BRING THEM ON!

Prisons Chief P. W. Koddipily urges that the defence authorities take over the security aspects of the High Security Prison in Welikada, and this has predictably brought about a firestorm of protest by the insufferably painful namby-pambies of civil society.

Some of them, we hear, are aghast, but it is more likely they are pretending to be aghast - they have been feigning disbelief over so many inconsequential issues for a long time now. But, the Sri Lankan defence establishment has been known for efficiency and the iron will to get the job done, and in this context, who better than the defence authorities to take over the running of high-security jails?

The argument that this is not appropriate due to an objection towards 'civilian duties' being parceled off to the defence establishment, is pricelessly naive and pig-headed. What are under consideration here are prisons which have for long been hotbeds of intractable criminal activity and violence.

The inmates are the dregs of society, but more importantly, if the prisons are not secure, this will obviously be a boon to criminals, particularly on the outside. They would wager that getting into prison is not so bad after all -- it will in their minds be a mere exchange of one gangland space, for another.

Consider on the other hand, the position that there is some sort of a breach of the principles of good governance, in the defence establishment taking over what is supposed - rightfully -- to be strictly civilian duties. People who cavil in this way might as well ask for regular hospital nursing staff to handle medical emergencies during the time of tsunamis and natural disasters!

It does not take a rocket-scientist to realize that what obtains in the High Security Welikada prison today is a very special situation. Due to years of subversion of the security apparatus in that prison resulting as is common knowledge perhaps, from prisoners' connivance with prison guards, the situation has deteriorated to the point where the institution has become entirely dysfunctional. Prisons such as Welikada have not only become resting-places for hard core criminals, but sometimes, operational headquarters for gangland bosses to operate their criminal empires.

So, it could be said that this is a veritable prison tsunami -- a disaster that is chronic due to the general intractability of the issues involved.

In this situation, not calling in what is probably the best defence establishment certainly this side of the Suez, if not on both sides of the Suez, is not merely absurd and incomprehensible, it is almost criminal.

A word about our defence establishment. This may be, certainly taken on the basis of per capita spending on defence, the most efficient defence establishment that the world has known for many decades. We may not spend one thousandth of the amount that a great many European powers spend on defence for example, and certainly not a fraction of what the sole global superpower spends on armaments and soldiers, but in terms of per capita spending, look what the Sri Lankan defence establishment has achieved.

The LTTE was routed despite almost every expert's pessimistic prognostications, but that is too well known by now. More extraordinarily, this measure of almost eerie success was sustained, many years after the war ended, with the security establishment sometimes succeeding in 'extraordinary rendition operations' abroad, and putting the finishing touches as it were to the LTTE's rout by seeing that some of that dying organization's clandestine activities were engaged and terminated.

It's the immensely successful chief of the defence establishment who now presides over the urban development miracle that is Colombo, and no words are necessary to embellish that success, as anyone who has seen the city grow methodically in the last year or so, would have seen success defined.

Getting the high security prison system under control therefore for the defence establishment would be a challenge that's worthy of its name, even though all bets are that the task will be a piece of cake for these people. Let there be no more petty exchanges of words about it. If that's the best medicine and if the Executive thinks it is appropriate, bring them on, and cleanse the Augean stables!