The Sunday Times Editorial

16th February 1997


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Suicidal politics

The Sunday Times joins the nation in condemning the heinous assassination of Nalanda Ellawala in Ratnapura last Tuesday. The gruesome killing of a youthful MP- the youngest in this Parliament is an affront to democracy and the democratic way of life that the people of this country yearn for, and cherish.

That Sri Lanka, at one time the paradise isle of this earth has descended into a hell-hole almost exclusively because of party politics and other petty differences is a sad fact of our contemporary history.

The mob violence that followed the Ellawala assassination in Ratnapura-the torching of shops and buildings mostly of political opponents while police apparently turned the notorious blind-eye is a sad reflection of the concepts in Sri Lankan politics that two wrongs would make a right.

Going by eye witness accounts, there appears to be substantial evidence that some top UNP men in Ratnapura are behind the Ellawala assassination and party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has acted decisively in suspending two members who are being hunted by the police with million rupee rewards on their heads.

It is in this context that we refer to last year's incidents in Negombo where a group of UNPers returning from a court case had been ambushed and killed. That group included Anura Bandaranaike. What did no less a person than the President say at a meeting in Veyangoda? She is reported to have in a sense condoned the violence, indicating to her loyalists that if they were to be attacked they were justified in taking retaliatory measures. In a still uncontradicted speech, the President went as far as saying that her party workers must 'slice to pieces' their opponents. The Civil Rights Movement and other citizen's groups expressed dismay over these Presidential remarks. When leaders of political parties talk like that, political violence will not end. And as almost always, the leaders talk big and its their supporters who face the music.

We agree wholeheartedly with Friday's editorial in the independent 'The Island' newspaper. It said:

"Equally important is that this entire political culture of confrontationist politics should be called to a halt. The bitter acrimony that exists between the UNP and SLFP should end. They should learn from more mature democracies on how to fight clean elections and after the hustings to work together in the national interest."

'The Sunday Times' seconds this motion. As it does the editorial in yesterday's state run Daily News which said in its editorial, inter alia, "It is also upto the leaders of political parties which are contesting the upcoming local polls to maintain firm control over their 'strong-men', rank and file and supporters.

At least there is consensus among the press on this issue.

The leadership must lead, not be led. But in a largely two-party system you cannot clap with one hand. The PA and the UNP leadership must eschew violence. Their battles must be waged in Parliament, through the press and TV debates and the like, and not with T-56 automatics on the streets of Lanka. In the process we are forgetting the common enemy of both the PA (the government) and the UNP (the alternative government). The name need not even be mentioned for it is too well known. The party rivalry in general, and elections in particular, are happy hunting grounds for their common enemy lurking with their suicide-kits. Systematically they have been eliminating politicians in the South, and the South is busy accusing each other of these killings.

There is an onus on the political leaders to defuse this hostile climate. They must surely have realised the difficulty in finding decent, well-meaning people coming forward as candidates for this election. With no disrespect to the candidates running for elections, there is undoubtedly a fear on the part of many to contest. Unless you have your own guns, bombs and thugs - let alone the cash and the booze - a candidate cannot get out of his house to canvass.

Let us hope there will be no recurrence of the Ratnapura tragedy. All parties have realised, surely, the futility of confrontational politics, and the doctrine of an eye for an eye which will only make all of us blind.

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