Minister trio playing into Tiger hands

Commonsense by Y.King

Collective responsibility by the members of any organisation is of paramount importance to run the office cast on that organisation, and when it is a political party running a Government amidst the worst challenge, terrorism, its members especially senior Ministers have a great responsibility, not only as ministers, politicians but also as citizens.

However, the behaviour of former Ministers Anura Bandaranaike, Mangala Samaraweera and Sripathi Suriyaarchchi was shameful and regrettable. Anura did not attend parliament when the Emergency vote was taken up while the other two boycotted the vote. The trio should realise what would be the position of the Government if by any chance the emergency was defeated which could have led to total disruption of the national security situation as the Government would be unable to continue the combat operation against the Tiger terrorism. Irresponsible parliamentarians who do not foresee the gravity of their act on the people should not be given a people's mandate as they would have done much damage particularly to the people and country in general.

In this backdrop, President Mahinda Rajapaksa did not delay long to take proper action against those who ignored their responsibility by the nation. After the parliament sittings, the trio avoided the Cabinet meeting too. Their threatening statement against the Head of the state, warnings and unconstructive criticism are also an indication of a coup against the government and the Head of State. This is by no means welcome in an executive president system introduced by former President J. R. Jayewardene, and the culprits are now paying the price for their political blunders.

One such serious incident could be the journalists of a tabloid published by Railway Unionists who were arrested in connection with possessing of weapons in their office.

Media Accreditation are apparently issued to many bogus people under guise of journalists. They would definitely abuse the media accreditation to influence various authorities and gain personal advantages and engage in other activities, and now it seems that the card is used to propagate terrorism too.

If the Information Department was checks with the Department of Posts, where newspapers are registered, they would easily find out how many newspapers, magazines or other publications received registration but not in the news stand.

It is not difficult for anybody to understand that there should be some ulterior motives behind the registration and not publishing it. We know certain people would use such publications merely to enjoy foreign trips, scholarships for journalists and so on, but the impending danger is now that such publications and accreditation are being used to support terrorism.

Every journalist who applies for accreditation should be screened before issuing him/her with media accreditation and the Department of Information cannot disown this responsibility as it has posed a threat to the national security.

Secondly, the international community and the Tamil Diaspora would not misunderstand the liberation of the East from the Tigers as another election gimmick as certain other former Presidents did to win the majority Sinhala votes over the dead bodies of military personnel, terrorists and Tamil civilians.

Media accreditation and bogus newsmen

Two European writers attached to a foreign PR company once on an assignment in Colombo to do some stories turned to me for some information.

When I inquired from them about their accreditation, they showed me the media accreditation issued by the Department of Information.

I was astonished to learn that the duo was issued with the accreditation within a matter of hours without any collateral.

Recommendation by the heads of the respective media organisations and other credentials that are compulsory for local journalists were not required by the authorities and these two Europeans were perhaps exceptional to the then authorities of the Department of Information during 2002.

I pen this incident to enlighten the present authorities of the Department of Information to take strict action when they issue media accreditation as this accreditation is a passport to certain bogus journalists today to engage in various other activities rather than journalism.

No option but jumbo cabinet

After every successful military victory, Governments in the past went for elections to feel the pulse of the people.

Certain Governments even launched offensives against the Tigers ahead of elections, as they knew that the majority of people who were oppose to terrorism would vote for the Government after military victories.

Such was our pathetic past where politicians exploited every weak point of the masses to gain power over anything under the sun. They were not concerned about life and death, destruction to property and imminent set backs in the development that the war would cost.

The Rajapaksa Government could also have gone for an election after the series of military victories in the East, first Sampur and then Vakarai to form a new strong Government. But President Mahinda Rajapaksa did not resort to the old fashioned methodology to gain power over dead bodies. He was well aware of the cost of an election, which would be an additional economic burden on the nation as an election generally costs over Rs.600 million.

However, President Rajapaksa was compelled to look for ways and means to maintain a strong Government after the JVP withdrew support to the Government over the APC issue. The APC is one issue of the Government, and the JVP's irresponsible act forced President Rajapaksa to receive the support of other forces.

The outcome was the UNP dissident group joining the Government. This has two major advantages, firstly, the cost of the new cabinet however would not exceed the cost of an election.

Maga Naguma doing well

People in rural areas anticipated much needed development to their provinces after the implementation of Mahinda Chintana. The Maga Naguma is one program under the Mahinda Chintana to repair the rural road network.

Recently I journeyed to a rural area to attend a funeral and people seemed happy as the dilapidated road network in the area was gradually improving under the Maga Naguma. "Earlier, politicians allocated some funds to repair roads when they wanted to visit their constituents.

If a road repair is started, we knew that there would be an election round the corner, but today the work started after the election, so no gimmicks", a senior citizen said. Election ploys wont keep politicians in power all the time. The Mahinda Chintana has realised this bitter truth.

Myth and misnomers

People could well remember that there was a time when peace envoys visited the country and made journeys to the Wanni. Whatever their role here, whether it worked or not to defeat the Tigers in the East is not an issue today as the East has been liberated from the Tigers but, many such peace envoys including Yasushi Akashi from Japan after every visit to the

Wanni and meeting with the Tiger leaders said that neither the LTTE nor the Government forces would be able to win the battle.

This myth created by such peace envoys, would have been a part of the LTTE psychological war against the Security forces to reduce the morale of our armed forces. It could have strengthened the Tiger power in the East had the Government listened to those peace envoys including Akashi. Fortunately, the Government's foresight to implement home made strategies worked to liberate the East from the Tigers. Now the envoys are silent, and nobody knows about their future agendas in Sri Lanka.

In the meantime, no such peace envoys or any other Human Rights organisation had the courage to blame the Tigers who held thousands of innocent people captive in Vakarai for several months without food or medicine until the Government forces repulsed the Tigers and released the captives recently.

If those peace envoys are true peacemakers, the time is now opportune for them to support the Government's resettlement and development plan in the East and help improve the qualities of the lives of the residents in the East.