Columns

• The fate that befell Lanka’s former Presidents this Wednesday
  

It must have been with relish that the JVP ate their dish of revenge, served cold after being in cold storage for years.

For years on end, they have watched with festering hate and anger special privileges granted to former presidents for no earthly reason at all, except to ensure their retirement nests are comfortably feathered for life at public expense.

And what are these special privileges that presidents inherit upon leaving the presidency? They comprise a suitable house that befits the stature of former presidents, not a two-bedroom flat in De Soyzapura where his or her presence can pose a security threat to other inmates.

They are also entitled to receive under the Presidents Entitlements a monthly secretarial allowance equivalent to the monthly salary for the time being payable to the person holding the office of Private Secretary to the President and, to the widow of such former President, a monthly secretarial allowance equivalent to the monthly salary for the time being payable to the person holding the office of Private Secretary to a Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers.

Furthermore, they are entitled to receive official transport and all such other facilities as are for the time being provided to a Cabinet Minister. They were stripped of all these entitlements as of Wednesday, when Parliament repealed the Act.

They will also be entitled to a pension. Article 36 of the Constitution states, ‘Such pension shall be in addition to any other pension to which such person is entitled by virtue of any prior service.’

COMING HOME TO THE OLD HOMETOWN: Former President Mahinda and Shiranthi

That will go to the winds as well when a brand new constitution sees the light of day. Perhaps, the ‘Baked Alaska Upside Down’ was kept reserved for desserts to be eaten later once pensions for former presidents are also abolished next year.

The former presidents took the denial of their entitled privileges in their stride, holding it as inevitable, considering the JVP was in power. Maithripala had been the first to leave his official residence; he had quietly packed up and left without much ado.

But not so for Mahinda Rajapaksa. Not for him, the quiet exit through the back door. For him, the grand send-off. Even if the ICC in The Hague had sentenced him to hang for his role in ending the 30-year Eelam war, he would have made certain he was dramatically swung.

A stream of dignitaries, including the Chinese Ambassador Qi Zhenhong, came to pay a courtesy call—as if to come to sympathise with the condemned man—a few minutes before he departed from his state residence. But as Mahinda Rajapaksa had defiantly told Parliament a few years back, ‘Whether I’m President or Prime Minister or MP, I will always be Mahinda Rajapaksa.’

On Thursday, as he sat in his car before being driven away to his Tangalle home, he was asked by reporters what he had to say. Stoically he replied, ‘What’s there to say, except to say, I will never quit politics.’ Then, turning to his wife, Shirathi, as she brushed a tear from her eye, he gave her an assuring gentle pat on her shoulder. The time had come to finally go home.

CHANDRIKA: Going, but wants more time

The crowd of SLPP supporters that surrounded their leader’s car parted to let the former First Couple of Sri Lanka through to head home. Now he was returning to his country residence after fifty years of politics in Colombo.

And what a fifty-year whirl of jam-packed politics it had been.

Secretary of the SLPP, Sagara Kariyawasm, described Mahinda Rajapaksa as a leader who guided the youth during the unrest of 1988–1989, ended the 30-year ethnic war, and saved nearly Rs. 2,000 billion that would otherwise have been spent on the war.

Kariyawasam added that Rajapaksa spearheaded development in the country, put an end to the era when coffins were a common sight in village processions, and remained one of the most law-abiding figures in the nation.

He said, ‘While respecting the country’s law and order, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa is leaving his official residence today. The political activities of the former president will continue from anywhere in the country. Vacating his official residence is not a disappointment for him, but merely an adherence to the rule of law and order.’

As the son of the soil, the man from Ruhuna, Mahinda, came back to his roots; a massive crowd greeted his arrival. They walked beside the car in which Mahinda and Shiranthi sat, peering out at the throng and wondering, perhaps, if there was an assassin amongst them.

As they travelled at a snail’s pace to their Carlton home, the former president would, no doubt, have dejectedly mused, ‘Is this the thanks I get for ending a 30-year terrorist war?’

MAITHRIPALA: First to leave

But Mahinda Rajapaksa didn’t stay brooding on this for long. Twenty-four hours later he fired the first missile from his Carlton home, remaining, as he had always remained, defiant in defeat.

He posted on his social media account a message to the Government. Referring to a ‘political terrorism’ driven by personal revenge, he declared, ‘As my eldest son Namal said, I have returned to my village where it all began. I travelled here via the Southern Expressway that we built. Now, I can enjoy a good ‘ambulthiyal’ in the village.‘

He said, ‘I had no need to listen to statements made in front of the media by a group of people who were unable to do anything for the people and who were becoming increasingly disenchanted with the public in a very short period of time and were trying to cover up their incompetence.’

He continued: ‘I have learned of a statement claiming that Mahinda Rajapaksa now deserves to be hanged. Personally, I do not respond to such direct targeting. However, I wish to state that as long as I live, and for as long as we all live under the shelter of the lion flag, I will rise up—no matter the suffering—against anyone who betrays this unitary motherland. On that day, if necessary, I know well that the Maha Sangha and our beloved people of this country will stand ready to make any sacrifice. Political threats and loud rhetoric are nothing new to Mahinda Rajapaksa of Giruwapattuwa.’

Phew! That was quite a mouthful.

The JVP must have feasted with pride for keeping its major election promise of throwing out the war-winning President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, out of his official residence and, along with him, former presidents. stripping them of all their facilities.

But as they sup their revenge dish, they should be extremely cautious.

Not only because should something happen, God forbid, to war hero Mahinda Rajapaksa, a barrage of blame would promptly descend on them for not ensuring his safety, but also because putting at risk the goose that regularly lays the golden eggs of corruption claims would have ceased laying them.

They have unwittingly kindled the fire in his belly, given him a new purpose to live, raised a giant in Lankan politics from his slumber and, by endless persecution, elevated him to the seat of martyrdom.

Politically incorrect behaviour troubles American DemocratsIt’s not how much the increased tariff rates are domestically costing the American people, nor is it how Trump’s handling of the Gaza crisis led Israelis to starve the children of Palestine, but what’s troubling American Democrats is whether a saucy doodle, sent to sex trafficker Epstein on his 50th birthday in 2003, was a genuine Trump masterpiece or a lousy counterfeit. Trump: Democrat woke worshippers troubled There is nothing unusual in the artwork itself. It merely depicts the female anatomy, the sort that is found in every biology class. But what has kept both art connoisseurs and congressmen alike intrigued is whether the little patch of pubic hair resembles Trump’s signature. So while the most powerful man on the planet tries to restore world peace—he has already ended it in five conflicts—and imposes higher tariffs on the rest of the world in his bid to make America great again, the pubic hair of a line-drawn sketch depicting the female anatomy has become the national debate of the nation, with Republicans stating that the scrawl is not Trump’s signature and the Democrats insisting it is. So what if it is? Does that make him a paedophile, a pervert, a sex trafficker? Of course it doesn’t. Sending a birthday card of a line-drawn female figure, which is not lurid at all, to Epstein is born not from any sick mind but from a sense of boyish humour that nostalgically lingers in grown men. The presidency was not even a twinkle in his eyes in 2003 when he is alleged to have sent the card. But the conditioned woke mindsets of Democrats, out for Trump’s blood, condemn such harmless verbal gestures as politically incorrect behaviour. How they, the Democrats, must marvel at their own good fortune in having the knack to choose successful presidential candidates who scrupulously observed politically correct behaviour at all times within or outside the Oval Office, especially Bill Clinton, the darling pin-up boy of Democrat interns, before whose appearance at the oval inner sanctum, made them fall to their knees in prayer and pray for him to come again for a second time.

What the fiscal must do, JVP goons jump the gunAn early morning charge last Wednesday by JVP goons on the Yakkala offices of the radical left-wing Peratugami Party left its members badly beaten up and thrown out of the building, which the Peratugamies claimed they had been in possession of for a few years.A JVP member showed the police, who had rushed to the scene to avert a breach of the peace, a copy of a court judgment and claimed the JVP was legally entitled to the land because they had legally owned the land since 2005. But a Peratugami member immediately shot back, charging that the court judgment had been obtained ex parte without notice to them, and even if it had been obtained otherwise, the court fiscal must enforce it, not for a JVP gang to take state power into their hands and enforce it themselves. Deputy Minister Mahinda Jayasinghe, responding to the allegation made by the Peratugamies that the JVP had forcibly seized the land, wrote on his Facebook, ‘We have documents to prove that the land belongs to us.’ It’s the result of the blood feud that had existed between these two parties ever since they broke up and went their separate ways, carrying all the vitriolic hate they could marshal against each other. A common trait found in thieves when they fall apart. But hate never sleeps in villainous breasts, and criminal tendencies lie never dying in the hearts of those given to violence as a first response. Thus, it’s not surprising that though holding a legal right to possess it, as claimed by the Deputy Minister, and though holding state power to expedite its enforcement legally through a court fiscal, they cannot but resist sending in the goons to forcibly seize it. The ugly scenes of violence, shown live on national TV, of one party wielding governmental power, bludgeoning the other party of the violent ilk but on the back foot now and rendered defenceless, all to claim for themselves a few perches of land in Yakkala. The irony of two radical common man’s left-wing parties, one in power and the other in the wilderness bent on nationalising all private property, squabbling feverishly to gain a few perches of land for themselves, was not lost on SJB social media activist Charith Abeysinghe. He said, ‘Compared to JVP’s actions after gaining power, I think Sirimavo Bandaranaike must have gone mad after coming to power in the seventies. She enacted new laws that made her give away 3000 odd acres of her own land to the people.’ That’s what’s called a true sacrifice made for the sake of the people.