{"id":101294,"date":"2020-04-18T16:25:56","date_gmt":"2020-04-18T23:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=101294"},"modified":"2020-04-18T16:25:56","modified_gmt":"2020-04-18T23:25:56","slug":"gota-plays-a-captains-innings-at-the-crease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/04\/18\/gota-plays-a-captains-innings-at-the-crease\/","title":{"rendered":"Gota plays a captain\u2019s innings at the crease"},"content":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The sartorial signatures of the three main leaders of recent times\u00a0 \u2013 Mahinda Rajapakse, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and Gotabaya Rajapakse — have escaped the notice of the commentariat. Each one of them has come out sporting three different garments signifying their respective brands of politics. Mahinda Rajapakse displays the most recognisable costume \u2013 the white national dress with the kurakkan satakaya of his father thrown round his neck. He is saying that his roots run deep into the soil.\u00a0 Ranil, of course, sticks stubbornly to his Western attire refusing to concede to anything that smacks of being national\u201d.\u00a0 He walks around nervously with his hands in the pockets to prevent his trousers from slipping down to his ankles. It depicts the embarrassing plight of the UNP leader: how to keep his trousers up when everything else around him is falling down.\u00a0 The most plain \u2013 and, therefore, the significant — is the shirt and trouser of President Gotabaya without the Rajapakse signature symbol wrapped around his neck. It announces to the world that he is a different kind of Rajapakse. He is messaging emphatically that he has not only his own style of clothing but style of governance as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has opened his innings with calculated strokes signalling clearly that he is not\u00a0 the run-of-the-mill batsman, either tha-at-tu-fying\u201d defensively, or risking too much with rash flashes of the bat. He whacked the Swiss Embassy spin for a six. He stepped forward and lifted the American underarm ball to go over the head of the American Ambassadress. He left the crude ball lobbed by Rajitha Senaratna severely alone. He didn\u2019t have to do anything with it either. It went on its own, flying past the wicketkeeper all the way to the boundary. In Geneva, he cut the ball nicely to outmanoeuvre the Western umpires and his foreign-funded fielders in the NGOs. Of course, like all state leaders he has been stalled by the corona balls. Even that has been managed by him to prevent any disastrous collapse. The commentators in the box are pleased that his performance so far has been surprisingly sound. Better than expected indeed! They were hoping to stump him if he stepped out of the crease. But his footwork so far has been cautious nearing almost perfection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were also hoping to\ncatch him in the slips. And the anti-Rajapakse gang is now howling that they\nhad caught him with a ball that had snicked off his bat. It came  from the\nLegal end of the  field. The controversy is whether he should have let the\nball go and not touched it at all, or followed the precedent set in Lords \u2013 the\nhallowed grounds of this global game. To come down to the nitty-gritty, the\ncontroversy is focused on President Gotabaya\u2019s decision to release Staff Sgt.\nSunil Ratnayake, overriding the judgement confirmed by two of the highest\ncourts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This decision is\noverblown to project President Gotabaya as the ogre preparing the way to\nestablish a dictatorship by undermining the judiciary. The usual mediocrities\nin the moral mafia are pretending that the President\u2019s decision is an\nunprecedented political act of a wannabe dictator determined to whittle down\nthe integrity and the independence of the judiciary. The other threadbare\nargument is that the punishment imposed on Sgt. Rathnayake would stand as a\ndeterrent to others in the battlefields \u2013 a bogus claim that has never been\nproved in any recorded battle fought by human beings. They also argue that\nreleasing Sgt. Rathnayake is not only against all known norms of democratic\nstates but also a blow to the process of reconciliation.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are tiresome\narguments recycled for political ends by the mythomaniacs in the moral mafia\nwhose bread, butter and whiskey depend solely on dancing to the drum beat of\nWestern masters who have not hesitated to discard, with absolute contempt, all\nknown moralities and universal laws of justice whenever it suits them to pursue\ntheir self-interests. Besides, the pretentious political purists tend to go\nberserk when one branch of the triumvirate in a democratic state \u2013 i.e., the\nlegislature, executive and the judiciary —  tries to challenge or\noverride any one of the other two branches. In a sense it is a good sign of a\nvibrant and healthy democracy.  But it cannot  be pushed to extremes.\nIn the perennial and ineluctable contest between these three branches the\nrising tensions should not be exploited for cheap political ends. In these\nconfusing times it is the historical precedents set by the Westminster model \u2013\nthe reputed  mother of all parliamentary democracies \u2013 that can prevail as\na model to the parallel or lesser democracies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there is any doubt or\nsuspicion, one solid example from Westminster should suffice to validate\nPresident Gotabaya\u2019s action. And there isn\u2019t a better historical precedent than\nthe landmark case of Augustino Pinochet, the head of the Chilean government,\nwho was rated as a despicable political criminal of his time. Gen. Pinochet\noverthrew the elected government of Salvador Allende, a socialist. And with the\nbacking of US government Pinochet went on a spree of liquidating the leftist\ndissidents. The sole political objective of the regime was to wipe out all\ntraces of Allende\u2019s socialism. In the process Pinochet earned three new middle\nnames: Persecution. Disappearance. Execution. Chile became the leading terror\nstate in Latin America. Corrupt capitalism triumphed under Pinochet. It was\nanother feather in Henry Kissinger\u2019s anti-communist cap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Pinochet\u2019s world\nturned topsy-turvy the day he stepped into UK for medical treatment. On a\ncharge made by Spain for torturing Spanish citizens he was put under house\narrest in UK. Spain requested that Pinochet be extradited. Never in the history\nof modern international relations has a head of state being arrested by the\nhost nation on behalf of another state. To cut to the chase, the British\ncourts, going up to the House of Lords, the highest judiciary in the land,\nupheld the decision to extradite Pinochet. But pressure was mounting from the\ninternational Right-wing. Two former heads of state, Margaret Thatcher and\nGeorge H. W. Bush appealed to the British government to release Pinochet. They\nurged that he  be sent to his homeland and  not to Spain. Thatcher\neven went to the extent of sending Pinochet a bottle of single malt whiskey\nwith a note saying: Scotch is one  British institution that will never\nlet you down.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2000 all eyes were on\nJack Straw, the Foreign Minister, who had taken office boasting that British\nForeign policy under him would be run unwaveringly on principles of high\nmorality. Legal scholars were agog as this was a unique case that would make\nhistory.  Human rights activist were beside themselves believing \nthat they had won the day. They were cock-a-hoop believing  that Jack\nStraw would abide by the decision of the judgement of the House Lords. After\nall the judicial hierarchy had decided that  Pinochet should be extradited\nto Spain. But Jack Straw rejected the judgement of the highest courts in the\nland and freed Pinochet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is relevant to\nPresident Gotabaya\u2019s case is the key element of the British government\ndismissing the judgement of its highest court. It has set the precedent for\nPresident Gotabaya to act accordingly without being accused of being \ndictatorial, or violating the principles of separations of powers, or\nundermining the authority and dignity of the judiciary. If her Majesty\u2019s\nGovernment can dismiss the judgement of her Law Lords \u2013 the supreme judicial\nauthority \u2013 what justification is there to accuse selectively President\nGotabaya who has adopted the same precedent and exercised the identical political\npower to fulfil the mandate given by the people? Releasing soldiers who\ndefended the nation was a mandate given in the last presidential election.\nPresident Gotabaya did no act arbitrarily to pave the way for the establishment\nof a dictatorship. Jack Straw did not have a mandate to reject a judgment of\nthe courts. For what  it  is worth, President Gotabaya had a mandate\nfrom the sovereign people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides, the underlying\nprinciple that applies to both cases is the same: under exceptional circumstances\nthe government of the day can decide to overrule a selected decision or two of\nthe judiciary without undermining  the overarching independence of the\njudiciary.  President Gotabaya is unerringly in line with the practices of\nthe Mother of Parliaments in freeing Sgt. Rathnayake. When is adhering  to\na notable precedent  set by the Mother of Parliaments a violation of the\nprinciples of parliamentary democracy? Besides, Jack Straw\u2019s decision has \nnot brought down British democracy or destroyed the independence of the\njudiciary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The morality of  it,\nof course, is a different issue. Critics can argue that Sgt. Rathnayake is the\nPinochet of Sri Lanka and both deserve the same punishment for violating human\nrights. Or both should be judged on the identical moral metrics.  But\nPinochet\u2019s case cannot be compared by any rational metric to that of Sgt.\nRathnayake. They are two different cases packed with two different\ncircumstances, carrying two different set of moral and political values. For\ninstance, the enormity of the crimes of Pinochet  cannot be compared to\nthe dubious and questionable legal issued that surround the sentencing of Sgt.\nRathnayake. The case against Pinochet was cut and dry. There were no issues of\nquestioning the identity, culpability, and responsibility of Gen.\nPinochet.  Violence committed in a battlefield by a sergeant in  an\nisolated incident in which the responsibilities and culpabilities of the\naccused are questionable cannot be compared to a criminal who had deliberately\ngone on the rampage to liquidate his opponents on a mass scale throughout his\nregime (1973 \u2013 1990). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pinochet\u2019s  was an\nopen and shut case. The Courts did not have to depend on some controversial\nclause of command  responsibility or collective responsibility to sentence\nPinochet. The Law Lords did not have to ferret out an obscure law to sentence\nPinochet on a charge of guilt by association. Besides, the evidence that was\naccepted to sentence Sgt. Rathnayake is open to considerable doubt. In the\nabsence of certain proof the Courts resorted to a legal excuse of fixing his\nguilt by association.  It is tantamount  to giving a dog bad name and\nhanging him. Normally, punishment  is meted out  to fit the crime.\nBut Rathnayake\u2019s was sentenced for being a part of a gang who had committed the\ncrime. The charge of guilt by association  is a controversial law. If\nthere is no direct evidence to  prove that he had executed the Tamils then\nwhat was his crime? Did he  dig the  graves? Or was he the one who\ndragged the bodies to the grave? Or was he the one who gave instructions for\nthe execution? If, for instance, he  did  not  commit the crime\nof killing the victims then is it fair to sentence him  to death for\ndigging the graves? Unlike in the case of Pinochet there are a set of doubts\nthat can justify the exoneration of Sgt. Rathnayake like the others who were\nwith him. Not only the precedent set by the Lords but the doubts surrounding\nthe role of Sgt. Rathnayake are two factors that validates his release. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala The sartorial signatures of the three main leaders of recent times\u00a0 \u2013 Mahinda Rajapakse, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and Gotabaya Rajapakse — have escaped the notice of the commentariat. Each one of them has come out sporting three different garments signifying their respective brands of politics. Mahinda Rajapakse displays the most recognisable costume […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-h-l-d-mahindapala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}