Conspiracy theories

For as long as I have lived in Sri Lanka conspiracy theories have flourished, as each person likes to give their own spin to a story, usually to differentiate them from the herd, not based on fact. The current events are no different.

We had the President today, accusing unnamed persons of treason, in the recent killings and firebombings of media personnel and assets. I paraphrase “They had by their heinous acts, taken away the victory of the forces in the battles against the LTTE.” So who is he pointing the finger at?

One theory making the rounds is that it is an LTTE assassination to discredit the government. Why would the government want the anti-govt. dead as they had all to lose and little to gain with his demise. Members of the ruling elite are very smart and would never have allowed something like this to happen willingly or knowingly. The firebombing of the Sirasa studio was just for Insurance and not a government initiated act of violence.

One can dream up a zillion more conspiracy theories, but lets get to the basic facts, we have not had any of the numerous acts of violence, even the killings of LTTE sympathetic MPs like Raviraj, and the UNP MP Manoharan killings solved either. In fact there has not been one political or media killing that has resulted in a conviction. A conspiracy theory will come to light if there is an apprehension. The fact that there has not been any clearly disproves the existence of one.

Lets not forget the fact that in this highly militarized society where there are security personnel every 100 meters, these incidents have occurred in broad daylight in full view of people, a more brazen attack you could not contemplate. The killers must have had state patronage, or at the very least that of the security forces. So why has there not been any enquiry? The UNP asking for international investigations in the light of the Government’s inability to bring the culprits to book is shown by the Government as an unpatriotic act, while the government has not yet been able to successfully prove any of the conspiracy theories they have come up with. If they are not serious in conducting a detailed and impartial investigation, then all the fingers point to them alone. The only conspiracy theory I can subscribe to is that they have created a Frankenstein they are now no longer able to control and the professional killers who have ties to the security forces are now working independently of the Government which created them initially.