Mendicancy, rhetoric and sovereignty

Monday 17th May, 2021

Much is being spoken about Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and independence, these days, owing to the controversial Colombo Port City Economic Commission Bill, scheduled to be taken up in Parliament shortly. We are not short of political leaders who never miss an opportunity to wrap themselves in the flag and declare their readiness even to lay down their dear lives for the sake of the country. While this kind display of patriotism is on, the Attorney General’s Department last week inaugurated a training centre and launched an electronic system to trace cases and legal files, as we reported on Saturday. Attorney General Dappula de Livera, PC, has described the project, carried out with US support, as ‘another first in the 136-year history of the AG’s Department’. What have the patriots in both the government and the Opposition been doing all these years? They boast of having made a tremendous contribution to national progress, but the AG’s Department cannot have a training centre and a tracking system set up without foreign help!

US assistance at issue will, no doubt, go a long way towards helping the AG’s Department function efficiently, and should, therefore, be appreciated. But the question is whether the US taxpayer should be made to bear the cost of such projects here while the so-called leaders of Sri Lanka are wasting public funds, amassing wealth and living in clover. Their super luxury vehicle fleets alone have cost the state coffers billions of rupees, and the funds for the entire AG’s Department project could easily have been raised if a couple of their V-8s had been auctioned.

On the other hand, there is no such thing as a free lunch, especially when it comes to financial assistance from countries such as the US and China. Not even commercial loans are free from strings if the constricting aid conditions the internal lending agencies impose on this country are any indication. Hence the need for the State with a bunch of self-declared patriots at the levers of power to bear the costs of vital projects at least in crucial sectors such as justice.

The present-day Sri Lankan leaders, wearing their brand of patriotism on the sleeve, find themselves in a huge contradiction. They condemn the US, at every turn, for meddling with Sri Lanka’s internal affairs and telling them how to handle alleged atrocities during the final phase of Eelam war IV in 2009. They are also opposing the ACSA (Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement) and SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) tooth and nail as a Trojan horse from the US, but they have had no qualms about being servilely dependent on US funds for a project, which, Washington says, will ‘strengthen the ability of justice sector professionals to uphold the rule of law in Sri Lanka’.

Are the Sri Lankan leaders genuinely interested in promoting any project aimed at upholding the rule of law? If the rule of law is ever restored, how can they remain above the law and help the lower-rung lawbreakers, including killers and fraudsters in the garb of MPs, give Justitia the slip? Several rogues have already got away with their crimes by virtue of being in power.

Attorney General de Livera has said the aforesaid US-funded project is a notable, salutary achievement that meets a long-felt need for continuous learning and professional development, and will drive his department ‘from strength to strength’. If only that task had been accomplished with Sri Lanka’s own funds.

Computers used in Parliament have been sponsored by China, whose interests the current government is all out to further, through the Port City Bill, which the Opposition has condemned as a total sell-out. (Will Parliament be able to have the polluted Diyawanna lake around it cleaned without foreign assistance?)

In the House, the MPs often bellow anti-Chinese or anti-American rhetoric with gusto and call for safeguarding the country’s sovereignty and independence! One wonders why on earth these shameless worthies who have taken turns to ruin the economy and line their pockets with public funds should have their clothes on when they go ballistic, berating foreign forces that, they say, are bent on jeopardising the interests of this country.