Catching thieves

Thursday 29th August, 2024

The upcoming presidential race has reached feverish pitch, with the contestants therein hurling invectives and insults at one another, and making various promises. Some of them are seeking a mandate to have the corrupt thrown behind bars and usher in good governance.

The proverbial wisdom contained in the cliched saying, ‘It takes a thief to catch a thief’, is being questioned in Sri Lankan politics, where thieves co-operate to safeguard their interests.

The JVP/NPP as well as the SJB is contesting on an anti-corruption platform and vowing to bring the thieves of public resources to justice in case of being voted into office; the implication of this undertaking is that thieves are found only in the government camp. Shouldn’t the Opposition parties turn the searchlight inwards and put their own houses in order before embarking on chivalric missions to catch thieves?

The JVP/NPP never misses an opportunity to pillory the Rajapaksas for the theft of public funds and various malpractices. But it is the JVP that made their rise in national politics possible, thereby enabling them to gain access to the public purse and cut shady deals at the expense of the country. It spearheaded Mahinda Rajapaksa’s presidential election campaign in 2005, and if not for its all-out effort to ensure his victory vis-à-vis the then President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s attempts to queer the pitch for him, he would not have won the presidency and his family would not have been able to do what the JVP accuses them of. The creator is responsible for what the creature does. It also had no qualms about closing ranks with the SLFP, which it condemned for corruption, to savour power in 2004. It inveighs against the UNP for abuse of power, Treasury bond scams, etc., but it defended Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government to the hilt in 2018 and supported that corrupt regime until the end of 2019 amidst the then President Maithripala Sirisena’s attempts to dislodge it.

The JVP committed armed robberies and various other crimes in the late 1980s. It staged numerous bank heists, robbed post offices, shops, etc., and plundered money, gold jewellery, and other valuables from the people it considered its enemies. Most of its gold and cash hoards have not been traced.

The SJB would have the public believe that catching the thieves of public wealth is at the top of its list of priorities, but it has among its ranks some former defenders of the Treasury bond racketeers. These shameless elements prevented the release of the first COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) report on the Treasury bond scams, and watered down the second COPE report thereon with a slew of footnotes. Some of the SLPP crossovers currently backing the SJB have been accused of stock market rackets.

All the former UNP MPs in the SJB were in the corrupt Yahapalana administration, and they unflinchingly defended the UNP-led UNF government during what has come to be dubbed the 2018 constitutional coup. They too are facing various allegations of corruption. So much for the SJB’s report card!

It amounts to belabouring the obvious to say that the SLPP, the SLFP and the UNP are synonymous with abuse of power and corruption, and there is no gainsaying that the corrupt must be brought to justice.

Corruption has taken its toll on Sri Lanka’s economy, which is in crisis. The need to probe and prosecute the corrupt cannot be overstated; in fact, that task should be a top priority of the next government. But how advisable is it for the public to entrust a bunch of self-proclaimed anti-corruption campaigners, whose hands are not clean, with state power to rid the country of corruption, and make the corrupt pay for their sins?