By Vijitha Herath
It is not very clear when dogs were domesticated. However, it could be presumed that at the end of man’s hunting age the dog was a regular member of his abode. Many of these dogs were reared for hunting and with man beginning to lead a civilised life the need for hunting dogs diminished.
There hasn’t been any record of using bloodhounds to hunt down people until defense sections of dictators like Hitler or Pinochet used them to torture prisoners.
The talk about bloodhounds has begun in the society again. A pack of bloodhounds has attacked a meeting held by the JVP and killed two persons. It would be unjustifiable for dogs but there is no other suitable term to be used for these underworld thugs at this moment. They become dogs as they are being reared. They become blood hounds as they hunt to fulfill the wishes of their masters.
The attempt of the government to wash its hands off the murders by diverting the responsibility to other parties disclosed its guilty mentality. Even before a complaint was made regarding the incident the Director General of Media Center for National Security Lakshman Hulugalle told the media that the murders were committed by a group that had left the JVP. The ‘responsible’ media center of the government attempted to defend the government even before any police investigations were carried out regarding the incident.
On one hand the behaviour of the government is reasonable. The whole country knows that the violence was unleashed by an underworld thug called Julampitiye Amare and his gang. These are not their first murders. They are unpunished perpetrators of more than a dozen murders. Everyone in the area knows it. However, these underworld thugs have been reared, nurtured and made powerful by the politics of the government and specially that of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. No legal action has been taken against their unlawful acts. Hence, they expect they could wriggle through the current situation and this coincides with the attempt of the Director General of MCNS. The whole country awaits the move of the government. The government should be fully aware of this.
The government deployed its official security sections to take the life of Roshen Chanuka When workers fought against the attempt of the government to plunder the EPF. When there was an outburst in the country against the sordid act a commission headed by a retired judge was appointed a year ago to carry out an investigation. However, until today there hasn’t been any report presented or perpetrators identified and punished.
Later, Anton Fernando, a fisherman, was shot dead when a peaceful agitation to demand reduction of increased fuel prices carried out by fisher folk in Chilaw was shot at. Several teams were allocated to investigate regarding this incident too. However, as usual, there were no offenders. There is a possibility that Katuwana murders too would not have any offender.
Malanee Edirimannage and Samanthe Heshan are two innocent civilians silenced by the bullets of these thugs. They did not have any personal grudge against the thugs. The only ‘wrong’ they did was participating at a meeting of a political party that is not in the ruling alliance. What the message the thugs wanted to instill by the murders is no one would be allowed to engage in politics against the government in President’s village and no one should attempt to do so. There are media reports that the government, to show its strength, is moving to dissolve a few provincial councils before their legitimate term ends and hold elections. If so, nothing has been left to imagination as to how these elections are to be won. Government’s goons are already displaying this ‘strength’ to the country and to the world.
This indicates that there are no ‘lessons learnt’ by the government. It would be the most idiotic move of the government if it considers that it could strengthen its administration by murders and unleashing terror. It is the same line of thoughts Ben Ali, Gaddafi, Mubarak and the kind entertained. However, things didn’t take place as they expected. Instead of being strengthened regimes of most rulers who unleashed bloodhounds were weakened. They were also shortened. Such rulers had to spend their final years or die in prisons. Asking the government to leash bloodhounds will have no results. For, the whole country knows who the owners of these bloodhounds are. This doesn’t mean they should be unleashed. They should be leashed with politics of their masters.
DM