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| Sunday, 26 February 2006 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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That 'head of state' farewell at Welikada Light Refractions by Lucien Rajakarunanayake All that was missing was the sight of the armed services commanders in a jeep behind him and a 21-gun salute. The Guard of Honour was a set piece, with the head of the command at attention in the rear. No one let out of the gates of the Welikada Prison before this had been given such an official farewell.
The pictures did not show a heroes welcome from the public outside as Dissanayake walked out. It was a well orchestrated guard of honour of prison officials, both men and women in uniform, and some carrying weapons too, who lined the sides of the roadway leading out of the main gate of the Prison. The whole act was overseen, or is it supervised or ordered, by the imposing man in full uniform at the rear, who could have been none other than the Commissioner General of Prisons himself. In any event the presence of so many uniformed jailors at that place and time definitely showed signs of official sanction and organisation. These are days when there is all the need to have a special police force to police prison officials, but then we will need another police force to police that special force and so the cycle of policing will go on. However, it should be useful for the Ministry of Justice to identify all those jailors who were seen in that excellent newspaper photo of the event, to find out whether they were on official duty at that time or not, and what their proper duty at that time should have been. Wrong place The planning of the event was perfect, but the location was wrong. If at all, such a 'guard of honour' should have been accorded to S. B. Dissanayake, at the entrance to the Merchants Ward side of General Hospital. Those on parade should have been the nurses and attendants and any other medical personnel who served him there. The guard should have been led by the specialists and other doctors who kept on certifying his need for "incarceration" at the Merchants Ward of the hospital. They should come with their stethoscopes round their necks and carrying sphygmographs, used for checking blood pressure, in their hands, in a present arms formation. That would certainly have been more realistic a situation for a man who spent more time in the paying ward of a hospital, full board and lodging met from the public purse, and supposedly serving a sentence of rigorous imprisonment. This entire episode brought the judiciary into ridicule if not contempt. It would do well for judges to consider laying down strict terms as to where and how the imprisonment is to be enforced, when setting down a sentence, and if such terms are not possible for the legislators to enable it. SB's guard of honour departure from Welikada Prison sets an example for others to follow in our society when such actions are becoming the benchmarks of the ideal. From now on if ever a pupil of a school is suspended for having abused in words or otherwise seriously insulted the Principal, then the entire staff, prefects' body and cadets of the school should give that pupil a guard of honour, with the school band in attendance too. The Ministry of Education should issue a circular to this effect, before parents take the SB example and begin agitating for such action. All sportsmen and sportswomen are suspended from their games from offences that ranging from drug abuse or failure to turn up for practice, should also have similar guards of honour by their peers, as well as the managements of the respective sports bodies all in attendance. We may even come to the stage when the armed forces will have to ensure similar organized receptions to give recognition and respect to any and all deserters who turn up when an amnesty if offered, as a morale booster. From Trotsky to the Bentara Ganga While on the subject of SB's remission of sentence, one was surprised to read the advice given him by Dr. Wickremabahu Karunaratne, both a Marxist and scientist. Dr. WK who has jumped from one political rump to another, sometimes with Norwegian facilitation too, has suddenly recalled his mother's advice and told SB, with regard to President Rajapakse, that those who lived beyond the Bentara Ganga were cunning and the deeper you go into the South, the more cunning they are. And Mahinda comes from that part of the country". It is tragic to see an often logical person plunge to such depths as to relate baseless old tales and that too with distortion. What is said in humour in Sinhala is not to trust even a kitten that has not opened its eyes from beyond the Bentara Ganga. There is nothing said about it being worse as one goes deeper south. But there many such stories, often derogatory, said about some communities and castes too, which have no basis in fact, except the ill-informed suspicions or prejudices of people who say them. One cannot expect Dr. WK who has written about tribalism in his Marxist pamphlets descend to such rank regionalism in thinking, with the least reasoning behind it. On the other hand what can one expect of a Marxist who insists on having a letterhead that highlights the "coat of arms" of a Kandyan Walauwa clan? |
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I refer to the farewell to S. B. Dissanayake who received a remission of
his prison sentence by the President last week, and not a pardon as many
make it out to be, and was formally released from the prison where he spent
the least time of his two year sentence of hard labour. 
