Hold your horses!

Tuesday 2nd August, 2022

SJB MP Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka has undertaken to hold a continuous protest to oust President Ranil Wickremesinghe and the government. He has apparently read the public mood accurately; the people are resentful beyond measure. They are experiencing what is popularly known as ‘the interval in hell’. Relief they have received from the government by way of fuel price decreases, etc., is not sustainable. If any more money is printed for politically-motivated welfare measures such as the distribution of cash, inflation will cross the 70% threshold, which is the economic version of the dengue shock syndrome. Hence the need for both the government and the Opposition to act responsibly.

The government, for its part, ought to act with restraint without provoking the anti-government protesters further. The ongoing ‘hunt’ for the Galle Face agitators must be put on hold, and a truce declared. There are some precedents that the government should follow. The new President and his party have a history of being lenient towards even terrorists.

The LTTE overran military bases, captured troops and executed them. It attacked civilian targets, destroyed thousands of lives, and assassinated a President and several other key political leaders. It collected illegal taxes, forcibly recruited child combatants and massacred 600 policemen who surrendered to it, on the orders of a UNP government in the early 1990s. But those crimes did not prevent the Sri Lankan governments, especially those led by the UNP, from engaging the LTTE and even giving it parity of status at talks for all practical purposes. So, why can’t the current administration powwow with its political enemies and work out a compromise formula? Sadly, last Friday’s police raid on the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) office smacked of a political witch hunt.

One cannot but agree with President Wickremesinghe on the need to bring the savages who set books and libraries on fire to justice. They are a threat to any civilised society and deserve to be called Fascists. They may also be called Pol-Potists. In fact, they are the Sri Lankan version of the Taliban, given their proclivity for damaging works of art.

As for the uncivilised biblioclasts, one wonders why the UNP did not take any action against those who set the majestic Jaffna Library on fire, in 1981.

Young citizens learn from adults, especially the so-called leaders who try to control every aspect of their lives. President Wickremesinghe may recall what Parliament was like during the 52-day government, which was forcibly formed by the then President Maithripala Sirisena and Mahinda Rajapaksa, in 2018. The members of the Joint Opposition loyal to the Rajapaksas went berserk in the House when they failed to muster a working majority. Their efforts to engineer enough crossovers from the UNF went pear-shaped. They unleashed chaos, and even threatened to harm Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, who, to his credit, fought back valiantly.

The UPFA MPs toppled the Speaker’s Chair, threw projectiles at the police and their UNF counterparts, and smashed up furniture. They also hurled chilli powder at their rivals. They should have been charged under the Offences against Public Property Act. Complaints were duly lodged with the police, and tough action promised. But the culprits got off scot-free, and some of them backed Wickremesinghe to the hilt when Parliament elected the interim President recently. Will Wickremesinghe, who was the main victim of the abortive yet despicable power grab (2018), explain why the aforesaid troublemakers were let off the hook? What moral right does he or anyone else who was in the UNP at the time have to order action against the youth who forcibly entered the President’s House, Temple Trees, and the Presidential Secretariat?

A violent confrontation between the government and its political opponents has to be averted at any cost; it is bound to jeopardise the ongoing efforts to straighten up the ailing economy. Let the warring parties be urged to hold their horses.