More guns for MPs

Thursday 22nd August, 2024

All 225 MPs have been authorised to acquire two 12-bore repeater guns each in addition to the firearms already in their possession. It is being bruited about that some Opposition MPs have rejected the government’s offer of more guns. The issuance of weapons to politicians in the run-up to a crucial election is a matter of serious concern.

Whom is the government trying to protect the MPs against? LTTE terror is a thing of the past, and so is that of the National Thowheeth Jama’ath. If it is the public that the government fears, shouldn’t it, instead of providing more weapons to the elected, address the electors’ grievances which have the potential to give rise to another uprising?

Perhaps, their troubling memories of the tragic death of government MP Amarakeerthi Athukorale at the hands of a savage mob that unleashed retaliatory violence in the aftermath of the SLPP-led goon attacks on the Galle Face protesters in 2022, may have prompted the SLPP crossovers to ask for more weapons. But weapons are of little use in situations where waves of public anger barrel across the country.

The issuance of guns to the MPs to ensure their protection, in a volatile situation where public anger is bubbling, is like trying to control dysentery with a loincloth, as a local saying goes. Ruling party politicians are without any defence when the masses take to the streets in their thousands to oust failed or repressive regimes whose leaders cling on to power like limpets. Needless to say, the self-important MPs would be as vulnerable as a person who brings a knife to a gunfight in such an eventuality—absit omen!

The best way to assuage public anger and prevent it from spilling over onto the streets is to defuse tensions in the polity by addressing the people’s burning problems and restoring the rule of law. The axiom, “in times of war the law falls silent” holds true for civil unrest, too, as seen in Sri Lanka in 2022 and in Bangladesh recently. The Constitution of Sri Lanka specifies how an elected President can be removed. This process is so complex that Dr. N. M. Perera once had this to say: “Can the President be removed from office before the expiration of his allotted time-span? Yes, certainly, but the process is so complicated and will entail such delay that one can safely predict that such an eventuality will never arise.” Dr. Colvin R. de Silva, another staunch opponent of the Executive Presidency argued: “An incumbent President will in practice be irremovable. The procedure provided for removal of a President by Parliament is so cumbrous and prolix that one cannot see it ever being resorted to in respect of intentional violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, misconduct or corruption involving the abuse of the powers of his office or any offence under any written law, involving moral turpitude.” But in 2022, the people just took to the streets and ousted the Executive President! The well-fortified defences of the President’s House fell like the Walls of Jericho amidst roars of angry protesters and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a former frontline combat officer, who used to boast of having made the Tigers bolt, raced like a hare, as the marchers closed in on his official residence in Colombo. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, described as the Iron Lady, resorted to a brutal military crackdown, which snuffed out hundreds of lives, in a desperate bid to hold anti-government protesters at bay, but she had to flee the country. It has thus become clear that all power does not necessarily flow from the barrel of a gun contrary to what Mao Zedong believed.

Moreover, before politicians are given any more weapons, those who received firearms and ammunition from the governments of President J. R. Jayewardene and R. Premadasa during the second JVP uprising (1987-89) must be asked to return those lethal items, most of which have gone unaccounted for. The Ministry of Defence has placed the figure of missing weapons at 700. This is only a ballpark figure, and the actual number is believed to be much higher, given the intensity of counterterror operations we witnessed and the sheer number of paramilitary operatives involved therein. Similarly, not all arms caches of the JVP have been traced. These missing weapons pose a serious threat to national security.

Those who have undertaken to provide more weapons to the MPs, especially the ones who are accused of corruption, extortion, drug dealing, chain snatching, etc., in a bid to ensure their safety ought to realise that theirs is an exercise in futility. It is popularly said in this country that no clay pot is too big for a wooden pole. They had better realise that they are looking down the wrong end of a gun barrel, mend their ways and rule the country democratically, abiding by judicial decisions, addressing the grievances of the irate public, ending the culture of impunity and corruption, and respecting fundamental rights of the people in whom sovereignty resides.