(Sri Lanka Brief/05.12.2024) Monday’s police attack on a group of Development Officers (DOs), who are attached to state-run schools as teachers, during a protest near the Education Ministry, Battaramulla, has given the public a foretaste of what is to come. Governments in this country readily go to any extent to safeguard their interests and nip protests in the bud to prevent them from snowballing. Only President Gotabaya Rajapaksa chose to handle protests differently; he even designated an area near the Presidential Secretariat for agitations. His strategy backfired; the Galle Face Green became the cradle of an uprising that led to his ouster. The SLPP-UNP regime under Ranil Wickremesinghe’s presidency went on the offensive and had protests crushed in the most brutal manner; in most cases, riot police personnel outnumbered protesters! The incumbent dispensation has apparently taken a leaf out of Wickremesinghe’s book in handling protests.
The DOs on the warpath are demanding that they be absorbed into the teacher service immediately. The government claims that they protested while a discussion was in progress in the Education Ministry on how to solve their problems, and the police moved in to maintain order. The protesting DOs, most of whom are believed to be NPP sympathisers, may have thought that they would be able to crank up pressure on ‘their government’ to redress their grievances expeditiously, without being roughed up by the police.
The JVP-led NPP government, whose leaders used to shed copious tears for protesters and take up the cudgels for trade union rights, has faulted the DOs for having staged what they call an unnecessary protest; it has sought to absolve itself of the blame for the police action at issue.
General Secretary of Ceylon Teachers’ Union, Joseph Stalin, who took on previous governments with might and main, to the extent of crippling schools with trade union action, to win teachers’ demands, has made only a whimper of protest against Monday’s incident. Curiously, he has condemned the police action while urging the government to look into it. He has thereby sought to separate the police from the government in a sharp contrast to what he used to do; he would lay the blame for police crackdowns on workers’ protests at the feet of previous governments. He is beginning to sound conformist. The JVP trade union leaders in the current Parliament have also been critical of the protesting DOs.
There was something disconcerting about Monday’s protest in Battaramulla. Three police personnel involved in dispersing the protesters suffered cut injuries and had to be rushed to hospital. The protesting DOs were obviously unarmed, and the question is who attacked the police. Deputy Minister of Public Security Sunil Watagala said in an interview with ITN, on Tuesday night, that razor blades had been used to injure the police officers.
Were the attacks carried out by some agents provocateurs who infiltrated the demonstration to discredit the protesters’ cause and provoke the police into unleashing force? If so, who sent them there? The protesters themselves caught a suspect and handed him over to the police. He was later identified as a military intelligence operative, according to a report we published yesterday.
The police and intelligence outfits usually cover protests from all angles, and even obtain drone footage to capture aerial perspectives of such events, as is known to the media. They must have done so on Monday because the DOs’ demonstration was held on the eve of the commencement of the first debate in the 10th Parliament—on President Anura Dissanayake’s Policy Statement. So, the police should be able to trace the person or persons responsible for attacking them. If they cannot find the culprit/s, who operated in the open on Monday, how can they be expected to solve far more serious crimes committed on the sly?
It behoves all trade unions leaders who are genuinely committed to serving the interests of workers and safeguarding their rights to pressure the law enforcement authorities and the government to have Monday’s attacks on the police thoroughly probed and the perpetrators thereof brought to justice immediately.