Terror and double standards

Friday 20th August, 2021

UNP MP and former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is reported to have urged the government to take action to stave off possible threats to Sri Lanka in case of Afghanistan becoming a terror hub under the Taliban rule. Urging the government to prevent Sri Lankans from travelling to Afghanistan, he has said that if the Taliban responsible for the demolition of the Bamiyan Buddha statues is recognised, such action would help revive terrorism.

Afghanistan is the least of Sri Lanka’s problems, at present, and the situation is still fluid in that South Asian nation. It is too early to judge the current Taliban regime, but they are not likely to be different from the previous regime, which became an international pariah. However, the fact remains that the US, by having talks with the Taliban and entering into a peace deal with them, legitimised religious extremism and terrorism for all practical purposes.

As for Wickremesinghe’s advice that Sri Lankans should be prevented from travelling to Afghanistan ruled by the Taliban, he seems to have learnt from the blunders the UNP-led yahapalana government made from 2015 to 2019. That dispensation took no action against those who had been to Syria for military training. This is what the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, which probed the Easter Sunday carnage, has said in its final report (p. 351): “By 2016, the Government including President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe were aware that the Caliphate declared by the IS on 29th June 2014 included Sri Lanka …. They were also aware that around 32 Sri Lankan Muslims had travelled to Syria between 2014 and 2015 to join the IS …. In fact, former Army Commander Krishantha de Silva testified that Mr. Wickremesinghe did not accept intelligence presentations at the NSC [National Security Council] meetings about the rising Islamic extremism in the country and in particular in the East. Prime Minister Wickremesinghe had in fact gone to the extent of stating, ‘No, no that cannot happen.’”

The UNP’s policy on terrorism seems to have undergone a sea change. In dealing with the LTTE, it did the opposite of what it is urging the government to do now as regards the Taliban. Its peace deals with the LTTE enabled the latter to gain a lot of international legitimacy. The SLFP did likewise; in the early 1990s, the then President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga offered to allow Prabhakaran to rule the entire North for 10 years without any elections as part of a ‘peace deal’. Thankfully, the Tiger leader rejected the offer out of hand. A previous UNP-led government (2001-2004) allowed the LTTE to establish a de facto state in the North and the East in the name of a ‘peace process’, but the UNP is now condemning terrorism in Afghanistan.

It looks as though the UNP had two policies on terrorism—one for the world and the other for Sri Lanka.

Andare’s dog

How the government, the Opposition, trade unions and traders are responding to the national health emergency reminds us of Andare’s dog. Andare, the famous court jester, had a dog, which did the opposite of what it was asked to do; if it was ordered to go, it would come, and vice versa.

The detection of a few Covid-19 cases prompted the government to close the country, early last year, amidst protests from the Opposition that the quarantine laws were being abused to postpone the general election, and there was no need for such drastic preventive measures. Today, the daily count of infections has exceeded 3,790 and the death toll has reached 186, and the health experts are calling for lockdowns, but the government is keeping the country open.

The Opposition and trade unions had been staging street protests for weeks until very recently, flouting the health regulations and ignoring doctors’ warnings that mass gatherings would boost the pandemic spread. The protesters insisted that their trade union actions would not accelerate the transmission of the virus. Attempts by the government to enforce quarantine laws to prevent their protests were condemned as a sinister attempt to suppress people’s democratic rights. The protesters’ disregard for the health guidelines must have made a huge contribution to the current situation. There has been a role reversal all of a sudden; the government is ignoring calls for preventive measures such as lockdowns and the Opposition and trade unions are all out to have the country closed.

During lockdowns, the police had a hard time, trying to close the shops that remained open in violation of the quarantine laws. Some traders were even arrested and prosecuted. But today the same traders are closing their shops of their own volition while the government is trying to keep them open.

As the government and the Opposition are known for doing exactly the opposite of what they are asked to do, perhaps the health experts desperate for a lockdown to curb the transmission of the virus should consider urging the government to keep the country open so that it will impose lockdowns.