This is what I call a hangover
A majority of parliamentarians this week advocated bringing back the gallows, as a means of re-introducing the death penalty and putting various hard-core criminals to sleep, for their own good, and for the good of society. What they did in the end however was to put a lot of each other to sleep.

Nobody spoke with any passion, even if this was not a subject on the lines of 'agricultural utility and agricultural implements policy', or on the lines of 'encouraging Mulberry cultivation and the further propagation of gherkins in the Mahaweli C area.'
Raja Collure, for instance, spoke as if the noose was round his neck - in a literal, not figurative sense. Gagging and stopping for breath, mimicking slow death, he proceeded to put the Gallery and the front benches, and then the back benches to sleep, even though he was one of the few who had the courage of his conviction to oppose the re-imposition of the death penalty as a deterrent to rising crime.

M. K. D. S. Gunesekera on the other hand, was inviting somebody to strangle him with the noose-like thing that was hanging around his neck - apparently a blue shawl that he wears over his national, in the style of his leader Mahinda Rajapakse. M. K. D. S said he is an ex-cop, and now I know what police brutality means without reading a single academic treatise on the subject.

Said he 'api Arabikaraye wage angili kappanna one, ath kappanna one…..'' "As they do in Arab countries, we need to cut off limbs, cut off fingers of criminals.'' He was serious too, and was calling John Amaratunge a namby pamby bleeding heart, because hanging people just isn't enough, they have to be hanged in public at Galle Face. If they ever have to do that to M. K. D. S. Gunasekera for some reason one day, I was sure many in the public gallery that day would scramble for front seats…

Only a few such as MP Chandrasena of the PA had the powers of reasoning to assert that there are two sides to the issue -- while deterrence is a factor that merits careful consideration, he said that death penalty also means that there is a chance that an innocent person might be hanged. But even he was shot down by some UNF backbencher. Jayantha Jayaweera who said '' this is an impossible contention -- there has not been a single case in Sri Lanka of anybody innocent having been sent to the gallows.'' Right. I heard he spent a good part of the morning in Kanatte, and all Sri Lankan criminals buried there, after being hanged, assured him they were in fact guilty....

On the issue of death, at least, the opposition and the government by and large seemed to have common cause, and lone-ranger Rajah Collure quoting the Pope against the death penalty, sounded alas like the Pope.

His entreaties to listen to the Pontiff were aimed at the Minister for Christian Affairs, John Amaratunge, the perfect Catholic that he is. "Oya tika karraganna thibuna'' Amaratunge told M. K. D. S. Gunasekera in his typical Wattala John-aiiya staccato. 'You could have done all that you wanted, if the opposition voted for the Organised Crimes Bill.'' Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and give unto the Pope what is his. John Amaratunge is one organised Catholic.

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