Lalin’s Coloumn: Sports Minister---The Police reflect society

The Sports Minister at a press briefing recently on Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) instead of sticking only to SLC bosses’ corrupt, shameless and miserable conduct, decided also to give rankings for corruption at ‘All Island ‘level.

He said that SLC was 3rd in the Island in diminishing order. He did not state how many contestants there were, who entered them or how he ranked them. In the case of SLC, the Minister’s remarks did not cause much turbulence. SLC stinks and many of its senior executives stink for much more than a proverbial mile from Maitland Crescent but they do not care. There is a strong sense of impunity if not immortality, a national trait of many, as the Minister must know. And SLC was laughing the next day.

Having arbitrarily placed the Education Ministry in first place on corruption he announced without any provocation or need that the Police was second. Now what made the Minister who went to brief the press on SLC especially its corruption, take a head shot at the police as well as the Health Ministry?

There has to be a reason and the people would like to know it, even if SLC wasn’t the place to do make such comments. Even if what he said had truth in it he certainly was not the Minister who should have said it. In the absence of any facts, the Minister’s remarks appear to be an ill advised attempt to play to the gallery. It will certainly demoralize the police. The Police being shackled because this attack came from a Minister in an all powerful government gave a guarded reply. It asked for facts. It will not get any. The Education Ministry did not contest the issue.

A pity that the Minister had given little thought to the fact that all 3 organizations he mentioned were under the very government in which he was a Minister. Of late Ministers have out done each other in the media exposing other’s Ministries. However the last thing the people need is a presentation of a national order of merit on corruption with a Minister giving away the awards. The media does that regularly with much acceptance. The people only want to know what will be done to stop corruption and who will be punished for it. Ministerial strip shows, even if they are infectious, provide only comic relief.

The Minister also made it known then but not before that he had been offered and refused to accept 3 First class tickets to fly to the West Indies to watch the T20 finals. He however did not name the offenders. Why? Sadly for the expectations of the people, the Minister ‘bugged’ out the very next day. A spineless one day performance.

The Minister must know that corruption is endemic in SL. Who is the public figure, politician, businessman, government servant at any level or plain citizen from the office peon to the bus, SUV or 3 wheel driver who will stand up and say ‘I am not corrupt’. Of course there are some around in all sectors of society who could say so but few would have heard of them. They will not boast about it either. What the people fervently want is reduction of corruption in their life time and its eventual prevention (maybe by the beginning of the next century at best) and not febrile gushing by Ministers.

One has only to read the Transparency International report on SL (circa 2005) to know how deep this cancer runs. It said that the whole judicial system was corrupt. That unfortunately includes the police but also nets in the judiciary, the lawyers, the witnesses and the prison service. What happens to a country when that happens? Has anyone heard of a corruption free police in the world? The reasons are many including the national standard of public conduct. Quite a lot of it is because of pressure brought on the police by politicians. A eager rookie policeman who ‘books’ a speeding driver is told by his sergeant or IP on reporting back to the ‘station’ that he better go soft on that man as he is related to a politician or someone rich or powerful. Not much later the ‘cop’ learns there are other and easier ways of making a living including collecting big bucks handed over by drunk/speeding/reckless drivers etc. These posh ‘bribe givers’, who must rank as numero uno in the corruption chain, are also the first to pillory the Police.

The SL Police for all its critics is an effective department. It serves the government and the people well despite its aberrations. Its highly professional performance on United Nations duty in about 6 countries has resulted in them being in universal high demand belying the image that some of its own country men have of it. Maybe it is because they do not have to listen to politicians over there.

Many crimes that could have defied detection in any part of the world have been solved by the police. The arrest of the murderer of a headless foreigner found at the foot of Adam’s Peak in the 1960s was probably one of the best detections ever made.

In times of great peril, ill equipped for the task, the police lost many hundreds killed to the LTTE. It took without protest for 30 years a military role for which it had been woefully trained. In 1971 it took the brunt of the casualties (50%) against the treacherous JVP and saved the country together with the Armed Forces. Again in 1989/90 when the JVP on a genocide course posed the greatest threat ever to the state, the police and the Forces overcame it. Its steadfast contribution to the nation for nearly 200 years, despite its short comings, should not be forgotten. Using it as a whipping post, especially as a diversion to soften blows on deserving targets, even in frustration, is tactless and cowardly.

The Police have been the first line of defence in the security of the state. Six hundred (600) of them died in horrendous circumstances in the East because a politician ordered them to surrender to the LTTE in 1990. After that what politician can upbraid them with a clear conscience for another 100 years? People can walk the streets anywhere in SL at any time of day or night unafraid. They have untroubled sleep at night. Why? Despite what is often spread around about their faults, not without some truth in it, most people rely on and trust them. But they only reflect the people and not the other way round.

In SL the people in all walks of life often take the law into their own hands. Quite a few do not pay society a debt for doing so and it is not the fault of the police as the Minister must know. When vehicles, driven recklessly knock down and kill people, it is not unknown for the people to attack the drivers and set fire to the vehicle. When a criminal is caught by the public, the citizens often give him severe summary, occasionally deadly, punishment before handing him/body over to the police. Yet if a vicious offender is allegedly assaulted in the police station (which cannot be excused even if Guantanamo exists) these very vigilantes of mob justice of all political hues are the first to remonstrate if the victim is their ‘man’ (but not otherwise). Everyone knows what used to happen to supporters of losing candidates after elections. Did 1983 happen because of the weaknesses of the police or the politicians in power?

Much of SL’s society, despite its levels of education and overt adherence to religious values, is brutal, vicious, callous and indifferent to others pain and hurt and unafraid of the due process of law. Human life is so very cheap. Deaths of 100s of SL house maids abroad annually appear not to stir even their relatives and certainly not politicians. There are over 2000 murders, rapes, deaths due to road traffic accidents and suicides annually which mean that one of each occurs ever 4.5 hours. Sadly most of the victims are also poor. The incidence of poor mothers murdering their own children is not uncommon. The police come from the same milieu. They reflect it. It cannot be otherwise.

If the police are corrupt, is it a wonder, as much as it is inexcusable? If they are to change, the people, politicians, businessmen, government servants and everyone else too must change. Who will educate them? Parents, teachers or clergy? Why have they failed so far? Corruption is wicked but it did not start with the police. Will it end at the Augean stables in Maitland Crescent? Who will be Hercules?

SL needs its police. How much does it need politicians? Who will decide? Will it depend on a corruption index?

- Asian Tribune -