The Rule of Law and social peace

As the gun smoke settles on Saturday’s polls related shoot-out in Mulleriyawa and investigations proceed with regard to the killing of the relevant UPFA politician Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra, confusion reigns in some quarters on how this tragic outcome occurred. Irresponsible comment on matters of this kind is not permissible since the killing is under investigation but we consider it totally irrelevant to delve into the question of who pulled the trigger first, for instance, and whether retaliation of any kind was proper or not. These are among the more important, though sensational, aspects of the case and are best left to the relevant judicial authorities to decide upon.

However, the rulers and the ruled need to delve deeply into the issue of the seeming widespread availability of unauthorized arms and the presence of persons bearing arms who are not members of the Armed Forces and the Police. These questions are very much at the heart of law and order issues which have been bedeviling Sri Lankan society over the past few decades. This is the widely commented on ‘gun culture’ which needs to be addressed and which is continuing to account for disturbances of the kind which erupted at Mulleriyawa. It is a residual issue from Sri Lanka’s violence-ridden past which has, perhaps, not been resolved in full on account of the absorbing questions which have been confronting the country over the past few years or so.

But, the public are deeply concerned about the lingering ‘gun culture’ and are of the view that steady progress needs to be made in the direction of ridding local society of the illegal arms menace. Public-spirited persons are lending their voices to this worthy cause and a systematic effort would need to be made from now on to round-up some of these arms which, apparently, have been around from the late eighties when the JVP’s second aborted bloody uprising badly disfigured local society.

As we said yesterday, the issue of the criminalization of local society is a highly complex issue which cannot be resolved in a hurry. The seeds of some of the lawlessness which we are seeing today were sown quite some time back when even the more undesirable elements in society were seen as suitable to ‘run for Parliament’. Those were the post-1977 years when state leaders of those times in their wisdom decided that for the purpose of ‘fighting fire with fire’, it was necessary to permit some social dregs to run for public office. Thus was the ‘criminalization of politics’ given a sound jab in the arm. Present day Sri Lanka is burdened with the task of fighting and defeating this blighting process.

Difficult though it may seem, the issue of illegal arms must be taken on by the state and neutralized. Now that the terror problem has been defused it is most opportune to take on the residual issues which grew from this larger problem and ensure that they are systematically resolved.

To begin with, the necessary legal regime should be brought into being to ensure that all illegal arms are taken into government custody without further delay. Of course, persons holding sensitive positions in the state system must be provided armed protection but these needs should be met on a highly selective basis and state law- enforcers should be deployed for the task. There is no need for ‘private armies’ and concerted efforts must be made to rid the country of the latter menace too.

As we mentioned yesterday, no efforts must be spared to ensure that only the law-abiding and the good-charactered are enabled to run for public office. This would enable the state to rid society of quite a few afflictions that are currently bedeviling it. Besides, concerted efforts must now be made to humanize local society. There is no getting over the need to sow the seeds of humanity in our midst with exceptional zeal. The foundation should be laid for a caring and sharing culture where humanity would reign in the relations among humans. This momentous enterprise cannot be postponed.