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Between the Blinds by Dr. Nalin Swaris

By all reports, Yasawathie Ganhewa was a good woman a caring wife and mother of three young children. On the afternoon of Saturday the 25th of June she used a pedestrian crossing, designated by the State, to cross the road at a busy intersection. Her daughter Kosala, Kosala's schoolmate and a cluster of other pedestrians hurried ahead of her. The two girls managed to escape being hit by a private bus which, was pounding on them at great speed. They heard a loud thud and looking back saw Yasawathie being knocked down by the bus. The bus driver rode on regardless. Eighteen year old Kosala will carry etched in her memory the ghastly sight of her beloved mother's head crushed by a rear wheel of the bus.

What preceded and followed this slaughter of a caring mother reveals the extent to which elementary decencies, civilized restraint and concern for life have disappeared from our public life. Why did a sixty two year old mother accompany her daughter every Saturday to and from a computer class in Nugegoda? Probably because she shared the anxiety that many parents have about letting their young daughters go out alone even in broad daylight. The high incidence of women being sexually harassed, assaulted, abducted, raped and killed must be a matter of deep concern to parents of teenage girls. The immediate reaction to Yasawathie's killing was mindless violence. Angry crowds stopped the hit and run driver, assaulted him and damaged the bus.

They then went on a rampage and attacked every private bus that approached the fatal spot with rocks and stones. They were oblivious to the fact that these buses were filled with passengers. There was panic and pandemonium inside the buses. Taking advantage of the situation unconscionable individuals had snatched gold chains from the necks of women and disappeared among the rioters.

Enter the Chairman of, and spokesman for, the Private Bus Operators Association. He said the riot had been incited by the government! This shows how much the bus operators are out of touch with the mood of the general public - the clients from whom they plunder their profits. This cynical explanation was reported by all the Sunday newspapers. None of the papers mentioned that he had expressed any regret about the murder of an elderly woman or that he offered his sympathies to her grieving family members. When talks with the government for a 30% hike in bus fares did not progress to their satisfaction, the bus operators called a wild cat strike.

No warning was given beforehand to their clients. No regrets expressed for the massive inconvenience and hardships inflicted on the bus travelling public. In other words in order to force the government to do their will the bus operators decided to punish their clients. Bus travellers seethed with anger at the callous indifference to their plight displayed by the operators. Pent up frustration, the daily vexations of bus travel, anger with the indifference of successive governments to the plight of ordinary citizens compelled to use public transport surfaced with the strike and erupted that afternoon.

Mr. Karu Jayasuriya who has an energy problem on his hands was asked to sort out a problem caused by soaring fuel prices. He managed to get the bus operators to call off the strike. After the strike was called off, the Chairman of the Bus Operators Association interviewed by television reporters assured the public that the association shall, with immediate effect, restore their normal services. This assurance of a return to 'normal service' sounded ominous. Within the week an elderly mother was crushed to death and a young police sergeant killed by a hit and run driver.

In a typical response to the rioting at Nugegoda junction, the operators went on strike again. They said that they will not ply their vehicles on route 138 until the authorities ensured that their buses, their drivers and conductors (in that order, I suppose) are protected from the ire of the general public. They also wanted the police to provide proper damage reports so that they could recover their losses from insurance companies. In return they had promised the DIG Colombo that they together with their drivers and conductors would follow classes on road safety and courtesy conducted by the police. The deal is preposterous. Private buses have been in operation for nearly twenty years. One might have imagined that they have their own system in place for the recruitment and training of drivers and conductors and for the proper maintenance of their buses. Above all one might have imagined that our governments have set standards which private bus operators have to abide by and that these standards are enforced.

In a statement published in the Lankadipa of 18 June 2002 the Chairman lamented that there was a huge gap between the costs of running a transport system and the fares the association is allowed to charge. He made no mention of the inestimable cost of a single human life. In what scale of values does the loss of profit weigh heavier than the loss of life? One may have expected that after the slaying at Nugegoda, the operators would have called an emergency meeting and emerged to appease the general public by pledging that they will rein in their cowboys and apologize to road users for the criminally reckless behaviour of their employees. But the killings go on. On the nineteenth a high speeding private bus skidded off the road at Gintota, crashed against a school wall, killed a pedestrian, and injured ten others, including five school children. Reckless drivers continue to behave as if a driving license, however dubiously obtained, is a license to kill - an average of one murder every four and a half hours.

The rioting at Nugegoda dramatically instances the phenomenon of lawlessness that has gripped the country. People have taken to stopping buses which run over and kill pedestrians, assaulting the driver and setting fire to the bus. It is clear to all but the blind that the justice system in our country is in a state of near collapse. People are increasingly taking the law into their own hands because they have lost confidence that no matter which government comes to power their most serious concerns will be heeded and their most pressing problems will be solved. Among these is the lack of adequate and safe public transport.

Private bus operators have exploded the myth that unregulated free market competition will reduce costs and improve efficiency. It is therefore depressing that the government has decided to sell 50% of the shares of the few remaining government owned bus companies to the private sector. Are we being threatened with more of the same? Before the elections the UNF claimed that its greatest asset is excellence in managerial skills. Seems true enough. Several ministers and new heads of corporations are experienced entrepreneurs or former private sector executives. Some are successful business tycoons.

Instead of selling out to the private sector, the government should harness these skills and expertise to revamp the ailing state transport system, make it lean, clean and efficient and compete the cowboys out of the market. Governments in continental Europe are too aware of the social, economic and environmental benefits of efficient and comfortable public transport to let it be subjected to the vagaries of the free market or the cupidity of profit seekers.

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