EDITORIAL

How The Bookie Grumbles

Every Sunday for the past 13 Sundays, readers of The Sunday Leader have been treated to successive episodes of the saga of the case against Thilanga Sumathipala. A great majority of our readers, we feel sure, have found these exposures absorbing and perhaps even enlightening. No doubt there are others who find our revelations tiresome: their minds are made up and they yearn to venture into new fields.

A small minority, particularly those who are dependent on Sumathipala for their bread and butter, be it in the capacity of advisors or otherwise, however, feel that Sumathipala is being treated unfairly - that The Sunday Leader has singled him out to be hounded mercilessly and relentlessly, until he is finally convicted and jailed. What, they ask, about all the other criminals of whom you write nothing? Why victimise only Sumathipala? Not for a moment do these apologists pause to think of Sumathipala's acts of criminality. Nay, it is in the messenger they see evil. Worse still, some of Sumathipala's apologists have taken to suggesting that this is somehow a plot against 'Sinhala Buddhists.'

Our regular readers know full well that this is not a newspaper to pull its punches. We call a spade a spade, and we tell it like it is, warts and all. Sensationalism? Hardly. It is not for nothing that the media are referred to collectively as the fourth estate, the first three being the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. Indeed, the media have a great responsibility in the machinery of democracy, for it is we who produce the food upon which public opinion is nourished. Bias on our part can wreck careers and cause governments to collapse. It is indeed a responsibility we take seriously, in the spirit of a public duty.

Newspapers cater to, and serve, the public interest. The private lives of people in private life are not our business. People in public life however, be they ever so mighty or lowly, given that they are paid for by our collective taxes, must be held accountable insofar as the public good is concerned. If they fail, it is our sacred duty to expose such failure, given the limitation that not every villain in the land can find space in these pages. Even more than the failures of individuals, when systems fail, we need to sit up and take note - not just The Sunday Leader - but each and every citizen in this land, for when institutions fail they fail us all, and make each one of us a victim of their failing.

Thilanga Sumathipala is a man who holds high public office - not one, but two important and responsible positions. He is entrusted with oversight of literally billions of rupees in public assets. We have a right to demand that he be worthy of that trust. We demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt, publishing all related documentation, that Sumathipala had betrayed that trust by aiding and abetting a felon in remand not only of obtaining and uttering a false passport, but also of using funds belonging to the Cricket Board - funds that are not in his gift to use - to send the impersonating murderer abroad. Soon after our revelations were made, all the documents relating to these events disappeared from the Headquarters of Sri Lanka Cricket. That the other members of the board have maintained a stony and sullen silence suggests that at least some of them are complicit in a cover-up, a subversion of justice.

If we have lied - indeed, if we have erred - Sumathipala is at liberty to sue us. We boldly say he is a crook, and we do not stop there: we maintain that he is unfit to hold public office and should be treated as what he is: a common criminal. For Thilanga Sumathipala did not cease his attempts to subvert justice by causing documents that incriminate him to disappear from SLC, he went much further than that. He found himself a judge of dubious record and hatched an elaborate and thankfully futile plot to subvert justice on the grandest scale imaginable.

That plot failed thanks to the courageous actions of a few men who declared that enough was enough: the Chief Justice, the Attorney General and the Solicitor General. They proved that money, influence and governmental patronage cannot buy everything and everyone. Now the fat is on the fire, and Sumathipala awaits his day of reckoning on January 8. Be it remembered however, that the charges he potentially faces, of being complicit to an offence under the immigration law and purloining other people's money, are not the only ones to which he will be called to account. There is strong evidence to suggest that he was involved also in the conspiracy (successfully) to murder the notorious underworld thug Baddegana Sanjeewa, a matter that is yet under investigation. True, some may say Sanjeewa was himself a murderer and died by the sword; but we do in this country have a system of justice, and murder - even of the guilty - has no part in that.

Sumathipala continues to hold a gun to the heads of the highest in the land, clinging on to offices he fears to forfeit for fear of losing all. Oh, how are the mighty fallen! Three months ago, this was a young man looked up to by all. An aspiring ICC president. A dynamic leader of one of Sri Lanka's largest corporate entities. A boon to the genuine ruralisation of cricket. The ruin he faces is ruin he brought upon himself - it was the best ruin money can buy. For he thought himself yet above the law, arrogantly assuming that a rich man can buy anything and anyone. Well, thanks be that money cannot buy Sarath Silva, K.C. Kamalasabayson or C.R. de Silva.

Today, even as Johnston Fernando and Imthiaz Bakeer Markar cower in fear of Sumathipala, the latter's attempt brazenly to subvert the law has put him in grave jeopardy indeed. At the time of going to press, a majority of members of the opposition, leading artistes, Buddhist monks and eminent lawyers of the ilk of President's Counsel Daya Perera have signed separately petitions to the Chief Justice calling upon him to take action against the errant lawyers who gave Sumathipala counsel and made a mockery of justice. Even as the issue escalates in political significance and Sumathipala clings desperately to office, the government's pusillanimity is becoming increasingly the focus of public attention. Out of a false sense of loyalty, the UNF's failure to face up to the inevitable has brought upon it a situation in which when the inevitable happens, it will be to all intents a consummation precipitated by the opposition. Where pray, is the morality in that?

Last week, Chairman, Foreign Employment Bureau, Susantha Fernando resigned upon being charged with offences under the Bribery Act. Likewise, in the last two weeks, two UNF MPs, Lakshman Wijemanne and Sidney Jayaratne - one on assault and another on a fatal road accident - voluntarily surrendered before the law. Even Anuruddha Ratwatte and Mangala Samaraweera, two former all-powerful ministers, when faced with criminal charges, yielded to the judicial process - indeed, Ratwatte was for several months in remand custody. Sumathipala however, thanks to the protection he has bought from the UNF, is above all that.

There is no gainsaying that if not for the continuous coverage by sections of the media and forthright members of the Attorney General's Department, this villain would have walked free. Almost everyone was in his pocket: ministers, lawyers, police and what have you - all except for a few good men who kept faith. We saw it happen in the case of the Joel Pera murder, and we pledged it must not be allowed to happen again.

The assertion that we are guided by religious or racial motives deserve only scorn. What is Sarath Silva, the man who single-handedly put a stop to Sumathipala's antics, if not a Sinhala Buddhist? What of Solicitor General C.R. de Silva, President's Counsel Daya Perera, Ratnasiri Wickramanayake, Wimal Weerawansa and Anura Bandaranaike? We at The Sunday Leader like to think we are evenhanded: we consciously strive to be so. Whichever way you choose to look at it, the Bookie has not a leg to stand on. The net is closing in on him, and he will atone for his sins. If that is racial bigotry or religious bias, so be it.