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| Friday, 10 September 2004 |
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Please forward your letters to [email protected] in plain text format within the e-mail message, since as a policy we do not open any attachments.
The free availability of game meats of deer, sambur, iguana and other species at reduced prices in the Elahera, Habarana, Minneriya, Sigiriya and adjoining areas sounds a warning of the quick extinction of the very valuable wildlife species in the near future, if immediate measures are not taken to counteract the intimidation of the poachers. This is a sequel to a news item reported in the Sinhala newspaper and which was published in the Daily News of Sep. 4 under the caption 'Sharp drop in prices of game meat' should be viewed with concern of the disaster of our National Resources in the very near future. I have also mentioned in my article in the Daily News of Aug. 3 regarding the same subject under 'Flying squads strengthen Yala sanctuaries' the systematic destruction of our very valuable Timbers such as Teak, Nadun, Mahogony and other very valuable timbers. I request the authorities concerned in this regard to take concerted effort to arrest this alarming situation before it is too late. M. I. M. MUDASSIR, Paying spot fines at the Police Stations It is a most welcome way of helping the motorists to collect their Drivers' Licences in double quick time. This is subject to the honesty of the Police Officers. It is easily said than be done. When one attends the Police Station to collect his/her DL after the payment of the fine, seldom such person would collect the DL over the counter. Lots of excuses are given for the person to come a second time. Your DL cannot be found, Traffic Sergeant is not at the Station now, can you come tomorrow (sergeant matthaya neha. Heta enawada) Seldom you will find an officer who will go out of his way to return the DL after accepting the payment receipt. When your DL is taken at Kekirawa on your way to Anuradhapura you rush to the Kekirawa Police Station and pay the fine to hear that the officers have still not returned. You may not locate them at the point where you were issued with a spot fine. Moreover is the IGP going to engage an officer 24 hours at every Police Station to accept payments of spot fines? This system in my view will pave the way for corruption, the dishonest Cops to make money. Further, how many drivers will have spare money to meet such a situation when their pockets are empty having met the costs of living? In the first instance I ask, why should a person's DL be taken by the Police over a traffic offence. Every person is considered innocent until proved guilty. So if the offender prefers to pay the fine he accepts his guilt, if not the matter must end up in court. Why can't a spot fine be issued to pay within 14 days and if not paid refer the matter to court. The laws should be amended to impose heavy fines for non payment of spot fines. The Police may not accept this suggestion saying that they will be burdened with additional work in serving summons and later executing warrants. Serving Summons and executing warrants are part of their duties and they cannot grumble about it. The number of matters that end up in court for non-payment of spot fines in my view is more than 50 per cent of the detections. Further, the consequences that follow for non payment of the fine could be printed on the reverse of the spot fine document and if the consequences are severe that would compel the offenders to pay the fine. Laws should be amended for the vehicle owners to take responsibility to produce drivers/offenders when they are called upon to do so. It is not that hard to locate an owner. HP, The news item (DN Aug. 30) on rising incidence of rape in our society, involving children in particular, is highly disturbing to the mind. Yes, finally it has started to take its toll; the inevitable sociological repercussions of swallowing the decadent ways of the West, hook, line and sinker. We have adopted their methods without adaptation to suit our own culture and customs. We learnt from them to look at everything in terms of rupees and cents. We perhaps thought that it would be progressive thinking and conducive to development (material), if we jettison the old and the unique to us (often dubbed as backward and conservative by those so-called forward thinkers) of many of our ways. We may have even laughed at our neighbours. We took pride in our thought-modernising process, in line with the West and have been charging ahead with all our might along a blind alley, enveloped in the darkness of our impatience to get rich, ignorance of the negative outcomes and indifference to right and wrong. And all the while many of our neighbours have been extra cautious and tiptoeing forward on a well-lit path. We embraced all those concepts and ideas without caution and forethought, many of them designed by the developed for the explicit purpose of making the developing, their slavish dependents. The unbridled open market economy with its wide-open gates paved the way for the rot of commercialism to take hold of our society followed by one of its unescapable consequences, that virtually everybody started looking for that extra and/or fast buck. Through those gates passed not only the lifeless goods and commodities, but also white, brown and yellow flesh and very much alive too, again for sale. The activities in pornography, drugs, illicit trade in liquor and other vices took on a new dimension. And many of our filmmakers and exporters went for more 'adults only' productions and their posters said it aloud to all without distinction, the child, the teenager and the matured you and I. Not to be outdone, our TV virtually went along the same path with many of their 'more suitable for adults' (the public opinion) programmes. Our newspapers sans a few laid more emphasis on the narration of sex-crimes and less on trauma that the victims suffered and the nightmarish lives that they would often be destined to live, thereafter. Many of our habits and ways changed. A new fashion of eating-out began, among our young in particular, in so-called Chinese restaurants, where anyone with money can have a bite and a beer or something even stronger. These restaurants, ranging from cadjan huts to solid-walled edifices can be found even in the remotest corners of our country and the authorities took no notice of them and had no control over them. Often well shielded from the public eye, many became the favourite haunts of the curious young, who wanted to have a taste of many a forbidden for their age, adventure. Then the now popular and famous (some of them already infamous) massage clinics entered the scene. In these circumstances, the fact that there are three rape cases (only reported and this number could even be more) a day is hardly surprising. And what is left for us to do? Perhaps a few of our academics versed in socio-economics, sociology and human psychology would write a dozen doctoral theses on the subject- 'The rising incidence of sexually-related crime in modern Sri Lanka' or something even more grave-sounding and incomprehensible to the public. And we can continue to wallow in our customary wishful thinking that all would be well in time. After all, it was none of yours and mine who became the victims of this dastardly crime, so far. Or, will the people responsible for the well-being of our society take stock of what really is happening and delve into the root-causes of this inhuman act and do something about it, soon? LAKSIRI WARNAKULA, |
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