Mark My Words The Ides Of March Are Round The Corner – Wigneswaran

By C.V. Wigneswaran –DECEMBER 9, 2020

C.V Wigneswaran

Having been a long standing member of the Judiciary of this Country and as a representative of the Tamils in this august Assembly I am indeed happy to participate in this Budget Debate* discussing the votes of the Ministry of Justice. 

Mr. Speaker, Justice is the one clear expectation of all denizens of this Country today. It is Justice which is intrinsically interwoven with the day to day lives of the Tamils and their future. They are expecting Justice for the innocents who were haphazardly and brutally killed at the tail end of the War. They are expecting Justice regarding those who were enforcedly made to disappear from their midst. Tamil political prisoners have been for long seeking Justice for themselves. Our Muslim brethren are seeking Justice to bury their dead even if one from their community is the Minister of Justice. Our Catholic brethren are seeking Justice for those who were killed in the bomb blast of April 21st 2019. 

Justice and Peace Sir!  are complimentary. If we are to ensure Peace the first step would be to obtain Justice for all those affected in body, mind, intellect and also temporally. Pope Paul said in 1972 as follows (I quote)- “A Peace that is not the result of true respect for Man is not true Peace. A sincere feeling for Man is called Justice.” He further said “If you want Peace work for Justice!” 

Is the present Government interested in working for Peace and therefore Justice? I doubt it. If you had the slightest feeling for your co-citizens you would not expropriate the lands of indigent Tamils as done even today. You would not destroy the archaeological sites and heritage symbols of the Tamils. You would not be gathering and accumulating such large numbers of the Sinhala Military amidst the Tamil speaking denizens of the North and East. If this Government has feelings for the affected and the downtrodden they would not try to grab from them but give them instead help and solace. If this Government has feelings for their fellow human brethren they would treat them with love and respect. But you are interested in grabbing from us our land, our traditional way of life and our freedom. You continue to treat our people as the vanquished not as co-humans in this Isle. None of us have been vanquished. We still carry the torch of freedom in our hearts! 

Speaking of Justice I like to point out that in this Country we appear to be on the side of the wrongdoers rather than the innocents. Have we punished one single person who was involved in the torture, murder, arson and rape committed during the 1956, 1958,1961,1977,1981 and 1983 pogroms? Have we punished one single person involved in the burning of the Jaffna Public Library which housed 97000 rare books and manuscripts? It was the best Library in South East Asia at that time. Have we punished one single person involved in the crimes against the Muslims in recent times? At least has there been an attempt at accountability in these regard? Have we enforced the recommendations of several Reports of Commissioners submitted to the successive Governments? They have all been conveniently shelved! 

Despite a Muslim Minister and a Tamil Minister in authority let us not forget that power is in the hands of the majority community. It is they who decide what is best for us all even in areas where we are in the majority. Since Independence that has been the case. We have no inclusive Justice in Sri Lanka. We have only selective Justice. Now a days it is a Justice selected for the wellbeing of Sinhala Buddhists only.

We have a peculiar political culture growing up here now. Rewards and high Governmental positions are today lavishly distributed only on the basis of how much suffering such individuals have brought to the minorities in this Country. This culture is prevalent in this House too. That is why learned Parliamentarians are today vying with each other to provoke their minority colleagues to shut them up from speaking and bringing out facts about themselves and the Government. 

There is a systemic Racism now being promoted in the Country against the Muslims and the Tamils. Racism has become an ideology. It is now being sowed freely in the far corners of this blessed Isle. Government Departments have been made the instruments to promote such ideology. Parliamentarians behaving indecently in this august Assembly are carriers of this ideology. Even the Press is being made into an instrument to sow the seeds of Racism. Such Racism is not going to take us anywhere. On the contrary this Country is soon going to suffer by such propagation of negative and vituperative ideas and ideology.

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