Wednesday 16th October, 2024

The JVP/NPP government has made a mockery of its much-advertised commitment to upholding transparency by keeping two probe committee reports on the Easter Sunday terror attacks under wraps. While the JVP/NPP leaders were in the Opposition, they were among those who demanded that the findings of presidential commissions and committees that investigated the Easter Sunday carnage be made public and legal action taken expeditiously based on them in a transparent manner. That demand struck a responsive chord with the public. But the JVP/NPP bigwigs are now humming a different tune!

Sri Lankan Presidents earned notoriety for ‘swallowing’ commission/committee reports, as it were. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has failed to be different.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe appointed two committees to probe issues pertaining to the Easter Sunday carnage. The committee, headed by former Justice S. A. Imam, was tasked with investigating some allegations Channel-4 (UK) made against Sri Lanka’s military intelligence, and the other, chaired by A. N. J. de Alwis, was assigned to probe the conduct of the State Intelligence Service, the Chief of National Intelligence, and other relevant authorities. The committees handed over their reports to President Wickremesinghe, but those documents have since been shelved.

On Monday, Pivithuru Hela Urumaya Leader Udaya Gammanpila issued an ultimatum to Public Security Minister Vijitha Herath, asking the latter to make public the aforesaid committee reports fast; he undertook to ensure that they would be in the public domain unless the government released them before 21 Oct. Instead of releasing the reports, Minister Herath threw a counterchallenge to Gammanpila yesterday; he dared the latter to make the reports public in three days, and went on to claim that it was a transgression to be in possession of such documents. One can only hope that the government will not place a legal obstacle to Gammanpila’s move to release the vital documents.

As for Minister Herath’s counterchallenge to Gammanpila, the government is making an issue of a non-issue in a bid to muddy the water and distract the public. It is absurd that Herath has asked Gammanpila to release the reports at issue; that is something he himself should have done immediately after being sworn in as the Minister of Public Security in keeping with the NPP’s election promise to uphold transparency. The JVP/NPP seems to have taken a leaf out of the UNP’s book on how to shelve commission/committee reports.

One may recall that the UNP-led Yahapalana government, which the JVP backed to the hilt, did something similar in 2015. It prevented the presentation of the first COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) report on the Treasury bond scams to Parliament. President Maithripala Sirisena dissolved Parliament before the report was tabled in the House. The JVP continued to honeymoon with the UNP-led administration despite that mega racket.

Minister Herath has said an investigation is underway to find out whether any pages in the two committee reports are missing. That is something even a schoolchild can figure out easily, and there is no need for an investigation. Besides, the chairpersons of the two probe committees, former Secretary to the President, and the Attorney General must be having copies of the reports. So, the inordinate delay in releasing those documents is unpardonable.

Now that Minister Herath has made it clear that the government will not make the two committee reports public, it is up to Gammanpila to release them online without further delay in keeping with his pledge.

Why is the NPP government wary of releasing the two committee reports at issue? Are we to conclude that the findings of the probe committees run counter to the NPP’s claims about the Easter Sunday terror attacks? Whatever the reason for the government’s hesitancy may be, the people’s right to information must be respected and transparency upheld.