 |
 No
no no no no nooo!!!
By Kumudini Hettiarachchi
"Shame, shame all the monkeys know your name," my nearly-six daughter
was fooling my two-year-old son. They were indulging in a childish game.
It was just three days after the much-awaited Wayamba Provincial Council
election and a week before the "tamasha" celebrations for the so-called
independence we gained from the British 51 years ago.
The two events brought into focus the legacy we are preparing to leave
behind for posterity. And what a legacy, what a shame, as my daughter would
have said, though not in the same context. At the moment she doesn't understand
the gravity of what has been happening in Sri Lanka and what her heritage
would be. I dread to think of the look of sadness followed by anger that
would veil her eyes as she points an accusing finger at me and the likes
of me before she says, "Mummy, you tolerated this. You allowed this to
happen. You are responsible. Why didn't you do something about it?
I think it is time we did something, starting as individuals and then
as a responsible society. Not tomorrow, not the next provincial council
election, not next year, but right now, before it is too late.
Public apathy has to end. No longer should we be indifferent to the
events that have taken place in Wayamba, with the excuse that it is not
Colombo, Kandy, Galle, Anuradhapura or our area. No longer does the excuse
that earlier parties did it, holds good. We also know Sri Lanka's history,
therefore politicians don't need to remind us of it.
We too have lived through part of it at least. We know what the United
National Party (UNP) did. Some of us saw how the "technique" of rigging
elections was turned into a fine art. How party thuggery was institutionalised
by the UNP. I still remember the 1988 Presidential election.
Some of us were working for the now defunct "SUN". Next to our office
at Hulftsdorp was a school which doubled up as a polling booth during elections.
The activity there was amazing. Hundreds of polling cards were issued to
anyone who was interested in taking one. One woman cast her "vote" 21 times,
as we watched from our upstair office. The police were there in strength,
because it was the electorate of the presidential candidate. That candidate
would have won that area anyway, it was his stronghold. There was no need
for his supporters to resort to rigging. But they did.
Of course those were the bad old days of "dushanaya saha beeshanaya."
But the people gave their verdict in 1994. It was a clear message. That
simple cross on the ballot papers drawn by the humble men and women who
had formed queues at the crack of dawn, echoed a message right across the
nation: "No to violence, no to suppression, no to election rigging and
no to corruption." The people wanted a change, that's why they voted for
the People's Alliance (PA). It was not because the PA was popular, but
just that people were tired, people were fed up with the violence and desperately
needed a change. But the message has gone over the heads of the few intelligent
politicians among the hundreds who are supposed to be our rulers. The warning
is unheeded and Wayamba was the classic example. While politicians literally
fought it out, the people went about their business of living. Life went
on as usual, while party supporters stripped each other, beat each other
and even killed each other. On the day of the election, according to ordinary
people and polls observers there was a free-for-all. Attacks on polling
stations, intimidation of polling officials and voters, stuffing of and
tampering with ballot boxes by armed supporters of political parties and
forced removal of ballot boxes.
Nine ballot boxes had also been burnt. And as we know, in such a fracas,
the mighty is victorious. So those with the forces behind them, swept the
boards, caring not a whit what the consequences were, especially the long-term
impact on the masses themselves. Wayamba, comprising the districts of Kurunegala
and Puttalam has close to 1.4 million voters. The People's Action for Free
and Fair Elections (PAFFREL), which monitored the election, said it was
"irretrievably flawed". Even the run-up to the poll was called the worst
in history by PAFFREL and the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV)
which had documented nearly 800 incidents, including two murders of political
supporters of the PA and the UNP, shootings, assault, robbery and arson.
Incidentally, an interesting development was that for the first time
in the country's history the election was observed by women monitors on
a large scale and rightly so because women account for more than half (51
percent) of the population. But what a shock they got — at one polling
station, gunmen had fired shots into the air, forcing the monitors to flee.
"It was frightening, it was absolute terror," a female monitor has said.
Thinking back, where did we go wrong as a nation.
I feel it happened gradually over the years, since independence because
of public lethargy. Whenever small incidents took place in the past everyone
kept quiet, the people, the media, the politicians. This deafening silence
was useful for politicians - if the ruling party did it, the opposition
only had to await its chance, for the next one would be theirs. Let us
also not blame the poor public servants who acted as election staff, manning
the booths etc - what could they do in the face of arms and thuggery.
They have families to go back to and cannot single-handedly implement
the rules to ensure free and fair polls. We, the people of this land, have
to shake ourselves awake from our civic unconsciousness and take a stand.
Do we tolerate this or not? Do we even at this late stage say a resounding,
"No"? Enough is just enough, be it the People's Alliance or the United
National Party. Or do we look the other side and pretend nothing is wrong?
The lament often heard these days is: "Whom can we vote for - we will have
to spoil our votes" or "What is the use of casting our vote, the election
will be rigged and will not be a true reflection of the people's decision".
There is also another factor which may have slipped our mind in our
daily grind for survival, which leaves no room for lofty thoughts of democracy
and freedom.
What about a Third Force that may emerge out of this violent political
culture? No I am not referring to a mainstream political party that will
come forward to contest the next election. I am talking about a potent
force that will not play by the rules, as we know them. What then?
All the politicians who have been responsible for the creation of such
a force by fiddling with the rights of the voters in this country, will
be the first to flee abroad. We, the humble men, women and children, who
don't have such privileges will be left to face the music.
That's why I come back to my initial argument that we should take our
destiny into our own hands and not allow goons with guns to rule us. The
first step is to cry halt to the suppression of the vote in one voice-civic
groups, the media, but most of all the public. The next would be to exert
immense pressure on political parties not to use force.
Then and only then will we have true independence. Freedom which can
be cherished and passed on to our children and grandchildren. |
