Don’t arm MPs!

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Editorial-October 28, 2015

Some people have all the luck. They are our parliamentarians. They live off the fat of the land at the expense of the taxpaying public though most of them lack even basic educational qualifications to be employed in the public sector as sanitary workers. Monday’s article on this page revealed that, in an Indian state, 255 PhD holders had been vying with 2.3 mn job seekers including 152,000 graduates for securing state employment as peons. But, those who have even failed GCE O/L go places as ministers in this country!

Besides their salaries, pensions, duty free vehicles and other perks, parliamentarians are given personal weapons. About 30 first-time MPs in the present Parliament have asked for pistols, of all things, as we reported yesterday. Others already have personal weapons. MPs have been provided with small firearms all these years and the tradition continues even under the ‘yahapalana’ government.

Instead of asking for personal weapons, the lawmakers ought to take the lead in ridding the country of criminal elements harming hapless citizens so that everybody will be safe. If the vulnerable sections of society can live without weapons in spite of the rising crime rate why can’t their representatives?

More than six years have elapsed since the conclusion of the war. High security zones are being dismantled and checkpoints in the former conflict zone done away with. The government tells us that security threats are a thing of the past and those who successfully neutralised terrorism should stop harping on their military achievements. But, politicians still have large security contingents at their disposal. Armed escorts providing VIP security continue to wreak havoc on public roads much to the consternation of other road users.

Some Marxists who opposed the country’s war on terror, calling for negotiations with Prabhakaran, had no qualms about obtaining firearms from the capitalist JRJ/Premadasa governments and going on a killing spree against the JVP in the late 1980s. And, worse, most of those weapons were never returned. Successive governments haven’t cared to recover the thousands of lethal firearms issued to political parties.

Records pertaining to the arms distribution during the JVP’s reign of terror must be available with the defence authorities. A high level probe has been launched into a floating armoury belonging to a private security firm. It behoves the government to make a similar effort as regards the missing weapons. It should appoint a probe committee and do everything in its power to ensure that each and every firearm so issued is returned. It is believed that most of those weapons have found their way into the underworld.

Only the police, the security forces, members of the Civil Defence Force and other authorised personnel engaged in security related fields should be allowed to carry arms. The issuance of firearms to MPs or other people’s representatives can’t be justified on any grounds. Parliamentarians have armed policemen providing security to them round the clock and it defies comprehension why they should be armed. If they want to have personal weapons they should be stripped of police protection and asked to look after their own security.

What the Indian Supreme Court told the politicians in that country in 2008 comes to mind. The apex court known for being fiercely independent minced no words when it said that if politicians thought they were so threatened as to be protected by huge security contingents they had better stay at home, without being a nuisance to the public. The practice of MPs being given firearms must be discontinued urgently.

A monkey with a straight razor is, in our book, less dangerous than a politician with a lethal weapon.