did not care to prevent!

The SLPP, which, during its Opposition days, rejected a Parliamentary Select Committee report on the Easter Sunday attacks, undertook to launch a thorough probe to get at the truth and bring the culprits to justice, and flogged the issue of security failure hard enough to capture power, stands accused of having reneged on its promise. The SJB/UNP is now on the offensive, picking holes in the PCoI report. We are witnessing a role reversal, aren’t we?

What on earth possessed the government to delay the submission of copies of the commission report to Parliament and the Attorney General? A copy of the report should also have been sent to His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, who was instrumental in bringing the post-carnage situation under control. But for his intervention, the country would have been plunged into another bloodbath. The government resorted to delaying tactics, giving the impression to the public that it was trying to suppress the PCoI findings and recommendations in a bid to defend Sirisena, who is now on its side.

Sirisena became a problem for the Rajapaksas, in 2014, by decamping and securing the presidency with the help of the UNP. They kissed and made up subsequently. It won the last presidential election in spite of Sirisena, whose sympathies were with SJB Presidential candidate, Sajith Premadasa. It, in its wisdom, offered a piggyback ride to Sirisena at the general election; it has thus made him its problem again.

It is being argued in some quarters that the only way the government can prevent the Opposition from cashing in on the PCoI report is to throw Sirisena to the wolves, but the SLFP has 14 members in the SLPP parliamentary group. There’s the rub. The government finds itself in a spot.