Certainly Minister Amaratunga deserves the opprobrium of the entire nation - -and definitely the condemnation of the majority - for his statement that the establishment of LTTE police stations in the Eastern province will help monitor the ceasefire.

The stupendous positions taken up by the Sri Lankan government seem to be getting audacious with every new statement issued. What next? The creation of Eelam will guarantee an absolute and durable peace?

But, notwithstanding all these omissions of the Interior Ministry shenanigans, the tactics of the TNA deserve to be seen for what they are - which is the application of pressure tactics on a government that is desperately in need of their support to maintain its parliamentary majority.

But is the TNA, which is speaking on behalf of the only people it represents (those of the LTTE) acting responsibly in the national interests, unless obviously its national interests are those of the nation of Eelam?

The same goes for the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and all its factions that are fighting among themselves, and also holding the government to ransom.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is spending half if not all of his time fighting more ethnic conflagrations that flare up due to the parochial politics of the TNA and SLMC. Both these entities one would have thought, would have learnt the lesson of dabbling in the politics of ethnicity over the years.

The TNA has suffered most damage at the hands of the LTTE, but yet, it has the Tiger by the tail. There seems to be no way in which either the TNA or the SLMC can let go of this 'Tiger's tail' of fissiparous and disruptive ethnic politics.

But with each passing day this sort of ethnic entrepreneurship is seeing the country moving towards slow Balkanization. A small country is in the process of being decimated into little ethnically based enclaves dismembered from each other.

While the politicians play their own little games for perks, position and publicity, the peace loving people of this country have to endure all of it and basically grin and bear. Perhaps a Referendum of the people on the issue 'should communal parties be banned for all time' is an idea whose time has come?

The TNA or the SLMC will also be the least bothered about the existence of two parallel legal systems in the country. But, perhaps, there are other potentates closer home who are not bothered either. For example, can we ask the Attorney General, the chief law-officer of the state, and the Chief Justice, how there can be two parallel legal (and law enforcement) systems functioning at the same time in one country? How does this impinge on the maintenance of the Rule of Law? Or do they feel that there are two different 'rules of law', one being for one part of the country - and another for the rest?

Back to Top

Back to Columns

Back to Index

Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Webmaster