{"id":50029,"date":"2015-12-07T23:30:14","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T05:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=50029"},"modified":"2015-12-07T16:09:38","modified_gmt":"2015-12-07T23:09:38","slug":"mrs-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/12\/07\/mrs-security\/","title":{"rendered":"MR\u2019s security"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editorial\u00a0Courtesy Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

December 7, 2015, 8:15 pm<\/span><\/p>\n

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa is faced with serious threats due to the curtailment of his security and the release of hardcore Tigers, his office has said. The government has sought to deny this claim.<\/p>\n

The despicable practice of governments reducing their opponents\u2019 security in a bid to tame the latter is not of recent origin. The Rajapaksa government stripped the war winning Army Commander Gen. Sarath Fonseka of special security after he had fallen from grace and challenged the then President Rajapaksa politically. Today, the boot is on the other foot!<\/p>\n

The present government obtained a popular mandate, promising to be different from its predecessor. Now, it has to make good that pledge and ensure that all political and military leaders responsible for the country\u2019s successful war on terror are protected without leaving any room for allegations that it is using security as a tool to control and harass some of them.<\/p>\n

If it can be proved that former President Rajapaksa has done anything illegal while in office, let him be severely dealt with according to the law. Some ministers claim that billions of US dollars that the members of the former ruling clan and its henchmen allegedly amassed through fraudulent means have been stashed away overseas. If so, that money must be brought back and the culprits prosecuted without further delay. It can be used to bridge the budget deficit! But, the former President\u2019s security must not be reduced on any grounds. He deserves special security as the only President who fearlessly provided political leadership to the country\u2019s war on terror. Had he buckled under foreign pressure or sought to curry favour with some western powers by suspending military operations, nobody would have been safe here today.<\/p>\n

It is being argued in some quarters that the Rajapaksa government released more than 12,000 LTTE combatants and, therefore, the present administration shouldn\u2019t be faulted for freeing three or four dozen terror suspects. This argument is not without some merit. However, what should be of concern here is not the numbers as such but the reason why the LTTE detainees currently being held were not released together with those 12,000 suspects. They were detained because they were hardcore LTTE cadres who couldn\u2019t be rehabilitated according to the big guns of the previous government.<\/p>\n

Nobody should be kept behind bars indefinitely simply because they are terror suspects. The previous government erred by not bringing charges against the detainees it describes as hardcore terrorists. But, the present government will do well to refrain from throwing caution to the winds when it handles a sensitive issue of this nature. What was reported from the North during the recent Mahaveer Week made one wonder whether the situation in that part of the country was as normal as it was made out to be. There certainly is a pressing need for the government to tread cautiously without trying to humour anyone!<\/p>\n

The late President Ranasinghe Premadasa made a fatal mistake by exposing his political opponents to danger for having made an abortive attempt to impeach him. He would never have been able to overcome the political fallout of the Lalith Athulathmudali assassination even if the LTTE had failed to assassinate him in 1993. Lalith\u2019s death triggered a political tsunami which plunged the country into turmoil and ended the UNP\u2019s 17-year-rule. Those who don\u2019t learn from history are said to be doomed to repeat it.<\/p>\n

The government tells us there are no terrorist threats at present. If so, the credit for that should go to those who defeated terrorism without grovelling before Prabhakaran and signing ceasefire agreements with him. Threats to political leaders don\u2019t emanate from the LTTE alone. Terrorism was something unheard of in this country when Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike was assassinated. Hence, the need for providing special security to the political leaders who have reason to believe their lives are in danger!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editorial\u00a0Courtesy Island December 7, 2015, 8:15 pm Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa is faced with serious threats due to the curtailment of his security and the release of hardcore Tigers, his office has said. The government has sought to deny this claim. The despicable practice of governments reducing their opponents\u2019 security in a bid to tame […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50029","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=50029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}