by Sunday Leader Editorial, December 5, 2004
Sri Lanka’s tragic fate took yet another twist last week, with the government demonstrating yet again that it doesn’t have a clue what it is going to do to address the National Question. Two and a half years after the event, the international euphoria that greeted the government-LTTE ceasefire agreement and MOU seem a distant memory. Few care now to remember the series of tragic military debacles that claimed the lives of sixty thousand citizens; the horrific acts that brought down the Central Bank, laid waste to the national airline, wrecked investment and enterprise, and set ablaze the Sapugaskanda refinery. The assassinations of Ranasinghe Premadasa, Lalith Athulathmudali, Gamini Dissanayake and Ranjan Wijeratne are long forgotten, as are the bloodthirsty massacres of thousands of innocents. The roadblocks, the deserted hotels and the international condemnation are all things of the past.
Even in the sunny days of early 2002, when pots of gold at the ends of countless rainbows were a dime a dozen, no one thought for a moment that negotiations with the LTTE would be a cakewalk. No one thought for a moment that Velupillai Pirapaharan, the author of countless assassinations and massacres, and brilliant military strategist, would be a pushover. On the other hand, it is unlikely that the Tigers were naive enough to believe that a woman who spent her idle hours chatting up her ministers on the need to kill an editor or two, would be likely to bow to the dictates of conscience when something as inconsequential as the national interest was at stake.
“Behind closed doors: Norwegian Ambassador Hans Brattskar handing over a cheque for Rs. 11.1 million to JVP Minister Vijitha Herath on Friday to purchase library books for 120 cultural centres in the country.”
Goodness knows that Ranil Wickremesinghe did not have an easy time after signing the ceasefire agreement and MOU. His gamble was that peace, accompanied by a return to normalcy of a nation that had grown tired of war, would result in people pressing the government and the LTTE to engage in carving out a negotiated settlement. He was, of course, wrong. Having won peace, the people were either just happy to get on with their lives in the expectation that the status quo would last indefinitely, or, for groups such as the Hela Urumaya and JVP, quick to advocate “solutions” that would invite a new war, to be fought, of course, by other mothers’ sons.
Closing on three years since the ceasefire, the LTTE is clearly growing restless. While Sri Lanka has benefited enormously (this has been the best tourist season the country has known since the 1980s), the Tamils of the north and east have been left picking up the crumbs. The $4.5 billion in aid pledged to Sri Lanka is contingent on progress on the peace talks, and therefore has been suspended ever since Kumaratunga wrested three ministries from the UNF government, at the same time in effect throwing a spanner in the peace process. This being so, and even while the north-east has been opened to all Sri Lankans for the first time in two decades, there has in effect been little peace dividend for the island’s north-easterners. The region’s health, education and
communications infrastructure are in shambles and civil administration entirely in the hands of the LTTE. We may gripe about it from afar, but the fact is that the Tigers are now better poised than ever unilaterally to declare an administration of their own, not going so far as to claim sovereignty. That would merely serve to legalise the status quo (giving the government no real case to return to war) while ensuring that there is no case for foreign intervention.
Now, having grown tired of waiting, Pirapaharan has said finally that with the government being in the mess it is, neither a final nor an interim solution is a real prospect. While no deadline was given for the resumption of hostilities, he has taken the high ground by saying that he is ready to discuss the terms of the ISGA with the government. This led to the JVP not only stating that it would take its 39 MPs out of the government, but also that it would precipitate a youth rebellion once more in the south. It seems that the JVP’s youth are good only at slaughtering unarmed innocents, staying as far away from the northern front as they can.
The JVP’s letter to the Norwegians, in effect showing them the door too, has put a cat amongst the pigeons. If nothing else, it has demonstrated to the world at large that a third of the MPs Kumaratunga claims to control in parliament have broken loose, making their own rules. Clearly, the Norwegians took the affront seriously, for they sought a written clarification from the government. For its part, the government’s reply only underlined international misgivings, for it neither condemned nor apologised for the JVP’s outrageous conduct but simply said it did not reflect the views of the government. In other words,it did not reflect the views of the 55 SLFP MPs as opposed to the JVP’s 39. Some government.
If war is not now imminent, it seems inevitable. It is time then, to ask whether Vimukthi Kumaratunga too, will be conscripted with thousands of other youth, to go and die on the northern front. Will he become the first Bandaranaike not just to die for his country, but even to fight for it? And if war does break out, responsibility for it lies with one person only: Chandrika Kumaratunga. It was her greed for power, her insatiable appetite for personal gain, that led to her not just usurping office from the UNF, but throwing in her lot with the JVP. Now she is stuck. She cannot forge a peace because the JVP will not let her. If she shows the JVP the door, she will once more be flung
out of office. On the other hand, with the JVP in tow, there does not appear to be any chance of peace, and the drift towards armed conflict has begun. Thousands are about to die, the economy wrecked and civil liberties curtailed just to feed the insatiable appetite of one woman grimly to clutch on to office, whatever the cost to her country.
Now, once more, Kumaratunga’s obsession is to settle herself in the saddle for another six years. To this end, it is more than likely that she will call a referendum early in the new year, and it goes without saying that that will be rigged to the gills. That is the very reason Kumaratunga refuses to appoint the Independent Elections Commission. Like her mother before her, Kumaratunga is most unlikely to quit office until she is physically thrown out. When it comes to their thirst for power, the Bandaranaikes have been like limpets: they have to be prised out of their seats, so much have they become accustomed to living it up at the expense of the public purse.
Last April, Kumaratunga took the entire country for a ride. That ride is about to cost this nation an arm and a leg (literally). She is now a captive of the JVP, singing their dismal song, albeit through clenched teeth: the Bandaranaikes are not lightly scorned. She is fast approaching that watershed when, however, if she does not call the JVP’s bluff, the people will call hers. And that will be the day of her comeuppance.
As the saying goes,when you sow with the wind,you reap the whirlwind.