People power, a thorn in LTTE
By Our Political Editor
Telephone calls between Colombo and a senior Sri Lanka High Commission personality in London kept interested parties on holiday in that part of the world, informed.

But in Galle on Friday, where Opposition UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe was attending a wedding, all he got from CWC leader Arumugam Thondaman was a terse answer on his mobile phone ; " I will tell you everything on Sunday ".

Moments later, young Thondaman trooped in to Trans Asia Hotel escorted by armed police commandos and addressed a hurriedly summoned press conference. There he announced that after five months in the Opposition, he was extending his " un-conditional support " to the UPFA Government. Needless to say it, but in case there were any who doubted his motives, it was all in the name of the " peace process ", of course.

The Thondamans jumping is legendary. Grandfather Saumya-moorithy created history by sitting in the cabinet while his party MPs sat in the opposition. He is known to have imparted, in his wisdom, that the CWC must always be in Government.

So, when grandson Arumugam made light of where the CWC would sit in Parliament, it was merely to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather. It matters not where you sit, as long as you are in Power and in Place.

Readers of this newspaper will recall that we reported in April how the CWC leader was largely instrumental in getting the monk-mps of the JHU to support the Opposition candidate for the Speaker's post. He had made a mid-night visit to the monks, hours before the vote and convinced the monks that they must vote with the Opposition.

It so happened that it was the same day that President Chandrika Kumaratunga had withdrawn his Air Force security, something that provoked him to allege, most unfairly, that the President had wanted him killed.

Later, however, the country's Intelligence branches did report a threat element to the life of the CWC leader, and gradually, a few armed policemen were inducted to protect Arumugam Thondaman. Political analysts said that this was only a sweetener to woo back the CWC leader with his band of eager parliamentarians to the plums of Government office.

While negotiations were on with the CWC, and many false alarms raised within the Opposition that " Thonda " was to defect, its leader kept telling Ranil Wickremesinghe that he would support the UPFA Government " conditionally " - on the peace process. So his support for the UPFA Government on the ' peace process ' was always there, except now he will support the Government ' un-conditionally ', which in real terms, would mean that they would accept office under this Government, i.e. Ministries, Deputy Ministries, Corporation posts, vehicles, police guards etc.,

Moments before the public announcement by Thondaman, UNP's deputy leader Karu Jayasuriya attending the opening of a law office at the World Trade Centre seemed to have heard the ' breaking news' , but took it in his stride. Party frontliner Rajitha Senaratne seemed unaware of the developments. And a party wag at the same function cracked, " So what. Thonda will cross, and double-cross ".

Some place the immediate reason for his decision to join the Government to a report that was scheduled to appear in a Sunday newspaper accusing him of unsavoury dealings in a water project. Efforts by UNPers to get its leader to influence the Editor of the newspaper to withhold publication so that they don't offend Thondaman failed, when the leader refused to do so.

But negotiations between functionaries of the CWC and the UPFA have been on for quite some time now. As they say, the ' dowry ' was the problem for the wedding to take place. President Kumaratunga herself had contemptuously rejected an earlier demand by the CWC saying they had brought a '' shopping list " demanding portfolios, deputy ministries, corporation directorates and diplomatic postings. We are still to see what the agreed ' dowry ' is.

Having said what he said at the press conference, Thondaman did what has been the traditional Thondaman trademark - fly to India, this time Hyderabad, to avoid answering too many questions. He will return on Monday to attend the September sessions of Parliament.

UNPers say that the Sunday story, with the pun, the ' water-cut' story, may have been the last straw that broke Thondaman's back. But its leadership was trying to put a brave face forward.

They acknowledged the fact that Thondaman's jump to the UPFA ( despite all the objections from many of its party seniors and branch leaders to linking up with the JVP ) would demoralise the UNP rank-and-file because this meant that the UPFA now has a working majority in Parliament.

In the long-run, however, they believe the issue will not be so much the majority in Parliament, but the Economy, the Cost-of-Living, Jobs - and the LTTE, not necessarily in that order.

They believe, that the CWC is going to get itself tainted with the UPFA's dismal performance on all these fronts with no sign of things improving. And the UNP sees this as an opportunity to move into the plantation-sector voter-base as things get worse in time to come.

Many others in the party don't agree. They continue to feel that the party leadership is looking ' long-term ' which is timeless, to get back to power. They feel the leadership is comfortable in opposition, and adopting a default-strategy approach, i.e. waiting for things to get worse, without engaging in mass mobilisation and preparing for an eventual battle on the streets. Except for the two year interregnum, the UNP has been out of office since 1994 - ten years ago, and counting.

Not that the ruling coalition is not bereft with problems. The entry of the CWC to the UPFA Government took the JVP as much by surprise as anyone else. Their leaders have made it quite clear that running behind Thondaman is not the answer to the country's problems, and Thondaman's pronouncement that he supports ISGA - the LTTE's proposal for self-rule will not sit well with their new coalition partner, the JVP.

The dilemma within the Freedom Party (SLFP) itself is quite evident. President Kumaratunga could not have been amused that her request to postpone the foundation-stone laying ceremony for the party's new headquarters was ignored by her Prime Minister, who was bemused, to say the least, when he found that the plaque prepared by his own party for the ceremony which he ceremonially declared open had all the names of people absent, and not those present, including himself.

Much of the old guard of the SLFP, those loyalists of Mother Ms. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, but now side-lined blamed Kumaratunga for this public spectacle of the internal differences within the party.

For one, she could have told someone that she would not attend the ceremony - and avoided party secretary Maithripala Sirisena a trip to the airport only to greet two of her returning bodyguards. She could have avoided the blushes of the party cadres as well if she could have just told them she would not be present on that date without merely asking for a postponement of the function.

Her repeated way out of these problems is to indulge in shooting from the lip. And her eternal target - the Leader of the UNP and the eternal Leader of the Opposition. Within hours of stepping afoot on Sri Lankan soil, she immersed herself in Ranil-bashing.

At a dinner-meeting at the President's House with members of the Foreign Correspondents Associ-ation, she slammed Ranil as the biggest stumbling block on the road to peace. Not the LTTE, or the JVP as one might expect, but the UNP lead by Ranil Wickremesinghe.

President Kumaratunga said that she was confident that the LTTE would come back to the negotiating table which it left in April last year and that the JVP had agreed to a sharing of power as a means to solve the ethnic conflict. But it was the UNP which was not being helpful.

" It is harder to get UNP and Ranil on board," she said. She went into a lengthy diatribe about the way Wickremesinghe scuttled, in the eleventh hour, her August 2000 draft constitutional proposals to solve the ethnic question. Wickremesinghe did this after assuring in public, "in front of cameras", that he was going to support the draft in parliament, the President said.

In the lengthy discussions preceding the finalization of the draft, Wickremesinghe had suggested many amendments which she incorporated in good faith. This she had done at the cost of the support of the Tamil parties which accused her of kow-towing to every demand of the UNP. And yet, the UNP reneged and tore up and burnt the draft in parliament, while shouting and jeering her down, Kumaratunga said.

Asked what she thought of the UNP's offer of "unconditional" support to her if she opened discussions with the LTTE on the latter's proposal for an Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) in the North East, the President laughed and said: "Rubbish!"

She was sure that the offer was not made with the best of intentions. "Ranil will not support any scheme for the success of which he cannot get full credit!" Kumaratunga said. She made it obvious that the chemistry between her and Wickremesinghe was bad. She again charged that he and the UNP had been bad to her and her family.

But still, she would keep on trying to get the UNP's support for the peace process. She had no option but to keep trying, "like Sisyphus in Greek mythology". In the Myth of Sisyphus, the Gods had condemned him to roll a rock up a mountain again and again even though it would keep rolling back every time.

"Albert Camus' work on the myth had made a deep impression on me," Kumaratunga said, smiling. However, she did not see any possibility of fruitful cooperation with the UNP or any support from the UNP, "so long as Ranil is the leader."

However, the President did mention the ceasefire or the halt to the war brought about by Wickremesinghe in February 2002, as an " achievement." The ceasefire was " quite a bit of success."

The relaxed mood in the President's House was palpable with her pet brown and white Basset hound "Lulu' scampering around while she was addressing the foreign press based in Colombo.

While these political fall outs were taking place in the 'south', significant political developments were also taking place in the ' north and east ', which, due to what was happening closer home, escaped the required attention.

President Kumaratunga did not refer to these developments either when she met the foreign correspondents. In a passing reference she said that economic development in the north and east was not being neglected.Work on 37 bridges and roads had got off the ground. "The LTTE is discussing these projects with us," she said.

But reports from those areas indicated a growing resentment to the LTTE's intransigence on the peace front. It looked as if, the ordinary people were ready for revolt, expressing their anger at feet-dragging by the LTTE to ensure that these ordinary folk get back on their feet after 20 years of misery.

This is what the official Intelligence report had to say of the situation that had erupted both in Gurunagar near Jaffna, and in Trincomalee during the course of the week;

"Ten fishermen belonging to Gurunagar fishing society had gone for fishing in three trawlers towards Palathivu area and had been forcefully stopped and apprehended by the LTTE along with their trawlers. The fishermen had been severely beaten and blamed for poaching in LTTE High Security Zone in general area Palathivu. Subsequently around 1130 hours angry members of Gurunagar fishing society (approx. 150) had stormed into the office belonging to Northern Province Fishermen Corporative Society managed by the LTTE at Sinnakadai. Further all members of fishing societies operating in beach road have suspended fishing as a protest against the violent act of the LTTE and lodged a complaint at the SLMM office Jaffna. An attempt made by LTTE Jaffna Political wing leader (Elamparithy) to settle the problem through negotiation with the fishermen had been unsuccessful due to further escalation of violence."

In Trincomalee, Sinhalese residents had taken to the streets at the abduction of two home-guards. This was not particularly a spontaneous show like the case at Gurunagar, it appeared that 'southern' political parties and groups played a prominent role in instigating the demonstrators.

Whatever - there is increasing pressure on the LTTE now faced with an internal dispute of its own, and growing expectations of the people they say they represent to deliver the peace.The fear is, whether the way out for them from delivering that peace -is to go back to war.

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