Parliament

Natural disaster drowns political differences
By Chandani Kirinde, Our Lobby Correspondent
If the floods dampened Parliament sessions last week, there was a positive side to the natural disaster with all political parties agreeing, at least verbally, to put aside differences and work together to ensure that relief measures were carried out effectively.
The scheduled four days of sittings were reduced to two days with sittings on Tuesday and Wednesday being limited to less than an hour each day to facilitate MPs to ask oral questions and also enable a few of them to make special statements.

Two Bills, the Information Communication Technology Bill and the Betting and Gaming Levy (Amendment) Bill were set for debate on the two days and the government had wanted the debates to go ahead as scheduled and the bills passed unopposed.
However at the party leaders meeting on Tuesday morning, JVP member Wimal Weerawansa had said they needed a vote on both the Bills and hence the debates were postponed as most legislatures from the Southern and Sabaragamuwa provinces as well as from the Kalutara districts were away in their electorates helping out with flood relief work.

It was Power and Energy Minister Karu Jayasuriya who told the House of the serious situation that had arisen as a result of floods and landslides in the Ratnapura, Galle, Matara and Hambantota districts. He told parliament that a total of 256 were confirmed dead, more than 500 missing and nearly 170,000 homeless and the losses to property was estimated to run into millions.

"We will not exploit this tragic situation for political reasons and I urge the opposition to work with us to bring relief to the victims of this disaster," the Minister said. Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapakse who preceded Mr. Jayasuriya said the President along with her supporters were backing the relief efforts putting aside political differences with the government.

The JVP took a similar stance with the party's group leader in Parliament Wimal Weerawansa stating that his party members too were involved in the relief work alongside the relevant authorities.

It was obvious that Mr.Weerawansa's support for the government would only be confined to flood relief activities because it was only on the previous day that he made a special statement to the House -this time accusing the government of facilitating the special Japanese envoy Yashushi Akashi and the Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Peterson to meet with the LTTE leader who had been given a 200 year prison sentence.

"Associating or having connections in public or clandestinely with such a person is a serious offence. Anyone who goes against this is ridiculing the law of this country", Mr.Weerawansa said. He asked both the Parliament and the Supreme Court to take serious note of this and take necessary steps to safeguard the authority of the law and the dignity of the judiciary.

Although there was no formal response from the government to Mr. Weerawansa's comments, Hindu Affairs Minister T. Maheswaran took it upon himself to put the record straight as to why the foreign emissaries had the right to meet the LTTE leader. Having asked permission from Speaker Joseph Michael Perera to make a special statement connected with his Ministry, Mr.Maheswaran went on a harangue, attacking the opposition and making pro LTTE remarks.

However when he finished speaking, the Speaker informed the government side that the statement made by Mr.Maheswaran had nothing to do with Hindu Affairs and asked that they take necessary action.

At this point, the Leader of the House W.J.M.Lokubandara stood up and requested that the entire statement by Mr. Maheswaran be expunged from the Hansard, a move that saw support from the opposition benches.

Once sittings were adjourned, Mr. Maheswaran was seen talking to Mr.Weerawansa and several other opposition members in the well of the House probably in an effort to explain his point of view.

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