Political Column

Political Column

Shaky Govt. seeks hand from UNP, TNA
By Our Political Editor

Using a digital camera, JVP Parliamentary Group Leader Wimal Weerawansa taking pictures of the Town Hall protest rally against the Joint Mechanism. Pic by J. Weerasekera

The United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) Government collapsed last Thursday, earlier than expected, as its junior partner, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), quit proving most of their critics wrong.
The biggest critic was the nation's first citizen, President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, who pledged this week to wrap up a deal with her one time arch rival, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). That is to establish a Joint Mechanism (orPost-Tsunami Operational Management Structure) to share tsunami aid. She had forecast to many, including her main political adversary, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, that the JVP would not go. She told her Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) ministerial confidants the JVP would only talk or bark but would not bite or leave the alliance.

Last Thursday, through an expensive satellite linkup provided by state-run Sri Lanka Rupavahini, she addressed a Freedom Party rally in Kandy from the Presidential Secretariat. Those who saw television from their homes or on the wide screen at the venue heard her inviting the JVP to come back but made clear she would go ahead with the JM. She had even kept the four JVP Ministerial portfolios and the slots of Deputy Ministers vacant as her close associates wooed those who left to come back.

But the JVP's firebrand, parliamentary group leader and propaganda secretary, Wimal Weerawansa, vowed never to go back. Not until Kumaratunga promised the nation she would drop the JM deal. Though she is yet to finalise modalities of the JM, like the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the LTTE and how it should be given legal effect, she is determined to go ahead. Though it was to be presented in Parliament in the form of legislation, she has decided against it after legal advisors pointed out that would confer a legal status on the LTTE. She has now been told that the JM could be established under the newly passed tsunami laws.

As a Marxist trade union official remarked somewhat pithily, it is only for a wedding that all those who are somebody or nobody attend. That would even include the brokers who brought about the marriage. But not for a divorce. Similarly, when the Sandanaya (or the UPFA) was set up, the brokers were there in their grandeur and glory. But last Thursday, they had chosen to be far, far away from the Sri Lankan soil when the JVP walked out.

The two main Kapuwas (or marriage brokers), Ministers Anura Bandaranaike and Mangala Samaraweera, were in China. It was their luck that the national carrier, Sri Lankan Airlines had chosen its inaugural flight to Beijing (with a stop over in Bangkok) for this week so the duo could fly away from the worst crisis to hit the UPFA. Another who solemnized the marriage, if he did not play the role of Kapuwa, was Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar. He was away at a G-77 meeting in Doha, Qatar.

Though in China, Samaraweera's mind was obviously not on the imposing Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, the Terra Cotta Warriors or the Tiananmen Square. It was very much on the brewing political crisis in Colombo. Using an international roaming phone he had taken from Colombo, he kept talking to several Deputy Ministers to get a feedback. He wanted to know what was said at the news conference held on Thursday by the JVP. Exasperated by what he learnt, he told a Deputy Minister confidant you have to now go behind the United National Party and the Tamil National Alliance to get things worked out. He felt ashamed about it and was disturbed that the UPFA Government was no more. Anura Bandaranaike spoke every now and then to Samaraweera to learn what was going on in Colombo. That was in between his talks with Chinese vice ministers and officials to promote Sri Lankan tourism.

But Samaraweera had argued his case before he boarded the inaugural flight to China, one that was free for him. It was at a meeting of the SLFP parliamentarians at President's House last Monday. Kumaratunga spent a record 100 minutes or more speaking on the Joint Mechanism and why it was necessary. She was in an angry mood that day after at least two English newspapers had published accounts of the reported contents of the Joint Mechanism. She said copies of this document (together with some propaganda material providing answers to criticism) about the Joint Mechanism had been given to ten hand picked Deputy Ministers. This was on the understanding that they would keep it secret and not leak it to the media. Earlier that day an official from the Presidential Secretariat had recalled the documents.

Kumaratunga said the JM was a harmless arrangement and would be restricted to only one year. She said it posed no threat to the country's sovereignty or violated any laws. She was critical of the JVP which she said was obstructing every effort of the Government. The party had become an impediment to economic development and even the peace process.

Samaraweera began his speech by making clear he had taken to heart the interests and good intentions of Kumaratunga. He said what was necessary was not to judge the issue of Joint Mechanism in isolation. It had to be viewed in the context of the well-being and future of the entire UPFA Government. He said he agreed with the view that the JM was not a "Billa" (or monster) but in giving effect to it, he said, the UPFA Government should not be torn apart. The speech saw several interruptions from Kumaratunga who would point out Samaraweera was wrong or had not understood the position clearly.

He continued undeterred to point out that after enforcing the JM, the Government would have to face the people. After allowing the JVP to leave the Government, if we go to the TNA for their help, it would amount to a defeat.

Following him was Bertie Premalal Dissanayake, Chief Minister of the North Central Province. He said he was a long standing member of the SLFP and felt this situation could not go on. He said matters would have to be resolved by consensus with the constituent partners of the UPFA. He feared that Kumaratunga was becoming unpopular in the rural areas as a result of what was going on now. At this point, Kumaratunga, who was visibly angry interrupted to say such stories were being spread by the JVP.

Southern Province Governor Kingsley Wickremaratne first began his speech in English. He was told by Kumaratunga to switch to Sinhala since most of those who were taking part were Sinhala speaking. He did that. He urged that the JM proposals be placed before Parliament. Kumaratunga interrupted again to say that will not work.

At this point there was a further interruption. Kumaratunga who noticed Finance Minister Sarath Amunugama, seated in the back, asked why he was hiding behind. He was asked to step forward and take his seat in the front.

One of the champions of the JM proposal who has repeatedly told Kumaratunga that the JVP will not leave the UPFA Government, Deputy Minister Dilan Perera, began to wax eloquent on the SLFP constitution. He said the central committee of the party had taken a decision to empower Kumaratunga to go ahead with the JM. It was therefore now not possible for others to change it.

When the meeting ended, an SLFP Cabinet Minister wanted to speak to Perera about his remarks. He looked for him, but Perera, one of the closest advisors to Kumaratunga on the JM, was missing. It later transpired that soon after the meeting, he had entered one of Kumaratunga's offices and was seated there. It was much later that others joined in to discuss plans on how to sell the JM to the public. That included Western Provincial Councillor Lasantha Alagiyawanna, Wijedasa Rajapakse, Mervyn Silva and Rohitha Bogollagama. This meeting decided on the conduct of propaganda rallies and distribution of leaflets to explain the virtues of the Joint Mechanism.

Mervyn Silva was asked to arrange a rally to be attended by at least 50,000 monks to support the JM. He was to plead that raising such a large gathering was difficult. Hence it was decided to summon a lesser number to the BMICH on Friday afternoon. Kumaratunga addressed this meeting.

Minister Samaraweera was probably right when he said that what was left of the UPFA coalition will now have to go behind the UNP and the TNA for support. President Kumaratunga met the TNA MPs last Sunday, and UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe on Monday. Both urged Kumaratunga to sign the JM, that there was no need to bring it before Parliament. One wag suggested that both the TNA MPs and the UNP leader were quite liberal distributing plantain skins for Kumaratunga -- to slip on.

That Monday evening, after his meeting with the President, Wickremesinghe was quite relaxed at a dinner for the chairman and editor of the well-known Indian newspaper, The Statesman -- Cushrow Irani, a friend of Esmond Wickremesinghe, the UNP leader's late father.

He was non-committal about the UNP's support, or otherwise, for the JM proposal, saying that it did not require parliamentary approval, and that he had told the President earlier that day that she should have signed the agreement without vacillating. As for toppling the minority Government, he said that he told the President that the JVP had said they would not allow that to happen, so why worry.

His bigger worry he said jocularly, was whom to ask among the UNP MPs now seated in the front row, to take a seat in the back, when the JVP front-liners take their seats in the opposition benches in Parliament.

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