Midweek Politics:Towards Impunity And Democratic Erosion

By Dharisha Bastians -September 20, 2012 

Dharisha Bastians

The Silvas are at it again. A week dominated by news of political brats on the rampage once more, this time directing their rage at an Army Major, ended with the soldier recanting his story and the two main suspects in remand being transferred to prison hospital on “medical” advice.

The whole incident smacked of impunity and was strangely reminiscent of the incident involving a Samurdhi Officer being tied to a tree on the orders of the father of the political brat in question, who also recanted his story and withdrew his complaint against Public Relations and Public Affairs Minister and Rascal-in-Chief of the present Government, Hewa Koparage Mervyn Silva.

Public anger over apparent Police inability to arrest chief protagonists of the alleged assault, Silva’s son Malaka and son of Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Turkey, Bharathi Wijeratne, compounded by Minister Keheliya Rambukwella’s assertion that the Police did not want to arrest the Minister’s son while he was paying homage to the kapilavastu relics at Kelaniya, reached fever pitch by the weekend.

Finally, on 17 September, more than a week after the assault allegedly took place outside the Hilton Colombo Residence at Union Place, Malaka Silva and Rehan Wijeratne walked into the Police station to surrender themselves, further reinforcing the fact that law enforcement was loathe to make the arrest on a Minister’s son.

The day after the two main suspects and five others were remanded by the Colombo Fort Magistrate till 24 September, Minister Mervyn Silva walked into court armed with a medical report and requesting that his son and Rehan Wijeratne be admitted to prison hospital for medical treatment. The Magistrate acquiesced and just hours later, Major Chandana Pradeep’s lawyer went to court with an affidavit from the soldier saying Silva Junior and Wijeratne did not assault him although the five others in remand did. The affidavit said that the matter would be settled amicably.

Questions abound as to whether it was money or intimidation this time that resulted in the Major’s swift change of mind, but one way or the other, the matter is resolved Sri Lankan style, at least until the Silvas’ next victim crawls out of the woodwork.

Nevertheless, in one fell swoop, the assault, delayed arrest, hospitalisation and recant demonstrated that for all intents and purposes Sri Lanka’s justice system is broken and perhaps irrevocably so. The consistent assaults on democratic institutions and the rule of law by the present

administration have finally culminated in a fiasco that no longer offers any surprises. The tragedy in fact, is the predictability of the sequence of events, and that Sri Lankans continue to be mute, unengaged observers in the face of a systematic break down of its legal and democratic systems.

Nevertheless, together with the ICC T20 World Cup now underway in Sri Lanka, the antics of Malaka Silva and Rehan Wijeratne kept the public distracted and entertained, even as the Government reverted from election mode to business as usual by slapping a tax increases on imports of potatoes and tinned fish.

Ironically, the latest edition of the Silva dramas was unfolding even as Sri Lanka hosted the 58th Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference in Colombo, and coincided with the visits of US Assistant Secretary of State for Central and South Asian Affairs, Robert O. Blake and the UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay’s technical team for consultations with Government officials, all three sets of meetings concerned in some way or form with strengthening democracy and the rule of law and post-war reconciliation and accountability in the island.

Blake’s back                                     Read More