Ceasefire on the rocks, and shooting says “Court days are here again’
The court has issued something like a gag order on the P-TOMS. The poor fellow who tried to influence court practice by saying last week that the judges “should not stick to strict legalistic principles’’ must surely be fuming now.

After much tom-tom beating the P-TOMS appears to be hit by a tomahawk, aimed from the highest point in Colombo, the Bawa designed beaming red dome atop Hulftsdorp Hill. As someone said all that tom-tom beating for nothing. “Gahapu berekuth ne bere paluth ne.’’ (All those tom-toms, but nothing drummed up -- and the drum packed up too?)

Considering that it’s her own Chief Justice -- appointed under her own hand amid a considerable furore in legal-land -- who has now toppled the P-TOMS, the President must be having one thing to say before she turns in each night: “Et tu Brute? ‘’

Her developing isolation on the issue of the P-TOMS is thus becoming, almost by the minute, quite unimaginable. Look at it dispassionately.
She started revving up the P-TOMS and her coalition partner left her. She signed the P-TOMS and the big chief’s representative here, Mr Lunstead palpably did the dirty on her by saying “we shall not contribute to the P-TOMS fund.’’ Now, her own appointee to head the Supreme Court basically trounces her by felling the document even before it is born and baptized.

For Kumaratunga, it’s going from being her annus mirabilis – miracle year – to her annus horribilis – horrible, horrible year. But when she decided to sign the document she may have not been expecting any miracles, and for her part she can still say that this year – 2005 -- is not up yet. There are miles to go on that tsunami-hit beach before she sleeps. Someone said that she is playing for history, adding that two term Presidents always play for the record. “It is a matter of legacy’’ is the estimation, and in this country they do not even have Presidential libraries - - so Kumaratunga wanted to leave behind a lasting achievement which was to be rapprochement, hopefully leading to a lasting peace with the Tigers.

People say that the situation then developed unpredictably and her plan for joint tsunami aid and confidence building skidded on the ramp, and came careening to a halt.

But wasn’t it more like the other way around? I say, it was the other way around. Things went predictably as they would. She, let it be assumed, intended the tsunami mechanism as a confidence building measure between the Tigers and her government. But predictably the NGO lobby began questioning her bona fides whittling down any goodwill she deserved from signing the agreement by questioning the “implementation’’ of the P-TOMS even before the signatories’ ink was dry on the document.

It worked to a master plan. NGO wallahs started writing polemics saying the Sinhala polity is against the P-TOMS “because of a fear bordering on the paranoia that it will confer legitimacy on a bunch of terrorists.’’ Untrue: sections of the Sinhala South are against the P-TOMS because one signatory continues a killing spree, while deriving the benefits of the P-TOMs. The LTTE believes in the quid – with the pro entombed six feet under by duress. The Sinhala polity is alarmed by the nature of such a quid pro quo, and that’s the pivot point of their opposition to the document. But nothing was said about this factor in the NGO wallahs demolition of the bona fides of the Sinhala South.

All these NGO critics typically represent history repeating itself. Each time a Sri Lankan government makes some tangible overture the pro Tiger NGO/international lobby brings everything back to square one within a week by creating fresh issues that question the bona fides of the government. If the P-TOMS is signed, they say the implementation is flawed.

If a bridge, however shaky, is built with an overture such as the P-TOMS, (J)aywalking Uyangoda wants the problem to do a sharp U-turn and go back to where it was. Human rights violations do not -- repeat do not - - merit even an honorable mention in his post P-TOMS assessment in a daily newspaper.

Where are these people’s bona fides then??
They are doing the job that’s expected of them - - which is to deconstruct whatever the state has contributed to the peace process, and show it as being in shambles, enabling the Tigers to carry on as if they have gained nothing despite the sincere -- and some may daresay naive -- peace overture of the Sri Lankan President.

The court judgment against the P-TOMS comes against this backdrop, which is why some may define it as a pincer movement against this NGO-rebel-international backed sharp practice.

If the LTTE and its backers tack is to make gains and go back to lambasting the government, the natural reaction will be to re-consider what’s granted. That’s what the sections opposed to the P-TOMS seek to accomplish through the legal machinery of the state.

END PIECE: Wickremesinghe’s jana bala meheuma had something old in it -- and many things borrowed. It was a rag tag popular version of the JVP’s calibrated synchronized and regimented rallies.

Jana Bala notwithstanding, the NGO wallahs are determined to marry off Ranil Wickremesinghe to Chandrika Kumaratunga, on the political aisle.
This idea of ‘’national government’ however is predicated on all the wrong reasons. Its primary goal is to ensure that the Tigers are able to prosecute their campaign more easily, after having rejected - - with NGO help -- all of the gains made by instruments such as the ceasefire agreement and the P-TOMS.

But, NGOs may bring the horse to the water -- yet cannot make it drink, no matter how inveigling the watering hole. The NGO’s can sue for a wedding between Chandrika and Ranil on the premise that if they will ally, the Tigers will get a gift that keeps giving. Which is: Sri Lankan governments that keep making peace overtures no matter who is in power -- overtures which the Tigers can continue to reject, as they have done with the P-TOMs, even before the ink dried on the signatures.

But, NGOs dream on. Wickremesighe may politically marry Chandrika following the NGO lead, but he wants no honeymoon with her. He wants her out of the house, though, before November this year, period.
At this level of feverish sparring, there is no clarity that anybody can lend to Sri Lankan politics at the moment. Everything is as complicated as it can possibly get.

In the final analysis, the NGO/international lobby has, for the moment, got what it wanted. The ceasefire is almost derailed. The sequence of events is clear. The Tigers started derailing the CFA, with rhetorical backing from the NGOs, even before the Supreme Court suspended 4 clauses of the P-TOMS.

But yet, the Sri Lankan government can still strategically sue for peace as it should. However, given the above, not before it is fully aware of the nature of the adversary, and all of the forces that are arraigned behind it.

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