TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE IN SRI LANKA

ASOKA SENEVIRATNE USA

It almost came as an April Fool joke and a shock to read that the former Sri Lanka cricket board chief Thilanga Sumathipala was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to two years in Jail. A powerful businessman in Sri Lanka - to go to jail ? - never heard of and seems impossible. Yet it is true.

While it is refreshingly nice to see that the SL justice system has delivered a verdict without fear or favor of the accused social and economic standing, it is equally shocking that in the last two decades or so not a single mainstream politician has been convicted at all for any fraud. This must be the joke of the last millennium. I remember a former President pledged in 1994 to hang corrupt politicians at the Galle Face Green and fooled the people enough to rule this resplendent country for 10 years.

Starting from the Jayawardene era, the culture of kick backs, fraud and inappropriating public money got almost institutionalized in the SL society. How many powerful politicians bought acres of cheap land in and around Jayawardene Pura prior to legislation being introduced to move the capital there, and some of these lands are today worth several hundred million dollars. Whatever happened to all the teak, mahogany and jack trees that were removed from hundreds of thousands of acres of Mahaweli land by politicians' goons. How many palatial homes were built by hitherto unknown ministers since 1977 up to today. How many department stores were purchased outright by powerful politicians overnight. The list is endless....

In the mean time the highly publicized bribery commission went on and prosecuted a police officer or a clerk in a government bureau here and there to justify their existence while the rich and the powerful politicians were squandering the nation through and through.

So this prosecution of Mr. Sumathipala is indeed a window dressing and a farce. Sri Lankans are a proud and smart people. But we have miserably failed in preventing politicians destroying this little pearl of the Indian Ocean. In short our system of justice has collapsed to the point only the poor and the helpless get punished. I yearn to see a day when a well fed, well lived, well enjoyed SL politico go in a Welikada Jail truck just like any other convicted Sri Lankan and feel the pain of what it means to live in a sordid jail.

Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere; so said Dr Martin Luther King. If you apply this theory to SL today there is very little justice to be found.

The foundation of civilized living is democracy and justice. When justice is denied in mass scale civilized living shatters from its very foundation.

Abraham Lincoln once said "you cannot fool all the people all the time" and I shall pray that this will come true to Sri Lanka sooner than later, as at the bottom of all social evil lies corrupt politicians who steal from the very people they have taken an oath to serve, after all Mr. Sumathipala did not steal public money in our very impoverished country but many politicians did...

I never have been even close to admiring the JVP as I disagree with their bloodshed and the Marxist theories as a means of creating wealth. But I do raise my hat to the JVP for one thing. Had it not been for the JVP our little nation would been squandered right down to the last tread of its social fabric. They were the only group that risked their lives to say NO to corruption and stood up to this menace. How so sad they opted for a bloody revolution but not a democratic rise to power to do what is right for any country - to serve its people to live in a just and a decent society and bring up their children to be tomorrow's just leaders so we can be truly proud to be Sri Lankans.