Dealing With The Devil

By Kasun Kamaladasa –MAY 4, 2019

Kasun Kamaladasa

When I first started to write to Colombo telegraph I thought I will never write an article which includes politicians directly. The main reason being Sri Lanka lacks unbiased political analysts and historians to get a fool proof picture and hence without doing immense amount of research on the subject it would be difficult to do justice to such an article. Secondly people are stuck within their own narratives with conspiracy theories and completely blinded to the faults of their “faith” (Political Party). But here I am today with no better choice.

This is a plea to protect freedoms of this country and not to sell your independence out of fear because of a few failed and irresponsible individuals. This is a plea to try to think clearly and seek long term goals within and after this chaos. This is a plea to start building trust as professionals so Sri Lankans have some place to turn instead of turning towards fake heroes and politicians when the next storm hits.

There is no excuse for anyone in the political hierarchy including the prime minister to evade blame to this situation, though it is argued that he has not been not informed. A country is not a school playground where a presidents and prime ministers’ personal relationship should in anyway matter to any decision making, may it be national security or otherwise. If there were laws prohibiting and preventing action the public should have been informed and necessary laws implemented with the help of relevant people so that action could be taken instead of providing excuses.

Even after the bomb blast I had some hope that the government would disclose what really happened and why such a disaster was not contained, if not possible to avoid. But instead I got a bunch of ministers laughing and accusing whoever was not present. I was even more disappointed that the health minister of the country, to whom I had a certain respect due to all that he achieved in the past few years against all odds, had no idea how to act appropriately or at least acknowledge the failings of those who should have been responsible.

The president of course has been irrelevant to Sri Lanka for several years now, all his speeches and acts just being gallery shows. His thirst for blood was reflected by bringing back death sentence cowardly as much as any terrorist who would try to take away another life. His superstitions far beyond the average Sri Lankan fool who buys trinkets for protection and the president’s attention to Sri Lankan problems limited to Facebook posts and news headlines.

When we open Facebook we see opportunistic politicians advertising their presidency, (sponsored by whom I do not know) and people who would benefit from their rise sharing false hope claiming that if they were here this would have never happened. Yet there were more than 6 suicide bombings when they were in power and had military checkpoints every 2 km, more shootings including a shooting that killed inmates in a prison (a place that was already guarded by armed forces) and even worse, individuals targeted and killed. They were unable to find any culprits who carried out these excesses. Most importantly they too were informed of this recent intelligence with regards to the suicide attacks on churches, yet waited like everyone else and denied of knowing anything afterwards.

But this collective failure of authorities in this event is just the tip of the iceberg of failing Sri Lankan politicians.

Religious hate groups are in the rise again and are more convinced that they were right to spread hatred and more people seem to be supporting its movement than ever before.  They assume if the hatred was spread more and if people had the power to kill or drive away others, who they deemed unsuitable (with their primitive tribal logic) that they would have been saved from this tragedy.

The police that has without a doubt have been tax payer sponsored henchmen of politicians for decades who seems to be only able to arrest couples kissing in beaches or parks. They were hunting wild goose chase and collecting points for president’s reelection with a drug war spectacle (police restructuring, reeducating and rebranding has been turned downed for many years and updating laws ignored for decades because people involved fear change.)

To add a little positivity to this article I must say I am grateful that the Army of Sri Lanka, for all these years I have known them, have been unbiased to most political and religious squabbles to a greater extent. They were able to distinguish between lawful and unlawful soldiers/officers most of the time (and take necessary action) even though most politicians and general public were unable to see beyond petty political slogans. They have done their utmost to defend our country peacefully even in our darkest hours (at least in recent history). I am also grateful for all the religious leaders who in these trying times try to keep their flock from acts of revenge and hatred. This has been far effective than weapons against the terrorist ideology instead of feeding into the fear and breeding a whole new generation of different terrorists.

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