by T. Sabaratnam; published May 19, 2004
Weekly Review
Sex Scandal, Blackmail and Kidnap
New Trends
Tuesday’s election of the Deputy Speaker and Deputy Chairman of Committees appeared a tame affair, an anti-climax. There was no shouting. There was no seizing of the ballot box. They were elected unopposed.
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse proposed Geethanjana Gunawardene as Deputy Speaker and Leader of the House Maithripala Sirisena seconded. Speaker W. J. M. Lokubandara asked whether the opposition was proposing any name. Opposition Chief Whip Mahinda Samarasinghe said they had reached an agreement with the government and they are not contesting that post.
Samarasinghe thus planted a landmine. JVP parliamentary group leader Wimal Weerawansa jumped up waving his hand vigorously. “There is no such agreement. You can propose your candidate,” he said.
“No. We are not proposing a name. We have reached an agreement,” Samarasinghe repeated.
JVP minister Nandana Gunatileke joined his leader and said, “There is no agreement. We are not aware of it.”
Samarasinghe retorted, “We reached an agreement with the Prime Minister. We need not tell that to every member in the government.”
The Speaker announced that Gunawardene had been elected uncontested and called for names for the post of the Deputy Chairman of Committees. Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) member Muthu Sivalingam proposed his party colleague Murugan Sachchithanandan and Dr. Jayalath Jayawardana seconded. The government did not contest that post as agreed.
Nandana Gunatileke asked the prime minister to propose the name of a contender. The prime minister did not respond. The speaker announced that Sachchthanandan was elected uncontested.
The JVP members were agitated. They had come prepared for another fight. They were sure of a victory. They were certain some Muslim Congress members would vote for them. They started abusing the prime minister. Weerawansa and Gunatileke walked up to him and argued with him. They also shouted at Minister Anura Bandaranaike.
Mahinda Rajapakse was not as sure as the JVP of a victory. One of the Jathika Hela Urumaya lawmakers, Ven. Rathaseeha Thera, who voted with the government during the election of the Speaker had been abducted. The government was left with only one of the JHU parliamentarians. That would give the government only 107. Rajapakse was not certain how the other seven JHU members would behave. He decided that the best course would be to avoid a contest rather than to contest and lose.
The opposition was also not on a certain wicket. They were sure that some Muslims are going to vote with the government. They were not sure how the JHU would behave. They also ran into another difficulty.
The CWC was adamant that its member should be elected Deputy Chairman of Committees. The JHU had told the UNF that, if it proposed the CWC candidate, it would vote against him. The 22 member TNA (Tamil National Alliance) countered the JHU move by saying that it would vote with the government if it yields to JHU pressure and dumps the CWC candidate and selects a Sinhalese in his place.
The government and the opposition found it convenient to avoid a contest. The JVP was not taken into confidence when Mahinda Rajapakse and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe mapped out this strategy.
Marginalizing the JVP
JVP leaders were disturbed. They told the media that they were unhappy with the deal the prime minister struck with the UNP. They said they were not consulted by the prime minister before he reached that agreement. “That is against the Memorandum of Agreement we signed with the SLFP,” Weerawansa said.
I am giving this event in detail because it indicates some significant trends. Firstly, the process of sidelining the JVP has begun. The same process that marginalized the powerful Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and the Communist Party (CP) exactly four decades ago has commenced.
In 1964 when Dr. N. M. Perera led the LSSP into a coalition with the Sirimavo Bandaranaike-led SLFP government, he told the party that they would capture the SLFP. Pieter Keuneman said the same thing to his partymen when the Communist Party joined the government. It is history that LSSP and the CP lost their credibility and their base because Sirimavo Bandaranaike marginalized and expelled them. Chandrika Kumaratunga has commenced a similar process.
She has already placed the JVP in a complex situation where it had had to resort to sophistry and word play to justify its being in the government. Her sudden policy reversal on talks with the LTTE placed the JVP in a difficult position. Her decision to accept Norway as the facilitator, accept the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamils, treat the LTTE as an equal partner in talks, hold the talks outside Sri Lanka and commence the talks based on the Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) was taken without consulting the JVP.
JVP was pushed to adjust itself to Kumaratunga’s new positions. The JVP, which burnt effigies of the Norwegian facilitators, has issued a statement saying that Norwegian role is acceptable if it is confined to mere facilitation. In a letter sent to Kumaratunga on Monday the JVP tried to maintain that the approach adopted by the government in the current peace is different from that of Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Readers can asses the extent of the JVP’s word play from the following portion in that letter:
“We saw how the Sri Lankan Army Commander has emphasized to the SLMM (Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission) not to attribute ranks such as Colonel, brigadier etc. to the LTTE armed men. The Commander also said that this was wrong and has to be stopped. The army commander has stated that only the President has powers to attribute ranks to the armed forces which he was not allowed to say during the ‘peace exhibition’ under Ranil Wickremesinghe regime.
“All these indicate that the peace effort of the UPFA (United People’s Freedom Alliance) Government is different to that of Ranil Wickremesinghe’s time.”
Political analyst Jehan Perera sees this trend – Kumaratunga acting without concern for the JVP’s reaction – and the JVP’s anxiety to fall in line as a positive which would help the resolution of the ethnic conflict. Other analysts say Kumaratunga has effectively blunted the JVP and it would not be in a position to get onto the road opposing any agreement about the ISGA.
Analysts say the LTTE need not unnecessarily worry about the ‘noise’ the JVP occasionally makes to keep its followers silent. Thamilselvan told the media on Tuesday at Kilinochchi that they had brought to the notice of Norwegian facilitators that the voicing of different positions by the different sections of the government and its ministers had made them nervous about taking decisions about the peace talks.
Thamilselvan made special mention of the remarks made by Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar during his recent visits to India and United States. In the US, Kadirgamar tried to dilute the undertaking Kumaratunga gave the LTTE through Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen. There he told a questioner the Government and the LTTE would sit at the head table and others at the long table, implying that other parties also would participate in the talks.
Kadirgamar told in a lecture that the ISGA is a blueprint for a separate state. Thus, he repeated his earlier critique of the ISGA proposal. He had tried to convince India, when the LTTE presented the proposals in October last year, that acceptance of the ISGA is inimical to Indian national interests.
Thamilselvan said Kadirgamar had always been opposed to the realization of Tamil aspirations. “We thought that he will reverse his thinking at least now. He did not. He is continuing in the same old way.”
The appointment of Jayantha Dhanapala, a former United Nations disarmament expert, to head the peace secretariat, is a sign that Kumaratunga is sidelining Kadirgamar. It is rumoured that Dhanapala would handle some of the important functions of the foreign ministry. Dhanapala resigned from the foreign ministry a few years ago due to a clash he had with Kadirgamar and joined the UN Administration.
Presidential Secretariat sources said the government negotiating team would be headed by Finance Minister Sarath Amunugama. He would be assisted by constitutional expert Dr. Jayampathy Wickremeratne who was involved in the drafting of the draft constitution of 2001 and who has a deep understanding of Tamil aspirations. M.M. Zuhair is tipped to be another member of the negotiating team.
Kumaratunga is anxious that the peace talks should start soon because that would help her to stabilize her government and the international community to release the funds already pledged as aid. Her government has already benefited. The US government’s decision to provide Sri Lanka with access to their Millennium Fund worth USD 100 million was a vote of confidence on Kumaratunga’s peace effort.
I gave a account of the events connected to the election of the Deputy Speaker for another reason also. It demonstrated the benefit of Tamil unity. The JHU, with its nine MPs, tried to dictate terms to the opposition. It asked the UNF not to nominate an Indian Tamil for the post of Deputy Chairman of Committees. The TNA neutralized the JHU’s threat by using its strength of 22 MPs.
Today, Wednesday, 25 Tamil MPs staged a demonstration outside parliament to condemn the police behaviour at Kandapola. All 22 TNA MPs, two MPs of the Up Country People’s Front, and T. Maheswaran of the UNP marched, wearing black arm bands, along the road leading to parliament to orchestrate the protest of the Tamil people. The CWC, led by Arumugan Thondaman, kept away. He is currently running behind the government to become a minister. He is demanding the ministry of civil aviation.
Sex Scandal
On Tuesday and Wednesday parliament and the nation were entertained to a sex scandal and a kidnap. On Tuesday, after the election of the Deputy Speaker and the Deputy Chairman of Committees, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress leader Rauf Hakeem raised a privilege issue. He said two lawmakers of his party, with the connivance of a few ruling party members, had fabricated a sex scandal story against him with the intention to pressurize him into supporting the government during the April 22 Speaker election.
“Certain papers have published news items relating to an illicit affair allegedly by me,” Hakeem told parliament. “It is my contention that it is fabricated to bring disrepute to me and to my party and bring pressure to vote for the government.”
State-run newspapers and television have reported an affair between Hakeem and a divorcee with two children, Kumari Cooray, who later told the Sunday Leader and a private television channel, Sirasa, that she was forced into implicating Hakeem to secure his support during the election of the Speaker.
The pro-opposition Sunday Leader published a detailed account of two MPs of the Muslim Congress planning together with a group of UPFA politicians including President Kumaratunga about duping a woman to be video-taped saying she had a clandestine affair with Rauf Hakeem. The story also claimed that they wanted her to say that Hakeem was a drunkard.
This is the sum and substance of the story so far: On Tuesday April 13, four Muslim Congress lawmakers were with Hakeem in his private residence arguing that they should join the government. They argued that they could serve their electors better by joining the government. Hakeem resisted it. The four MPs are: Rishard Bathiudeen from Vanni District, M. Najeeb of Trincomalee District, Faizal Cassim of Ampara District and Ammer Ali of Batticoloa District.
When they came out, they found a woman at the gate. Bathiudeen says she was crying. He had known her earlier. He went up to her asked her why she was crying. She told him that she had met Hakeem several times and he had promised to help her to find employment abroad which he had not honoured. She started scolding Hakeem. Bathiudeen joined her in berating Hakeem.
Bathiudeen promised to help her and asked her to get into his car. Other three MPs were also in the car. They took her to the five star Taj Hotel. Seated in the lobby they continued to criticize Hakeem. Bathiudeen said Hakeem was standing on the way of their joining the government. He then told Kumari Cooray that he would be in a position to help her if she consents to do what they tell her to do. Sensing trouble Cassim and Ali excused themselves and left the place.
Bathiudeen then told her he was in touch with the President and he would help her to meet the president if she is prepared to do as they wished. This Kumari Cooray agreed to do. Bathiudeen then offered to take her home which was outside Colombo but, after speaking to some persons in his mobile, he said the meeting with the president would take place any time and asked her to collect her clothes and stay in a place close to the President’s House. She agreed. They took her to the five star hotel Ceylon Continental and made her to stay in a room booked in Bathiudeen’s name.
In the room Bathiudeen and Najeeb told her to write a letter saying that Hakeem had had sex with her and he drank heavily. She agreed to do it. The letter was handed to Bathiudeen.
The meeting with the president was arranged for April 29. Kumari wanted to get her saree from home. Transport was provided. When she returned, she found Deputy Minister of Transport Lasantha Alagiyawanna waiting at the Ceylon Intercontinental.
She was taken to a room in the President’s House where the President met her. She told her that Ranil Wickremesinghe had paid Hakeem Rs. 80 million in 2001 to make him defect to the opposition. The president told her to put everything she was told to do in a tape and give it to her and she would make arrangements to send her to the United States.
That was done on April 21. In addition to the audio, a video recording was also taken. Cooray was told that her story would be printed in newspapers on the morning of April 22 and the video shown in the television on 21 night. She felt nervous and asked them not to do so. She said if they did that, she would deny the whole thing and say she was tricked.
The plan was changed. She was taken to parliament in the morning of April 22 and made to stand near the lift. When Hakeem came to attend parliament she was asked to hand over the letter in which she alleged he had had sex with her with a note that, if he fails to vote with the government, she would expose the whole matter.
Rani Cooray did as instructed. She gave the letter to Hakeem as he was about to enter the lift. He took it with the comment, “Is it about the job?” and thrust it into his pocket. He did not read it.
Hakeem voted with the opposition. Other SLMC MPs, except one, voted with the opposition. The matter was kept in abeyance till the election of the Deputy Speaker. But the government plan to use the story on May 17 reached the Sunday Leader. It pre-empted the government plan by publishing the story on Sunday May 16 and followed it by using the material on radio and television on May 17.
The government, taken aback by the Sunday Leader story, got state-run television, Rupavahini, to deny the newspaper account and broke all ethics codes by airing the woman’s account of a clandestine relationship with Hakeem with a visual of the woman’s face.
Most of the video was poorly recorded and clearly edited, but was shown both during the night’s main news bulletin with a fuller version immediately thereafter.
On Monday morning, Lasantha Wickramatunga, the editor of the Sunday Leader, the newspaper that originally ran the story, played on Sirasa TV channel an audio-tape of a recorded telephone conversation he had with the divorced woman. In that tape, she castigates the President and her partymen for tricking her, and offering her a job in the US if she admitted to a sexual relationship with the married Hakeem. She said she was also asked to say that the Muslim Congress leader consumed alcohol.
Hakeem has denied these allegations, saying that the woman had only asked him to help with securing a job overseas and accused the government of resorting to “despicable tactics.”
On Monday morning, his Muslim Congress condemned these tactics by the government and said they would continue to vote with the opposition.
Hakeem said the party politbureau would inquire into the conduct of the two SLMC MPs involved in this affair and added that he is considering legal action.
The four SLMC MPs who want to join the government told the media on Tuesday that they have decided to function as a separate section and would take steps to oust Hakeem from the leadership. But, SLMC general secretary Hassan Ali said the four MPs had been suspended.
Meanwhile another MP, Hussain Baila joined the government on Tuesday. He said he would sit in parliament with the government.
“SLMC is in total disarray,” a political analyst said.
The JHU which was in disarray, on the other hand, has begun to consolidate its position. One of its two monk MPs who joined the government on April 22 was kidnapped on Monday night and he tendered his resignation to the Speaker on Tuesday evening. The Speaker announced in parliament on Wednesday that he had accepted the resignation letter of Ven. Rathaseeha Thera. The government says he was forced to resign.
The JHU will replace him with another monk loyal to the party.