By Asoka Seneviratne –

Asoka Seneviratne

Here we go again…. 

A pre-election gimmick in full display. Local news media shows day in and day out about a mass anti narcotic campaign launched by the police minister and the freshly minted acting IGP.  Droves of police teams with their sniffing dogs are all over the homes of the small-time drug pushers. They catch a few ounces of dope here and there. Hold the suspects from their neck and throw them into jeeps. The Acting IGP too is all over the media and with his police teams trying to impress (or fool) the public into believing that the leadership is hell bent on getting rid of the drug menace once and for all!

No doubt that is the latest chapter of taking the masses on a ride. These seasoned politicians are well aware that the Lankan grass eating category has short memories and that time is ripe again to take them on a ride.

On the other hand, some of SELECTED President RW’s political lackies are going around the country glorifying their leader as the superman who saved Mother Lanka from the brink. Ranil’s unelected buddy Sagara even went onto saying that the whole world wants to learn from RW how he rescued the country from collapse! Huh !!!How funny! Yes, he is right. Some of our grass eating fellow countrymen will believe him.

Isn’t Sagala the luckiest man on earth to be in that powerful position without raising a finger for the nation at any time other than being Ranil’s Royal buddy? Yes a loyal puppy for the back-door master! Whatever happened to the days that respected and qualified civil servants did Sagara’s work?

Dear Sagala – you are dead wrong sir! The whole civilized world is laughing at Ranil, you and your lot for dragging this blessed land into economic wilderness by mis management and unprecedented corruption! Remember the Central Bank heist the RW worked hard to cover up? To date nobody is in jail, right?

Does this smart man do not know that the easiest way for a government to raise money is to tax the heck out of the poor public who are already scraping the bottom for a simple meal and a roof over their head? And that is exactly what his buddy boss has done. Tax all and everything including dead bodies.

Without taxing the people up to the eyeballs, why did RW, not go after the billions R’s and others looted? There is a vast ocean of looted billions out there of peoples’ money. Why don’t police minister IGP not go after them the same way they crushed the just youth rebellion demanding justice for running peoples’ lives. 

Remember those whose names came up on the Panama papers? Remember Gota buddy who hid $200 million? Why not RW lot after the X-Press Pearl crooks and the $200 million his justice minister (of all people!) claimed in parliament? Did RW team guys ever locate him and sue him? By the way did RW and the lot recover any compensation from Ocean Pearl.  Or was insurance settled cheap though a bribe to a politico?

RW and team are only after small fish to fool the grass eaters to display apparent Rule of Law? How convenient?

RW and the goons in parliament want people to make sacrifices. So, what sacrifice do they make? Why not carpool to parliament in one vehicle? Why not give up their police escorts and bodyguards? Why not kill the air conditioning in their offices? Why not drive their own vehicles? Why not let go of the staff who are mostly family members? Is there any MP that goes to parliament in a motor bike of drive a small car? Why not?

Why do they tell the public only to make sacrifices while they do not do none? Have you seen the large luxury SUV’s these goons get driven around? Why don’t they do away with them and have bus collectively take them to the parliament? Or drive a small car by themselves!

Better still, why doesn’t Ranil cut the number of Ministers down to 25? And get rid of all the thousands of ministers, state ministers, useless governors, hundreds of PC ministers blab bla bla? What actual use do they have for our tiny country? Every town and city are a mess. Every road is a mess. Every public service is a mess and in short, the whole country’s economy is a mess and bankrupt.

Shame on them that RW budget still allocated billions of rupees to maintain former Presidents and their wives to live in Colombo 7 mansions along with the free security escorts, vehicles, and other perks. Why is it that Ranil did not take away the expensive freebies from these billionaire former leaders who have looted our land at varying degrees and mostly responsible for the nation’s bankruptcy.

Just think. Why on earth should Mahinda, Gota, Sirisena, Mrs. Premadasa get free billions from the poor people of Lanka? Didn’t they loot enough billions? Remember how Sira pardoned a cold-blooded killer just before he left office? Why? 

Does any of MR’s very well fed and able sons ever earn a rupee with a days’ worth of work? Aren’t they (including all other rich and idle political sons) classic idle rich just by their dads being in rotten politics and stealing from the people who elected them? Didn’t these crooks take an oath to serve the public honorably?

That famous and sacred oath these goons take and widely shown on TV is not even worth yesterday’s toilet paper anymore. Almost none of them honor this oath. Honestly, many of them do not even know what the oath represents. They take the oath and then rush to violate it!

Now getting back to the police drug raids, was it not the same police minister who was there well over a year now? Was the current acting IGP not a top dog DIG for over a year now under the minister? What were they doing until now? Sleeping on the job? Or too busy suppressing the mass cries of the hungry public asking for an election, their constitutional birthright? What democracy is the so called self-proclaimed great democrat Ranil is talking about when he denies the right of the people for an election?

Incidentally why did JRJ’s so called smart constitution left the decision for an election with the president or under his indirect control? Why did JR not stipulate a specific day after 5 years like for example the October 5^th after the President’s term is over? Isn’t the right for a timely election a basic constitutional right of the Lankans? So why did JR leave it with the very person who needs to be elected by popular vote?

Speaking to a small crowd yesterday, acting IGP was claiming that the capture of little drug pushers will lead to the kingpins. But does he and his bosses not know, MP’s like Ranjan R, General Fonseka constantly declared in parliament that there are several drug lords right in the parliament? Why didn’t they follow those leads to get to the kingpins? Why didn’t they set up “sting” operations to trap them? Do the non-grass eating public really believe the Minister and his police boss honestly don’t know the kingpins and that many of them live and dine within them.

What about MR who rushed in a helicopter and chased away the special forces who raided MP Lansa’s house? Why did they not investigate Lansa because the evidence was all there? 

By the way what business does the country’s leader have interfering personally and publicly into vital police raid of a possible drug lord? If this happened in a decent democracy, the President would be kicked out next day and even jailed. When did obstruction of justice become a presidential duty?

By the way what ever happened to the Separation of Powers JR bragged about? 

Aren’t we truly Asia’s miracle?

Finally, from time to time, the media displays large hauls of heroin, meth, ice, oxy, ecstasy. But do they ever show what happens to these billion-rupee hauls? What will happen if the president or a big politico orders the police to send to a clandestine location of their choice? Can the police afford to refuse these orders without risking their jobs?

Here we go again. Law enforcement or the police is not isolated from the control of the politicians. 

What a 5-star democracy JR created?

Yes, a significant percentage of Lankans are in the grass-eating category and RW, police minister, IGP and almost all politicians know that full well. 

There is only one way the non-grass eating group will ever believe the police bosses. If (a big if) RW, his police minister and IGP and the lot locate the kingpins, prosecute them successfully, throw them in jail and destroy all the drug hauls in full public view. If the police end up claiming that they shot them during a raid, it is all BS. The only reason the drug lords get shot but not appear in court is to avoid exposure of the rich and the powerful behind them.

Until this day comes, all this big show of drug raids is all what it is – yet another show for the consumption of the grass eating category among us! Sooner than later all these shows will end!

The most famous 16^th US President Abraham Lincoln famously said, “you can fool some of the people some of the time, some of the people all the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time”. 

Today’s youth are smart! They do not eat grass. They see the world thanks to the internet. They will see justice is done to our people! The day is not far! The big-party of the crooks is doomed to end! 

Sooner than they think!