Columns

Some of the post-election sayings by the defeated trying to cover up their earlier sins, especially after clinging to the shaky Grusha bridge carrying a child—one of the poorest of allusions in retrospect—were the most jocular of defences uttered by ex-minister Dilum Amunugama.

After the presence of hundreds of vehicles parked at Galle Face Green was highlighted by the media and commented on by NPP frontliner Wasantha Samarasinghe, drawing widespread public attention to the 800-odd vehicles, Amunugama entered the ring with his jaw exposed.

He claimed that the vehicles were used by coordinating committee chairmen. Had he stopped at that, though he did not say how many coordinating committees, what they were coordinating, when they started, and why they needed so many vehicles to coordinate whatever they were coordinating?

Had he stopped at that, one might have pardoned him, for somebody seems to have put him up to say so and put both his feet in it. Was this his last act for the ‘Ranil pila’ for he seems to have jumped ship and gone over to something called Mawbima Janatha Party?

But his humorous response did not end there. Putting his feet in deeper, he said that if the vehicles were stolen, then it was a case of misuse and should be investigated.

Had nobody told Amunugama that stealing is a criminal offence and not one of misuse? What does he think this is, the Bradby Shield?

He even claims that the vehicles were officially handed over. To whom pray? And now that I am on it, who handed them and hopefully with relevant documentation?

He is not the only one who acted like a circus clown after the Grusha brigade was soundly defeated despite Ranil Wickremesinghe’s continued boasts, even at the last minute, that he was confident of winning the presidential race.

If that was his confident assessment, Grusha should have found safer hands.

UNP chairman Vajira Abeywardena also made some remarks about the future. One cannot waste time on inane remarks when more important matters lie ahead as President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his interim cabinet get down to work.

And that needs clarification. AKD, as he is popularly known, has veered the NPP away from the radically Marxist ideological position that would have deprived a peasant one of his two cows or had both confiscated by the state and replaced them with a bull.

That was how the anti-communist right mocked the Soviet state and other Marxist-run states. Those who remember their history would recall how the capitalist world derided those who stood against them.

One thought that those shibboleths had died with time, and man began to adjust to modern times and the changing political environment.

But as we listened to the last days of the campaign and the desperation of those scared of facing defeat at the hands of this new boy on the block, even old wives’ tales were fed to the multitude to frighten voters into believing that all hell would open up if this set of cutthroats would steal their second vehicle or house and, if neither was available, their pet dog would disappear—and maybe the wife too if a house cleaner was needed by the local politburo.

Not all the horrors of the 1970s and 1980s were fathered on AKD, hoping that this would sway the voters. But those days are fast gone, and not all of Berthold Brecht would win them over.

Despite this, sections of the foreign media, not excluding India, would like to label AKD as a Marxist, as media reports have shown. That has been generated mainly by opposition propaganda, which did not stop calling attention to the 1970s and late 1980s when the JVP was involved in two armed attempts to overthrow the then governments.

At the time of the 1971 uprising, AKD was a child and could hardly have engaged in the Rohana Wijeweera-led uprising.

In the 1980s anti-government violence, AKD was at university, and it cannot be denied that university students were very much involved.

But what is hidden by those who have labelled AKD as a Marxist participant were the historical facts. It was the ultra-conservative JR Jayewardene government that kicked off the anti-Tamil pogrom in 1983 and quickly blamed the JVP for the killings and arson of the time. Later, the JVP was banned and some of its leaders jailed. It might be remembered that even Vijaya Kumaratunga, who had nothing to do with the anti-Tamil outrage, was jailed, calling him a Naxalite.

I well remember that period—the day the anti-Tamil riots broke out in earnest. If I remember correctly, it was July 25 and I saw the burning of Tamil businesses and attacks on innocent Tamils as the office car drove me to Lake House at around 5.30 in the morning.

Having seen all that, sometime later in the morning I walked from Lake House to the State Ministry in Prince Street and into Minister Ananda Tissa de Alwis’s room and told him what I had seen and urged him to have the government declare a curfew.

Normally I would have repeated what he told me, but I restrain myself now, though the hurt of seeing innocent people being assaulted and burnt and their businesses destroyed will forever be etched in my mind.

What is intolerable and disgusting is that today’s propagandists would blame those who had no hand in this tragedy, but it is being fathered on them by those who were responsible for the massacre to begin with, some of whom we know but no longer exist.

The absolute thirst for power and the refusal to surrender what they believe is their birthright is what drives men to behave like beasts.

Thankfully, this election has been concluded peacefully. But that does not mean peace is permanent. Even if disturbances are not of the same proportion as in those early years, it does not mean that Sri Lanka will not see conflict of one sort or the other.

By winning this presidential election, AKD has burst through the political barriers and upturned Sri Lanka’s politics. The traditional families that dominated the political landscape have been dislodged from the edifice of power. That they will not accept, for  power, they believe, must return to these aristocratic and autocratic families. On the other hand, the radical left, of which there still exist those groups that see AKD as a betrayer of the initial Marxist ideology that shaped and framed the JVP.

Though the political right and the radical left have been defeated quite convincingly at the September election, there is the upcoming parliamentary election, which they would find easier to handle and seek a presence in parliament.

Before that, AKD and his meagre cabinet must make some positive gestures to convince the people that they intend to implement what they promised to do at election time. Otherwise, they would have to circle the waggons sooner than expected.

Unless the NPP could make a strong presence in the legislature, AKD and his broad alliance will be sniped at from several sides until they are able to embarrass the government.

That is why AKD and NPP need to watch their political flanks and prepare to protect both sides. What the Labour Party here, which won a huge majority right now with Labour leader Keir Starmer, is trying to fight off sniping, which will intensify with the November budget, might provide a learning curve for the team at the tiller.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later, he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London.)