Another PA-JVP shotgun marriage (and later a divorce)?

At the time of writing the JVP and the PA are to meet in order to form an electoral alliance, and to reach a memorandum of understanding. Ravi Karunanayake, one of the government's top order whiz kids said 'that's the best thing that can happen to the UNF.'' He said the two parties can go ahead and ruin each other.

Many others in the UNF have shown similar indifference to the PA- JVP alliance that is being currently hatched, but nobody is sure whether the UNF top order is pretending to be brave or not.

This is a week in which further fault lines began to appear in the fragile People's Alliance. Richard Pathirana, the former Minister of Education, who has not been too sure whether he wants to join the UNF or not, made a formal plea to President Chandrika Kumaratunga to replace the leader of the opposition Mahinda Rajapakse with her brother Anura Bandaranaike. He was adamant and sought a meeting person-to-person and up close with the President, but the President gave Pathirana the slip. But, later she was heard to taunt Pathirana, but not before allowing that Anura Bandarnaike can be appointed opposition leader under certain circumstances. She may have been saying it tongue in cheek, but that was not the point. The PA was enjoying its 'splittism''. (Ethnic splittism is a word that was invented to talk about the Balkans, and with apologies, that word is borrowed to describe the current condition of the PA.)

Many PA insiders were of the opinion that 'splittism' will surface in the PA when Anura rejoins, and this seems to have come true to a certain extent at least, going by what Pathirana wanted done to the current opposition leader.

This is why some of the UNF leaders were grinning when they heard that there is going to be a shotgun wedding - yet again -- between the PA and the UNF. UNP longtimer Rukman Senanayake for instance was of the opinion that a PA- JVP alliance was a shot in the dark, since there was total control over the parliament being enjoyed today by Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The UNF is confident that 'peace'' is a thing that has such massive bankability, that when it comes to voting time, the PA will not be able to think about voting against any solution that is arrived at between the LTTE and the government. Top UNFers were saying ' the PA and the JVP can make noises now, but when it comes to voting in parliament they will not be able to go against the critical mass of opinion that has been created in favour of the peace process.' In fact, in some quarters the thinking is that it is good that the JVP and the PA can get together and let off a good deal of steam, because then they will be ready by the time it is voting hour in parliament, to vote for the package that the UNF government has to offer. Hope wells eternally in the human breast.

Japanese nights in Kilinochchi

If the government is definite that peace creates its own momentum and that the new PA- JVP alliance in the offing is not going to make a dent in its hold on power, then the government must obviously be confident about the ' peace process''.

But, in the face of criticism from analysts that the last round of peace talks was the least successful and that peace making is gradually becoming more difficult and dangerous, peace analysts sprang to the support of the government in different ways.

Jayadeva Uyangoda for instance (speaking in Sinhalese though he has been accused recently of being able to speak and write only in English!) said that the LTTE may have pulled out of the committee on de-escalation, but has still not pulled out of the process of de-escalation. "The work that has been done by the committee on de-escalation is now being done by various other committees….'' Uyangoda rationalised.

If he was saying that there is a form of de-escalation in resettlement this was a different matter.

Erik Solheim, the original Norwegian peace mover, was saying similar things to the diplomatic community in Oslo, but he was being realistic to the extent that he said it is unfortunate that the army top brass is not meeting the LTTE top brass any more on military de-escalation issues. But, Solhiem, like Uyangoda said that the issues with regard to de-escalation and normalisation have been taken over by the committee on humanitarian issues after the LTTE unilaterally decided to quit the former committee.

To a great extent this was the week in which the LTTE obtained loads of international legitimacy, and in real terms at that. Special Peace Envoy from Japan and the World Bank Vice President themselves participated at the meeting of the Sub Committee on Immediate Humanitarian and Rehabilitation Needs in the North and East (SIHRN) held in Kilinochchi. This sense of legitimacy may have to some extent been positively felt by the fact that on the government side they were playing a little bit slick, with the President giving the Japanese envoy Akashi the slip. This contrasted with the meetings that Akashi was having in a heads down Japanese workaday manner, to grapple with a host of humanitarian issues in the North and the East, the most important of which was the resettlement of IDPs (internally displaced persons.)

The Sihala Urumaya was miffed with this new bout of legitimacy that was accorded to the LTTE and its firebrand Champika Ranawaka told a senior government Minister : "I will only go to the North East the day they raise the Lion flag in Kilinochchi.'' For last week, it seemed the Japanese flag was fluttering there, though only metaphorically. Hela Urumaya's Tilak Karunaratne was so outraged, that he said this is a step towards Sri Lankans getting fed up of the Japanese, the country's best friend in terms of friendly nations. He said it will be like the Indonesians getting alienated about Australia over the issue of East Timor.

Amunugama and his coming colours?

'The coming colours are no good about Sarath Amunugama.' This at least was the joke at a TV personality's wedding last week among some UNF parliamentarians who took some satisfaction over the fact that Sarath Amunugama, the PA spokesman, was discussing Sri Lankan politics with the UNF leadership in the rather cosy surroundings of Brussels in Belgium.

Sarath Amunugama is no greenhorn when it comes to switching sides. He did so first when he crossed over from the ailing UNP of that time (in the First Kumartunga administration ) to join the PA government amid much fanfare.

If Amunugama had declared in public, as PA spokesman several times that the "PA will form a government very soon' what was Amunugama doing proposing his jaw-jaw Con (convivial) chat with UNF leaders, at a dinner hosted by the Sri Lankan ambassador in Belgium Romesh Jayasinghe?

Even though all political crossovers generally being with a cosying up, and with a desire to merge with the other side, this is not a crossover bid perhaps, because others such as John Amaratunge, Ferial Ashraff and Nimal Siripala De Silva were among the parliamentarians in Brussels who proposed closer cooperation and exchange of ideas with the UNF. They are among a 13 member parliamentary delegation of UNFers and PA members who are visiting Brussels to study a federal solution to Sri Lanka's conflict, by getting acquainted with federal systems of government elsewhere. But that reality didn't prevent the jokes.

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