Robbery By Another Name

Mainstream news media feature on a daily basis incidents of bribery, corruption, and, of course, outright robbery. These media channels bring to the public domain the corruption that goes on in government. All this over the years, however, has had a negative effect – it has conditioned the public mind to believe that robbery by those in government is exclusively limited to matters monetary.

This may be by design, by circumstances beyond the reasonable control of anyone, or  through ignorance, but whatever way one looks at it what it has done is create the path for unscrupulous politicians to rob the people of many things that the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka has bestowed on them.
For instance, let’s take the issue of media freedom. During the tenure of the last parliament, news media personnel, including editors, have been killed, beaten up, threatened, abducted or made to flee – an unprecedented scenario in independent Sri Lanka, not witnessed even during times of insurrection. In each instance, and there are hundreds in the last few years, the present government has claimed innocence, appointed three to four police teams to investigate each incident and thereafter basically washed its hands of the whole episode.

Why does one kill, threaten, abduct, intimidate or force an editor or media person to flee? What exactly is the motive? The motive is robbery – robbery of the people’s fundamental right to know.
Sri Lankans by and large are a thrifty people. When one is short-changed by one rupee in a bus one can be guaranteed of a rumpus. Yet when this very person is robbed of his right to know by the killing or disappearance of a media person he does not realise that he is in fact being cheated.

The media person may well have been putting together an expose detailing the waste or swindling of millions of taxpayer rupees, and he may now never get this information, yet the citizen does not feel cheated – that is the extent of the mental conditioning that has taken place. This is where impunity is created because the perpetrators know, unlike in the bus, that there will be no one to challenge them. And so the culling of the media goes on at great cost to the citizen of Sri Lanka who is being robbed of his right to know.

So why does this happen – where the independent media is suppressed or even  “taken out” in the now fashionable military parlance? Is it not because someone somewhere wants to hide something? That the emergence of the truth will compromise the standing of persons in authority?

In this day and age knowledge is the most valuable asset a human being can have. It is also the most potent weapon that he can wield, and it is the realization of this fact that has motivated the powers that be to adopt measures to suppress information. How fair is it then that having robbed the people of their right to know, the robbers appear before the very same people asking that they be re-elected for the good work they have done?
Another serious robbery that takes place right under the collective noses of the electorate is the people’s right to vote. Except at election time, when a hue and cry is made by opposition parties – that, too, mainly on election day – this is an issue that receives little attention post election. Many people, especially those known to be identified with an opposition party, discover to their dismay that their names are not listed in the voter registry at the polling booth.

At the last election in January vast swathes of Colombo 5 were left without voting rights even though they had voted less than a year ago at the Western Provincial Council election. The same electoral register was used for both elections. This, then, is the blatant robbery of a fundamental right that cannot be valued in monetary terms. Yet people who fight for a rupee on a bus don’t deem it necessary to fight for this invaluable right. By a strange twist of fate the grama sevaka of this particular area in Colombo was taken into custody at about the time of the election on a bribery charge.

Moving on, when one goes to a petrol station in Colombo one is charged Rs. 115 for a litre of petrol. Following the infamous hedging case, the Supreme Court famously ruled that petrol be sold at no more than Rs. 100 per liter at the pump. This figure was calculated leaving a handsome profit margin for the CPC after making provision for all the current taxes. Two years later, a citizen still has to pay Rs. 15 more than what was prescribed by the highest court in the land for each litre of petrol. It is daylight robbery of the people’s right to get a fair deal, yet no one has pushed the issue, possibly alive to the consequences that will follow such a course of action.

Another right that is pick-pocketed at virtually every street corner is the people’s right to freedom of movement. War or no war, roads are closed wherever the big shots go. People can only grin and bear it when the men in khaki take away their right to go where they want, when they want.

These, then, are but a few of the cases of theft of peoples’ rights by no less than the people they themselves elected to govern them. As another opportunity draws near to elect a fresh batch of representatives, the people would do well to study the information they have at hand before they mark that cross on the ballot paper this time around.

It is said before elections that politicians are the servants of the people, although the roles get reversed immediately after the election. In this pre-election period the Sri Lankan electorate must do the same thing they would do were they to hire a servant for their homes. But to do this one needs accurate information, and with many of the messengers either killed, beaten up, threatened, abducted or made to flee, there is not much to go on, and the corrupt will continue to rule. It’s a vicious cycle that could be broken only if the people rise up against all forms of theft – most importantly, the theft of rights guaranteed in the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka – like they would if a robber turned up at their homes. They have the opportunity to do just that on April 8.