EDITORIAL

Just Not Cricket, Old Boy

Lords. What an awe-inspiring name, since 1787 synonymous with cricket - the gentleman's sport. Picture W.G. Grace striding in to bat, to the sound of well-bred applause from the august members of the Marylebone Cricket Club. How little it has changed today!

Glance at the MMC's Committee. The Rt. Hon. John Major PC, is a member. The Rt. Hon. Lord Alexander of Weedon, QC, is chairman. The President is no less a personage than Sir Tim Rice, poet royal, winner of three Oscars, Cameron Mackintosh, professor of fine arts, author of Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita and countless other libretti. Visit Lords on a fixture date and you stand a good chance of rubbing shoulders with His Grace the Duke of Norfolk or chewing a delectable tomato and cucumber sandwich (garnished with cress, naturally) with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The world of Lords. Nothing could be more dignified, so respectable. And into that world for the second time (this time by the front door), last June 10 strode Thilanga Sumathipala, heir to a bookmaking empire extending to the remotest hamlets of rural Sri Lanka. It is no sin to be a bookmaker's son, and it is certainly no sin to be the son of the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress President. Neither is it a sin to have schooled at Nalanda, a very respectable seat of learning. Not quite the same as King's College Cambridge perhaps, where Lord Alexander of Weedon, QC (who also happens to be Chairman, Royal Shakespeare Company and Chancellor, Exeter University) learned to his benefit that "A" is for apple, but quite good enough for any son of the soil of Mother Lanka.

The rags-to-race-sheets saga of Thilanga Sumathipala is the stuff of which blockbuster novels are made. From humble origins has he risen to heady eminence as Chairman, Sri Lanka Telecom and the Board of Control for Cricket now to be renamed Sri Lanka Cricket, giving our worthy chairman an irresistible opportunity to best Sir Tim with a catchy rhyme of his own. No Oscars for that though, for young Mr. Sumathipala is in hot water - very hot water. Indeed, next time he pops his head into Lords, he may well find His Grace the Duke otherwise engaged and the Archbishop of Canterbury regretting his inability to be among those present. For, our Thilanga has fallen on hard times.

The revelations emanating from Welikada Gaol these days are indeed startling. Allegations supported by reams of damning evidence are being made that Sumathipala, in his pre-cucumber-sandwich days, was given to awarding contracts to have people expunged, including the Editor of this newspaper. An accomplice to some of these murders and attempted murders has already made a full confession before a magistrate. Another is already in remand. And the jailbirds are singing merry songs of murder and mayhem, leading right to the front door of the Sumathipala residence.

Although not a politician, Sumathipala is a creature of politics. He loves hobbing and nobbing with ministers, perhaps even more so than with those nibs at Lords. After all, a minister is not an archbishop: you don't have to break into a sweat wondering whether to call the chap Your Grace, Your Lordship or Your Eminence. You merely call him machang. And it is not just the ministers who fawn on you when you are a media mogul as Sumathipala is; other media moguls do, too.

These media moguls do not shrug their shoulders and pass on when one of their number finds himself in the mulligatawny, as Sumathipala has done. They do not cross the street at his approach. They lend aid. And the proof of their mettle will be tested as the trail draws ever closer. The revelations made in court are no longer a secret. What the public is now watching and waiting to see is how the media institutions of Sri Lanka handle this conundrum. Will they turn the other way and pretend they saw nothing, or will they tell it as it is? We are not ourselves given to those flutters on the turf, but if were, we'd say the odds are seven to three against. Bets closed gentlemen!

Even more interesting than the media's attitude to this poser will be that of the government. After all, the Prime Minister himself handpicked Sumathipala to be chairman of Sri Lanka Telecom. It has been widely stated that Sumathipala intends to stand for the ICC presidency and that the government will back his candidature. In this milieu, what chance is there of an impartial inquiry into the allegations that have been made, implicating Sumathipala in several murders and murder attempts?

We have said in these very pages before, that the rich and the powerful never see justice in this land. Everyone knows who killed Joel Pera in cold blood. After all, there were half-a-dozen eye-witnesses. Yet, barely had Pera's body gone cold before we boldly predicted that no one would ever be convicted of that dastardly crime. No one was. The rich and the well-connected can kill, and kill with impunity, in sunny Sri Lanka.

It is being made out that the allegations against Sumathipala are an attack on the government. Hardly so. After all, he is not a member of the government: he is a mere beneficiary of government patronage, a hanger on, a catcher. Besides, the crimes with which he has been associated took place during the last government, allegedly at the behest of powerful ministers of that administration.

It remains then to be seen how justice will flow from the UNF government. Up to now, despite the high office Sumathipala holds, the police have conducted a fair and professional inquiry. Clearly, the confession that was made in court was not the result of coercion. The magistrate repeatedly warned the witness that he would be incriminating himself, urging him to consider well before proceeding. He asked if the witness was being coerced or bribed to make the confession (ironically, the witness said that he had been offered bribes not to).

Once the police case is ready, the onus will be on the Attorney General and the Solicitor General to decide whether it merits an indictment. For that to happen, Sumathipala will have to be questioned. It is a matter of murder, and there is no room to dilly-dally. The eyes of the people will be on the law officers and the judiciary to see whether all we will have is another Pera-like fiasco. We do not for one moment hold that Sumathipala is guilty of the allegations made against him. All we are saying is give justice a chance.

Justice must be blind to wealth, power and affluence. We have a long way to go to reach this ethereal goal, but at some point Sri Lanka must take the first stride in that journey. Life is not cheap, and no man has the prerogative to decide who lives and who dies. We have passed that point. The Sri Lanka we want for our children is not one jammed full of murderers. We deserve a better deal, and we each have a duty to create that better deal. The coming weeks will tell who it is who has opted to shoulder that responsibility, and who it is who has chosen to subvert justice.