Politicisation of tragedies

Monday 1st March, 2021

The Opposition has got hold of something to beat the government with. The final report issued by the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) on the Easter Sunday carnage has come in handy for it. The SLPP made a lot of political capital out of the security failures that led to the terror strikes under the yahapalana government, and came to power, promising to expose and punish all those who were responsible for the carnage. Now, the boot is on the other foot.

The SJB, which consists of former yahapalana politicians, says that when it forms a government, it will conduct a thorough probe into the Easter Sunday blasts, seek international assistance, if necessary, to identify the masterminds of the attacks, and have them hanged. Leader of the Opposition and the SJB, Sajith Premadasa, made this pledge in public over the weekend.

PCoIs hardly serve any useful purpose. They only serve the ruling politicians’ interests. They are mountains in labour; they make a lot of noise, keep the public in suspense for months on end, and finally deliver tiny mice in the form of reports. Most important questions invariably go unanswered. This, we have seen umpteen times during the last four decades or so.

One may recall that the PCoI that probed the Treasury bond scams became a form of public entertainment with some notables being grilled and vital information elicited from them. But in the end, its report came as a huge disappointment. The commission baulked at naming the mastermind/s of the scams and even sought to obfuscate the issue by going out of its way to drag in extraneous matters in a bid to cushion the political impact of its report on the then UNP-led government. Going by the high-profile witnesses the Easter Sunday PCoI summoned before it and their testimonies, the public expected to know the identities of the masterminds of the terror strikes only to be disappointed.

The SLPP was party to the process of politicising the Easter Sunday tragedy, which mainly contributed to the 2019 regime change. Partisan politics has spared hardly anything in this country. It has even torn families asunder. Therefore, one may argue that the SJB should not be faulted for trying to use the Easter Sunday PCoI report, which is full of holes, to gain political mileage it desperately needs. But one should not be so naïve as to expect the SJB to have the Easter Sunday attacks investigated thoroughly even if it succeeds in forming a government, for some politicians within its ranks stand accused of having aided and abetted the NTJ terrorists who carried out the carnage. It will, therefore, be wary of opening a can of worms.

No government can get to the bottom of the Easter Sunday carnage and identify its masterminds unless it has the courage to stand up to certain external powers suspected of having had a hand in the attacks. Intrepidity, which is a prerequisite for conducting a thorough probe to find out the foreign hand/s behind the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks, is not a trait most SJB leaders possess; they tug at their forelocks before the leaders of powerful nations. Besides, how can anyone be hanged judicially in this country? The resumption of judicial executions is not within the realm of possibility. A few years ago, the then President Maithripala Sirisena sought to have several drug lords on death row hanged to prevent them from carrying out their narcotic rackets via mobile phones with the help of some corrupt prison guards, but his plan went pear-shaped due to international pressure.

The SJB will use its promise to probe the Easter Sunday carnage as a slogan to garner votes as the SLPP did to win elections. The tragedy will get politicised further, and it is highly doubtful whether the real masterminds of the terror strikes will ever be known.