Sri Lanka in on the edge! Unless it finds its way to redeem itself from its mess, mere cover ups and military manoeuvring in the civil administration will not help. The doors are hard to open on Sri Lanka but they have become shaky and will open one day to count the skeletons in whatever forms are shapes they are in.
by Rajasingham Jayadevan
(September 11, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) In the House of Commons debate (9/9/10) on the phone hacking row involving the former editor of the News of the World and the spin doctor (Andy Coulson) of the British Prime Minister, Jack Dromey, MP for Birmingham Erdington, said he hoped for ‘full cooperation from Downing Street, (to investigate) not least because the lesson of Watergate is that the cover up is worse than the crime’.
Andy Coulson’s position has become untenable unlike the Sri Lanka’s nincompoop Minister Mervin Silva who was exonerated in the Kangaroo Court trial of the ruling President’s party for publicly assaulting a civil servant in the presence of a policeman.
What a salient statement: ‘Cover up is worse than the crime’ which is definitely appropriate in a much bigger context for the so-called banana republic of Sri Lanka. In the mature democracies, incidences of cover ups are debated, analysed, duly investigated and dealt with, whereas in the rogue states like Sri Lanka, the politicians thrive on cover ups and whitewashing to extend their authority.
‘A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrong-doing, error, incompetence or other embarrassing information. The expression is usually applied to people in authority who abuse their power to avoid or silence criticism. Those who cover up may be those responsible for a misdeed or their allies, or simply people with an interest in silencing criticism. While the terms are often used interchangeably, cover-up involves withholding incriminatory evidence, while whitewash involves releasing misleading evidence.’ – Wikipedia.
It is every ones knowledge, including that of the perpetrators, the scale of the cover-ups and white washes taking places in Sri Lanka are of worrying scale. In order to hold on to the degrading values, the government is compounding the cover ups to hold on to its method of home grown governance methods by undermining the loud and clear cries on the troubling issues.
By screaming over and above the screams for justice and fair play, the government feels it can out manoeuvre anyone and deceptively and deceivingly undermine the cry for fair play. Even the madly rushed 18th amendment to the constitution is to arrogate more powers to the Machiavellian who wants to extend his mandate to extend his cover ups of his dastardly deeds and further engage in his specialist brand of hide and seek politics.
The foul cry claims on many serious issues are both internal and international. With the support of the dodgy pariah states, the Government of Sri Lanka is able to pull through to the extent of slowing down the international outcry for justice and fair-play on several issues where cover-ups are systematically engineered by the government.
The Lesson Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) hurriedly set up by the government is a typical example to circumvent the effort of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, is one of the major cover-up efforts to sweep the skeletons under the carpets. The UN too has been silenced and the cover up effort has given some respite to the GoSL.
The mandate of the LLRC and the composition of the panel and the majority of the witnesses so far testified clearly shows the beneficiaries of the decades old bad governance and marginalisation of minorities are doing their loyal service to strengthen their stake-hold and be part of the cover-ups. None of them have disclosed their conflicts of interests and the outcome will be a foregone conclusion.
The GoSL will go on the merry-go-round with the LLRC’s report to further cover up its misdeeds. The GoSL is a specialist in prevarication and embedded in this is the game of procrastination, the so-far successful game of the government.
Look at what has happened to the All Party Parliamentary Committee (APRC) report on completely redrafting the constitution initiated by the President. The final report was presented to the President a year ago by the APRC chairman Prof. Tissa Vitharana. The learned Professor said before the defeat of the LTTE that the proposals will be implemented after the victory over the Tamil Tigers. This able Professor is maintaining dumbfounded silence on his official assertions on the APRC proposal which is being dusted on the table of the President or might have even found its way into the President’s dustbin by now.
The Professor too has forgotten about his proposals and even his principle stand on Marxism and is humbly and obediently participating in the totally different process to tinker the present constitution to arrogate unquestionable powers to the President with his comrades in the parliament. The issue here is how APRC effort came about to silence the international pressure from India and the western counties. It is now proved that it was a major cover up exercise of the President’s cunning and unscrupulous strategy to overcome his difficulties at the given time. Time has passed and his out manoeuvring has made the APRC process a wasted effort.
If one looks at the chronology of the murders and disappearance and the governments inability to provide justice, one can adduce the deliberate policy of cover-ups practiced by the state. It will be two years since the murder of the Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickramatunga who was murdered allegedly by the state intelligence service but procrastination practiced to cover up the murder is working in favour of the government so far. Even the victim’s relatives are in a hopeless situation to seek justice through the judicial system, due to political pandering of the judiciary. The situation has become worse since the introduction of the 18th amendment. If this is the situation for the prominent Late Lasantha, where do the other murder cases and disappearances stand for justice in Sri Lanka?
The GoSL asserts its authority to meddle with the investigative and judicial process by taking cover under the idea of its independence as a sovereign state. Its home grown methodologies are bastardising the whole administration of the state in the ever declining standards of governance. Cover ups are part of bad governance and what is taking place in the South, is a polarization of Sinhala politics and polity as a result.
The counter productive approach of the government is having serious impact on the whole spectrum of the society. It is impacting in many shapes- UPLF vs other parties, city folk vs rural folk, educated vs less educated etc. The unity that was expected to be achieved through the defeat of the LTTE may be lost due to the new fissures appearing in the South. Without a common enemy, the Sinhala polity seems to be turning on itself. This is not good for the country.
How long will it take to arrest the situation is a two million dollar question. The worry is whether Sri Lanka will sink into deeper decay before proper senses of the nation will act to overcome the situation is the question of the worried man of the day.
‘The current notion of state sovereignty was laid down in the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which, in relation to states, codified the basic principles of territorial integrity, border inviolability, and supremacy of the state (rather than the Church). A sovereign is a supreme lawmaking authority.’ In the fast progressing world meaning of ‘sovereignty must be redefined to ensure accountable behaviour of nations to honour its commitments and become accountable to be in partnership in the global village.
In order to cover up their misdeeds, the rogue sovereign states like Sri Lanka and Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe are kicking on the faces of the international community, when questions on violation of international laws and protocols are raised on their conduct.
When a scandal breaks, the discovery of an attempt to cover up is often regarded as even more reprehensible than the original deeds. Quoting further on the cover up theme rightly applicable to Sri Lanka:
‘The mildest case, not quite a cover-up, is simply to release news which could be embarrassing but is not important enough to guarantee attention at a time when other news is dominating the headlines, or immediately before a holiday or weekend.
‘Initially a cover-up may require little effort; it will be carried out by those closely involved with the misdeed. Once some hint of the hidden matter starts to become known, the cover-up gradually draws all the top leadership, at least, of an organization into complicity in covering up a misdeed or even crime that may have originally been committed by a few of its members acting independently. This is often regarded as tacit approval of that behaviour.
‘It is likely that some cover-ups are successful although by definition this cannot be confirmed. Many fail, however, as more and more people are drawn in and the possibility of exposure makes potential accomplices fearful of supporting the cover-up and as loose ends that may never normally have been noticed start to stand out. As it spreads, the cover-up itself creates yet more suspicious circumstances.
"Snowjob" is an American colloquialism for a lie, deception or a cover-up; for example, Helen Gahagan Douglas described the Nixon Administration as "the greatest snow job in history."
The reasons why people, governments or institutions may try to cover up if:
* they are dishonest enough to wish to hide things that they should not conceal (hiding information is not in itself a cover-up);
* and they believe that they can successfully cover up the facts, either by effective concealment or using their authority and power to prevent investigation and publication;
* and they believe that public knowledge of the facts will harm them in some way, from long jail sentences through possible loss of electoral office to mere embarrassment;
* and they believe that the benefit of a successful cover-up outweighs the risk and harm to them of being caught covering up.
Sri Lanka in on the edge! Unless it finds its way to redeem itself from its mess, mere cover ups and military manoeuvring in the civil administration will not help. The doors are hard to open on Sri Lanka but they have become shaky and will open one day to count the skeletons in whatever forms are shapes they are in. That will be the day Sri Lanka will awake from its slumber.
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