One of the oldest political parties in Sri Lanka, the UNP, pioneered by the late D.S. Senanayake and other freedom fighters was greeted with a cycle of violence unleashed by the PA, as it entered its 51st year in the Sri Lankan political arena.
A senior politician quipped that the disruption of the church service at St. Mary's, Negombo was the PA's birthday gift to the UNP as it celebrates its golden jubilee.
It appears that the People's Alliance's discipline is deteriorating at a rapid pace as it finds itself facing more and more challenges on every front.
Though it preached and came to office with the solemn pledge to do away with all forms of criminal and terrorist acts sponsored by the state, the PA is stooping to the level of attacking democratic forms of protests and political meetings organised by the Opposition.
One senior Cabinet Minister who is well known for his rhetoric has described the attacks perpetrated on the UNP at the 50th Anniversary as the people's wrath on the UNP.
He has forgotten the simple fact that the UNP was ousted by a popular choice for resorting to similar activities the PA is indulging in at present.
It is obvious that the Catholics living in the coastal belt, north of Colombo, were outraged by what happened at St. Mary's Negombo, the previous week.
The Vicar General of the Colombo Diocese has quite rightly condemned what was perpetrated on the church by a petty PA politician who has no knowledge of basic religious tenets.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga has apparently reprimanded the Negombo organiser of the PA and the Provincial Council Member Ananda Munasinghe for the incidents that took place in the precincts of St. Mary's.
This was after several senior Ministers of the PA had told the President that this trend should not continue in the country any further.
The President had told one Senior Minister that even the Provincial Council Member responsible for the Piliyandala attack would be apprehended shortly.
Simultaneously UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has told his Parliamentary Group that the PA was resorting to violence since it was facing difficulties on every front and losing its popularity day by day.
Mr. Wickremesinghe has reportedly told his Parliamentry Group to face the threat by democratic means and emphasised the need to organise themselves for the purpose.
Not only Mr. Wickremesinghe even Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike has spoken against the incidents that took place in Negombo. At the weekly meeting of the Ministers, she reprimanded those who were responsible for these acts and said what had happened in Negombo was most damaging to the Catholic Church. She also condemned the incidents that took place during the Bokundara Multi Purpose Co-operative Society elections held in Piliyandala, but the Prime Minister did not mention about the Matugama incidents where the PA resorted to disrupt a UNP meeting.
Minister Mangala Samaraweera however took this opportunity to attack the PA MP, Kumar Welgama alleging that he was part of a UNP plot to attract crowds for the UNP, and said that the incidents in Matugama were advantageous for the UNP. "When the crowds are not going for UNP meetings he is helping them to draw crowds."
One Minister at this stage quipped "Don't under estimate the UNP".
In Negombo when these anti social acts were taking place at the foremost Catholic Church in the area UNP's Chairman Karu Jayasuriya and General Secretary Gamini Athukorale were on their way to attend the church service.
A journalist of a national newspaper who arrived at the scene just minutes before their arrival, got through to them over the cellular phone to inform them of what was going on.
Mr. Jayasuriya immediately changed his plan and headed towards former Minister Wijepala Mendis' house in Negombo while General Secretary Athukorale briefly stopped at John Amaratunga's house in Kandana before proceeding to Negombo.
Later, all of them met at Mr. Mendis' house to review the position. They also discussed the previous day's shooting incident at Katunayake where a supporter of the PA and a supporter of the UNP died.
Though UNP Provincial Councillor Davindra Wijeya Mendis has been remanded over the incident, action has not been properly taken to apprehend the People's Alliance culprits who were responsible for causing the death of the UNP supporter in Negombo.
As the UNP MP for Hambantota, Mervyn Silva arrived at the church premises he ran into much hostility from the PA crowds who were tearing down the decorations near the church. One PC member climbed the cross in front of the church, threatening to blow himself up if the church went ahead with the religious service.
They smashed up the microphone and other flower arrangements, forcing the church authorities to call off the service.
Mervyn Silva who received minor injuries in the incident was later told by General Secretary Athukorale to make a complaint at the Police Station. He refused at first saying it would reflect badly on him and to his standing in the Hambantota district.
However later he agreed after the General Secretary insisted that he should go ahead and make a complaint to the Police.
As the Negombo town put up shutters early in the day following these incidents, Deputy Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle who was attending the 84th birthday of the CWC Chief and Minister Saumyamoorthy Thondaman at the plush Tea Factory Hotel in Kandapola came down to Negombo that morning after he heard about the death of one of his supporters.
The guests at the party hosted by Minister Thondaman were in high spirits when Jeyaraj Fernandopulle's cellular phone rang around 2.00 a.m. on Saturday to inform him of the incident.
It was a male dominated dinner party except for a few ladies who participated including Ms. Indika Gunawardene, Ms. Fernandopulle and Ms. Subodhini Nirmalingam of the Cargo Boat Despatch. All the participants were allocated with rooms in the plush hotel for them to relax in. Ministers and VIPs were given single rooms while others had to share with friends.
By eleven in the night, Mr. Thondaman retired to his room after having dinner and Minister Mahinda Rajapakse who was behind schedule for the party arrived soon after 11.00 p.m. Having learnt that Mr. Thondaman was not there he spoke to Minister Thondaman's grandson Arumugam who wanted to take Minister Rajapakse to the Ministers' room. But before that Minister Rajapakse who saw Anura Bandaranaike chatting with some friends walked up to Anura and the old chums greeted each other warmly and had a few words. Later the Minister was seen going along with Arumugam to wish Minister Thondaman a very happy birthday.
At the party which went on till the early hours of the morning, there was a sing song in addition to political gossip. A band provided music for dancing. At first it was all male dancing, but then Minister Mangala Samaraweera was seen on the floor with Subodhini Nirmalingam dancing away his cares to the tune of popular Baila. UNP MP, Sarath Kongahage quipped "ah yov'e got a partner".
Amidst all these, CWC MP, Sathasivam who was with businessman A.J.M. Muzamil, told him that he should speak to Anura Bandaranaike. Mr. Muzamil who played a vital role in the Galle Port project was not in contact with Mr. Bandaranaike after he (Mr. Bandaranaike) spearheaded an attack on Minister M.H.M. Ashraff and the manner in which the government awarded the Galle Harbour development project to Mott Mcdonald - British-China Consortium.
On seeing Mr. Muzamil, Sarath Kongahage who was seated near Mr. Bandaranaike gave him the seat and the duo had a conversation for a while sans politics and business, but agreed to meet again in Colombo.
Meanwhile, the latest development in the Anura-Anuruddha battle is that General Anuruddha Ratwatte taking up the position that he made a purely political statement when he referred to the baby mix up in the Bandaranaike family.
General Ratwatte has insisted that he had only attacked a person who is in a political party opposed to the government.
Gen. Ratwatte has told friends that he had done no wrong and continues the same offensive against Mr. Bandaranaike politically.
But it appears that Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike is not taking the matter lightly. She has responded in a forceful manner to the letter sent by Anuruddha Ratwatte, as published in this column last week.
Besides the Anura-Anuruddha battle, a Kingsley-Richard battle has also broken out. This happened at the Government Parliamentary Group meeting held on Monday when Minister Richard Pathirana took a hard knock at Minister Kingsley Wickramaratne over the rising bread prices.
Mr. Pathirana who at a Cabinet meeting supported the government's proposal to increase the price of bread, attacked the same decision at a different level - the Parliamentary group meeting.
Some PA stalwarts see this as a violation of the principle of collective responsibility of the Cabinet and are of the view that Mr. Pathirana is seeking popularity with the back benchers. Another one quipped "may be he is eyeing the Premiership after Ms. Bandaranaike."
At the group meeting Minister Pathirana said he could not go back to his electorate and face the people due to the rising bread prices and the cost of living.
He joined the back benchers in their criticism of Minister Kingsley Wickramaratne over the rising prices of bread and rice.
Minister Pathirana said he would rather think of the poor people and not the Cabinet portfolio he is holding and offered to resign his portfolio over the rising cost of living. He said it would be difficult for him to face an election with the present trend. Minister Mangala Samaraweera intervened at this stage to clarify matters. He said when the Cabinet took a collective decision to increase the price of bread, Minister Pathirana agreed and he should now stick by the decision.
Minister Wickramaratne said "If I were you - rather than shouting like this I would have tendered my resignation and sat with the back benchers."
He said he had no problem in going back to his electorate and said that he still could win the elections, specially when teachers' salaries had been increased two fold, hinting that those increases had immensely contributed towards the rising cost of living.
The matter came to an end with Minister Wickramaratne's argument, but Minister Wickramaratne had to face another question raised by MP Upali Gunaratne who asked as to why he issued a letter of recommendation to the CWE Chairman Dr. Herath who resigned following certain findings by a Committee of Parliamentarians.
Mr. Wickramaratne said the letter saved them from the fundamental rights case he filed against the government.
"The Supreme Court held that the petitioner could not challenge his own letter of resignation and that the Minister had met his requirement", Minister Wickramaratne said.
The Minister said the petitioner Dr. Herath, by his letter of resignation requested him to issue a letter of recommendation so that he could go back to his former employment. Since he tendered his resignation before the committee report (Mulberry Parliamentary Committee) was out, I met with his requirement which saved the day for us.
Besides this the members were heard complaining about the poor attendance of Ministers at the government group meeting and that they do not attach much importance to the matter.
Some pointed out that only four Ministers were present at the government group meeting, while there were nine Ministers at the Libyan National Day party held on the same evening at the Hilton.
The Ministers present at the group meeting held at the Presidential Secretariat were Kingsley Wickramaratne, Richard Pathirana, Nimal Siripala de Silva and Mangala Samaraweera. The Ministers present at the Libya day reception were D.M. Jayaratne, S.B. Dissanayake, M.H.M. Ashraff, S. Thondaman, Mahinda Rajapakse, A.H.M. Fowzie, Bernard Soysa and Dharmasiri Senanayake.
One Minister, while attending the Libyan day reception asked "who wants to go for the Parliamentary group meeting when the President is not there?"
This in itself shows how the People's Alliance government is ailing with MPs complain bitterly that their grievances are not addressed.
With the MPs so upset about the attitude of the Ministers, SLMC National List MP Asitha Perera called upon the government to hold the Parliamentary group meeting soon after Cabinet meetings so that more Ministers would attend the group sessions. But it was unlikely that this proposal will be accepted by the President.
At the Cabinet meeting the Ministers talked about directly importing rice from Vietnam rather than going through third parties. Minister Bernard Soysa's proposal to this effect was approved by the Ministers in principle. The Ministers also discussed the proposed Industrial Park at Avissawella, which was to be awarded to a Korean construction firm Keang Nam. But when it was pointed out that the Sethsiripaya built by this Korean enterprise was falling apart, Cabinet decided to call for fresh tenders for the setting up of the Industrial Park at Avissawella.
In the meantime it was revealed that the Keang Nam enterprises had agreed to bear the expenses of Housing and Construction Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva who has been invited to Seoul in South Korea to address the 28th session of the International Federation of Asian and Western Pacific Contractors' Association (IFAWPCA).
"The pertinent question raised with regard to this matter is as to whether the Minister should accept such sponsorship from Keang-Nam enterprises which is heavily involved in construction work in Sri Lanka, some of which comes under the purview of his own Ministry.
Besides all these, Minister G.L. Peiris is engaged in a different exercise, to push the devolution package. He goes round the country meeting the party men since the government has felt that the Sudu Nelum organisation has not produced positive results in pushing the package. He told the Press on Thursday that the government expects the co-operation and the support of the UNP to push the package. This comes despite the President's recent remarks at the People's Alliance Executive Committee that she never expects the UNP to support the package. But journalists questioned the Minister as to whether UNP would co-operate with the government when the PA is bent on unleashing violence against the UNP and carrying out a smear campaign against the leadership at every public meeting held by the People's Alliance.
Despite all these, Minister Peiris expects to bring the package to Parliament in April. But whether the government will abolish the Executive Presidency as promised, is yet to be seen.
At the same time the Constitutional Affairs Committee headed by Dr. Peiris discussed at length the allocation of resources to the proposed Provincial Councils. It had been a general complaint that the Provincial Councils established under the 13th Amendment did not have sufficient resources to meet the requirements of the respective provinces and that in the allocation of resources there has not been in the past a definite standard criteria.
The Constitutional Committee in its recent three meetings has been looking at the paper prepared by the Attorney-General, Sarath Silva after careful consultations with various authorities and agencies of the Finance Ministry as to how financial responsibilities could be devolved without serious friction between the Center and the provinces. Dr. Peiris said a proposal was to constitute a Finance Commission with three members drawn from the Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities. This he said was bad in principle, but was necessary at this moment to instill confidence among the various communities. The Finance Commission was an important body charged with the definite task of allocation of funds to various Provincial Councils on some reasonable criteria.
A.C.S. Hameed said in his view, the allocation of resources at national level may only be one aspect of the issue. He said he was more interested in re-allocation at the provincial level. Discrimination begins only at the provincial level when the re-allocation of funds and resources is implemented. Therefore, he said he was particularly interested in this issue, since Muslims live among the Sinhalese, unlike the Tamils. He mentioned that the Muslims were scattered all over the country except for a concentration in the Eastern Province. Even if the request of the Muslim Congress for a separate Muslim Council in the Eastern Province was granted, that would only be helpful for the Muslims in that area. He said the Tamils were looking at the wholesale distribution of the resources, while the Muslims were interested in the retail. Therefore, he posed the question as to how we could assure that there would be no discrimination in the re-allocation of resources at the provincial level. The question that was examined was whether if the Finance Commission would be allowed to intervene in cases where there was discrimination. Dr. Neelan Thiruchelvam was of the view that a re-allocation of resources at provincial level was a political issue and that it could only be solved by political dialogue at the provincial level, and not by constitutional arrangement.
Referring back to the proposal that the Committee had debated last week about power sharing and the active participation of MPs in the Committee, Minister Bernard Soysa said a strong Committee system might be the answer. He added that Committees have functioned successfully at the Municipal Council level. Mr. Hakim pointed out that the Indian Constitution had a lot of safeguards for depressed and underdeveloped communities and therefore it was possible to work out some formula where the minorities would have a fair share of the available funds, and this should be provided constitutionally. Ravi Karunanayake, who is well versed on questions of finance and budgeting chose to break entirely new grounds and raised the question of discrimination not only of minorities but also of minor parties. Obviously, Ravi Karunanayake was giving vent to what has been boiling within the PA during the past two weeks. Dr. Peiris, who has mastered patience and displays great ability to listen, inquired gently for the relevance of Mr. Karunanayake's argument. "I think the Hon. Member wants to tell us of the discrimination that is taking place within the PA", quipped Mr. Hameed.
Mr. Hameed actively participated when the UNP Parliamentary group discussed the prevailing political climate for over five hours last week.
Many MPs who spoke on this occasion drew the attention of the UNP leadership to the anti democratic forces that were at work.
The consensus was that the government was aiding and abetting certain groups to stop all UNP meetings. Recent incidents at Matugama, Negombo and earlier a string of them had shown that the PA was unable to meet the criticism raised by the UNP and was now out to wreck the UNP meetings. Speaker after speaker called for no truck with the government on any issue. Some of them even proposed that the UNP should not extend any support to the Devolution Package and withdraw from the deliberations of the Constitutional Committee.
The meeting started off with the week's agenda. It was decided to support the two Bills the establishment of a Telecommunications Committee and the Telecommunications Special Provisions Amendment Bill. Mr. Hameed said the Bill had a number of flaws and needed to be improved. He said the Minister was taking over complete control by appointing all the five members of the Commission and that some of them would have absolutely no knowledge in the area of telecommunications. Ronnie De Mel said that the Bill was an important one but there were a lot of provisions with which he could not agree. Sarath Amunugama suggested that a Committee be appointed so that the UNP could put forward a comprehensive strategy. Ranil Wickremesinghe said he had already asked Mr. Choksy to draft an amendment to the telephone tapping issue. Mr. Hameed said he was the first to raise the question of telephone tapping about 10 months ago and that the Minister had given a categorical denial but now one sees from the papers that the telephone conversations of two Ministers had been tapped and furthermore the government maintains that during the UNP time there was telephone tapping thus admitting in an indirect manner its guilt. Ranil Wickremesinghe said telephone tapping has not saved any government except that it helped officers to carry tales to the head of the government. He said with all the telephone tapping, President Premadasa was not aware of the impending Impeachment Motion. He dwelt at length on the prevailing political situation. He said the government was certainly unnerved by the progress that the UNP is making. It wants to stop the UNP's rise, but whatever the govermnent does, the UNP is going to stay and will continue to play a major role in the politics of this country. He said the UNP must always look at the past and the present and plan for the future. He said we have all the main four requirements of a political party - we have a proper strategy and a complete grip on the political situation. He said the UNP MPs have a major role to play first and foremost, their role was inside Parliament which cannot be effectively carried out unless they are present inside the House. He advised MPs not to spend their time in trying to spend their DCB funds on doing favours. He said no Opposition can be effective unless all the MPs are in Parliament and play an active role and that there was no substitute to this role.
Mr. Wickremesinghe, citing former President J.R. Jayewardene also said the UNP could not hold a single meeting after the defeat in 1956 and until the death of former Premier S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike. Similarly in 1970 the UNP could not go to the masses until 1973 when they won the Dedigama by election after the death of Dudley Senanayake. Mr. Wickremesinghe said the UNP could go to the masses within the first year of the PA administration and now the people were once again rallying round the UNP. He pointed out that this was the reason for the political violence perpetrated by the PA against the UNP.
In the circumstances, it is difficult to believe that the UNP would co-operate with the government to give legal effect to the package, though the government is trying to go before the people at a Referendum (not related to the constitution) to pressurise the UNP to support the package, once they obtain the approval of the people. But the reality is that the UNP is seriously considering whether they should pull out of the Select Committee on devolution the way the SLFP did during the UNP regime.
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