MAHINDA, CHANDRIKA AND EU.
It is not a secret that few members of the SLFP, who at various times had left the party to join other parties or to form new parties, are not giving Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse the support that is expected from party members. There are few so called organizers and MPs, who are not backing Mr. Rajapakse's candidature. When Mr. Premadasa was nominated to contest the Presidency, apparently there was no support from Mr. J. R. Jayawardane, and Mr. Premadasa resolved the problem in ways unique to him. Mr. Rajapakse may not apply the same methods, but it is clear that for the second time in the history of the country after forty eight we are witnessing a change of leadership from the families that were selected and nurtured by the British to give us leadership.
The support extended by the Bandaranaikes is not going to be even a marginally affecting factor at the forthcoming Presidential elections. The followers of Ms. Kumaratunga from the Mahajana Party days may not have realized that their days are numbered. The strategy of the Bandaranaikes appears to be supporting Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe with the expectation that he would become the President, and then forming a so-called national government with Mr. Anura Bandaranaike as the Prime Minister, with the support of few MPs from the SLFP. It is definitely not a bad dream but unfortunately for Bandaranaikes, at this stage they could only dream.
The Sinhala people are slowly but gradually coming over a leadership crisis that they have been saddled with since the massacre of the Uva Vellassa people in 1817-18. As we have described previously most of the traditional Sinhala leadership was assassinated, and the others were absorbed into the services of the colonialists in various capacities. The Gate Mudaliars, Mudaliars, Mud liars and others were the leaders that the Sinhala people were "endowed" by the British. The Colebrook-Cameron commission that was appointed made recommendations to seal off any links with the traditional Sinhala laws and established the British ways of administering the country, a British economic structure and paved way to produce a group of people dissociated from the culture of the country. The schools that were established trained students to "think" (imitate) as the British. When the second major independence struggle was launched in 1848, the Sinhalas had no traditional leaders and they had to settle for Puran Appu and Gongalegoda Banda who went to Matale and Kurunegala to lead the struggle.
The leadership crisis was resolved for a short time with the advent of Anagarika Dharmapala but the leaders appointed by the British with the help of the latter managed to see to it that the Anagarika went to India. Then in 1956 Mr. Bandaranaike who had the intuition to breakaway from the family traditions gave leadership to the Sinhalas but the non national forces were able to defeat him. Fifty years after that the offspring of Mr. Bandaranaike are trying to defeat Mr. Rajpakse. The people cannot be fooled by the lip service given to the Prime Minister by the Bandaranaikes.
We do not know what action Mr. Rajapakse would take against the members of the SLFP who do not support him eventually. What is clear is that in any event, Bandaranaikes would not have any sympathy within the party, and they and those few who are with them would become outcasts after the Presidential Elections on the seventeenth of November. Ms. Kumaratunga could afford to live in London or on the banks of the Nile or anywhere else after the seventeenth, but the others who do not enjoy those luxuries would have to confront Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse.
Meanwhile it has been reported that the EU, that is supposed to have banned travel by the LTTE has met a delegation of the terrorists. When many were rejoicing over a statement by the EU on so-called travel restrictions imposed on the LTTE, we were not convinced of the genuineness of the declaration. The statement was issued in the aftermath of the murder of Mr. Lakshman Kadirgamer, and had no teeth. It was to fool us, and perhaps more than that the unsuspecting citizens of the countries of the EU, who have a political awareness and who are concerned with the killings by the LTTE. As we pointed out it only said that the states belonging to the EU would not receive delegations of the LTTE officially in their respective countries. There was no ban on the European Union to meet delegations of the LTTE, nor there were any restrictions on the terrorists to travel in Europe either as individuals or even as delegates of the LTTE. The statement merely said that the states of the EU (not the EU!) would not receive delegations of the LTTE. It was we who gave various interpretations to the declaration, as we have been taught by the Europeans that they are (ladies and) gentlemen, and that they are concerned with "unlawful" killings by terrorists and others. Little we realize that the terrorists have been maintained by them.
The westerners are masters at drafting resolutions to fool others, but even after five hundred years of interactions with them we have not been able to realize that the statements issued by them have to be read not between the lines but between the words. There are so many missing words in those declarations and agreements, and unless we pay attention to them we would be the loser. When the Portuguese came to Sri Lanka they had an agreement to use the land that could be covered with the skin of a bull (geri hama). The way they interpreted afterwards the term skin of a bull should have opened the eyes of any bull to follow. However the education that has been imposed on us have made us worse than bulls, and some of us occasionally parade before the public in multi coloured gowns corresponding to the qualifications they have obtained, resembling a parade of multi coloured bulls. The Sinhala leaders living in 1815 were fooled by a Cambridge graduate named Doyle to sign a pact with the British, which ended up the sovereignty that the Sinhala people had enjoyed for more than two thousand years. The so called cease fire agreement that Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe signed with Prabhakaran under the instructions of the Norwegians has killed only five or six Sinhala people according to one of the signatories! Why do we continue to be naïve when it comes to statements and agreements by the western diplomats and statesmen (statespersons), and why cannot we make up our minds not to trust them even when they shake hands with us? We have to remember that in this sophisticated world one does not have to carry a sword in hand to attack somebody else, and also that words can very often do more harm than swords.
In the true traditions of the westerners could Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse enter into an agreement with Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga and her brother Mr. Anura Bandaranaike to the effect that only Bandaranaikes could become leaders of the SLFP and be Prime Ministers of Sri Lanka? Mr. Anura Bandaranaike would definitely sign an agreement of that nature, and later on Mr. Rajapakse could interpret a Bandaranaike so as to exclude the Bandaranaikes of Horagolla. He could easily say that there are Bandaranaikes and Bandaranaikes just as much there are gerihamas and gerihamas.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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