{"id":167811,"date":"2016-09-18T01:08:22","date_gmt":"2016-09-17T19:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=167811"},"modified":"2016-09-25T00:00:47","modified_gmt":"2016-09-24T18:30:47","slug":"getting-after-the-second-echelon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/getting-after-the-second-echelon\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting After The \u201cSecond Echelon\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Emil van der Poorten<\/a><\/span> \u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Emil<\/a>

Emil van der Poorten<\/p><\/div>\n

I have, in the past, made reference to the need NOT to neglect the hangers-on and \u201chit-men\u201d employed by the forces of darkness that imposed their hegemony on this country for far too long.<\/p>\n

A recent attempt by Hirunika Premachandra to have the doctor<\/span><\/a> who, she alleges, significantly delayed the delivery of justice in her father\u2019s murder by issuing a false medical certificate investigated and brought to justice brings this factor to the surface again in quite dramatic fashion. In passing, I\u2019d like to remind readers of who was not only the Minister that Duminda was \u201cmonitoring\u201d at the time but the most powerful member of the MR 1 (Mahinda Rajapaksa) brigade who was the first functionary to visit Mr. Silva at the Sri Lankan hospital from which he was whisked off to Singapore for an extended medically-monitored holiday in that city state at our expense.<\/p>\n

The allegation is that a medical certificate, falsely describing Duminda Silva\u2019s injuries as being life-threatening and which were going to leave him a walking vegetable, was used to whisk him away from the country and kept beyond the reach of Sri Lankan law, is serious indeed. However, the attempt to create a serious miscarriage of justice is not without precedent during that period and there are senior members of what were, it now turns out, euphemistically referred to as the forces of law and order that participated in DELIBERATE efforts to ensure miscarriages of justice and those accused of capital crimes walking free.<\/p>\n

Already, in the Thajudeen case, it is becoming increasingly evident that justice delayed is going to be justice denied and the perpetrators of one of the most heinous high-profile murders in our history with the most sordid of overtones are going to walk away, scot-free, from their crime.<\/p>\n

NAIL THEM AND NAIL THEM NOW BEFORE THEY HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO KILL MORE WITNESSES AND DESTROY MORE EVIDENCE.<\/p>\n

There is no choice for this government but to ensure that this is not just the continuation of a whole series of travesties of criminal law emanating from the largest barbeque in the world where scads of high profile individuals are summoned before some entity whose acronym is longer than the names of most organizations, \u201cgrilled\u201d (and re-\u201cgrilled\u201d) and then set free to ensure that they do not make the same mistake that led them to a period of minor discomfiture before some glorified \u201cinvestigatory committee\u201d or other that might or might not \u201dgrill\u201d them again.
\nSimply put, what has been going on is a monumental disgrace and has to be brought to a stop.<\/p>\n

Some of us, when this Ohey Palayang government came into power insisted that, given the extent of corruption and the number of monumentally corrupt, there was need of a plethora of tribunals staffed by legally competent people to begin clearing the Augean Stables. It is damned cold comfort that we were proved dead right and this charade, parading as the practice of some kind of formal justice system continues without cease, the excuse being trotted out that the system inherited was riddled with corruption and peopled with the corrupt. Even though it might be repetitious let me say that many of us warned PRECISELY of this happening if there was foot-dragging in the process of investigation and punishment?<\/p>\n

If the steps we have suggested are not followed, the ultimate result will be \u201csummary justice\u201d as it was practiced with the fall of the Ceaucescu Regime in Romania. There, Nicolae and Elena were tried before a jury, literally, recruited off the street in Bucharest, and executed by firing squad right on that very sidewalk after being found guilty of crimes against the people.<\/p>\n

This is where we are headed if we go on equivocating and having members of the current Ohey Palayang government protecting the most corrupt, violent and lawless of their friends from the last regime, enabling them to return to the towns and villages of this country to visit more mayhem on the law-abiding citizenry of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve said it before and I\u2019ll say it again THERE IS NO ROOM FOR EQUIVOCATION IN THE MATTER OF APPLYING THE PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE and we need, for a start, to get rid of the stooges of the Rajapaksa gang, still in positions of authority in our current scheme of things.<\/p>\n

I need hardly begin to mention names when one of the leaders of that gang bears the same last name as the (hopefully) recently-deposed family and has already effectively derailed the investigation into the establishment of the largest paramilitary force in the history of any country, probably seeking shelter under the ambulatory human tent that passes for a cabinet minister in the MR2 (Maithripala\/Ranil) dispensation.<\/p>\n

At a slightly lower level there is the abomination of those who served the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime (MR1) very well, thank you, being welcomed into the Maithripala\/Ranil (MR2) cabinet and then proceeding to recruit their buddies and even classmates of their fathers, who have documented histories as Rajapaksa stooges, into well-paying positions of authority in the upper layers of the administration that prevails today. What the hell can you expect as an outcome when this kind of thing has given ample evidence of becoming the rule rather than the exception? I\u2019ve quoted the JVP before and will never cease to repeat their appropriate slogan: \u201cUnuth ekai, munuth ekai<\/em>\u201d when I feel such is called for.<\/p>\n

Perhaps, it would help the process that many of us see as a sine qua non for reform if we begin to name names, though even that is not likely to shame some of the turncoats, who are recruiting those of the same breed, into changing their ways. Let me start with the Ministry of Plantations and ask that recent recruitments into the upper echelons be juxtaposed against relationships between the current Minister\u2019s father and his classmates who did anything but distinguish themselves in terms of professional qualifications and some of whom have documented histories as MR1 camp-followers.<\/p>\n

Let me close by repeating for the nth time what I have said before and will not cease to repeat:<\/p>\n

THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE. THE RULE OF LAW HAS TO BE PRACTICED WITHOUT FEAR OR FAVOUR, JUSTICE MUST BE METED OUT AND THE PRACTICE OF DELIBERATELY RECRUITING THOSE WHO SERVED THE PREVIOUS REGIME SO ASSIDUOUSLY MUST CEASE, EVEN IF THE RECRUITERS BELONG TO THE SAME CATEGORY AS THOSE BEING RECRUITED.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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