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Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends and country. In Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe’s case it wasn’t his life that he was prepared to lay down but the ministerial positions he held; and which he, with disdain, declared as but a trifle – one he could and would easily ‘shuffle off from his mortal coil’ in the nation’s interest, with the same ease as a moulting snake in the grass, and ‘in the ecdysis blue’, sloughs its seasonal skin.

But events were to prove otherwise. When the crunch came after all the hard talk, after all the patriotism puffs, that trite trifle turned out to be grindstone wrapped around his neck which he found hard to shed. And found near impossible to sever power’s umbilical cord to which he, leechlike, did cling, until the presidential knife had to be employed to cut his attachments to power and position and set him free from his inexorable fixations.

For, when it came down to even sacrificing his portfolio and all its attendant privileges the former Minister of Justice and Buddha Sasana displayed a remarkable reluctance to renounce his ministerial fiefdoms which, just last week, he had proudly declared he would give up without the batting of an eye, in the name and cause of returning the Hambantota Port to the people. He sought instead to drape himself with the lion flag of patriotism in the belief, perhaps, it would render him untouchable,

In an imperious speech and in arrogant tones generally adopted by emperors of old, this temporary holder of a grave and favour ministerial post held at the whim, fancy and mercy of President Maithripala had pompously declared: “I will not rest until I regain Hambantota Port and give it back to the people. Even if it means I have to resign from my minister ship.”

But if Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had hailed the enforced resignation of disgraced ex finance minister and then foreign minister Ravi Karunanayake as an exemplary example of the present Yahapalana ethos of this government, it soon became clear the prime minister had spoken prematurely. That his optimism was pure wishful thinking. That the resignation bug amongst ministers was not catchy at all.

Ravi K’s scandal was a pure ‘kiss and no tell’ affair, As he admitted to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the bond scam, he did not know that the Rs. 1,450,000 rent per month was being paid by the very man at the centre of the bond scam probe, Arjun Aloysius. Neither did he know that he was parked in Monarch residencies posh, plush penthouse suite and living the high life without any legal status since there was no lease agreement between him or anyone of his family with the owner of the flat the 28 year old daughter Anika of millionaire businessman Nahil Wijesuriya. As the then Finance Minister, he at best a guest of primary bond dealer Arjun Aloysius. At worse, a squatter. He didn’t ask his wife ‘to whom do we owe this bonanza?’ and neither did his wife tell him, probably thinking the poor man had much to chew about as the nation’s Finance Minister, worried nuts over repaying the national debt than to burden him further with how to repay Arjun Aloysius 1,450,000 per month five star hospitality altruistically extended to grant him domestic bliss.

The Ravi K scandal rocked the government boat. The public interest in it was unprecedented. It burst at its seams and split open. It had all the juicy ingredients to rival any fictitious soap opera. If the events surrounding Ravi K’s resignation had all the juice, Wijayadasa’s affair was dull as ditchwater. And coming so soon after the Ravi K box office hit saga, it was more like a drab anti climax sequel to Cecil B. DeMille’s blockbuster Ten Commandments or King Kong 2 after the original KK ended with the ape holding the heroine atop the Empire State Building in New York.

But while Ravi K’s offence was imprudence over accepting gifts shady Greeks brought to his doorstep and – out of good manners, perhaps – his failure to look a gift horse in the mouth, the charge against Wijeyadasa was based on the alleged abuse of power in delaying the due process to bring mega rogues to justice, and committing the cardinal sin of breaching the cardinal rule of collective responsibility ministers of the cabinet are cloaked with the moment they takes their seats at Camelot’s table of ministerial knights.

Ravi K did not just resign in the way gentlemen of politics normally do. As far as he was concerned he knew nothing and held he had done nothing wrong. And could see nothing wrong in his wife and daughter accepting the bounty Arjun Aloysius bestowed out of concern and sympathy to one who happened to be temporarily shelterless while his opulent residence in Kotte set in sprawling acres of land – where he said so many ministers had enjoyed the golden waters of his Scottish hospitality – was being renovated. What are friends for?

But when it came to the issue of resignation, he had to be tethered by public opinion, goaded by the independent media, vehemently pushed by some of his own party members to face the stet gun held by the President before which he backtracked, made his exit to live another day.
Not so with the sawdust filled cardboard enclosed new martyr in town. For a man who repeatedly said he doesn’t give a damn for his ministerial position, he seemed to be in no undue haste whatsoever to resign from his ministerial portfolios which he had announced just the week before he would gladly relinquish with relish in the interest of the nation. It soon became clear he was bent on seeking martyrdom by being drowned by the presidential hand in the waters of the Hambantota Port and wouldn’t settle for anything else. Not for him the life line and jacket his party leader Ranil threw, not for him the rubber tyre to stay afloat but martyrdom in the deep to emerge as a born again Sinhala Buddhist patriot.

Let’s recap. UNP hostility toward Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe in his seeming reluctance to nudge the elbow or give the shove to the Attorney General’s Department to expedite the piled up cases of corruption against members of the Rajapaksa regime had been brewing for some time. Cabinet Spokesman Rajitha Senaratne stated seventeen days ago “Some 43 files on which investigations had been completed by the FCID, the Bribery Commission and the CID on various crimes have been forwarded to the AG’s Department some two years ago and they are gathering dust”.

But just four days before on August 6th Wijeyadasa had given an interview to the Irida Lankadeepa, where in its columns, he had underlined his own fate in red. For while it was difficult for his detractors to prove an alleged dereliction of duty when it came to holding him responsible for the delay in bringing the Rajapaksa regime rogues to justice, here in bold ink he had signed his ministerial death warrant by criticizing a decision of the cabinet he was a member of and going public with his opposition to the cabinet decision to handover over to the Chinese the Hambantota Port on a 99 year lease. It appeared to all who looked his way, whether with eyes squinted or straight, that it was done solely to ordain himself in the halls of Lanka’s patriots, even though, apart from words, no deeds ever had come forth to grant him a place in that that special niche.

Here was a direct full frontal assault – the full Monty – upon the hallowed doctrine of collective cabinet responsibility. And whereas there were lingering doubts over where his true loyalties lay – whether he had one foot in the Maithri – UNP camp and whether he had the other limb, hands and political tail deeply embedded in the Rajapaksa camp – the UNP pack smelt blood and swooped in for the kill.
August 17th was the day the legal luminary Wijeyadasa met his waterloo. Where a man, a president’s counsel given to prolix, a man who had argued his cases before the Supreme Court was rendered speechless before a UNP tribe who persevered to nail him by pursuing a line of attack that concentrated on his transgression of the hallowed doctrine of collective responsibility as a cabinet minister.

They knew that the alleged role he was generally considered to have played in delaying criminal action being brought against the Rajapaksa’s was almost impossible to prove. But when it came to crisscrossing the lines of the duties he bore, to cherish and uphold the principle of collective responsibility, the proof was etched in black and white, embossed in printer’s ink.

And when he was asked whether he had indeed made the statement he had made in his interview with the said newspaper, he denied it. But had no answer to give and was rendered speechless when a UNP backbencher Ashu Marasinghe asked him then why he had published in full the entire interview in his own Facebook.

With the UNP members unanimously demanding his resignation or his removal, the UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe granted him grace by appointing a special committee to probe the matter and to grant Wijeyadasa time until this Monday to make a statement in his own defense to which Wijeyadasa, it was reported, agreed. But when the deadline passed on Monday and the UNP Parliamentary body rose in one voice and asked their leader whether the minister – not a born and bred UNP supporter but rather a SLFP discard who had crossed the bridge, perhaps on a Trojan horse – had not ventured to give any explanation as to his audacious behaviour. Instead he had been telling journalists, after meeting the Mahanayakes of both Malwatte and Asgiriya Chapters, he had no intention to resign. He had then played his patriotic anthem “All what I have to say is that I cannot agree with the selling of national assets whether it is done under the name of selling or leasing. Ninety nine year lease period means four generations.”

With answer coming there none, UNP MPs demanded of their leader that the man be stripped of his ministerial portfolios even if it meant shooting an own goal.

During the two day weekend reprieve granted, Wijeyadasa did not remain idle but embarked on a tour doing the temple circuit. He placed his case in the lap of the Buddha Sasana of which he was minister. And was soon tied up with the white thread of their blessings and had them all – even the distant Mahanayake of the Nagadeepa Viharaya in Jaffna Ven. Daimailagaswewa Ariyakitti Thera chanting the same pirith as the other Mahanayakes had done – demanding the government to protect Wijeyadasa for the ‘yeoman service’ he had done to Buddhism and the country. Unfortunately neither the Ven. Ariyakitti nor the other monks present at the Justice Ministry could give even one example of this so called ‘yeoman service’ to Buddhism the reborn Dutugamunu had ever done. Pity none revealed the details of his pin potha, the Merit Book, for the nation to peruse and marvel over the great meritorious acts of Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe the Great.

Having received no explanation, the UNP leader had no alternative but to inform the President that the UNP rank and file wanted Wijeyadasa to be removed forthwith and stripped of his cabinet portfolios. The Prime Minister conveyed the message that night to the President. And the following day it was announced that the President had approved of the request and in turn had conveyed the message to the minister who continued to play truant by attack the Yahapalana government and some UNP ministers. He even attacked the Health Minister Rajitha stating that he was neglecting his duties as Health Minister by straying in to areas that did not concern him without realising that the same applied to him: that the Hambantota Port‘s fate did not come under his purview as minister of Justice and that, perhaps he too, shared the same dock he had put Rajitha in.

But this week on Thursday, hours after he was sacked as Minister of Justice and Buddha Sasana, the man who had just this month declared he didn’t give a fig leaf for his ministerial posts, and who had expressed that he would gladly sacrifice his portfolios and resign in the interest of the nation, was telling the media how ashamed he was to have been a member of a cabinet that had approved giving Hambantota Port to the Chinese on July 25th. Shortly after he was sacked he said: “It is a shame for me to be in a government which is bent on selling public assets”.

The question arises, does it not, that had he been so ashamed by the collective cabinet decision taken one month ago why he did not resign then and pursue his worship at patriotism’s altar? Why did he not resign when the UNP parliamentary members spoke in one voice and called for his resignation? Why had he ignored his party colleagues complete loss of confidence in him, and had opted instead for the presidential guillotine to fall upon his neck and for the tumbrels to carry him away anointed with pseudo martyrdom’s fake blood plasma?
Why did he willfully choose to bask in the gaudy glare of shame instead of seeking the shade of self respect?

Why did he not make the special statement he promised last Thursday he would make this Monday? Was this president’s counsel so lost for words that he found it impossible to draft his own defense and place it before the supreme court of the sovereign people of Lanka and await their verdict?

He also mentioned that he was sacked to sweep the bond scam dusts under the Yahapalana carpet. If he did indeed know the secrets the bond scam dust held, why did he wait so long in such stinking cabinet company without revealing it and walking out? Why say he was privy to that secret and why conceal it from the public even now?

Wijeyadasa also mentioned that the Attorney General had been summoned to Temple Trees and given a proper roasting. But on Thursday the Attorney general denied it and stated that it was he who had requested a meeting with the Prime Minister and that nothing had happened at the said meeting which would have served in any way “to undermine the respect and integrity of the Attorney General’s Department happened”. Whose version would you rather believe in? The choice is yours. This column is, after all, not the Oracle of Delphi to make wild guesses.

Tonight, as Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe boards the patriotic midnight express to nowhere on the Rajapaksa monopolized train full of patriots, he may find that the ticket issued to him is a third class one with standing room only in the colourful company of the likes of Weerawansa and Gammanpila and such odd characters – all professing the same religion and faith: Patriotism, the last resort of the ……., dear reader, you fill the blank as you deem fit.

Perhaps Wijeyadasa had expected a private berth in the first class carriage but, alas, all the berths had been reserved well in advance and already taken by the Rajapaksa clan, Lanka’s first family of patriotic citizens. And, as for the second carriage on this patriotism drooling, patriotism hooting gravy train, he will find to his dismay, it’s reserved for the clergy and jam packed with the Bodu Bala Sena saffron set.
And as the train begins to roll from its temporary stop to take another cardboard martyr on board, he may well wonder at the bizarre turn of events that had left him bereft of not only his prized portfolios but also placed in question his own credibility as a future leader.

For both him and the nation, it may well serve best to ponder over what Gilbert and Sullivan wrote in their musical play HMS Pinafore a hundred and forty years ago,
Things are seldom what they seem,
Skim milk masquerades as cream;
Highlows pass as patent leathers,
Jackdaws strut in peacock’s feathers.

‘Wijeyadasa must come clean on friendship with arms dealer’SUNDAY PUNCH FLASHBACK Public still await answer from ex Justice Minister to questions Sunday Punch raised nearly two years ago after LA holiday photos were revealed The following is a Sunday Punch flashback to December 13th 2015: “This morning the Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe must ask himself a few simple questions: Has he as a member of parliament availed himself of any generous hospitality in the past extended to him and his family by the controversial Avant Garde chairman, the arms dealer Senadhipathi whom he has been defending so vigorously in public in recent times as being innocent and devoid of any wrong doing? STRECH LIMO: Wijeyadasa in Los Angeles And whether, even if he, Wijeyadasa, has not accepted the benefit of any sponsored stay in the United States or elsewhere, his past actions now revealed have irrevocably created in the public mind the indelible impression that he appears to have been influenced and his judgment coloured even by a shade as a result? And whether, even if he is innocent of all the innuendos leveled against him, his close friendship with the controversial Avant Garde boss – now photographically established beyond reasonable doubt -has made his position as the nation’s Minister of Justice no longer tenable? With Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka presenting photographic evidence showing Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe living it up in Los Angeles, with former Avant Guard boss arms dealer Nissanka Senadhipathi and his family, the public demand his answer forthwith. Not that anyone is accusing Wijeyadasa of any wrong doing. Not that anyone is claiming that the holiday was paid for by Senadhipathi. Maybe it was Wijeyadasa who hosted the Avant Guard chairman, his wife and baby to travel around in stretch limos in California nine years ago when Wijeyadasa was a national list member of parliament and a Minister of State in Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government or paid the 75 dollar tickets to enter Disney Land and see Mickey Mouse goofing around. That is not the issue. What is important is whether his past close family ties – so close as to enjoy family holidays together in affluent Californian climes – with the arms dealer he is now defending as Justice Minister of the government, has deprived him the ability to claim that high degree of objectivity his exalted office inexorably demands? While Wijeyadasa has spiritedly defended the roles of all those involved in the Avant Garde affair including its Chairman Nissanka Senadhipathi both in Parliament and elsewhere and even taken the credit for preventing the arrest of Gotabaya Rajapaksa during the ongoing Avant Garde investigations, he has also made no mention of his personal link to Senadhipathi and his family. But as these photographs clearly show, his relationship with the arms dealer extends far beyond a passing acquaintanceship. As these posed photos for candid camera reveal, it is one that appears to be firmly embedded in a close-knit friendship encompassing the wives and children of both men. When former Law and Order Minister Tilak Marapana rose to speak in the Avant Garde debate in parliament on 4th November he was frank enough to admit at the outset of his speech defending Senadhipathi, that the arms dealer was his client. Shouldn’t Wijeyadasa now confess that Senadhipathi is his friend? In the light of Sarath Fonseka’s photographic expose shouldn’t Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe ask himself the final question: Whether his silence on his friendship with Senadhipathi while defending in Parliament the latter’s controversial Avant Garde role as being above board has compromised his own position as the Minister of Justice and is tantamount to conduct unbecoming?” Dr. Wijeyadasa, the public is still waiting for your answer?