Surreptitious but familiar force strikes again

The law enforcers apparently have reacted with unwarranted force to the recent industrial unrest at the Katunayake FTZ but more intriguing is the direction in which events occurred on that fateful day. As our front page news report of yesterday indicates, a ‘hidden hand’ had moved surreptitiously and menacingly at the scene of the demonstrations to pit the protesting workers against the Police. This insidious force had acted with hostile intent to compel the demonstrators and the law enforcers to come to blows.

According to reliable eye witness accounts, the Police were relating with the public very cordially until they were set upon by some hoodlums who had penetrated the hitherto peaceful protestors. These criminal elements, apparently, were total outsiders to the demonstrators. They were an extraneous force which sought a violent confrontation with the law enforcers. Consequently, sections of the Police had to react in the way they did to protect their own lives.

By saying this, we do not intend to justify the killing of the protestor concerned but to give an idea of the complex situation which had arisen. That is, neat ‘black Vs white’ categorizations of the sides which clashed is not possible. Nevertheless, it is highly regrettable that a protestor who had apparently no truck with the hoodlums had to lose his life over the lawless behaviour of these criminal elements.

Yesterday, we spoke of the vast strides Sri Lanka is making in the economic field and it is a matter for regret that there is now a whiff of worker unrest in the air, when, ideally, there should be none. This hint of unrest makes this case of the clash ‘curiouser’. The explanation could be put forward that some disgruntled political elements, which are out of favour with the people, are attempting to come back into contention by spurring worker unrest and clashes between the authorities and sections of our workers. It would not matter, apparently, if this come-back effort is to be at the expense of human lives. Only power seems to matter.

These considerations should take ones mind back to the past when the politics of agitation and bloodshed plunged this country into a morass of misery. The horrors of the late nineteen eighties are still fresh in most minds. Those were times when life was dirt cheap and normal life was absolutely impossible in Southern Sri Lanka. Ghoulish violence was let loose over the length and breadth of the South and nothing seemed to be too precious for those insurrectionary forces which were willing to go to the weirdest extremes to grab state power. Massacres, strikes, industrial unrest, work disruptions and closures of all kinds were rampant. It is indeed a wonder that Sri Lanka managed to pull itself together.

People of the older generation would, perhaps, still vividly recollect the first bloody youth upheaval of the South of 1971, when thousands of youths lost their lives, in vain. Then too the intention was to seize power by the force of arms and most of the idealistic young men and women who took up arms against the state either lost their lives in the bloody crackdown which followed or were thrown into jail. However, the leadership of the failed uprising remained to fight another day.

The recent incidents at the Katunayake FTZ too have the same complexion as these failed uprisings of the past. Essentially, these are attempts to destabilize legally constituted governments and to plunge the economy of the country into a state of chaos. The political forces which were in the forefront in those years are trying their level best to make a come-back currently, by hook or by crook.

All these misadventures are going to cost the country very dearly unless wisdom is made to prevail. The state has not decided to force the private pension scheme down the throats of the people and that much it made very clear. Then, what is the justification for the unleashing of lawlessness? This is the question the public needs to ask and which the forces of lawlessness need to address.

The country is doing well economically, and the purpose of these bouts of lawlessness seems to be the disrupting of this smooth process of material advancement. In these circumstances, the government is obliged to use all the legitimate means at its command to nip these disruptive moves in the bud. The public too would do well to alienate themselves from these bankrupt political forces. To the latter we say, ‘end these futile confrontations, keep the well being of the people at heart and seek democratic paths to power.’