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| JVP
chip chip Cooray The real reason that every body knows; President Chandrika Kumaratunga was unable to ensure that the besieged Chief Minister would survive. The move was, for all intents and purposes what one can call, dictatorial. It was the hand of Esau (Moulana), but the voice of Jacob (Kumaratunga). One more feather to the cap of the President following the grabbing of the three ministries under the UNF regime in 2003; and the dissolution of Parliament in 2004 despite a solemn promise to the Speaker that she would not do so. And so, it was from the ridiculous to the sublime when, hardly had the ink dried proroguing the Western Provincial Council that President Kumaratunga accepted an award from Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing at a ceremony at the President's House on Wednesday morning -- an Icon Award no less, for the glorious title "The leader with the best Sri Lankan values". There was no one in the grand Presidential hall, or outside, who would argue the point that the Icon Award together with its citation was most apt. But for both President Kumaratunga and Chief Minister Cooray, the political fall out from their failure to face a vote of no-confidence motion was embarassing, to say the least. The last time, the President did something like this was in 2001, when, again her parliamentary team was faced with a vote of no-confidence, she prorogued Parliament, and eventually went to the polls. There was no other way out for her. Eventually, she lost the elections that December 2001. The issue was important enough for her to suddenly cut short her already extended spring vacation in Britain and France. She must have been seething with anger that her junior coalition partner, the JVP, was obstinate to a point of stubborn resistance not to bail her Chief Minister out of the bog he had got into. And couldn't the JVP at least have made her sacrifice to return from a UK holiday, worthwhile. Her discussions with the JVP on Monday night (the night of her return) was a waste of her time, as far as she was concerned. The JVP was not budging from its position -- that Reginald Cooray had to go. Starting from about August last year, at joint PA-JVP (UPFA) Operations Committee meetings, the JVP has been badgering the PA Chief Minister about his handling of the country's largest Provincial Council. Mind you, Cooray also holds the job as Minister of - catch your breath - Finance, Planning, Law and Order, Local Government, Provincial Administration, Education, Transport, Employment, Cultural and Art Affairs. The holder of a Bachelor's degree, of all subjects, in Public Administration from the University of Sri Jayawardhanapura, that hot-bed of radical student political activism in the 1960s and early 1970s, Cooray seemed unable to put theory into practice at the Western Provincial Council. The administration of the council was running to the ground, and even the SLFPers in the council were getting disgusted. Some 15 councillors formed themselves into a 'ginger group', the traditional name given to backbenchers from a ruling party. As the Chief Minister began avoiding the unpleasant meetings of the operations committee, the JVP then began raising issues at the UPFA group meetings, and the finance committee meetings of the council, which was a virtual mandatory requrement for the Chief Minister to attend. The Chief Minister found the finance committee meetings also uncomfortable, as the criticism against him overflowed into the debate arena of the council sessions themselves. As the confrontation was coming to a head by the end of last year, the JVP sent a signal to the UPFA (PA) joint secretary Susil Premajayantha, and also to President Kumaratunga, that they were finding it difficult to work with Cooray. On April 6 this year, the main opposition UNP struck. Clearly seeing JVP bitterness towards the Chief Minister, and increasing discomfiture on the part of the Chief Minister to meet the arguments stacked against him, the UNP, whom everyone thought was fast asleep, activated itself in the council and presented a no-confidence motion against Cooray, the Chief Minister. But they miscalculated the implementation of the motion. The UNP felt that it was best to strike with the speed of greased lightening taking even some of its own members unawares. It called for a vote that very day - and lost the vote. That was an ill-conceived, spur of the moment motion. Later, a properly drafted motion was presented. Proposed by the Chief Opposition Whip Lakshman Abeygoonaratne and members Douglas Fernando and George Perera with 11 charges against the Chief Minister, it was tabled in the council, and got into its Order Paper. The motion was then to be taken up on April 26 (last Tuesday) in terms of Rules 35, 55 (1), 55 (3), 55 (5) and 64 (2) of the council's Standing Orders. The
motion contained the following accusations against the Chief Minister; That
he sold a permit for Rs. 2.5 million and entered into some agreement
with the Western Province Transit Passenger Transport Authority That
he misused council funds by permitting an officer of the personal
staff to obtain a monthly allowance of Rs. 10,000 and permitting
him to use the Chief Minister's security vehicle and fuel for the
vehicle. That
he directed the affairs of the Ministry of Co-operatives and Highways,
which is not assigned to him, by not allowing the appointment of
an officer to the office of the secretary of this ministry, and
for the appointment of a secretary to his Ministry as acting secretary.
Ex-facie,
these looked very serious accusations against the Chief Minister,
the worst among them, the charges relating to corruption. Others believe that if that is deep-rooted, there was also a deep-seated row. The JVP was sending a clear, resounding message to the President and her PA: "You guys are there because of us, and with our support. Let this be a lesson. Without our support, you folks are nobodies". With the writing on the wall, the Chief Minister said he would quit -- and ask the Governor Moulana to call for fresh elections. In London, the President was enjoying the British spring while her subjects were sweating it out in the miserable April heat. But the political heat wave did hit the President as well, and despite repeated postponements for her return, she decided to pack her bags and return home. She called for an emergency meeting with the JVP leadership, which told her that they must get the ratification from the party's decision-making politburo on the matter. But the politburo was in no mood to compromise. The JVP's decision remained the same. It either abstains, or votes for the UNP sponsored motion. It made it a point to tell the President, and the PA that the decision was not aimed at rocking the UPFA coalition, but was aimed against a single individual, viz., Reginald Cooray. The President was not going to chance a defeat of her party on the eve of a possible Presidential election or a referendum on Constitutional amendments, or whatever is in her mind or not in her mind. That Tuesday morning, Governor Moulana gazetted the order for the prorogation of the Western Provincial Council and appointing a two-member committee headed by a former Court of Appeal judge, Chandradasda Nanayakkara, to inquire into the allegations made in the no-confidence motion. But, the low interest among the public in the political affairs of provincial politics was seen when the events relating to the prorogation were eclipsed by the brutal abduction and assassination of a Tamil political commentator two days later. Dharmaretnam Sivaram was to leave for Battitcoloa on Friday night. There was no question about his arrangements; in fact, he had made arrangements with one of our Deputy Editors, Rajpal Abeynayake, to meet in Batticaloa on Monday. He promised to pick up our staffer in Batticoaloa, and promised to call him Sunday night to ascertain time and place for pickup. Did
the assailants know that Sivaram was leaving for Batticaloa -- and
was that why they got to him earlier? Some asked whether he was a journalist or an LTTE operative, considering particularly that the LTTE has decided to give him its highest award posthumously. One can possibly say he didn't ask for the award -- he cannot be blamed for whatever the LTTE bestows on him particularly after he is dead. No doubt he had immense clout - his initiatives got Jeyanandamoorthy, a photojournalist appointed as MP on the TNA ticket approved by the LTTE. He was the General Secretary of the PLOTE, leaving the organisation after the Indo Lanka accord was signed - in fact before that - and PLOTE had fallen foul of the LTTE much earlier. But he allied himself to the LTTE, and started Tamilnet with some Diaspora help, and the LTTE relied on Tamilnet for the dissemination of most of its information. But Tamilnet carried an exhortation every day about press freedom and the value of freedom of expression -- because the LTTE --- particularly Dr. Anton Balasingham at one point, didn't seem to like what he wrote either. So he was an independent man - a little known thing -- and there cannot be such a thing as an independent terrorist, can there? (The exhortations on press freedom were meant for Balasingham and the LTTE.) The anti-government elements are pointing the finger at the JVP, saying that the hate speak and the anti Ram article in the JVP newspaper Lanka points to a JVP hand. But facts seem to indicate that this is political persecution of the Patriotic National Movement and the allied JVP, more than anything else. His abductors, according to witnesses, spoke Tamil anyway, and there are many who do not doubt that he was under threat from the Karuna or the Karuna and allied groups. Was Sivaram assaulted, or tortured before he was assassinated? Police say the body was discovered by the mobile patrol at Talangama at 12.30 am hardly any time for any kind of coercive tactics to obtain information. (He was abducted around 10.30 pm.) Whodunit then, the government Karuna faction or the military acting on its own? Was it retaliation for the kidnapping of counter terrorism Inspector Jeyaratnam? What will be the fallout of the killing - - will the LTTE ratchet up its spree of assassinations (and Karuna his?) and will the government face enormous embarrassment at the aid group meeting in view of the developing international pressure by media activists who say the government has not done anything for protection of journalists? |
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