Editorial

The Amnesty Syndrome

All manner of amnesty have not just been in the air of late, but also a cause for much argument and displeasure. Likewise, in the matter of broken manifesto promises, has amnesia. The Sunday Leader's highbrow readership would be aware, of course, that the words 'amnesty' and 'amnesia' both derive from the related Greek roots, amnhdstia and amnhdsia, meaning 'forgiveness' and 'oblivion,' respectively. Amnesties cause governments to forgive certain classes of misdemeanours, while amnesia helps governments to go into oblivion for reneging on their promises. So far, so good.

Well, when it comes to amnesties, the UNF government's tax amnesty, they said, went as far as it could. Defaulters on income tax, VAT and customs duty queued up, 51,000 of them, to win the state's forgiveness of their sins, the vast majority of them signing up as would-be taxpayers. For its part, the opposition People's Alliance uttered scarcely a whimper of protest. Indeed, amongst the first to take cover under the amnesty was one of their own former ministers, who was found to have secreted Rs. 50 million of unaccounted money in his bank vault. For those who made declarations under the amnesty, sleep must have come easily.

Only to be woken up with a start last week, with the Alliance government's bill, supported by the Hela Urumaya, to revoke much of the forgiveness bestowed on former defaulters. Many of the 51,000 must have felt like someone who has just been ushered through the pearly gates by St. Peter being tapped on the shoulder and told sorry, the heavenly authorities had made a mistake in the accounts and they'd have to spend the rest of eternity in hell, after all. Not only that, but the new Act leaves the door open to any future finance minister to select categories of people for whom he may entertain sentiments not amounting to deep and warm friendship, and single them out for a spot of ragging.

The bottom line of the revocation of the amnesty bestowed by the former parliament is the credibility that will be attached to any future amnesty on any matter offered by any government, present or future. Coming just a week after the Alliance government's revocation of the 2003 tax amnesty then, Public Security Secretary Tilak Ranaviraja's amnesty on illegal firearms is surely a trifle hilarious?

Goodness knows that illegal firearms are the cause of much crime in the country, and almost everyone carrying such a firearm could be assumed to have used it, compounding the offence of carrying the weapon itself. Claim cover under the amnesty then, and what happens if next year the government passes a bill to revoke the amnesty and prosecute those who have taken cover under it, just as has happened in the case of the inland revenue amnesty? Only a fool or a half wit would ever take cover under any amnesty offered by a Sri Lankan government in future, given the frivolity with which such amnesties are treated by government itself. And mind you the tax amnesty bill passed through a cabinet in which Kumaratunga was head and a parliament in which both the PA and JVP chose to remain mum. It is only after the fact they saw the evil within.

The conduct of the government itself is such that it is fast becoming a laughing stock. A statement by President Kumaratunga, according to the Daily News, has warned that she would no longer ignore the LTTE's killing spree. Well, what we'd all like to know is what she plans to do about it. Part of the reasons she gave for the premature dissolution of parliament was the inability of the UNF to carry the peace process forward whilst maintaining law and order. She knew how to do it, she said. Precious little evidence there has been of that. Not only has she brought relations with the LTTE to an all-time low, but she has got the peace process bogged down in a quagmire of contradictions and intra-party division.

Now, six months after capturing power from the UNF, and 11 months after wresting the Defence Ministry to herself, she says she will no longer ignore LTTE breaches of the peace. If it happens to be the case that she was indeed ignoring such for well nigh the past year, well Madam, it is high time you were turfed out, for you have not been doing the job we are paying you to do. The fact is, Kumaratunga's incompetence has been honed to such sharpness, no doubt by that pseudo Sorbonne education and economics PhD, that she can neither make war nor peace with any semblance of success. All she has presided over are unbounded increases in prices and unprecedented corruption in government (as our account of the shocking land sale on Kirimandala Mawatha showed, last week).

Kumaratunga and her government have made this country into a joke. She sacked the UNF government and called elections on the grounds that they were incompetent. Now, she invites them to join her in finding solutions for peace. Clearly, the President does not mind making an ass of herself, for that is precisely what she repeatedly insists on doing. Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has quite rightly told her that there is no need whatsoever for any advice from him, for he will rubber stamp any agreement she reaches with the Tigers. There has never been a blanker cheque than that. And having thus been laid a stymie, Kumaratunga rants and raves, smirking and pouting, unable to mobilise government even as the nation sinks into the abyss.

It must hurt that unlike in the case of mere Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, hardly any world leaders showed any interest in meeting up with her in New York. In fact, the majority cut her dead. Like Mugabe, she, together with the JVP, is in the process of turning Sri Lanka into a pariah state, a nation of apologists for the bizarre conduct of its President.

Kumaratunga's floundering seems to have breathed new life into Ranil Wickremesinghe, who appears to have inhaled a breath of fresh air. Not only has the opposition leader shown rather more aggressiveness than is his norm, but also acted tough with two of his delinquent MPs, Navin Dissanayake and Sajith Premadasa, both of whom dodged voting on the tax amnesty bill. Both of these young men, still in their 30s, have made it widely known that they are future presidential hopefuls. Well, they seem to be taking a leaf out of the Textbook Of Presidential Conduct of Chandrika Kumaratunga, for they were both caught lying. Dissanayake had claimed in writing through his secretary that he was in the United States at the time his explanation was first called for (when he was in fact in Sri Lanka) and Premadasa had put in a sick note claiming that he had malaria (while he was on the day in question attending a tamasha in the south). Both fibbers had to face being confronted by an irate Wickremesinghe and having, red faced, to retract the lies they had uttered. Future presidents, indeed!

The challenge before Wickremesinghe now is to underline to his party and to the public that he is a man of his word, and not a common or garden liar. That, to be fair, he has done throughout his career: no false promises. His weakness has been being insufficiently ruthless with his political opponents, and insufficiently tough on those within his own party who choose to espouse separate agendas. The Opposition Leader has now made it clear that he has set his sights on the presidency, and on forming the next UNP government. If he is to do either, he will have to ensure that no quarter is given, and no offender spared. This country deserves a better quality of politician than it now has, and there certainly is no room for people who choose to behave like spoilt brats inventing excuses as to why they didn't do their homework. No amnesty for them, nor amnesia either.