Who should face a Parliamentary Select Committee?

Dr. Tilak S. FERNANDO

POLITICAL GAMES: Nuwara Eliya UNP Member of Parliament Lakshman Seneviratne’s brazen request to bring Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse before a Parliamentary Select Committee in connection with the latest purchase of MiG fighters only highlights the UNP’s malicious campaign against the Government further.

This is a serious allegation and it simply boils down not only as an individual attack on the Defence Secretary but the whole of the Security Forces.

Uttering is something easily done but subsequent repercussions of such pronouncements can be catastrophic when it gets filtered through news and electronic media internationally.

On the other hand such an intolerable request does one thing. It only exposes the frustration and the vendetta of the Opposition against Defence Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who is doing a praiseworthy and brilliant job in executing an effective programme to combat terrorism which is evidently seen as taming the Tigers by the tail seemingly.

Any Sri Lankan with a minuscule trace of patriotic feeling within his bloodstream will realise to what extent the Opposition is behaving today in a most selfish and unpatriotic manner to be seen and get branded themselves as ‘traitors’ in the eyes of the general public.

This could be the first time in the history of mankind where a responsible political leader of a democratically elected Government has chosen to gallivant from country to country across the world to condemn his own Motherland and pleading with the foreign Governments to stop giving any aid to his country.

Should not this qualify to enter the Guinness book of Records as the first Sri Lankan politician, who is seen as turning enemy to his own people?

Why is the UNP so perturbed about Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s admirable performances from the time he took the responsibility as Defence Secretary? The answer is simple. He has been the most efficient and effective Defence Secretary so far to combat the terrorist menace for once and for all, which has lasted thirty long years.

One of the UNP’s allegations is that Gotabhaya Rajapaksa happens to be the younger brother of the President. They like to make capital of it and call it simply nepotism.

But, what is wrong with the President appointing a Defence Secretary who is loyal to him, who has been an experienced military officer and who has been in the battlefield before and who is qualified to hold such a responsible position?

Gotabhaya is well known as an Army Officer and Gentleman, who has fought hard battles, from the front defence lines, moving with the ordinary soldier, shoulder to shoulder, to exterminate the LTTE.

Why did the LTTE employ a suicide bomber to put an end to the Defence Secretary’s life not so long ago? One does not need to be a political pundit to seek an answer to the question, as it is evident that under the guidance of the Defence Secretary, LTTE powers are dwindling day after day.

Why has the Opposition become deaf and dumb to some of the authentic facts and figures of the current situation in the East? Today, thanks to the proper guidance of the Defence Secretary and the commitment of the Forces 80-90% of terrorist held areas have been freed to help settle the innocent Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese who have been displaced and living in terror under the terrorist boot of the LTTE.

The UNP jumps and gets excited at the drop of a hat when they hear of a murder or abduction of a Tamil whether in the South or North and ready to point a finger at the Government instantly, yet they become tongue tight when the LTTE kills openly with suicide bombs in the South.

Why was the UNP silent at the time the LTTE tried to blast the Army Commander and the Defence Secretary employing suicide bombers? Where is the UNP’s human rights agenda? Is it not evident that the UNP is playing a double game when they remain silent on killings and bombings by the LTTE?

Today Wickremesinghe talks about a ‘gloomy Colombo city’ and states that ‘terrorism cannot be won militarily but through peaceful negotiations’.

Today he has forgotten that he was the man at the helm who conceded everything that LTTE wanted on a platter with the help of Norwegians. Why did he fail to reach a negotiated settlement then?

It is unfortunate. The people have to remind him of how he allowed the LTTE to import VSAT equipment together with six tons of broadcasting transmitters for the use of Voice of Tigers (VOT).

It has become pertinent to jog his memory about the orders to Customs officials to clear such items free of charge and also to provide armed escorts to transport them up to the front lines of Vanni. What was the result of such an act? People in this country of all races, be it Sinhala, Tamil, Burgher, Muslim or Malay are still made to suffer as a result.

It has never been able for the past thirty years for a single Sinhala person to go and live in the North or East. The LTTE never allows it, but the terrorists, in the name of ordinary Tamil folk, are free to move about in the South, reside in the capital, plant bombs, kill whoever they want to and disrupt the lives of the majority of the people in the country.

How strange is it then that the UNP does not make a claim to the world about such atrocities and label them as terrorists?

It could be that the Leader of the Opposition prefers to travel abroad to babble politically only to damage the image of his own country instead of visiting the areas where the Government Forces have rescued so many innocent Tamil people who had been suffering under LTTE for so long.

It is so strange that the UNP, once regarded as a responsible and democratic political party of high esteem today falling into the dumps and are unable to identify the atrocities done by the LTTE or condemn their human rights violations, instead of going hammer and tongs in vilifying the Government.

The international community too cannot be fooled all the time. False propaganda is quick to mushroom but the truth takes a while to establish and only the time will tell to what extent the UNP is biased, self-centred and does not care about the country or the welfare of its people but only prepared to hoodwink everyone and come back to power to fulfil their own personal gains.

Seneviratne’s request may sound as a dead man’s cry but it certainly creates ripples on the surface at least because he refers to a Parliamentary Commission of Enquiry, a personal vendetta on the Defence Secretary and a thundering slap across all the three Forces and the Police in this country.

In a democratic world everyone is free to express their own personal feelings and freedom of speech is highly respected in the West. Just by going round the world, using diplomatic privileges what he has been doing is only to expose himself as a politician who does not care about the people.

The latest appeal to have a Parliamentary Select Committee on the Defence Secretary blows the whistle that it is high time that a Parliamentary Select Committee be appointed to investigate the UNP and its activities in the good name of Sri Lanka and her people.