federalidea.com

by C. Wijeyawickrema

One way to explore the ‘meaning of life’ is to observe it as a continuous process of conflict resolution. Just likes waves in the ocean hitting the shore one after the other, we are engaged, on a daily-hourly-minute basis, in a decision-making process between at least two alternative choices. Just think of Prof. Sarachchandra’s drama, Maname. The princess faced a genuine conflict, if we look at it from a modern-day perspective. In the old world she had no choice; the sword must be given to her husband as ordered. But if we were to treat her not as one who came out of the ribs of Adam, then was she not entitled to contemplate the correctness of the prince’ decision? Rather than killing the prince, the Vedda king sent his people away from the scene and decided to fight the prince alone. That was why the princess faced a dilemma.

The JVP pretends it is also in such ‘to be or not to be‘ dilemma regarding the budget vote on December 14th. The likes of a JVP party is guaranteed at least according to the Bible. Jesus said, “Poverty will always be there.” Therefore, just like the LSSP in the 1930s and 1970s, if not this JVP there will be another form of ‘JVP’ in Sri Lanka. But in human life things happen (resolution of conflicts) because of fate, karma, accidents or by deliberate mental exercise. We are different from animals because we have libraries. We have history–a record of our past actions–to not repeat the old mistakes.

Prior to forming a coalition government (on June 11, 1964), the LSSP was divided into three groups. The NM-Colvin-Chumley G group wanted to expand their playing cricket with Anura at the government mansion in N’Eliya into a marriage partnership with his mother’s party. There was the Bala Tampoe- Merril Fernando-Edmond Samarakkodi group who did not believe in the theory of dissolving the SLFP by joining it. The saint-like Leslie G was in the middle undecided. It was Vivian who pulled Leslie into the NM-Colvin camp and the rest was history (I heard this story then from a person who attended the LSSP meeting held at Ratgama). When a Lake House-engineered conspiracy, led by CP de Silva, toppled the government in December 1964 Phillip G made another fateful error by voting against the coalition. His one vote would have changed the history of the country as well as his own future as a possible prime minister of Ceylon. He vented his anger against the “Radala Ammandi.” Ironically when the MEP was formed in 1956 LSSP did everything to sabotage that government. In 1964 Phillip thought he could kill two birds with one stone.

Despite its past misdeeds in 1971 and in 1988-89 new JVP leaders made it a live political force. A former UNP PM once said that JVP made the UNP and SLFP leadership “avalangu kaasis” (worthless money). JVP won several court cases against anti-national arrangements made by the UNP-SLFP leadership. Only a JVP minister was on record for not allowing a World Bank agent to bully him. Above all in 2005 JVP made sure that a rural man becomes the new president. Otherwise, by now all those sites of Buddhist ruins in the Northern and Eastern Province that the Ven. Ellawala Medhananda Thero has cataloged during the past forty years would have been razed to the ground. But the world does not allow a mother to kill a child because she gave birth to him. Apparently, the JVP thinks it is above this rule.

If there is a conflict, then JVP, as a political organism, has every right to resolve it in any way it wishes. But is there a conflict with the budget vote? Or was JVP getting into a prison of its own with imaginary or impossible demands? If JVP wants to finish Prabakaran then the only alternative it has is to help Mahinda R for at least one more year with their vote on the war budget. Any other behavior by JVP at this stage is no different from it joining with the UNP camp to protect Prabakaran.

This decision by JVP and its leader’s statement praising the cruel dictator Stalin takes us back to the way he escaped from death just yards away from the place where Wijeweera was captured. It has to be more than the fact that his sister had connections with the government ministers. It is a mystery how India secretly helped him to escape when his movement was killing Indians. It is true that London was an oasis for political dissidents including Karl Marx, but not for leaders of underground movements who murdered people in the hundreds. Recently, Russia accused London of harboring and training ‘dissidents’ as agents of western imperialism. The JVP leader’s stay in London cannot be compared to CBK’s exile or that of Prins Gunasekara’s. If the JVP is the symbol of truth and justice in present day Sri Lanka, it has a public duty to tell the whole story of its leader’s past to the people now and not after his death.

Mahinda R is not a saint and cannot be a saint. He had to fight an election against all odds and against local and foreign money. Those who helped him with funds cannot be ignored by him without giving some favors. But he is almost like Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had a cabinet made out of most of his political rivals. Lincoln had a choice while Mahinda R had no choice. The bahubbotha vyavasthava (a death trap for Sri Lanka) of the late A.J. Wilson (a political science professor and the son-in-law of SJV Chelvanayagam) created a system in which the president could end up being a prisoner in the hands of MPs who become MPs under a unique chit system by the party bosses. Thus, JRJ, who boasted that he can do anything except make a woman a man, had to obtain a blank letter signed by his MPs as a protective measure. RP, it was rumored had to bribe MPs and resort to black magic to derail the impeachment plan. CBK did not even know about the 2002 CFA signed by the PM and Prabakaran and she could not even chair the Cabinet meetings because it was alleged that she carried a hidden camera in her purse! MR had to bribe the MPs with ministerial posts to keep the government running. Under such circumstances was JVP reasonable or realistic in demanding MR to reduce the cabinet to 30?

The JVP cannot perform a Yama maha perehara blowing hot and cold air. It cannot play a double game. Yes, people are suffering but by defeating the war budget people will suffer more and longer. If JVP thinks that people cannot understand this simple fact it is still in 1971, when it tried to overthrow a popular government months after it came to power. It is unbelievable that JVP is entering a jungle when the path is so clear. It may be hard for them to understand that MahindaR is like the King Valagamba in hiding with the wisdom of the old woman already in his head on how to eat the hot milk rice. Why the JVP does not want to give Gotabhaya a few more months to destroy Prabakaran’s bunker takes the JVP into the backyards club of US Senators Patrick Leahy, Hillary Clinton, UK ambassador Chilcott and the million-rupee salaried Colombo peace lobby.

MR came to power despite a conspiracy by the local anti-nationals and foreign INGO forces (5,000 of them in Sri Lanka today!!) wanting to keep Prabhakaran alive and well and the military demoralized. MR disproved the “war is not winnable” theory by a simple non-act (omission not commission) of allowing the army to take care of military affairs. Military is now run by military professionals and not by former election commissioners or arm-chair political generals. Why cannot JVP understand that the end of Prabhakaran is nearing and any vote against the budget at this moment could adversely affect the war effort? Are they prepared to waste all their past work at the 2005 election making it a case of throwing wood into the river (gangata ini kapeemak)?

No one denies that the real war in Sri Lanka will begin after the end of the Eelam war. Waste, corruption, crime and the hopelessness of civil administration have become antho-jata-bahi jata problems during the past 30 years. It is unreasonable and unfair to expect that MR has a magic wand to even begin eradicating them from a Sri Lankan society where the situation now is parents selling children or children selling parents for dollars. MR cannot touch this problem on a systematic basis until the war is over. Why the JVP is not willing the benefit of the doubt to MR on this issue is problematic.

MR, JHU and JVP benefited from Ven. Gangodawila Soma’s efforts. Ven. Soma came forward when laymen were afraid of talking for fear of death. It was the Lalith A-Gamini D- Gen. Kobbakaduwa syndrome. No one knows for sure who really killed them. Monks waited on road sides to tie pirith nuul on the wrists of JVP walkers because JVP was linked with Ven. Soma’s vision. The JVP should learn from history that the common man and woman are watching their behavior from an Ehi Passiko perspective – come and examine, not come and believe.

The JVP will have no monopoly control over people’s poverty issues to take them on for a ride. The JVP can begin a campaign to grow more food on its own at the GSN unit level if it cares about the people’s hunger. It has time to re-think and vote with the government on Dec 14th.

For example, if Mr. Anandasangaree was an MP he would have voted for the budget without any doubt. His recent letter to 60 million Tamils in Tamil Nadu asking them not to make a historical blunder (about the killing of Thamilselvam and supporting Prabhakaran) was a courageous act by a long-suffered Tamil man about his people. It was an act of wisdom which the late Amrithalingam could not think of as the Leader of the Opposition in 1978. There are two clear paths awaiting in Sri Lanka to be taken by two entities: one is Mr. A’s TULF publicly declaring that there are no homelands in Sri Lanka; the other is if JVP does not want to be another LSSP in 2007-2008 it should vote for the war budget now. The choices are clear and concrete.