Geethanjana Kudaligamage

හාන්සිවෙයි කියා අපි සිතුවත්, හාන්සි නොවී අපිට ගහපු ජනාධිපති උතුමාණන් වහන්සේ

Executive presidency has become a point for a robust debate once again. Those who supported the Executive Presidency then in 1978 and beyond, are against it now. Those who opposed it throughout, are supporting it now. What are the real undercurrents for this strange change of hearts? The reason is nothing but the change of local and the global political culture, its policy shifts during last 30 years and the resultant nature of their effect into our local polity.

The main difference today is, unlike 1978 when Executive presidency was introduced, today Sri Lankan politics is not a matter that we can resolve within the local electorate anymore, it has become a global affair. It is not the people of Sri Lanka who are determining what is good or what is bad for us now. It is western embassies, western foreign offices, Tamil diaspora, Separatist organizations within and without, NGOs so-called civil society etc., etc. Where did our sovereignty go? Who had stolen it? Was that an inside job? If that so, who are the culprits collaborated with external forces to steal it?

It is clear now that the people of Sri Lanka do not enjoy their sovereign rights anymore but some others have taken it away from them. Those who have stolen it are more concerned about our internal affairs than the people of Sri Lanka, because they know that we do not have it. That is the reason why the entire western diplomatic community was shaken and demonstrated downright aggressive stance about internal political changes that occurred recently in Sri Lanka. They knew we would reclaim our sovereignty if they allow the changes to continue unchallenged.

What is clear now is that these forces have hijacked our entire parliamentary system, and have begun to run a puppet show there. Not only that, they pull strings here and there as they wish to mess with the system. Biggest danger of this is that they have taken our constitution into their hands to play with it. Simply speaking, now through this entire constitutional mumbo-jumbo, the future of Sri Lanka has been taken into the hands of Elam Separatists. Formerly, they tried to shape our lives through bullet. Now they try to do it through words. When you destroy a nation through words, the most important part of it will be played by those who interpret those words. That may be the reason why they want to keep our judiciary on their side.

The saddest and unexpected part of this entire circus is that JVP also has become part of this grand project of destroying the nation state of Sri Lanka. JVP challenged the earlier merger of NE provinces by JRJ, for Supreme court to rule that “The Proclamation made by the then President declaring that the Northern and Eastern Provinces shall form one administrative unit has been made when neither of the conditions specified in the Section 37 (1)(b) of the Provincial Councils Act No. 42 of 1987 as to the surrender of weapons and the cessation of hostilities, were satisfied. Therefore, the order must necessarily be declared invalid since it infringes the limits which Parliament itself had ordered.”

After 17 years, JVP has turned 180 degrees, and fighting for a new constitution now which eventually paves the way for not only remerging these two provinces, but also even allowing them to break away from SL to form a separate country. That once again proves that Anura Kumara doesn’t know basic logic and only speaking after getting drunk with රා Raa.

When I say that Sri Lankan politics has been turned out to be a global affair, some might say what I am saying is utter nonsense. But Ranil and Sumanthiran knows that it is the truth. JVP might pretend they do not understand, and might continue with the same band wagon of ‘preserving democracy.’ They all might try to limit our discussion into trivial areas excluding important parts and may try to draw our attention to insignificant things such as what Sumanthiran said and done, or what Ranil said and done to misguide us. But in real situation, Sumanthiran and Ranil are just finger puppets, the real string holders are not within our grasp. This revels that the internal problem we are facing today is just a fraction of a larger issue, just only the tip of an iceberg.

So then, what is the actual thing, big picture? What is this larger issue? Why and for what reason we have to go through this situation? What are the implicit and explicit reasons behind our current vulnerabilities? As I said, Sri Lanka is facing an existential treat for her survival as a unitary state. Then who are the internal and external forces posing this threat and why?

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, what we saw in Sri Lanka was strange; the USAID was downsized immediately. They almost closed the USIS as well. All US development aid that was given to the government of Sri Lanka earlier, was diverted to NGOs. Foreign funding from other donners came into the country for programs such as promoting human rights, democracy, transparency and accountability. Some money went to NGOs campaigning in the ethnic issues, peace and reconciliation, who were basically denouncing military operations discouraging war effort and demoralizing Sri Lankan military who were fighting in the thickest of the battle against terrorism at that time.

This new shift created a novel class in Sri Lankan society called civil society.

Millions of Dollars funneled to private hands, thus creating a very powerful fifth column that can influence the upper echelons of our administration, the opposition and the political decision-making process. They did this manipulation completely independently from the people of Sri Lanka but dependent to the external funding agencies’ whims and fancies. Who are these civil society? Are they representing the political aspirations of majority of the people of Sri Lanka? No! They represent their funding masters’ political objectives. This new culture alienated the people of this country, supposedly the true owners of the political system of Sri Lanka from the decision-making process. Now the people cannot decide the future of their own country, but only these externally funded charlatans have the voice to do it. People have become just spectators.

This new class never participated in any meaningful economic activity contributing into the development of the country. But they make their living by destroying it. Their sole responsibility is to sniff around like pigs for their pay masters, searching for garbage in addition to inventing flashy terms for the vocabulary of their new-found vocation of necrophiliac-desire of making money out of corpses. Their specialty is to find anything, but only related to minority grievances, not all minorities but only Tamil minority, to blame the government of Sri Lanka to justify their claim of discrimination of minorities, to justify their separatist agenda. This was a concerted effort, at that time, conducted only with the involvement of Tamil separatists, western countries and NGOs. But all three branches of the government of Sri Lanka on the other hand was in the mode of resistance at that time. The executive branch-the president, the legislative branch-the parliament, and the judiciary were resisting this. But now this balance has been shifted.

Now the legislative branch work hand in hand with these forces with large majority of members of parliament and with questionable role of the judiciary, leaving only the executive branch of government out of this large conspiracy. The executive branch also collaborated at the beginning but luckily changed its heart lately. The masses watching this entire theatrical parade in our legislature, now hope president to reverse this damage that has been done with his earlier collaboration.

This is the main reason why they have a new wave of demand for the removal of presidency ASAP. The entire western funded NGOs, the UNP and the JVP members of parliament demand abrogating it. Executive Presidency is not only a matter related to the electorate in Sri Lanka anymore; it has become a matter concerned to global players, regional players. They use their money power and influence to poison geopolitical situation, corrupt state of the internal pollical culture for this objective. The corrupt parliament and its members, the weakness of the Westminster system and everything possible will be utilized for that end.

Ranil knows that he will never be able to get elected as EP through the electorate so he is against it. It’s a personal reason. JVP knows they too cannot, so they too against it. The international community against it because Executive Precedency limits their ability to manipulate internal politics in SL and it has become biggest impediment for their separatist agenda. The Tamil separatists against it, because they too know that the fundamental obstacle for their separate state agenda is Executive Presidential system. And they know if they go back to violence again, they will learn the same lesson if EP is still there conducting the war machinery.

Large majority were against Executive Precedency then, when the polity was not so polluted like today, but support it now because it has become a counter force to balance this abject corruption in our parliamentary system and political culture. We support it today because there are so many external players playing in the internal politics now. There are so much corruption including bribery that has contaminated decision-making process in Sri Lanka today. Money power has become the decisive factor in the legislative branch, the parliament, bypassing the power of the ballot of people. We must consider money power as a national security threat and must deal with it in stern resoluteness.

Our personal experience about EP is very bitter. But time has changed. In 1980s it was a different time. The problems we grappled at that time were different to that of now.

If my memory serves right, JRJ’s sworn-in ceremony was held on Gall-face green in 1978 when he sworn-in as the first executive president. The announcers/commentators addressed him with this bizarre phrase Janaadhipathi uthumaanan wahanse,” (ජනාධිපති උතුමාණන් වහන්සේ) a weird phrase coined by Hudson Samarasinghe, I think.

When the general-strike in 1980 was gained some initial success in the first couple of days paralyzing the entire country, the ATHTHA” (ඇත්ත) newspaper came-up with this triumphant headline phrase saying… Wahanse Haansiyi.” (වහන්සේ හාන්සියි). But then what happened? ‘Wahanse’ වහන්සේ struck back taking everyone by surprise putting entire leftist movement to be fully hansiyi හාන්සියි forever. He hit below the belt, a knockout blow, permanently getting rid of ‘left’ from Sri Lankan politics once and for all. The left never recovered from it again. Then only we realized the real power of Executive Presidency. That experience made us to be even more antagonistic toward EP in our entire life.

Although I do not worship politicians, I am coming from a family background in which photograph of SWRD. Bandaranayake and Philip Gunawardene were venerated by the side of Buddha image. I even remember how they had been arranged. There was a Buddha image, then Sariyuth Mugalan images, the Seevalee image. Then on the side of the platform, it was SWRD Bandaranayake and Philip Gunawardene’s images hanging on the wall. Now one can guess the reason why I, as the youngest of our family, ended up having the name Geethanjana.

Under such political culture in our family, anyone can understand how hostile we could be to the Executive Presidential system and the referendum that was intending to give extension to the parliament that enjoyed 5/6^th majority, through a referendum to cheat the sovereignty of the people. We believed N.M’s and Colvin’s critical evaluations of the 1978 constitution and its creation of the resultant executive presidency that virtually created totalitarian constitutional autocracy. As a reaction to such despotism, our family lost three jobs in that general strike in 1980. That was too much to handle for any family in Sri Lanka.

The parents of my wife also had lost everything including their businesses. They even have a personally signed letter sent by Mrs. Chandrika Bandaranayaka Kumaranathunga, promising to resolve the injustices they had to go through during J. R. Jayawardene’s referendum. However, when she became president, Mrs. kumaratunga had forgotten to fulfil her promise in the letter. For my wife’s parent’s bad luck, C. V. Gunaratne, who was sympathetic to my wife’s family-tragedy also died tragically in a suicide bomb attack putting end to the entire story. They had lost everything as a result of the political reprisals due to my wife’s parents’ support to the opposition force fought against JRJ’s gambit in the ‘kalagedi lampu sellama’ කලගෙඩි ලාම්පු සෙල්ලම during this most infamous referendum in our history. In the thickest in this battle, Weerasinghe Mallimaarachchi had threatened my wife’s father at the Kohuwala meeting. Following day, the ‘Aththa’ ඇත්ත newspaper had reported the incident with the caption, ‘Malli nikan jaathi epa’ ‘මල්ලි නිකං ජාති එපා!’

Our entire experience of the Executive Presidential system was a devastating family tragedy, never to recover from it for almost twenty years; a bitter enough experience for us never to say ‘yes’ for this Executive Presidential system ever again.

But we approve it now for the selfsame reasons/powers that it had exercised to destroy our lives. Do you know why? Because the Executive powers entrusted in that position by constitution had proved its worth during the climax of Elam war. Rajapaksha have done what even Bashar Assad of Syria couldn’t do without the Russian military direct intervention and diplomatic assistance. Bear in mind, that Rajapaksha did it by himself without having external military or diplomatic support.

If we need to protect our sovereignty, when it is in grave danger, executive presidency is the only hope we have now that can resist all the internal and external conspiracies that are hellbent on dividing our country. Today we fight to safeguard it because we have put our country first sidelining our personal feelings. Our parliament has gone to dogs and it’s a fact. Although Champika doesn’t know it, even the dogs know it. Champika speaks on stages as if he is in a political struggle like Nelson Mandela. We do not know if he speaks from the other end. At times he talks like Moses, the messiah who is promising his people to take into the promise land. To the promised land with a bunch of thieves in the UNP. What a joke? But he hides the fact that he and his cohorts are there to get sold at highest bidds.

We cannot trust them anymore. But since the executive president is a single person, the people have the opportunity to select the person they want. They can choose the candidate who has proved to be uncorrupt and patriotic. That’s why we support it now. (To be continued)