Government Brutalities Against Protesters

By Sunil J. Wimalawansa –

Part 4: Sri Lanka—Changing Pillows to Cure Headaches: Government Brutalities Against Protesters 

Govt. Brutality Against Civilians—Parallelism Between Covid Mismanagement And Current Protesters

This protest is a natural, non-political uprising. This natural movement is against the government’s wrongdoings, especially corruption and blatantly wrong policy decisions made from the grassroots: they have the right to do so.

Govt intimidations must not deter protesters

One of the main goals of the new puppet cabinet is to find ways to dismiss protesters at any cost to save their position and power (if any); it has nothing to do with the country or its people. Senior ranking police officers tried to obtain Court injections to suppress protests and gatherings but failed. The protesters, lawyers, and other professionals voluntarily helping the crowd must be wiser and be aware of broader tactics used by the government: they must keep a step ahead of the wickedness.

Protesters must not get enticed with gimmicks or get trapped into the agendas of opposition politicians, the WHO, Big Pharma, and INGO, including the ulterior motives of the world economic forum, Gates and GAVI foundations. The latter groups have a motive to control our population according to their tune and destroy our GDP, unique culture, and heritage.  These alienations could allow ministers to get foreign donations, including concerned expatriates. Politicians can syphon out millions of dollars to their pockets, disguising themselves as helping the country.

This is the same playbook administration played before, such as tsunami and COVID-19. Parliamentarians will try to convert available funds to profit again, turning into another unscrupulous business. People have seen enough of such acts in disgrace. It is no different from how politicians profited from the COVD pandemic by importing COVID vaccines, creating 100% profits for themselves. Vaccines had only a minor effect (or none) in controlling COVID-19. The government (ministers) continued to import ineffective vaccines, testing kits, worthless equipment at inflated prices, and illegal forced hotel quarantining using the army for additional profit-making.

Would the government make the same blunders against protesters as with COVID?

President and the new cabinet are in sheer panic mode; we hope they will not continue to make significant errors of judgement and enact wrong policies that harm the country. As stated in the previous article, power Corrupts: the potential of losing power corrupts most.

Under the current fear and utter desperation, it is plausible that the president might declare a curfew or even a Marshall law in the country to protect the fraternity. Surely, neither of these is totally inappropriate in the current situation. Curfew is a favourite and hopeless tactic used by the current egocentric army with unpatriotic leadership when they have no clue what to do. It repeatedly enforced such unwarranted curfews during 2020 that had no benefit to the country but ruined the economy.

COVID-19 never was an enemy. COVID-19 did not cause economic losses in Sri Lanka, but the curfew enforced by the army did. Nevertheless, the president ordered the army that knew nothing about public health or pandemic control to take over and combat it. Person(s) instigated an entirely unnecessary curfew that caused an enormous monetary loss and disrupted the social system, food insecurity, and livelihoods, yet to be held accountable.

Tragic collaboration of the army and health ministry/department led to disastrous COVID outcomes

In 2021, vaccines became the third-largest global business next to arms and energy. Viral less-lethal epidemics or pandemics (e.g., COVID) and infections continue cyclically, whether vaccinated or not. Vaccination did not prevent the spread of COVID; it only reduced the severity. It will subside on its own and re-appear as outbreaks with new virulent variants.  Current COVID vaccines are no more effective than placebos (i.e., inactive agents) against the Omicron and its variants. New viral variants have evolved from the original SARS-CoV-2 virus to overcome natural a d vaccine-mediated immunity, known as immune evasion. While they are much less lethal, they spread faster and behave like a new virus.

Despite their ineffectiveness, the USA, Australia, and Sri Lankan governments continue making blunders by importing and increasing utilisation through false advertisements using mainstream media. They used illegal mandates for these experimental vaccines/drugs to enhance utilisation and profit. These worthless vaccines and COVID testing kits (i.e., PCR and RAT kits) enriched a handful of business people and politicians. They now plan to give these investigational COVID vaccines to even children under five years, which will cause tremendous immediate and longer-term harm to them with no benefit.

The police brutality and military harassment must stop

A broader set of emerging data confirmed that none of the recent isolated acts of violence was caused by protesters. In contrast, new data reveals that government supporters are haphazardly engaged in triggering these. Some of these unthoughtful acts were apparently incited by desperate, entrenched local politicians. Whether the governing parliamentarians instigated this violence is not yet known. Irrespective of the perpetrators, these are designed to discredit the peaceful protesters, disrupt their movement, and protect a small group of politicians who created the current problems. Recent video and interview evidence suggests that police themselves initiated some recent violence but have not had any repercussions. The strange behaviour by the police of ignoring this violence at the site of occurrences further supports the underlying organised nature of the above allegation.

The author urges the Sri Lanka Bar Association (SLBA) and other credible legal entities to take legal injunctions to prevent escalating Police brutality, including the current shot to kill policy and the use of dangerous weapons and inhumanely military barricades to harm the public deliberately. There have been several previous wrongdoings and decisions made by the government, of which no legal entity took the appropriate actions to rectify them.

The public is watching to see whether they (including SLBA) will take the right actions this time, rather than keep talking (NATO) and sending memorandums. In the absence of an “emergency” declaration, the military has no role in crowd control. The use of the military for crowd control is a blatant violation of the constitution: they must stay in barracks. The interim government and the new constitution must restrict military involvement in civilian matters and military deployment unless there is a genuine danger to the public or the country where the president declares an emergency.

A rushed election will not change the current situation

Without achieving those mentioned above, an affirmative, practical, and effective long-term plan, having an early election will only invite the same political offenders to get re-elected and prevent the country from getting out of the fiscal crisis and development. Most of them are opportunists and scavengers.

The former election commissioner made a grave error by knowingly accepting the nomination from an unqualified candidate for the presidential election.  He might end up in jail for his legal and constitutional violations and the mayhem created following his unthoughtful action. However, making him alone a scapegoat would be another example of “changing pillows to cure a headache.”  Suppose the candidate was disqualified under the constitution; the Supreme Court must take it up. If proven, the elected position must be nullified retrospectively to his illegal appointment in 2019. This would invalidate all his decrees and gazette notifications, including treaties and the selling of Sri Lankan properties and other assets to foreigners and foreign countries nullified. There are significant legal ramifications of such a decision.

Conclusion

Not all politicians are bad. However, people should recognise that politicians are happy with the status quo: they hate changes, especially when these negatively affect them. Over seven decades, Sri Lanka had awful pilferage, and a putrid, nepotism- and favouritism-based political system in Sri Lanka culminated in the current miserable situation. The year 2022 is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Sri Lankans to overturn the ongoing political, individual, institution, corporate corruption and nepotism, and harmful international influences and public to gain the control back from politicians. Continue to say no to these.

*The next article will discuss the key components that need to be included in the new constitution.

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