Untitled Document

Political Column

By a special correspondent

Who is the real Chandrika - is she coming out?

Do they suspect these days that our President leads a Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde existence?. For long it has been suspected that she has a certain schizophrenia about the peace process.

It is now rumoured that she is seeking the media which is eluding her, to tell the truth about the peace process. Her closest friends in the shadow kitchen Cabinet have been telling her to aggressively seek out the press, and state her position with regard to the Federal issue and so forth. They have even been making certain feelers, to the effect that there should be certain pressmen who should be earmarked for the President to approach. Maybe, they have suggested, the whole process should be kicked off with some interviews given by the members of her kitchen Cabinet after which she can follow.

Last week the peace part of her psyche seemed to have emerged, leaving the war part behind at least for a moment. She gathered some of her faithfuls around her and announced that she hopes to hold an all party conference in order to bring some clarity to the emerging problems, including the proposed federal solution.

Whether it is through her overtures and her flattery of the press we do not know, but last week there was also some very flattering articles about her in some of the popular print media. There was a very flattering piece for instance which said that Chandrika Kumaratunga will always support peace from the opposition ranks, and not from the government ranks.

This piece alluded to the fact that she supported the Indo - Lanka accord even though Vijaya Kumaratunga her late husband was being harassed at every turn by the then President J. R. Jayewardene. There was also the assertion that she was always for talks with the LTTE, even when she hated the LTTE in the guts after the LTTE tried to assassinate her. She kept sending messages to the LTTE through Norway, even though most of her Ministers were in a war mood , and were saying that the country should be put on a war footing and so on, while egging her on to abandon any overtures to the LTTE until they were 'finished off.''

Well, at least all of this seems to be very flattering from the point of view of a comparison between Ranil as the only genuine article who takes risks for peace, as Ranil is seen by those who unreservedly cheer the current peace process.

But, to others this does not put Chandrika Kumaratunga in a good light at all. To the JVP for instance, this portrait of her will be anathema, and the JVP, which is trying its best to get Chandrika out of the dual personality mindset and get her to oppose the peace process totally, will be shattered.

While the UNP, the Norwegian Monitoring Mission and all others who have a larger stake in this whole peace process than any of the others, were making a loud pitch about ' one full year of peace' it has set Chandrika Kumaratunga thinking.

Even though this one year of peace is tenuous, politically she feels that her instincts were always right, which is what she has said when she called an All Party Conference last week.

It will be remembered that she picked people who were after her own heart, from the circle of (pseudo or otherwise) social scientists etc., when she first picked her key men in various institutions after she established her initial administration. Even though some of these people are only shadows of their former selves, through these people, and through the fact that it was she who intervened first with Norway, she feels that she has bequeathed a considerable legacy of peace.

Ranil Wickremesinghe therefore, as some sections of the critical thinking population has pointed out is only Chandrika Kumartunga's clone. But the only problem with this analysis is that the LTTE does not seem to think this way.

But it has been pointed out on more than one occasion that the LTTE thrives on driving a wedge between the two major elements of Sri Lankan politics -- the one currently headed by Chandrika Kumaratunga and the other by Ranil Wickremesinghe.

As for Chandrika Kumaratunga, she always wanted to subvert the subversive desires of the LTTE even though there is no doubt that her legacy is for federalism, which the LTTE and the UNF has agreed on now. Even G. L. Peiris admitted it last week when he said the obvious -- which is that federalism was the key character of the regional council system that was introduced in parliament during the PA tenure by the Chandrika Kumaratunga administration.

Several ways of skinning a cat

Douglas Devananda is living his ninth life, but will not show it. That is the amount of times the LTTE had tried to kill him.

But, he never tires of making fun of the LTTE. "You know what happened in Afghanistan,'' he says.

No I say. What exactly happened in Afghanistan that you are referring to?

"Why?'' he lets out a raucous belly laugh. "The Taleban was taken off, and it was replaced by the Northern Alliance.'''

Yes, I say, the Taleban was wiped off the face of Afghanistan, and the Northern Alliance took over.

More belly laughs.

My original question was what will happen to the LTTE under a federal administration. So I ask him, 'what happened to the Taleban will happen to the LTTE, will it?'

Another laugh. "Well, I cannot comment on that now. But the people are afraid of the LTTE. They could get only a few hundred people for a protest march in Jaffna recently.''

But Devananda has been losing out recently to the LTTE, and in the Delft skirmish for instance, he faced the 'unpopular' LTTE and found that unpopular or not the LTTE is difficult to contend with in peace time as in wartime.

"I have had relations with some LTTE people who have told me, when in private conversation, that they are interested only in getting the maximum possible from the government, and then abandoning the whole process. We do not know when but they will do that. Then the Americans are not going to help the Sri Lankan government, because you will remember that even before the Indo - Lanka accord there was a feeling that the Americans are going to help, but when all the fighting came to the fore the Americans say 'you should go and talk to Rajiv Gandhi'.''

In the brief conversation that I have with him Devananda mentions India no less than ten times which shows exactly where his sentiments lie on this whole issue.

But I remind him that India is not involved in the peace process, and it is Norway that is the honest broker.

'But India is our closest neighbour, and they have been worried about the radio station that is going to be installed by the LTTE. The Sri Lankan government is so hell bent on preserving the peace process, that they will give anything that the LTTE asks for.''

So is India going to install Douglas Devananda the way America installed the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan?

If he knows anything about that he is not telling.

He says federalism will only work if there is pluralism and human rights in the North East, while saying that the people are currently afraid of the LTTE because the LTTE is terrorising them. "They came into a house in Bambalapitiya last week and killed a man who was working for LTTE intelligence because this man was trying to go abroad.''

If the LTTE is terrorising people now as Devananda says, what makes him think that they will not do it under a federal system that he says should be a solution?

This is where he again mentions India, even though he comes to India through the route of the international community. "The international community should guarantee that there is pluralism and human rights in the North and the East.''

But didn't he say a while ago that America might not give two hoots about what is happening in Sri Lanka?

But then again, having mentioned India almost ten times, there is no doubt that Devananda believes that the international community does not begin and end with America and Norway. The EPDP may be getting a raw deal, but the trick, says Devandna is that 'we will prevail''

“We are also people from that area…(the North East.) My message is that the LTTE should be made to lay down all heavy artillery and hand it over to India. The people of the South should support that -- we can look after ourselves, but the people of the South should be able to support that position in the interest of peace?''

LTTE to hand weapons over to India? Is Devananda living with his feet on the ground or what? But, this is Douglas Devananda. He has prevailed, and he may have more than nine lives, and he believes that there are several ways to skin a cat - even if it is a Tiger.

Back to Columns