A speech and visit as political theatre
By Our Political Editor
Prabhakaran's Mahavir day speech notwithstanding, the government got its real scare from the Tamil moderates. UNF MP Maheshwaran was on the warpath, making a fiery speech in parliament saying that he will have to desert the government benches if there is no support from the government to develop Jaffna and ameliorate the suffering of the Tamil people.

There were frenetic attempts from government big guns to get at Maheshwaran after this, but to no avail. Finally when they did get through to him, it was after all the damage was done. The Opposition was saying the UNP will soon have its own Putraisigamani. But Maheshwaran promises to do worse than that. He says he will quit the government and work against it if things do not improve.
This echoes noises being made by the TULF to this effect as well. The difference being that nobody believes the TULF when it says it might have to reconsider working with the government.

But the 'moderate' minorities whose voices have been all but muted during the talks between the two main political entities, the LTTE and the government of Sri Lanka, are now rethinking their positions. You could say, if a Sri Lankan cliché was to be rehashed, that they seem to be 'coming out of the woodwork.''

Rauff Hakeem for instance, was one of the vocal individuals when the frontliners in government and other VIPs met Chris Patten the visiting European Union External Affairs Commissioner for dinner. Patten did not bring Hakeem any particular good tidings from Prabhakaran, but he said that Prabhakaran was urged by him to bring all other actors into the peace process and the negotiations. As it turned out, Patten never said one good thing to Prabhakaran -- -according to him Prabhakaran was asked about child soldiers and murders of political opponents etc.,

You'd be excused for wondering -- hmm, some birthday party this was….
Pattern's chemistry with the President was good --- so good that the President did not lift a finger to disrupt or mar his visit. Not any of her fingers, that is. But those such as Kabir Hashim went on the warpath saying that the President presented a front, while secretly working against the Patten visit through those in her party such as Arjuna Ranatunge. Arjuna Ranatunge was at the forefront of the campaign to burn the Patten effigy opposite the Hilton.

It is a fact that Patten was provided the helicopter he rode to the Wanni on orders of the President. This is not strange, considering that the President has for the past few weeks been trying her utmost to do some damage control with the international community which painted her in the worst light after she took over the three Ministries in that one Presidential act which changed almost everything on the political landscape.

Theatrics
The Patten visit though producing definitely the most amount of theatrics of the week, was not in order of importance the most significant. The most significant may have been Prabhakran's Mahavir day speech which indicated clearly which side he is taking in the current political crisis that is besieging the South.

Tamil people
Prabhakaran said this Southern political circus is all part of the ongoing drama that deprives the Tamil people of their rights. He said this political game is part of a script that short-changes the Tamil people everytime.

But in fact, his speech was an attack on Chandrika Kumaratunge, and a statement that supported in a thinly veiled way, Ranil Wickremesinghe. He identified the President as the warmonger -- the only force that's preparing for a war in a pacifist nation.

Amidst this, it gave some observers the indication that the President is softening her position on the LTTE due to the fact that she is now on path of rapprochement with the UNF. For example, the Interior Ministry announced that the LTTE is not responsible for the attacks on the Muslims in the Eastern province which killed two people this week.

This had some SLFPers in a quandary. They do not seem to know whether their party was coming or going -- and this they felt was due to the cohabitation politics that was going on in the form of the Samarawickreme-Tittawella committee. That committee continued its deliberations at Temple Trees, and the UNF reiterated its position that national consensus is the name of the game and not national government.

This was not unexpected -- but it has its own reverberations within the PA . Some of the PA's rank and file were not happy that there are talks with the government if there is nothing in it for them -- nothing in it by way of plum jobs in government (Minsiterships.)

But the President indicated to them that this is the way that the cookie crumbles. By the end of the week she offered the UNF what it had already refused - - -a twin sharing Defence Ministry.

But it was on a new formula, which was that all Defence matters relating to the peace process will be handled by a UNF Assistant Minister. But the Ranil Wickremesinghe's all or nothing formula on the Defence Ministry, as reported in these columns last week, was a stubborn one, and all indications at time of going to press was that the UNF will reject these new proposals by the President.

This and other matters seemed to put a spanner in the Tittawella- Samarawickreme talks which were looking as if they weren't yielding any success. The fact was that if there is no agreement on the matter of Defence, all this talk of consensus on other issues was going to come to nought. If that was the fate of the new moves for co-existence, then there seemed to be little hope that the country's litany of problems would be solved by weeks-end.

This is why this column which pointed out that an election may be the outcome of all this, still guesses that an election may be the only alternative ….even though the President and Prime Minister will exhaust all their other options before the President decides on this worse case line of action…..

Alliances embroiled in a no-win situation
By Harinda Ranura Vidanage
J.R. Jayewardene's constitution was not trained nor programmed to entertain any cohabitation. Both the UNF and the SLFP have realized this, and though they are desperate to bridge a cooperative frame-work, the constitution eternally creates a giant fissure separating the two.

Though the Malik-Tittawella committee fired all cylinders to cross the finishing line, they found themselves trapped in a dead end, intensifying President Kumaratunga's oscillation between two decisions, that of striking an alliance with the JVP or making peace with the UNP. President Kumaratunga found more and more stake holders influencing her decision-making, while she was sinking, due to forces unleashed by her own actions.

Kumaratunga made sure Mano Tittewella sent a message to the UNF saying she desires a MoU to be signed by both parties to work in consensus. This MoU was bound to create a national government after three months of cooperation.

umaratunga did not want a duplicated Liam Fox pact but a more binding one. As the UNP hesitated with a reply, Kumaratunga was trying to make inroads into the JVP. As the love-hate relationship between the two parties continued, SLFP office bearers met again last Monday to finalise the SLFP-JVP alliance.

As the proceedings started at President's House two hours late, Mrs. Kumaratunga again stressed the importance of the SLFP-JVP alliance. As the President saw no difference on policy with the JVP she called for the final approval from the SLFP. Maithripala Sirisena shot up from his seat in the ritualistic style he has been following in the series of recent SLFP meetings. This time he was not the renegade preparing to take on the authority but a more subdued humble human, desperately seeking comfort.

"Yes, I am a poor man with a rural upbringing. But that cannot be used against me by the JVP", he said. Mr. Sirisena was referring to a pro-JVP newspaper that had criticised him at length. His outburst ignited a chain-reaction of complaints against JVP-backed media institutions by a multitude of SLFP MPs.

Mr. Nimal Siripala de Silva stood up and lamented, "I have done a lot for this party all these years but still I am being subjected to these attacks." The same complaint was made by Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, another vociferous critique of the JVP. Mahinda Rajapakse joined in the fray bewailing of criticisms against him. Ironically, he was not complaining against the JVP but the same journalistic wonder which was trying to link him to a conspiracy to assassinate the President.

The sudden outbreak of the SLFP leadership effected a shift on the President's mood. The pro-JVP shift was suddenly overtaken by a dominant, more hostile approach by Mrs. Kumaratunga. "So what shall we do to contain this?" she questioned. As her mind changed the SLFP-JVP alliance faced a new hurdle. Mrs. Kumaratunga decided to introduce a code of ethics, prior to finalising the alliance. She wanted the message to be conveyed to the JVP General Secretary immediately.

As the developing political scenario unravels, the SLFP-JVP alliance may lead to the release of all forces that are kept tightly shut in the Pandora's box. By lay definition, the term alliance means the "achieving of consensus between two stake-holders with different opinions".

The question that arises is, has the JVP or the SLFP reached this consensus?
First, on the ISGA put forward by the LTTE, the JVP's stand is that analysing the document itself is an act of betrayal. President Kumaratunga accepted this view earlier but later she advocated the opposite. At a meeting with leading businessmen Mrs. Kumaratunga said the document could be a starting point for negotiations.
Second, the JVP calls for administrative devolution of power as a solution to the ethnic question while the SLFP clearly stands for the methodologies of devolution of power introduced in 1997 and 2000. Again there seems to be a clear discrepancy on policy.

Finally, the SLFP accepts the role of Norway as facilitators in the peace process, though in a different setup to the existing one, while the JVP sees no future role for the Norwegians.

The above are the three political issues with huge currency these days. One can question as to where is the "common policy" that both parties are talking about. These issues are the same that were taken up by the Malik-Tittawella committee but as these talks are also heading nowhere, what is the option left for the SLFP leadership?

The greater question lies not in the crisis facing the SLFP, but the crisis that is facing the Southern political core in Sri Lanka. Prabhakaran, in his heroes day message compared this to a "bazaar drama", directed by both political parties. This shows the insight of the Tiger leadership on the current developments in Southern politics.
All the while this enlarges the space for the LTTE to play the card of "clean party" and "just stakeholder" in the Sri Lankan peace process. As the South politically destabilizes, the North politically and administratively strengthens its structure under a politico-military LTTE authority.

In the final analysis, it is not a struggle for political supremacy in the South but an attempt to win the credit for leading the campaign for peace. If this struggle continues, whoever emerges the winner will be bearing a tattered white flag, with the Lion flag covering the nudity of guilt and shame.

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