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5th July 1998

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Thonda getting queer ideas at 90, says Dinesh

By Roshan Peiris

MEP leader Dinesh Gunawardene has said CWC Chief Mr. S. Thondaman appears to be getting peculiar ideas as he nears the age of 90.

He was referring to Mr. Thondaman's statement in The Sunday Times last week that LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran has divine guidance and divine power.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Mr Gunawardene also said he believed that defeating and disarming the LTTE rather than dialogue and devolution would be the basis for a solution to the conflict in the North East.

Dinesh : We are the only perty that have consistently opposed the package.



Dinesh : We are the only party that have consistently opposed the package.



Excerpts from the interview:

(Q) You will not join the UNP or the PA after the PC election; why?

(A) What for? They both have dismal records.

(Q) Will you form a coalition of Parties to fight PC elections?

(A) No. The MEP will fight alone but we might link up with non-political groups such as the Peasant Front, the Muslim Kachchi and a few others. We can fare well at the elections on our own.

(Q) What is your basic programme of action?

(A) We will make it loud and clear that the MEP stands clearly for a unitary state. We are the only political party to do so.

Next we are promoting the concept of a modern economy with Sri Lankan objectives and characteristics. Priority will be given to tackling unemployment and the cost of living which has risen to unprecedented heights and is still rising. We also want to urgently address issues such as malnutrition and the deplorable state of public hospitals. For example only one fourth of the total health budget is used for the four major mental hospitals: Angoda, Mulleriyawa, Deltota and Hendala, apart from smaller ones in the Provinces.

We also need a restoration of law and order with an honest political administration.

(Q) On the ethnic crisis Minister S.Thondaman last week told The Sunday Times that the only way out is a dialogue with the LTTE. What are your views?

(A) Mr. Thondaman said in 1987 when the Indo Sri Lanka Accord was signed that this Accord would solve the ethnic issue. Now after eleven years I ask - has it done so? No. It has not brought peace to the country, but has proved to be a virtual death trap. So I feel that he expresses all kinds of weird views from time to time which keep varying too.

(Q) But Mr. Thondaman says that the Sinhala people have gone back on the Accord and did not want to merge the North and the Eastern Provinces?

(A) Mr. Thondaman forgets that he agreed to the Thirteenth Amendment which says the merger was temporary and a referendum should be held to decide on it. This referendum was never held.

Mr. Thondaman has some amusing gimmicks politically speaking. He is a UNP MP in Parliament, but holds a Cabinet post with the PA Government.

I believe, the only way to have ethnic peace is to disarm the LTTE and all other armed militant groups. Only then could any democratic solution to the ethnic problem take place.

In the North the LTTE does not tolerate or give a chance for any democratic institution to find a place. The most recent examples are the local elections in Jaffna and the killing of Mayoress Sarojini Yogeswaran.

(Q) Some Tamils feel, and in particular Mr. Thondaman, that the Sinhala people have exploited the Tamil people. Your comments?

(A) I can say boldly that the Sinhala people have not exploited any ethnic group. After all it was the Sinhala people who pushed out one of the strongest colonial powers, without war or bloodshed.

It was not Mr. Thondaman but the Sinhala people who put an end to slavery in the plantations, as we saw under British rule.

We have to solve the ethnic issue by and large with a better social and economic order.

The Sinhala people have never exploited a minority leader. But it is the other way round. The glaring examples are the deeds of Mr. Thondaman and SLMC leader Mr. M.H.M. Ashraff.

(Q) I presume the MEP will not support the Devolution Package even with modifications?

(A) Devolution to solve ethnic problems has been a failure or disaster all over the world.

Here we have the Tamil homeland theory making matters worse, because it is baseless and has no historical evidence to support it.

Sixty percent of the people in the North and East are Sinhala and other community people or non-Tamil people. If there is a merger, one third of the coastal belt and twenty eight percent of undeveloped land will belong to them. They will then try to dictate to us.

Besides, other elections have proved that the anti merger groups have much support. Mr. Thondaman has conveniently forgotten that he voted for the Thirteenth Amendment.

We are the only Party that have consistently opposed the Devolution Package, which we see as an attempt to break up our country. The Devolution Package won't help the Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim people.

(Q) Last week Mr. Thondaman propounded a peculiar theory by saying that LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran had both divine guidance and some kind of divine power. Your observations?

(A) It is a most peculiar thing to say that a person who has divine guidance and divine powers destroys venerated places of worship and kills people without compunction be they priests or laymen. Well Mr. Thondaman is getting close to ninety....

(Q) Do you think the LTTE has infiltrated upcountry plantation areas?

(A) No. We have close dealings there and also keep a close watch. The problem is that many youth in the plantation areas are unhappy and disgruntled because no one seems to be bothered about their future.

In fact, Mr. Thondaman has asked them not to accept National Identity Cards and this has resulted in cooping up the youth who cannot go about freely without NICs.

This is Mr. Thondaman's method to stop the estate youth from integrating with the rest of the people.

What is required is new leadership in estate areas. Mr. Thondaman fears that if the youth integrate he will lose his vote base. He has even asked that Tamil teachers be brought from India. What for? The youth here can be trained to teach Tamil. We Sinhala people are not exploiting the Tamil youth in estate areas. It is Mr. Thondaman and his CWC which are thinking up these obsessive or negative ideas.

(Q) What do you feel about President Kumaratunga's four year rule?

(A) President Kumaratunga has broken the key promises she made.

She pledged she would abolish the Executive Presidency.

Next, she has sold valuable Government assets. She did not curb corruption and waste as promised, nor reduced the Cabinet to 19 Ministers.

She promised bread at Rs 3/50 and an allowance of Rs 1,500/- to the unemployed. None of these had been implemented.

But I must say her political loyalists seem to have solved their problems after four years. Her loyalists are benefiting while the country is in total disarray.


Killed by market forces

Young mother takes life, poison for children also

By Shelani de Silva.

Finding it difficult to make ends meet in a consumerist society and suffering from mental stress, a young mother gave her two sons poison and took a large dose herself.

Chandrika Elvitigala (24) from Pannipitiya was pronounced dead after consuming a deadly pesticide. Her two children, Lahiru Neelasiri (5) and A.D. Manjula (3) are fighting for their lives at the Sri Jayawardenapura hospital."With consumerism on the increase and the gap between the rich and the poor widening, is it any surprise that the mother took this drastic step. Further, there is no supportive system in a selfish society," a sociologist told The Sunday Times.

"In the past, we had supportive systems like the immediate family, places of worship and even counselling centres. Now most people, especially the young, are left alone to solve their own problems and often they fail," the sociologist Prof. Tilak Hettiarachchi, acting vice chancellor of the Colombo University, said.

The incident occurred on June 26, a day after Chandrika's elder son was brought home from the Lady Ridgeway Hospital after a three weeks treatment. Her husband, 28—year-old Kamal said his son's illness had been a constant worry to his wife but she had bottled up her emotions.We brought the child home on June 25. Chandrika seemed to be okay. The next day she got up very early, which was unusual. When I awoke around 6 a.m. she gave me some tea and even bought some betel. I went back to sleep and got up around 9. am and awoke the elder son to have his milk. Chandrika then said she was hungry and told me to get a loaf of bread. Suspecting nothing I went to the boutique. But on the way back, a neighbour gave me the drastic news.

I rushed and found Chandrika with the two children. She said she had decided to end it all. We rushed all three to the hospital. My wife was conscious for a few hours but she passed away the same night," Kamal said.

Asked what led to her suicide, Kamal said he had managed to provide for the family through whatever he earned by farming.

But his wife was unhappy because her family had disowned her, because of a caste problem in the marriage..

'My child's illness also caused much mental stress," Kamal said. But he said he felt if she had shared her emotions more, the fatal tragedy would have been averted.

Dr. S M Colombage, Judicial Medical Officer at Kalubowila where the inquest was held said that the mother had consumed a large quantity while the children had survived because they had been given only about half a tea spoon each.

Dr. Colombage said that at least ten percent of the cases brought before him were poverty-related deaths.


Respect flies out, money rolls in

By M. Ismeth

While action is being taken against police officers who allegedly pointed a gun at a High Court Judge, a woman Judge was last Thursday allegedly intimidated and insulted by a young couple in a Colombo Bank, while security men just looked on.

The Judge had gone to the Bank for a transaction when she was allegedly elbowed aside by a young girl who had come with her boy friend to deposit a huge sum of Rs 350,000.

The stunned Judge politely said, "why are you doing this to me. I have children of your age.

I am a judicial officer". The girl losing her temper shot back, "I don't care, who or what you are" eye witnesses said.

Hearing the girl shouting, the boy friend too joined and shouted "I don't care whether you are a Judge or even the President."

When security guards were asked why they did not intervene, they shot back "what can we do, this boy and girl come here almost daily to deposit large sums of money".


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