By Sonali Samarasinghe
As a political hit man to President
Mahinda Rajapakse, Dr. Mervyn Silva would be
entitled to a double PhD. He has the perfect
qualifications. An impressive entourage of
gangsters, drug dealers and double murder
suspects, no sense of shame and a vocabulary
that would make a sailor blush. He is also a
political prostitute lurking endlessly in
the bordellos of power and snapping at the
crumbs thrown down at him.
In Mahinda Rajapakse — a village
bumpkin from Medamulane who would not
hesitate to call up an editor and insult his
mother as part of his daily routine —
Mervyn Silva has met his match. By a happy
coincidence for the Rajapakse family they
are on the same side.
Patronage must end
But if this country is not to turn into a
country of blackguards and scoundrels,
political patronage of the likes of Kudu Lal
and Kudu Nuwan, of Mervyn and Malaka, of the
late Wambotta, and an endless stream of
underworld gangsters must come to an abrupt
halt.
There is an uncomfortable poetic justice
in the events of December 27 as hundreds of
angry employees of the Rupavahini turned on
Mervyn and his security thugs. Decorum would
have perhaps been better served had these
hapless employees watched as Mervyn with the
full blessings of the Rajapakse regime
roughed up their news director. Dignified
order would have been better played out if
the news director and the scores of
witnesses to the unwarranted attack had
filed a complaint at the police station
instead.
But in a nation that has sacrificed the
rule of law at the altar of political greed
even the most genteel and dignified among us
may reluctantly agree that the employees had
no other choice as they turned their wrath
on the man who had so insulted them.
Futility of complaining
And the futility of a police complaint
becomes painfully obvious as the government
enacts yet another farce of an
investigation. The Central Committee of the
Sri Lanka Freedom Party last week had
decided to appoint a committee comprising
Ministers Nimal Siripala de Silva, John
Seneviratne and Governor Alavi Moulana to
inquire into the incident while Media
Minister and Cabinet Spokesman Anura
Priyadarshana Yapa has appointed a one man
commission to probe the case.
Nonetheless soon the government print
media twisted the focus towards the conduct
of the employees of the Rupavahini
Corporation and calls were made to hold an
inquiry. To save face the government even
attempted to pin the blame on opposition
elements. However by another happy
coincidence the annual AGM of the SLRC UNP
trade union was being held that very day and
all its members had been on leave to
participate at the event.
However Mervyn Silva who together with
his thugs fiercely abused state employees
remains the non cabinet minister for labour
relations, and if there is an irony in that
it is not the government that has seen it.
Doctors run away
While the SLFP General Secretary
Maithripala Sirisena publicly condemned
Mervyn Silva’s thuggish behaviour and
promised an inquiry, President Rajapakse was
tip toe-ing into the hospital room wherein
Mervyn Silva lay his battered head.
Earlier, doctors at the National Hospital
like the rest of Sri Lanka who had been
watching the live, unedited performance
courtesy the state Rupavahini, baulked at
attending to the man. A gaggle of doctors
mysteriously took half day’s leave as
Mervyn arrived to take up lodgings at the
premises his ganglions vibrating while his
security guards were perhaps thinking of
migrating.
President Rajapakse gently sat at the
unwilling patient’s bedside and comforted
him vowing to bring the culprits at
Rupavahini to book. Later Rajapakse’s
security was to arrive in hospital and whisk
him away to safer pastures.
And Rajapakse was not his only visitor.
Sajin Vass Gunawardena took time off his
busy schedule running a budget airline to
take up a note book and pencil and hurry to
Mervyn’s side where he had been given a
presidential order to take down the names
and descriptions of those who attacked
Mervyn’s sacred person.
Night time visitor
But President Percival Rajapakse did not
curtail his support for Mervyn to a silent
nightly visit. After all it is reported the
President was fully aware of the background
to the incident and Mervyn typically called
Temple Trees from the Rupavahini chairman’s
room. The doctor of sorts was also heard to
claim he visited Rupavahini with the
blessings of the President.
At the cabinet meeting last week while
discussing the important issue of annulment
of the CFA, to the President, foremost in
his mind was the Mervyn issue.
He was to quickly approach the topic and
spoke in favour of his Silva. No doubt
Rajapakse in many ways identified and
sympathised with him, both hailing from
Medamulane as it were.
President Percy trivialised Mervyn Silva’s
actions as a ‘small mistake’ and was
more keen to focus on the conduct of the
state employees. He angrily inquired as to
how the unedited version of the entire
proceedings had been telecast by stopping
all regular programmes and insisted a state
institution must do the bidding of the
government in power and should not have
shown a minister being humiliated.
Even as Minister John Seneviratne softly
pointed out that Mervyn did not act like a
minister that day Rajapakse was nonplussed,
perhaps genuinely who knows.
Culture of impunity
How, the President asked, did they take
the law into their own hands? The answer is
simple. Though not evidently to Percy. A
culture of impunity has pervaded this
island. If a government does not live by the
rule of law it will surely die by the unruly
mob.
Mervyn meanwhile has caused a furore
among doctors with some contemplating tough
legal action against bodies and institutions
who confer doctorates on all and sundry
without due process and acceptable criteria.
Mervyn was gifted his doctorate by the
current head of Medicina Alternativa Dr.
Geethanjan Mendis. It was also Mendis who
issued a controversial medical certificate
to Mervyn’s son Malaka to get him out of
remand hospital and on to a National
Hospital bed.
There is a disgust that consumes one on
hearing Mervyn liken his treatment at the
hands of state media staff to the suffering
of Jesus Christ at the crucifixion. It is a
disgust that remains when one comes to the
realisation that Mervyn is merely a symptom
of a larger malady that ails this nation
Twenty Four hours after Boxing Day last
year, Mervyn Silva was to get a rude shock
as Rupavahini employees took matters into
their own hands. Perhaps in his memory the
day after Boxing Day should be renamed
Boxing Mervyn Day.
