{"id":123548,"date":"2014-04-21T15:18:24","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T09:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=123548"},"modified":"2014-05-27T15:53:04","modified_gmt":"2014-05-27T10:23:04","slug":"the-president-and-his-apparatchiks-loving-children-most-their-toys-even-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-president-and-his-apparatchiks-loving-children-most-their-toys-even-more\/","title":{"rendered":"The President And His Apparatchiks: Loving Children Most, Their Toys Even More?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu<\/span><\/a> –<\/b><\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/a>

Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu<\/p><\/div>\n

The other day, killing time in the airport lounge, I picked up the Sunday Observer. Not something I do on a regular basis, never having been able to reciprocate the attention the state controlled media has paid to me over the years.\u00a0 On the front page was an article \u2013 this was the 13 April issue- titled \u201cLanka tops Child \u2013Friendliness Index in South Asia\u201d by Ranil Wijayapala.\u00a0 Mr Wijayapala\u2019s article was devoted to remarks made by the Child Development and Women\u2019s Affairs Minister Tissa Karaliyadda on this achievement, which according to the minister \u2013 no surprise here \u2013 is due to government efforts and initiatives. Clearly no one asked Vibooshika for her views or Sharmila who recently miscarried in detention, her views, either. \u00a0What caught my eye in particular was the stunning revelation by the minister about His Excellency the President.\u00a0 In Wijeyapala\u2019s words:<\/p>\n

He (the minister) said children in Sri Lanka are fortunate to have a leader such as President Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/span><\/a> who loves children more than any other world leader<\/b>.\u00a0 (Emphasis mine)<\/p>\n

Now, how does he know? How many other world leaders does he know and know well enough to make this claim?\u00a0 Does he know Kim Jong-un, Supreme Leader of the Democratic Peoples\u2019 Republic of Korea, who despite international reports of children in his country starving, must surely be incensed by the sheer chutzpah of Karaliyadda\u2019s statement! No Pyongyang for him, surely, but no doubt grace and favour in large and steady doses from our most child-loving chief executive! Kim outdoes him, perhaps only just, in the scale and frequency of personal posters, banners and hoardings. When it comes to flattery and compliments, again Kim has the decided advantage, but, as it is fast becoming clear, only just!<\/p>\n

Karaliyadda\u2019s statement is not the first by a politician in this country ridiculously, obsequiously flattering his leader \u2013 it may though be the first of this kind \u2013 so very up close and personal – that has been given front page coverage in a media organ that was taken over by the state to be broad-based in terms of ownership, but continues for decades to be abused as a propaganda organ.\u00a0 Has Karaliyadda no shame?\u00a0 Actually it is difficult to understand the nature of the beast as it were, since he, Karaliyadda, reportedly advocates legislation to allow rapists to marry their victims!<\/p>\n

More importantly, as a reflection of governance and political culture in this country, we have regressed into the surreal \u2013 fantastically farcical at one level; chillingly frightening at another.\u00a0 Does Mahinda Rajapaksa acknowledge this bilge and buffoonery, nurture, nourish and reward it? How can this man be a minister?\u00a0 How can this regime even contemplate laws that will provide for rapists marrying their victims?\u00a0 What perverted \u201cchild development\u201d is that?\u00a0 Is Mahinda Rajapksa listening, does he care?\u00a0 I think not. This is his creation.\u00a0 The dynastic project over which he presides and of which he is the crucial element requires this over- the \u2013top and absurd rhetoric, repressive and pre-historic legislation.<\/p>\n

And there is more\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

Consider what happened to the UNP MPs who visited Hambantota<\/span><\/a>, home turf of the dynasty. His Lordship the Mayor<\/span><\/a>, an apparatchik of the dynasty was there to meet and greet and beat and even shoot at them (?) along with a chunk of loyal locals. And with a toy gun, he says.\u00a0 Toy guns are standard issue for local government and governance these days?\u00a0 Let us not forget the ongoing Khuram Shaikh<\/span><\/a> case.\u00a0 No, it is not toy guns that are widely used \u2013 rather it is more of a case of guns, real guns as toys for the \u201cnasties\u201d of the regime!\u00a0 And the police look on as if their primary function in contemporary Sri Lanka is not the protection of civilians and the rule of law but the encouragement and observation of their destruction. \u00a0\u00a0Let us not forget that vicious vignette of violence at Hotel Nippon and the countless other instances of the police looking on \u2013 passive witnesses rather than active watchdogs and guardians of law and order and the rule of law.<\/p>\n

The culture of governance spawned by the regime is such that the international profile of the country is being ruined.\u00a0 International investigation into allegations of war crimes and hagiographic personality cult type propaganda around the president and his family, give Kim Jong-un a run for his money. Gun-toting local politicians and thuggish monks visiting violence on their own and others with relative impunity, reports of increased sexual harassment of female foreign tourists, an apparently resurgent LTTE now apparently nipped in the bud, but with spin-offs in cordon and search operations and detentions, cumulatively make for adverse travel advisories, which in turn have obvious economic consequences.\u00a0 \u00a0Does the regime have a plan to reverse all or any of this? Does it have a purpose beyond its entrenchment in power for posterity?\u00a0 Or, is this the plan? Who is in charge and of what, for what?<\/p>\n

I suspect there is a coterie within the regime, which believes that a certain discipline will have to be restored, control asserted and the unseemly, untidy instances of Hambantota and Hotel Nippon<\/span><\/a>, the ludicrous excesses of the likes of Karaliyadda and the advertent or inadvertent penchant for keeping up with the Kims, must all be reined in.\u00a0 For them the regime is on the soundest footing when it is lean and mean, neat and tidy.<\/p>\n

For those who believe \u2013 God help us.\u00a0 There are signs that the worst is yet to come if like the police, we just watch \u2013 as instructed?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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