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The Registration Issue, It Is Better Safe Than Sorry!
September21st 2008,
There is a proverb which says "It is better safe than sorry!"
applicable to how Sri Lanka has paid dearly for not taking the necessary
safety measures and precautions to avoid catastrophical devastation at
the hands of the Tamil Tigers appplicable to counter all the posturing
and whimpering from anti Government sources over the issue of documenting
and identifying new Tamil arrivals into major cities from the North and
East of Sri Lanka. Perhaps it would compensate many grievances if this
was a measure incorporating all new arrival into major cities irrespective
of ethnicity to accommodate the need albeit being from the sublime to
the ridiculous merely to appease a few disgruntled lobbyists where the
priorities by far outweigh the sentiment related philosophies!
It has now become a fact of life that the links the terrorists have towards
committing attrocities in Sinhala populated areas stem from the networks
they have established in this areas through infiltration by their agents
surreptitiously installed there moving them from the North and East in
the guise of innocent civilians in multi faceted disguises with cockamanie
excuses and it takes no rocket science to infer that these have to be
from the Tamil community (with all due respect to the decent law abiding
Tamils ) rather than the Sinhalese who live in these areas and in this
sense it is an imperative move towards National Security that all aliens(
using the term loosely to describe persons with no bonafides and false
documentation at times) mostly newly arrived Tamils from the North and
East need to be registered.The legislators have every right to demand
the purpose of their arrival as well as establishing their bona fides
in a situation where no stones can be left unturned towards National Security
which is a mandatory in a wider and perhaps subtler sense and Sri Lanka
is no exception and whether it be through identity cards, registration
or any other means the issue is very definitely the means to screen undesirables
despite some moral obligation often harped on by the Human Rights Brigade
and the conscientious objectors who have little to offer after a carnage
as a direct result of neglect!
All the hooing and haaing by the JVP and in the very near future, certain
factions of the UNP and other political opponents of the Governments it
is presumed appears to be politically motivated considering the arguments
used to suggest illegality and the Government it must be recognized has
indeed taken the correct direction towards securing Colombo and it must
follow, all major cities, from terrorist infiltration where the media
circus does little to illustrate the realities surrounding the felt need
and generates misleading propaganda before the suicide bombs detonate.
While the opportunists portray the thousands of citizens from five war-torn
districts in the North and living in and around Colombo lining up outside
schools and places of worship on Sunday following a government directive
to re-register with the police,as illegitimate, there is little or no
argument to suggest that the Government directive is wrong or unfair.
Beyond inconveniencing some caught up in a greater priority than their
personal discomforts in a Nation plagued with terrorism every move to
counter them cannot be disputed beyond any excesses that need to be dealt
with by way of harassment or intimidation of innocent civilians which
then becomes another issue to be dealt with within the law and thus far
a mere speculation by some with obvious partialities, predilections and
oftentimes paranoid.
While intimidations and harrasments thus far have not been the case at
all due to concerted care taken by the authorities the registration process
is a peaceful means and a preventive one to be able to identify certain
individuals if necessary in the event of any terrorist related disturbances
or attacks.It needs to be deemed a very sensible measure as well as a
deterrent towards any future intentions by the terrorists even in the
smallest measure despite their already depleted and deflated status.As
after all they still remain a terrorist entity that cannot be given any
leeway and bear the cunning and devious means towards any attrocities
they could inflict with no respect for human life or the law!
While the pundits and opportunists ever ready to pounce on every Government
move towards securing the Nation and fortifying National Security suggest
that this is a controversial move and has been criticised as “racial
profiling” as an overwhelming majority of those being registered
are Tamils they need to look objectively beyond their myopia at what has
transpired within Sri Lanka for over three decades due to the tolerance
of free movement by terrorist infiltrators into Sinhala populated areas
specifically where a move to screen new arrivals then becomes an imperative
and mandatory issue overlooked in the past towards which there can be
no counter argument as being unjust or unfair. Did not some visionary
once say"All's Fair In Love And War?" so why not ~all being
fair in ridding Sri Lanka of terrorism with no quarters asked and none
given with respect to measures taken to counter the most important aspect
of what the LTTE stand for! Nation destructive, internationally condemned
criminals?
Case in point is very definitively outlined by the following news report
that "The order to register citizens living in and around Colombo
for the past five years came days after Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa
expressed concern over what he termed as influx of 6,950 “outsiders”
into Colombo and its suburbs in August. Appealing to those who staying
in Colombo and its vicinity without any “valid reason” to return
to their hometown, he had said the presence of large number of “outsiders”
posed a security threat" where it becomes almost an inevitable issue
as the relentless Armed Forces campaign continue in the North toward eliminating
the terrorists more than likely to retaliate through their subversive
infiltrators into the areas demanding registration of newly arrived Tamils,
a sad but necessary requirement perhaps which can be restructured and
relaxed once the terrorist menace is completely eliminated and all Sri
Lankas then enjoy the same freedoms.
If it is an overstatement to cite arrivals from the North and East into
all major cities as opposed to Colombo alone, required by the Government
to register, so be it as it is indeed of primary importance to apply this
as legislation needed to implement and execute the statutes of National
Security given the situation in Sri Lanka today and one need look no further
than Islamabad's recent horrendous bomb attack on the Marriot Hotel, thr
ensuing carnage and the continued violence in both India, Pakistan as
well as globally by terrorists as an example odf a felt need towards stifling
all the opponents who seem to think that the precautions the Government
of Sri Lanka is taking in this respect is illegal or unnecessary! Therefore
it must be reiterated ~BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY!"
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