Earlier it was ‘Go Home Gota’ and then it was ‘Gotagogama’. Then came ‘Mynagogama’. The last one is ‘Horugogama’. But any of those ‘villages’ or removing all 225 Members of the Parliament (MPs) will not push forward Sri Lanka economically or in any other way. The only way forward is enacting new laws and regulations in order to prevent corruption at all levels in all sectors especially in Parliament preventing all ‘crossovers’ and ‘acts of becoming independent’ after people vote them and electing them to represent them. MPs do those for their benefits and not on behalf of the people. All Sri Lankans should be prevented from being involved in all types of corruption from their birth and not once they become eligible to vote or enter Parliament. Everything should be done through the current 225 MPs in Parliament.
But this bitter truth is purposely forgotten by almost all protestors. They started their original protests demanding electricity, gas, fuel, milk powder etc. but now they demand ‘federal’ instead of ‘petrol’. This is because someone had come, given them food, water, cool drinks etc. while waiting in various queues and asked them to demand ‘federal’. May be the majority of protestors do not know what ‘federal’ is. No one is interested in finding out the gravity of the problem our country is facing at the moment or finding out possible solutions for the problems. What we see today is gatherings of people who shout, hold various placards and say ‘Kaputu Kaak Kaak Kaak’.
Right to protest
The other most important factor is no one can force someone to engage in protests. Anyone can take part in any protest if he/she wishes and no one should take part in any protest because someone forces them. Not taking part in a protest is not an offence. Anyone can refrain from taking part in any protest. Not taking part in a protest does not make you a traitor. It is the law of the land and is connected to a person’s human rights. It is very pathetic to see how certain elements try their best to bring the ‘jungle law’ existing inside State universities into the wider country using shortages of electricity, gas and fuel. The tactic is increasing the sufferings of people by giving them more pressure.
No trade union leader demands employers to protect the rights of their employees. May be this is because people losing their jobs is an advantage for the organisers of protests at this moment. Trade Union leaders do everything possible to increase the burden on employees. They cultivate hatred inside the minds of people towards whatever Government is in power at any moment. They stop public transport and the employers demand employees to report to work. The poor employees who do not have their own vehicles and official transport need to walk, fly or swim 30 or 40 kilometres to reach their workplaces. Still, employees do not see the real issue.
The burning problems of the ordinary people who are not that rich is coming to their workplaces using public transport, work and going home using the same. The people who own private vehicles can use that transport and many others receive official transport. When we see the number of vehicles run through roads during peak hours, we cannot say that there is a severe fuel shortage in Sri Lanka. The traffic jams are there as usual no matter the severity of fuel shortages. A person spends the same duration of time for travelling. No decrease can be noticed in the number of vehicles.
We can very clearly see that a significant number of filling station owners hide fuel stocks for various reasons. Some hide them purely for political reasons. We can simply find this out by checking who owns the filling station and with whom he/she associates with. People have done this on several occasions and some protests were launched after finding out those details. Some filling station owners hide fuel believing rumours such as possible price hikes etc. People start to protest on such occasions. Sometimes filling station operators offer fuel to other individuals and parties who do not wait in queues. This factor has also led to protests.
Fuel and gas queues
The most serious factor is not any of those. Fuel queues in Sri Lanka will never end if the relevant authorities let individuals collect fuel stocks and sell them later for extremely high prices. The situation with the gas supply is the same. The very same issues exist in the gas supply. This has made the situation worse. The majority of Sri Lankan people started a negative habit of stocking up everything since March. If anyone checks the majority of houses belonging to middle class citizens, they have more than two filled gas cylinders and fuel adequate for at least one month. This is the latest trend.
When the relevant authorities introduce restrictions, the people become smarter than authorities. They take out the fuel inside the tank of the vehicle, store the fuel and go to the filling station to obtain fuel again and again. Doing this by all at all times creates fuel queues. Nothing will be able to stop queues. They keep more than two filled gas cylinders with them.
The middle class people are very selfish by nature. They want to lead a comfortable life no matter what happens to others. This is the mentality built in them by the open economy introduced to this country in 1977 without any control, restrictions or at least any monitoring. They never care about the future of the country or anything else other than their own comfort. Usually, any Government cannot satisfy them easily.
It is very surprising that no protester demands new laws which prevent MPs from crossing over. Actually, no Sri Lankan has demanded this essential law. They demand this only when they speak. The ordinary people of Sri Lanka have not told what they actually need in addition to electricity, gas and fuel. There should be a mechanism to find what they want. The ordinary people’s voices can only be heard during elections through their vote and even during elections, their actual voices cannot be heard clearly because they do not have the power of a method to decide who should represent them in Parliament. It was decided by the leaders of various political parties so far. Therefore we cannot say it is acceptable.
It is very surprising that no protestor or organiser/organisers of protests talks about The Stolen asset Recovery Initiative (STAR) of the United Nations (UN). They can very easily and simply obtain what they want by following the relevant process mentioned in this initiative but no one at least mentions about it. The meaning is either all so-called ‘robberies’ are fake, fabricated and acts of slinging mud or the protestors’ intention is not assisting or helping the country and the people. They just want all foreign funds and all the other benefits they can get by organising protests. They do not care about the sufferings of the people at all. Only one of those two facts can be true and it is the responsibility of the people to find out which of them is true.
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