IT'S THE SANDHANAYA AND NOT THE LEADER
The president is under pressure. It is not the JVP that is applying pressure on her but the western powers and of course the policies of the SLMP. The leaders of the SLMP, meaning Vijaya Kumaratunga and Chandrika Kumaratunga, way back in 1987 took a decision to support J. R. Jayawardhane when the latter signed the infamous Indo-Lanka agreement. With that decision very senior members of the SLMP, such as Mr. T. B. Illangaratne resigned from the party realising where Vijaya Kumaratunga was heading. At that time the SLFP and the JVP opposed the Indo Lanka agrement while the Marxist parties, excluding of course the JVP, supported J. R. Jayawardhane's decision to sign the agreement. In 1987 the SLFP was the party of the Sinhalathva under the leadership of Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike and during the year 1989 the term "Children of Fifty Six" was used for the first time to identify not only most of the members of the SLFP and the JVP but also those who were outside these parties but had been influenced by fifty six. Only a western trained politician would not see the positive impact made by fifty six on the Sinhala nationalist movement.
Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga has resigned as the leader of the alliance of SLFP- JVP-MEP- Ashraaf SLMM and few other parties, popularly known as the Sandhanaya. It is clear that she finds it difficult to enforce her will on the JVP that continues to oppose the ISGA. Ms. Kumaratunga, who as the leader of the alliance as well as of the SLFP criticised the role of the Norwegians, and the ISGA, is now backing the Norwegians as well as the ISGA. This does not come as a surprise as she is not a de facto member of the SLFP. She may have paid up her subscriptions to the party and may be having the membership of the SLFP. However that does not make her an SLFPer. The day her late husband formed the Mahajana Party against the SLFP as well as the Sinhalthva she ceased to be a member of the SLFP. Her coming back from self exile around 1992 at the insistence of some Mahajana Party members and people such as Victor Ivan, marked the beginning of the end for the SLFP. The SLFP, though the party of the Sinhalathva, did not have theories based on the Jathika Chinthanaya and had to go after Marxism and Liberalism. Thus Ms. Kumaratunga could force her Marxist/Liberal views on the members of the SLFP without much difficulty.
She was also assisted in imposing her views on the party by the tradition of the so-called democratic political parties where a wining leader is very seldom challenged. The SLFP was in wilderness from 1977 to 1994 and the SLFP believed that the PA was able to win in 1994 due to the leadership of Ms. Kumaratunga. However, in history there is no way of finding out whether an "alternative hypotheses" could have given similar or even better results and we would not know for certainty whether the PA under Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike's leadership could have won at the elections held in 1994, though I personally believe it was possible under the conditions then existing after the death of Mr. R. Premadasa. In 1994, even under the leadership of Ms. Kumaratunga the PA did not win in the northern province and the Batticaloa district and the results could not have been worse under the leadership of Mrs. Bandaranaike.
However, it has to be accepted that at the Presidential elections held soon after, Ms. Kumaratunga received the support of the northern province as well as the other provinces. This was for two different reasons. In the northern province and the Batticaloa district she was the wife of Vijaya Kumaratunga who was anti Sinhala Buddhist. In the other areas she was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bandaranaike. The Sinhala people have taken a long time to realise that she is more the wife of Vijaya Kumaratunga than the daughter of the Bandaranaikes. The people in the northern province and the Batticaloa district have lost their faith in the wife of the actor and at the presidential elections held in 2000 she did not get the same support that she got first time in any part of the country. At the second presidential elections we campaigned on the theme that she could be considered as a second Dona Catherina. We wanted the Sinhala people and the SLFP and the MEP to be a collective Wimaladharmasuriya and to take advantage of the position held by the western trained "crown princess". However, it has taken four years for the Sinhala people to come out with a reincarnated JVP, as a Wimaladharmasuriya. Ms. Kumaratunga unlike in the days of the PA when she had no challenger now feels that she is threatened by the JVP.
What has to be realised is that Ms. Kumaratunga is no longer viewed as the daughter of the Bandaranaikes by the Sinhala people. Just before the infamous package was introduced she criticised her parents for the policy that they had adopted with respect to Sinhalathva and Tamil racism. However, by the time the Sandhanaya was formed the NGOs had left her, and she had no alternative but to criticise the policies of the UNP on Tamil racism. It was not genuine, though she is not the only person who is not genuine in these matters. Even in the JHU there are people who have once said that the nation is a dead body (jathiya mala kandak) and who campaigned against the "war" and put up posters as late as 1995 asking the government to withdraw the forces from the northern province. The Sinhalathva forces are operative even after the hysterical campaigns by the NGOs, Sudu Nelums etc., to "educate" the Sinhala people and to brainwash them. (Education in any form is a brainwashing process and under western Christian colonialism it has become a tool of cultural colonialism.) Ms. Kumaratunga fails to realise that the "Sandhanaya" won not because of her leadership but in spite of her. It is my belief that the Sandhanaya would have won with a comfortable majority in the parliament if it had a leader who was genuinely a Sinhala nationalist.
Ms. Kumaratunga having found it difficult to continue as the leader of the Sandhanaya that has different policies than her own has resigned from the leadership. It is good for the Sandhanaya to lose her as the leader as she did not represent the views of the SLFP or the Sandhanaya. What she should do now is to resign from the leadership of the SLFP as well. However, as there is no challenger in the SLFP who wants to continue with the policies of the Bandaranaikes rather than the policies of anti Sinhala Buddhist Vijaya Kumaratunga Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga still continues to lead a party whose policies are not in agreement with her own. Though many SLFPers are unhappy with the policies of Ms. Kumaratunga, they are not in a position to challenge her.
As we have said very often today one finds the children of fifty six in the SLFP, the JVP, the MEP and also outside these parties. The Sandhanaya is a party that represents most of them. However, Ms. Kumaratunga, though a daughter of the Bandaranaikes is not a child of fifty six. The western forces who created baptised and continue to maintain Tamil racism against Sinhalathva in this country are not prepared to listen to the Sinhala opinion. There are many Sinhala people, especially among the English speaking, who do not see the western forces in this light. They are of the opinion that if the Sinhala people write memoranda to the westerners giving the exact position with respect to the facts, the western forces would very soon see their mistake and would support the Sinhala people. This is the memorandum attitude that the English speaking people in this country have had since the latter part of the eighteenth century. The national congress of these ladies and gentlemen formed in 1912 was plagued with the memorandum disease and what they did not understand is that in politics what matters is not the force of reasoning (This does not mean that there was any force in the "reasoning" of these ladies and gentlemen. What they wanted to show was that they were good imitators of the British.) but the force of the people. The westerners who created, baptised and maintained Tamil racism know what they are doing and they are "convinced" of the "reasonableness" of the demands of the LTTE. They are not prepared to drop the LTTE like a hot potato and eliminate Prabhakaran. They want both the LTTE as well Prabhakaran to defeat Sinhalathva in the country. While they use Prabhakaran and the LTTE on one hand they use media and formal education on the other hand to destroy the Sinhala culture (as well as Tamil culture) as a tool of cultural colonialism. It has to be realised that Prabhakaran is not using his weapons against the west. He killed Sinhala as well as Tamil Hindu politicians, and the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who was also a Hindu. How many Tamil Christians have been killed by the LTTE? How many westerners have been killed by the LTTE? Solheim and others are welcome in Vanni and the LTTE and the west are working in collusion against Sinhalathva.
As long as the Sinhalas continue to have leaders provided by the west, the westerners would ignore the Sinhala opinion. They know what they are doing and they could be "convinced" only by mobilising the people against them. The westerners are so sure of themselves at the moment as they think the Sinhalathva forces could be destroyed in no time. They have already imposed indirect economic sanctions on the country and have tied down the Japanese loan with the so called peace talks. They want the government to agree to the ISGA proposal of the LTTE though the Sinhala people are against it. The UNP in opposition is campaigning for "peace talks" on the basis of the ISGA though usually a party in opposition takes Sinhalathva position to mislead the people. The fact that the UNP in opposition is prepared to campaign for ISGA based talks speaks volumes for the attitude and the strategy of the west.
Ms. Kumaratunga has resigned from the leadership of the Sandhanaya to teach a lesson to the JVP and the Sinhala nationalist forces. Apparently she thinks that she has a mandate as the President of the country to negotiate with the LTTE on the ISGA proposals, ignoring the views of the Sandhanaya. It is true that she was elected as the president of the country four years ago. However, she should remember that then she was not given a mandate for "peace talks". Moreover, at that time the ISGA proposals had not been formulated by the LTTE under the auspices of the west, and the people have spoken against these proposals at the general elections held in April this year. Moreover she herself has been against the ISGA proposals during that time. While she is entitled to change her opinion as many times as she likes she cannot pretend that she represents the Sinhala people every time she changes her mind. It has to be emphasised that at the last presidential election it was more a case of Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe losing than Ms. Kumaratunga winning the elections. She may be forced by the western forces and her SLMP policies to hand over the northern and the eastern provinces to Tamil racism on a platter. However, the Sinhala people are not prepared to do so. It is expected that the westerners who have imposed indirect economic sanctions would soon resort to direct sanctions, if the ISGA proposals are not accepted. However, what the government should do is to prepare the people to face such an eventuality informing them of the pressures applied by the Norwegians and the rest. Instead Ms. Kumaratunga has taken steps to control the media and soon her henchmen would be appointed to man the news and current affairs sections of the media controlled by the government. The Chandrikadasas and not Janadasas would be writing hosannas praising the so-called peace efforts of the president. The president has tried to silence the ministers and the government MPs and has issued a statement to the effect that they should not speak on the "peace proposals". The people have a right to know what the MPs and the ministers think about various matters and that right cannot be taken from them hiding behind the so-called collective responsibility of the cabinet.
The people who voted for the Sandhanaya have done so in spite of the leader. They would not allow the previous leader to undermine their wish under the pretence that her mandate in 2000 overrides the mandate given in 2004. What is important is the Sandhanaya and not the leader. Ms. Kumaratunga may think that the Sandhanaya is in power because of her popularity. What she should remember is that she is in power because of the SLFP and the Bandaranaikes and not because of the SLMP and the Kumaratunga. If she does not believe in that she could find out for herself the number of votes polled by the SLMP at the various elections held during the last few years. Or if she wants she could do an experiment. She could contest even a Pradeshiya Sabha election as an SLMP candidate and find out for herself how many people would vote for her. The Sinhala people today have no option but to support the Sandhanaya and oppose the President. Even if she was the leader of the Sandhanaya they could have supported the Sandhanaya and opposed the ISGA as well as the leader.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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