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| Alice
in wanderingland She had called Wickremesinghe the " biggest stumbling block "on the road to peace. It was not the LTTE nor the JVP that was in her way to achieving peace, but the UNP, she said. When the foreign correspondents asked her what she thought of the UNP's offer of 'unconditional' support for her peace efforts, an offer made about a month ago, she responded with an economy of words. "Rubbish". But it was an ex-British Prime Minister (Harold Wilson, was it?) who said that a week is a long time in politics. And these are days when even rubbish can be re-cycled into something useful. Kumaratunga invited her bete noir to see her, to invite him to engage in to join in seeking a national all-party, all-interest-group consensus in the 'south' to meet the demands of the LTTE. Many expected Wickremesinghe to find an excuse, maybe a bad cold, or maybe he was on holiday somewhere, but others knew he would go. Soundings had been made much earlier. Wickremesinghe had in fact sought the view of his deputy Karu Jayasuriya and a few other stalwarts in the party. If the consensus earlier was to give her full backing, a meeting of the Political Affairs Committee was to see a change in events. There were seniors who asked why the UNP should pull Chandrika's chestnuts out of the fire now. Supporting the peace process is one thing, they said. But she was only asking the UNP's support for two reasons - because she lacked support and to share the blame together if anything went wrong. The inauspicious beginning to National Reconciliation, however, was not that Kumaratunga had bitterly criticised the UNP leader to the foreign correspondents, including some personal remarks at his expense, but that Wickremesinghe was kept waiting for over half an hour. The President's pathological problem in keeping her invitees waiting is legendary, and has been talked of even at the Royal Palace of Holyrood. Over half an hour past. Wickremesinghe stopped kicking his heels, and instead started becoming uncomfortable and shuffling, readying himself to take his leave - without meeting the President. Out walked Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse from a meeting with the President. The Prime Minister apologised profusely to his predecessor for the delay, and a national faux pas, rather than national reconciliation was averted. President Kumaratunga had found it protocol to brief her Prime Minister first about her plans for the setting up of a National Advisory Council for Peace and Reconciliation, before she briefed the former Prime Minister. According to the proposed Advisory Council draft, the Council is to be co-chaired by Premier Rajapakse and former Premier Wickremesinghe. One might have thought that in that case, the President could have briefed them jointly, rather than separately, keeping one of them waiting at that till she finished with the other. It could have been an ideal opportunity to show a united approach, but an opportunity was squandered. Wickremesinghe listened to the 20-minute hors d'oeuvre (not the short-eats, which Wickremesinghe didn't seem to indulge in - either he is watching his expanding waist-line or he had, earlier, tucked into some at the cut-rate parliamentary canteen) dished out in terms of a barrage on S.B. Dissanayake, her former loyal party secretary turned UNP national organiser. Some of her un-named cabinet ministers were not left out of the monologue. Then came the main meal. An invitation to join her peace process through the Advisory Council. She did not even have the proposals ready to hand over to him. She said she would send them along. Wickremesinghe parried, not un-expectedly. He was not willing to serve as Joint Chairman of the Advisory Council. He made that clear. Like the chairman of the company who says he will put it to the Board for a decision when he wants to get out of a situation, the UNP leader said he will place other proposals connected with the peace process - when they come - before his party's political affairs committee. Within the party there was an element of consternation. Some elements disliked Wickremesinghe being summoned for assistance for a President who they say, pick-pocketed the peace process from the UNP Government in November last year, and now, having got herself into a fix, wants support. Others still felt, that as a responsible opposition, the UNP cannot play parochial politics on this national issue. Whatever President Kumaratunga and her allies did in hi-jacking the peace process, the party cannot, if it's a responsible party, evade its duties especially on this issue. At a private dinner he attended immediately after his visit to see the President, Wickremesinghe himself was non-committal. He joked that he "was retired" from the peace process by the President. Now, she was trying to recruit him, again. If Prof. G.L. Peiris still insists on hogging the centre-spot as the UNP's chief spokesman for the peace process, Wickremesinghe, his student at the Law Faculty, can then confer on himself the title, Professor-Emiritus of the peace process. The UPFA Government's plan is plain. Overtly, it wants to whip up a national consensus in the 'south'. But covertly, political analysts believe it is working towards a bi-partisan UNP-PA approach that would be taken as the majority-view when dealing with the LTTE. It is the PA and the UNP that favour self-rule. The UNP had this position right along, but the PA has, after a blistering initial attack on self-rule via the ISGA ( LTTE's Interim Self-Governing Authority ), now changed positions. The UNP makes it position clear. It stands for the November 1, 2003 proposals put forward by the party (when in Government) in response to ISGA which the LTTE put forward in August 2003. It wants its proposals matched with the LTTE's ISGA proposals. The UPFA, however, is in a spot. The two main-constituent partners, the PA and the JVP, are divided down the middle on the issue. President Kumaratunga told the Norwegians facilitators that she will get the JVP "around" to agree for the resumption of talks. The JVP has indeed been making concessions on its earlier hard-line. Now in power and in place, it has shifted from a no-Norwegians/no devolution/only decentralisation/no ISGA positions, to ok-Norwegians as long as they do their job properly/decentralisation is better/ ISGA provided a final solution is also discussed, position. The 'ISGA provided a final solution' position was the first step President Kumaratunga took to shift from her own earlier tough stance of no-ISGA position. But now, she has taken one more step towards appeasing the LTTE by saying we will discuss ISGA first, but no creation of ISGA until a final solution position. If you are confused by now, don't despair, everybody is. Not least, the LTTE. It's just that the JVP cannot possibly bend backwards anymore without risking accusation of a total sell-out by its followers, for its platform from which it received so many non-JVP votes as well, was the battle cry that the UNP Government was selling-out the country to the LTTE by agreeing to give ISGA - which was not exactly so, though the UNP Government stands accused of certainly giving an impression to the 'south' that it was doing just that. Wickremesinghe, therefore, told President Kumaratunga that the UNP will not stand in the way of her Government trying to negotiate a peace. Noble as it may sound, Wickremesinghe knows only too well, that he need not try and burn his fingers by trying to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, at this stage, for President Kumaratunga. Furthermore, the National Advisory Council by its very name is an Advisory Committee. Above that Council will be another, apex body, another Peace and Reconciliation Authority maybe, which will be headed by the President herself. This apex body will constitute the constituent-partners of the present UPFA Government - President Kumaratunga (SLFP), probably Tilvin Silva (JVP), Ferial Ashraaf (NUA), Dinesh Gunawardene (MEP), probably Prof. Tissa Vitharana (LSSP), and probably D. E. W Gunasekera (CP). Arumugam Thondaman (CWC) will also be co-opted depending on his Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde role. So, while the Advisory Council will be merely there to advise, the decision-making body will be something under the control of the UPFA Government. Whether this situation will go down well with the UNP is a matter for the UNP, but for most analysts this is yet another non-starter. For one thing, the Government is straightaway reducing the UNP to an advisory role. It will be with the other parties and interested-groups, including the clergy etc. There is no real harm in this exercise, if only there is no other body that will sit on their heads and take all the decisions. In the backdrop of some viscous attacks on its leadership, and witch-hunts on their ex-ministers (some of which could be justifiable), the mood in the UNP would surely be one of non co-operation. Party leader Wickremesinghe exhorted to his party workers at the 58th annual convention on Monday that they should be prepared by November to win an election by winning the support of the 'majority'. One newspaper slipped up by saying that he had promised to topple the UPFA Government by November. What he exactly said was: "The UNP should regain power with the support of the majority of the people to ensure we could remain in power for the next ten years and implement our development programme proposals. "To achieve our objective we have embarked on a party re-organization programme which will be completed by November". The fact that the UNP leadership is aiming for a ten-year rule would also titillate demoralised party cadres for a long-run in the post-Chandrika Kumaratunga era. This period should begin around the end of next year (2005), though a dormant issue remains; whether she took her oath of office for a second-term, secretively, before the Chief Justice in November 2000 - which as the argument goes, entitles her to a term that will take her to the end of the year after (2006). Already, doubts are being created as to whether any such secretive oath-ceremony was held at all, despite confirmation from Chief Justice Sarath Silva himself. With no other eye-witnesses available, no photographic evidence of the event available, and given the fact that an event of such national significance not been known to the public until a newspaper 'scooped' the story, another story is snow-balling casting very serious aspersions on the powers-that-be towards the legitimacy of this event, or non-event, as the case may be. What triggered the theory that Wickremesinghe said he would topple the UPFA Government by November this year (which is not what he said, though) was the fact that he met CWC leader Arumugam Thondaman that same day he made the speech at party headquarters urging his party to be in readiness by November. Thondaman explained his decision to offer what he last week called "un-conditional support" to the UPFA Government. To Wickremesinghe, he said he would sit in the opposition benches in Parliament, but one of his members will sit in the UPFA cabinet, and one or maybe two of them will be deputy ministers. He said he had wanted the CWC to be in charge of Estate Development, and that he did not want a portfolio for himself. Many feel that the exposure of his dealings with some Bangalore IT company in last Sunday's newspapers put paid to any moves to take charge of the Water Ministry now under Dinesh Gunawardene. Minister of Estate Development C.W. Ratnayake was the sacrificial lamb of the exercise. Ratnayake won for the PA a substantial amounts of votes almost single-handed from the Nuwara-Eliya district at the April elections. He was faced with an array of heavy-weights, the CWC itself, P. Chandrasekeran, S.B. Dissanayake and to an extent, Navin Dissanayake, Renuka Herath etc., But this is the price he had to pay for coalition politics. The CWC's support for the UPFA Government will be on a 'issue-by-issue basis', Thondaman told Wickremesinghe -- which then does not quite mean giving "un-conditional" support to the UPFA Government. Thondaman's grandfather, Ena Wana Saumyamoorthy Thondaman's parting advise to his successor was to be with the Government whoever they may be. Grandfather Thondaman created a world record by sitting in the cabinet while his other party MPs sat in the opposition, making a mockery of the benches that divide the House ( Parliament ) into Government ranks and Opposition ranks. Grandson Thondaman is going one step further. He, as party leader will sit in the Opposition, and his partymen, at least the Minister and deputies will sit in the Government benches. So this 13th Parliament of Sri Lanka has the classic case of having the CWC sitting in the Opposition and supporting the Government; and the JVP sitting in the Government and opposing the Government. If the Guinness Book record-keepers are interested, to this mix, add the fact that the JHU sits in the opposition opposing the opposition TNA, and vise-versa, the JVP sits in the Government opposing not only the Government, but the Opposition as well, the SLMC sits in the opposition with a section of them having covetous eyes on the Government, the NUA sits in the Government with suspicious eyes on a section of the Opposition containing the SLMC, and the EPDP sits in the Government with suspicious eyes on a section of the Opposition containing a possible suicide-bomber. As a wag remarked; "only Alice is missing in this Wonderland Parliament". Whether Wickremesinghe can get his broken down party machinery back to working order by November - just two months hence - is in serious doubt. The machinery is in very bad need of some new spare-parts to replace the worn-out ones, some of the new spare-parts fitted the last time need to be removed and sent to the stores. And a good lubricating oil is required to keep the machinery ticking. The UNP received the ultimate insult from the JVP this week in Parliament when it was told, almost ridiculed to protest on the streets against the rising cost-of-living. The fact that prices are soaring with nary a squeak from the Opposition exposes the UNP's insensitivity towards the suffering of the poorer segments of the people. The UNP responded by saying that the JVP cannot set its (UNP's) time-table for agitation. Now, November seems a date given by the party leader even if it means that it is only the date to begin agitation against the UPFA Government. But the JVP's invitation to the UNP to get onto the streets cannot be to join hands with them. On the contrary it would seem as if it was an invitation to the spider-web, the JVP think it owns the streets. The time may well come for the people to get to the streets by themselves, notwithstanding the UNP or the JVP. No doubt, the UPFA Government is not unmindful of the situation. They have sent their agents to the four corners of the world looking to arrest this terrible trend. Finance Minister Sarath Amunugama was in Geneva negotiating with OPEC to drop oil prices. His Secretary P.B. Jayasundara just returned from India after seeking a loan to pay back a debt to the Indians and ease the ripples caused to the sliding dollar. Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was in Tokyo urging the Japanese to loosen their grip on the aid package they have linked to the peace process. But the Japanese are asking Kadirgamar's Government to re-start the peace talks, first. Somehow, the onus has fallen back on the Colombo Government. Earlier, when the LTTE boycotted the July 2003 Tokyo conference, they faced the blame for not getting a move on to end the war. Within the year, the LTTE itself has gently changed gear and instead of agreeing to negotiate on ISGA, demanded it as sine-quo-non to any talks on substantive issues. Tables have been turned, and the Colombo Government with its flat-footed policy on the peace process is being accused of dilly-dallying. No money will come from Japan or any other donor nation until then. That is the urgency on the part of President Kumaratunga to agree to any 'damn thing' and get the peace process back on the table. And that is why she has virtually asked everyone else to 'shut up' and let her plan strategy and do the talking to avoid conflicting signals. To ask the JVP to shut up is to ask it to give up politics. This week, during a tv debate on a private channel when TNA MP R. Raviraj asked the JVP's position on ISGA, the JVP's representative on the show calmly, and clearly reiterated its new position - ISGA can be discussed together with the final solution to the North and East problem. PA deputy minister Sripathi Sooriaratchchi could only sit and stare into the camera. It is in this backdrop that Norwegian facilitators, Special Advisor Erik Solheim and Ambassador Hans Brattskar, will meet UPFA and Tiger guerrilla leaders among others. With too many events around, the focus, no doubt will be on saving the ceasefire than getting the two sides to sit down and talk issues. More so with various other issues now getting more complicated. One is this week's incident in the Gulf of Mannar where two Tamil Nadu fishing boats were attacked. Both caught fire and sank. The fisherman are missing and the Navy does not know their whereabouts. The attack came just when India's Navy Chief, Admiral Arun Parakash will visit Sri Lanka (he will arrive on Tuesday). Is this some kind of warning to India? So do India watchers believe. In such an event, an Indian response to the LTTE is not far off. Then the LTTE has to deal with the latest charge it has made against the Government - that commandos were behind the attack on the strong point at Periya Pullumalai. There is no Army camp in the vicinity leave alone any movement of commandos. Meanwhile, the Army Commander Shantha Kottegoda is Pakistan bound. He will spend some time in Karachi at a defence exhibition and go to an Air Force cantonment elsewhere to watch a firepower demonstration. Whilst direct peace talks seem a distant feature, there seems to be some hotting up on the defence side of things. |
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