CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska and Lessons to Sri Lanka

ASOKA S

Senior senator from Alaska who served 40 distinguished years in the US Senate bid farewell to the Senate today. It was a sad moment as seen by tears by some fellow senators.

He served Alaskan people with distinction and helped immensely to improve business and infrastructure in this remote State. However he was found guilty last month by a US Federal court for a relatively simple crime of not declaring gifts given by an oil company friend on his tax returns. The overwhelmingly popular senator lost his reelection bid to a minion opponent as a result and is now facing sentencing which may include jail time.

What a glaring example of Democracy and Fareplay in action! The power he yielded as a senior senator or the influential frinds he knew all these years had no place in the eyes of US law who meted out justice to him the same way it would be meted out to any common citizen. In other words Rule of Law took its course without fear or favor.

One of the biggest contributing factors why very rich countries like the US remain rich is this very fact which is that nobody is above the law. People's representatives in the Legislature pass laws for the common good of the people and they are meant to be enforced by the police and the law breakers, immaterial of his or her class or creed, face the full brunt of the law.

Now since no politician in Sri Lanka, big or small, has ever gone to jail for corruption, does this mean we have never had corrupt politicians? Far from it. We are rated as the 80th most corrupt nation( even more corrupt than India) on earth but then how come no politician has been even found guilty? Compare this rank to developed Denmark and Singapore who leads the pack as the least corrupt.

The answer is quite simple. The two major political parties play a game on the Lankan people. They always make sure they don't stir each others dirt as both sides are corrupt. A corrupt politician in a court room can open a whole can of worms exposing all rogues. This might be a catastrophe for dozens of these so called leaders so they all hush in their own mutual interest.

We know of Ministers who bought department stores after retirement, who purchased hundreds of acres of prime land for a tuppence in and around new Parliament before the capital was built, removed millions of dollars worth of valuable Mahaweli trees before being inundated, built palatial million dollar homes where they once had a near shack of a house and even those who put valuable historic ancient artifacts on auction in Sotheby's and so on. It is indeed a corruption at the highest level but not a single politician has spent a day in jail..Truly amazing!

So Ted Stevens' case in this great land of opportunity should be a constant and classic reminder to all Lankans how democracy works in our beloved Sri Lanka as compared to mighty USA.

To put it crudely many of our biggest Leaders rob the living daylight out of all Lankans. The irony is that these very people are often seen carrying flowers to the Buddhist Temple to the tune of poor villagers chanting "Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu." Our Media covers these rogues too on the television screens and front pages.

I am sure these rogues are laughing from the opposite end of their body all the way to the Swiss Bank while millions of Lankans are clamoring for a decent piece of bread to quench hunger. So much so for 60 years of post independence Democracy for, of and by the people..

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