SRI LANKA TO START OVER AGAIN FROM SCRATCH

May 1, 2019 admin English Opinion

K.G. Philip Shantha

There are two points needed to be considered seriously in this political context of Sri Lanka after the Easter Sunday bomb attacks that took more than 250 lives and injured over 500. First point, recently I spoke to a rural political activist for his attention on a current political situation. Before I could speak he asked me what is happing to the country and about its democratic processes. Imprudently I said that the society should take Easter Sunday terrorist attack as a turning point in this political process. He laughed and said that what he meant was the defeat of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime and the current government is not enough for restructuring the political system in the country. What this incident shows is that the society is to rethink about the regime change occurred in 2015.

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Secondly, President and Prime Minister continuously ignore the subtle factors related to the Easter Sunday terrorist attack. Both of them say that any intelligence report regarding the attack was not delivered to them. It is not clear whether they are saying this intentionally or due to fool hardiness. But there is an iota of truth in their statements.

The speeches made by both leaders are very irrelevant to the real point. They explained everything other than the ground situation of the attack and the serious political blunders committed by the government. They are playing hide and seek. Those mistakes can be identified as political inability in the government. It is necessary to investigate carefully the dangers related to national security. Even after the security authorities obtained the intelligence about the spread of Islamic extremism, they faced extreme difficulty in terms of taking actions to curtail them. Some politicians not only avoided taking action against the identified extremist organizations, but also intervened to protect the suspects. Not only the President but also the Prime Minister do not speak about the real failures in the government.

This shows that some politicians have gained benefits from these extremists groups and they have helped them to continue their agenda. The same problem was faced by the government when the society wanted to take actions against Sinhala Buddhist extremists groups. When the security forces were taking actions, undermining the decisions of the government, mysterious political hands involved in the legal process. It is a simple matter for Sinhala Buddhist Chauvinism to do such a thing if there is small space created at the top by the executive President.

In the present world of neo liberalism, imperialist actions are not necessarily carried out by the mainstream political parties. Actually imperialist super exploitation is carried out by various organizations in the world. The religious extremists’ organizations are the best example for the matter. In Sri Lanka, every religious activist does not know who created their agenda. ISIS was created by the United State of America and soon it was their global enemy. Who understands this truth?

Ultimately, the President and the Prime Minister obviously betrayed the people’s aspirations expresed in the 2015 Presidential election. They have become the main enemies of these political aspirations. Nobody in the present government leads the mandate they were given at the elections in 2015. After the government’s betrayal of public aspirations, there has been a vacuum in the democratic process of the country. Therefore, the political space in Sri Lanka is being restructured. There is a public demand for militarism. National security will come to the first place in the agenda of the country.

At the end of 2014, the society urged a new political environment where the democratic liberty and human rights are considered as the social values, outside of militarism. This was due to the militarization of the society. It must be admitted that this social transformation has not been completed by today.

Country has come back to a point at which it started long time ago.

(Cover Photo Credit: Getty Images)

The writer can be contacted via shan.info1978@gmail.com

Adapted from praja.lk