Editorial

12th December 1999

Do your duty, Mr. Policeman

What we read in the news of how the Police Chief of Seattle quit his job taking responsibility for mishandling of the demonstrations in that city against the disastrous World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting recently is a powerful example of honour taking precedence over the desire to hang on to office. He came before a news conference and unhesitatingly said he was taking the rap for his department's handling or mishandling, of the protesters who were tear-gassed, water-gunned and baton-charged. Moreover, he said he was quitting because investigations would be hampered if he continued in office during the hearings.

What happens in Sri Lanka? When demonstrators get clobbered and cameramen beaten up and their cameras snatched away from them so no evidence is on record, a minister justifies the attack while the Inspector General of Police keeps mum. Then again when the DIG Crimes says policemen are corrupt and politicians are meddling, not allowing the police to carry on with their normal duties, the DIG gets transferred. We wonder who believes that the problem gets solved in this way - not anyone surely with an iota of good sense or anyone who believes in what good administration and government should be. One of the few plus points or positive developments in recent months was the manner in which the police and the Attorney General's Department handled the G. C. Wickeremasinghe kidnap-ransom case to get tough sentences handed down to the convicts within nine months of the crime.

In another paradoxical instance some years back, a Senior Superintendent of Police found guilty of violating the human rights of a peaceful group of citizens was rewarded with a promotion. Such is the way things are done in Sri Lanka - a far cry indeed from Seattle.

In consequence of actions like these, the Police have lost the confidence of the public and are no longer considered as friend in need for the people. Far from it. Indeed, law-abiding or peace-loving people dread to even enter a police station today. To make matters even worse, day-to-day crimes, of which we are not short in these chaotic days, remain unsolved. Instead we hear of senior policemen donning their uniforms not indeed to do the jobs expected of them but to carry out private errands for family, friends and politicians.

Now the presidential elections are round the corner and the police have an onerous duty cast on them once again. How well are they going to perform? Will it be as we saw at the Wayamba Provincial Council Elections when goondas took over the polling booths with the policemen on duty helplessly or hopelessly looking on? Newspapers quoted police officers as saying they were ashamed to wear their uniforms in the face of thuggery which they could do nothing about, because perhaps of the fear not just of the goondas but the politicians behind them and the powers-that-be.

The Inspector General of Police should have resigned then and resigned five times over in the course of his holding office in the face of the gross misdemeanours that have taken place in the performance of police duties.

The Attorney General, the Courts and the Elections Commissioner have repeatedly told the police of their duties at election time — to be impartial and serve the people, not just the ruling party. We see these days how the police don't have the capacity or the courage to remove some cut-outs though the IGP keeps warning and setting deadlines which no one seems to take seriously. If they have not conformed but even subverted these instructions in the past, it is our hope they will conform now and carry out their duties with the utmost impartiality and act where action is really necessary. That will restore confidence in them in the eyes of the citizens whom they serve.

Above all they will have to remember that their bounden duty is to serve the people and not just the ruling party. But can this be is the question. This is a sorry state of affairs indeed. Yet we are hoping in good faith that the police will do their duty honourably and not let the nation down on December 21.

The Political Column

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