Ideally politics and sports should not be mixed together but, last week’s terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team in Pakistan led to the incident becoming a matter for discussion in Parliament and inevitably a political blame game.
It was Sports Minister Gamini Lokuge who informed the House on Tuesday morning of the attack, giving details of the injuries sustained by the players and reassuring the House that none of them was seriously hurt. But his statement only led to questions being raised by opposition MPs as to why the cricket team was sent to Pakistan in the first place when there was instability in the country.
Both JVP MP Anura Dissanayaka and UNP MP Lakshman Kiriella queried why the team was allowed to travel to Pakistan when both India and Australia had pulled out of touring the country as the security situation was not satisfactory. Some UNP MPs accused the government of sending the team despite knowledge of a security threat as the Cricket Board had no money and thereby putting the players lives at great risk.
However, Minister Lokuge said there were assurances from Pakistan authorities of high level of security for the team and that the tour was finalised when MP Arjuna Ranatunga was heading the Interim Committee of the Cricket Board.
This remark prompted Mr.Ranatunga to intervene. He said the Pakistan authorities had assured security for the team on par with that accorded to VVIPs and the Sri Lanka Embassy in Islamabad too had said there was no threat of an attack on the Sri Lanka team.” This is a very unfortunate incident but we must remember that Pakistan came to our help when we were faced with similar problems,” Mr.Ranatunga said.
The need to tread carefully in responding to the attack on the cricketers was echoed by Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayaka as well, who said, Pakistan was a friendly country and Sri Lanka’s response to the incident must be a well thought out one.
Cricket aside, Parliament had to carry on with its routine business of approving the extension of the emergency by another month and Prime Minister Wickremanayaka who has the dreary job of giving reasons for justifying emergency rule on a monthly basis, accused some volunteer organisations operating in the country of supporting the LTTE propaganda machinery and trying to salvage the Tigers when they were facing certain defeat.
“The government is accused of committing genocide but if such a thing was happening, will Tamil people be allowed to live in the east or in other parts of the country amidst the Sinhalese people,” the Prime Minster asked.
UNP members who of late, have been speaking in favour of the military action against the LTTE, continued to do so with MP Dayasiri Jayasekera thanking the President, the Defence Secretary and the army for the role they have played in wiping out the LTTE while warning the government that it must be alert to conspiracies that may arise from different quarters to pressurize it to stop the military action against the LTTE.However, on other issues such as the government’s handling of the media, he was less flattering. “The President rode to power on the shoulders of the media but we did not think that one day he would turn against the same people. It is indeed ironic,” MP Jayasekera said.
Leader of the House Minister Nimal Siripala De Silva said what was delaying the army from taking control of the little remaining areas under LTTE control was their concern for the welfare of the civilians trapped there. “If we were like Israel, we could have finished this in one day but we will not do that as we want to safeguard the civilians,” he said.
Parliament last week also approved the Sri Lanka Electricity Bill for the regulation of generation, transmission, distribution, supply and use of electricity. Despite threats of trade union action to coincide with the passage of the Bill as well as opposition from the UNP and the JVP, the government got the Bill passed with a comfortable majority. |
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