Who freed the hounds of Temple Trees, first?
The question Mahinda must ask himself
After fleeing Temple Trees in the early hours of May 10 to remain holed in hiding at the Trinco Naval Base, ex-Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa returns to Parliament on May 18, six days after Ranil’s advent as Prime Minister had smoothed the path to make a safe comeback.
Last Friday, exactly a month and a day after his political goons swarmed out of Temple Trees to attack peaceful protesters demanding the Rajapaksas to go, Mahinda Rajapaksa breaks his silence in Parliament to lambast the Gotagogama ‘Aragalaya’.
He brands the people in the struggle for change at the Galle Face Green as ‘no longer innocent nor peaceful’, even holding them responsible for the murder of slain MP Athukorale who met his tragic end at the hands of an enraged mob in Nittambuwa, 34 miles from Colombo, when the violence waged that Monday noon on the Green, begot violence that night throughout the country.
But who unleashed the
hounds of Temple Trees first? Who must bear the guilt for the original sin?
Neither does he spare Buddhist monks and Catholic priests who had for long expressed solidarity with Gotagogama’s peaceful people movement. He -- who had remained in acquiescent silence when he had the state’s armed power to prevent Bodu Bala monks going on a rampage of communal violence against the Muslims in Beruwela’s night of terror during his regime in June 2014 -- now blames religious leaders for not using the intangible force of religious sermons to douse the flaming angers and stop SLPP MPs’ homes being torched that night.
After the Gotagogama had been smashed by the Temple Trees mob in the midnoon raid, triggering widespread violent unrest elsewhere, Mahinda Rajapaksa tweets at 1.57pm. He says: ‘While emotions are running high in Lanka, I urge our general public to exercise restraint. Remember violence only begets violence.’
Rich, isn’t it, coming from him?
Mahinda Rajapaksa ends his lambast against the people’s struggle on the Green which had led to his own ignominious exit, by declaring in the most selfrighteous tones that ‘their hands were blood stained.’ True. Though time has healed the wounds, scars still remain as evidence of how hands seeking justice were left bloodied by the hounds of Temple Trees.
As Jesus told the Pharisees: ‘Let him who is without sin, cast the first stone.’