TIME TO PUT A DECISIVE STOP TO ANURA'S ARROGANCE AND WASTE OF NATIONAL WEALTH

A.A.M.NIZAM MATARA

As happened in many Afro-Asian nations that were under imperialist rule, change of power from the Imperialists to their minions in the Anglophile elite urbanites did not make any change in the life of the ordinary majority rural Sri Lankans, despite there was a growing aspiration for freedom from economic, cultural, religious, and other enslavements in the hands of imperialists and the affluent.

It was this incessant rise of masses for several centuries against enslavement and oppression that blossomed as the people’s revolution of 1956 and the late Prime Minister Mr. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike gave leadership to at that time.

Other than that it was not something of an abrupt invention of the late Prime Minister. Although the late Prime Minister and Sri Lankan’s great matriarch of the century Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike well understood this reality, the children of these two great celebrities have unfortunately become utterly dim-witted to understand this truth and infer that the people of Sri Lanka should treat them divinely and the people’s party SLFP is their family inheritance.

During the course of Mrs. Chandrika’s presidency, the lifeblood of the SLFP the rural masses, the long standing members who toiled and laboured for the Party under grave circumstances and who even served prison sentences for protection of the Party were totally neglected and received no recognition.

Only those who deserted the SLFP along with her and endeavoured to destroy the party and the pseudo-Marxists gained recognition. The purple-gang who conspired against the SLFP in her miniscule party Bahujana Nidhahas Peramuna was given prominence in every sector.

The step-motherly treatment meted out to the incumbent President Mr.Mahinda Rajapakse who underwent innumerable hardships to uphold the party banner held high is a fine illustration.

Similar to Mrs. Chandrika, Mr.Anura Bandaranaike is suffering from a terminal disease of elite supremacy, which is a grave disqualification even to be an ordinary member of the SLFP. His recent diatribe against the SLFP General Secretary Mr. Sirisena is a serious uncivilized provocation. This was not the first instance that Mr.Bandaranaike misused his accidental birth to indecently accuse senior members of the party, let alone his malicious rebuttal of his own mother for whom even her political opponents pay great respect.

Although theTrade Minister Mr. Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, reportedly support the return of Mrs.Chandrika and her re-entry to politics, her great promoter and defender Mr. Anura Bandaranaike had indecently accused Mr. Fernandopulle. In a strongly-worded letter to President Chandrika Kumaratunga, Mr. Bandaranaike referred to a report in the Tamil daily Thinakkural based on a statement made by Minister Fernandopulle, and asked how Mr. Fernandopulle could contravene a unanimous decision by the SLFP central committee on appointing him as the Prime Ministerial candidate.

Making a personal attack on Mr. Fernandopulle in this letter, he said that “during the Katana by-election of 1975 which I organized for the SLFP, Fernandopulle was on a push cycle, clad in Bata slippers. As we were short of speakers at some meetings, I gave him the opportunity of addressing the crowd. Subsequently, I persuaded our mother, who at that time was the leader of the SLFP, to make him the sole organizer of the Katana electorate, which was entirely my doing. Thereafter, Your Excellency made him a minister in both your administrations”.

In this letter he further said “Together, we have nurtured the political career of Fernandopulle. In his statement to the newspaper, which he has still to deny, he has charged that you have stated that the JVP was trying to assassinate you and me in order to get public sympathy, which is a downright lie. He has also questioned your commitment to a negotiated settlement of the ethnic issue. This very man has now turned his venom against you and me in a vile and vicious display of un-Christian like ingratitude.”

Another senior SLFP politician who came under the abusive tirade of Mr. Anura Bandaranaike was Provincial Councils Minister Janaka Bandara Tennekoon. Writing a letter to him in February this year Mr. Bandaranaike said that it was the Bandaranaike family which assisted the latter’s entry into politics. He said that “it was Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike who appointed him as a deputy minister and later a minister, and if not for the Bandaranaikes, he would have not been in politics”.

Criticizing a statement made by Mr. Tennekoon to the Sinhala daily “Lankadeepa” that the former President Chandrika Kumaratunga should hand over the leadership of the SLFP to President Mahinda Rajapaksa., he pointed out that it was he who visited him in hospital in the United States where he claimed that Tennekoon and his wife worshipped him and said that they would not be among the living if not for the Bandaranaikes”.

Readers would also remember that recently he even tried to run down the President by reminding him in a letter saying that when the President’s mother passed away, it was he who spoke to former President J.R.Jayawardene and got him released from the remand to attend the funeral held at “Medamulana” despite UNP government’s objection to release him for attending the funeral.

The SLFP General Secretary Mr. Sirisena has become the latest victim for his assaults. Alleging that Mr. Sirisena failed to deliver an invitation for his sister to attend the Party convention next September, he has written a letter to Mr. Sirisena saying that “I remember the days when you used to tell the former President ‘yes Madame, everything you say is correct. Sun rises and sets at your
command Madame’,” The letter further states that “I find it reprehensible that persons as utterly ungrateful as you have chosen diabolically to humiliate the former President by deliberately ignoring her. Yet, the love the respect and admiration she enjoyed widely in Sri Lanka and abroad stands undiminished. If at all it has enhanced,”.

The way Mr. Bandaranaike mistreats the responsible Ministers and politicians of this country shows that he is living in an imaginary feudal world expecting each and everyone to pay obeisance to him and his sister. Mr. Bandaranaike does not deserve at all to be a Minister of this government for the devious conspiracies he hatched with his sister to defeat Mr. Rajapakse getting elected as President. Yet the President due to his magnanimity has appointed him as a Minister and unwarrantedly tolerates his continuance in the said portfolio although he remains a globe-totter wasting the wealth of the nation.

The latest step taken by the President as the President of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, emphasizing the importance of maintaining party discipline, and request the Party General Secretary Mr.Sirisena to call for an immediate explanation from Mr. Anura Bandaranaike over the fiery letter he sent to the party is highly admirable. He has reportedly insisted that no one would be excused in future if they violated party discipline.

As the President of the ruling party, it is essential that he establishes strict discipline in the Party that has totally deteriorated since it was brought under the leadership of Mrs. Chandrika through a NGO maneuvered conspiracy. His statement that as the Party leader and the President of the country that “no one will be pardoned and tough disciplinary action will be taken against those who violate party discipline, and those who cannot abide by the rules are free to leave the party” is highly appreciable.

Not only Anura Bandaranaike other black-sheeps in the party such as Hulan Pereras, Cardboard Silvas and other dollar vultures serving reactionary vested interests and NGO gangs against the party policies should also be disciplined or expelled in the larger interest of the country. Then only the masses would accept the open invitation made by him upon his election as Party President that “the doors of the party are open to anybody who is efficient and honest to hold any position in the hierarchy of the party,” and his aspiration to “see the SLFP emerge stronger and be in power for another 50 years to come” will become a reality.