Ceylon Today Editorial

POLITICAL CRAP ABOUT MEETHOTAMULLA

20 April 2017

Had someone told US President Donald Trump about the Meethotamulla crisis, he would have blurted out his cryptic...and now famous... 'Not good', quip.
He would also have then frowned at the death toll...30, and still counting, as we reported, and said to Mattis and McMaster "Drop the attacks on Syria. The same number of people has died in that garbage dump called Sri Lanka and without Assad's chemical stuff".

Mattis and McMaster quip "You want us to take out anyone in Colombo then?
To which he would have said "No. Just get in there before the Chinese do".
So, then between the UNP, SLFP, SLPP, JVP and what have you ...AND! with the US, India and China and our new friend Putin all tearing and tugging at Sri Lanka, all we've got to show is a lot of garbage. Come election time then, it won't really matter who you vote for because they've all had their turn with the Rajapaksa's and friend Muzammil at the helm for ten years, and the Ranil- Sirisena combine now going into year three. The private sector 'garbage proprietors' (known as Kunu Mudalaliwarun in Sinhala) have meanwhile had a terrific run earning a couple of billions from the CMC or whoever to collect Colombo's trash and dump it all in Meethotamulla...and to hell with health hazards and the safety of the people living at the foot of that mountain of trash.

Mind you, Trump unleashed 59 missiles to end Assad's chemical weapon use in Syria where the death toll was near par with the deaths at Meethotamulla.

The point is whether it really matters how people die. The more relevant point here is that what matters is that Assad stays alive to kill more innocents. As far as the families in Meethotamulla who lost 30 loved ones in an avalanche of garbage, what matters is that someone's gross negligence killed them. But where does the buck stop? At the CMC? The GMOA that has yet not said a word about something that should directly concern them, but is busy raising hell to 'solve' issues not related to health. The Ministry of Public Administration? The Opposition? The Government? The President? The Prime Minister? The Western Provincial Council?
Where does the buck stop? Whose individual or collective negligence, immediate or over the years, led to the deaths of 30 or more people?

Transparency and accountability are words which have been flippantly bandied about ever since the LTTE were militarily defeated. But can we begin with just a little transparency and accountability, at least, as far as these 30 deaths are concerned. Let's forget all about the 40,000 deaths of Tamil civilians claimed by the UN.

If Meethotamulla's deaths were taken before a tribunal, who would the accused be? Elected representatives of Good Governance? Society at large? The health authorities? The housing authorities which issued legal deeds for houses constructed at the foot of an impending crisis where not even a dog should have been allowed to seek shelter? Who legitimized potential death? Who kept the guillotine in place knowing full well that a guillotine kills? Who earned billions out of creating a crisis and euphemistically called it 'garbage disposal'? How many politicians at Municipal, Local Government and Central Government level earned commissions from the Kunu Mudalalis who will now earn more billions a year by transporting Colombo's garbage twenty times further away from Colombo.

The incomparable Denzil Peiris used to say that where there's politics, there's garbage. But he never dreamt that the reverse would be true, that 'where there's garbage, there's politics.'

Transporting dirt costs money. No wonder then that political opposites have this unspoken truth as it were in the hidden story behind the dirt of Meethotamulla? How much have successive governments ultimately spent in aimlessly outsourcing garbage clearance to the private sector....and at what cost in terms of human suffering and life. How much does a life cost to a loved one left behind? What's the price tag on a mother dead under an avalanche of dirt? A father? Daughter, son? How much does a life cost? And who is accountable? Who will compensate enough? Here is a rare copulation of companions in crime: Opposition politicians, government politicians and the victims themselves who should have known better than to tolerate gross negligence by successive governments.

From era to era, politics is the last refuge of the scoundrel. As Anton Chekov put it profoundly "Ordinary Hypocrites pretend to be doves. Political and literary hypocrites pretend to be eagles. But don't be disconcerted by their aquiline appearances. They are not eagles. They are rats or dogs".