The paths not taken: JVP versus
Anandasangaree
by C. Wijeyawickrema
Courtesy The Island 27-11-2007
One way to explore the ‘meaning of life’ is to observe it
as a continuous process of conflict resolution. Just likes waves in
the ocean hitting the shore one after the other, we are engaged, on
a daily-hourly-minute basis, in a decision-making process between at
least two alternative choices. Just think of Prof. Sarachchandra’s
drama, Maname. The princess faced a genuine conflict, if we look at
it from a modern-day perspective. In the old world she had no choice;
the sword must be given to her husband as ordered. But if we were to
treat her not as one who came out of the ribs of Adam, then was she
not entitled to contemplate the correctness of the prince’ decision?
Rather than killing the prince, the Vedda king sent his people away
from the scene and decided to fight the prince alone. That was why the
princess faced a dilemma.
The JVP pretends it is also in such ‘to be or not to be’
dilemma regarding the budget vote on December 14th. The likes of a JVP
party is guaranteed at least according to the Bible. Jesus said, "Poverty
will always be there." Therefore, just like the LSSP in the 1930s
and 1970s, if not this JVP there will be another form of ‘JVP’
in Sri Lanka. But in human life things happen (resolution of conflicts)
because of fate, karma, accidents or by deliberate mental exercise.
We are different from animals because we have libraries. We have history—a
record of our past actions—to not repeat the old mistakes.
Prior to forming a coalition government (on June 11, 1964), the LSSP
was divided into three groups. The NM-Colvin-Chumley G group wanted
to expand their playing cricket with Anura at the government mansion
in N’Eliya into a marriage partnership with his mother’s party.
There was the Bala Tampoe- Merril Fernando-Edmond Samarakkodi group
who did not believe in the theory of dissolving the SLFP by joining
it. The saint-like Leslie G was in the middle undecided. It was Vivian
who pulled Leslie into the NM-Colvin camp and the rest was history (I
heard this story then from a person who attended the LSSP meeting held
at Ratgama). When a Lake House-engineered conspiracy, led by CP de Silva,
toppled the government in December 1964 Phillip G made another fateful
error by voting against the coalition. His one vote would have changed
the history of the country as well as his own future as a possible prime
minister of Ceylon. He vented his anger against the "Radala Ammandi."
Ironically when the MEP was formed in 1956 LSSP did everything to sabotage
that government. In 1964 Phillip thought he could kill two birds with
one stone.
Despite its past misdeeds in 1971 and in 1988-89 new JVP leaders made
it a live political force. A former UNP PM once said that JVP made the
UNP and SLFP leadership "avalangu kaasis" (worthless money).
JVP won several court cases against anti-national arrangements made
by the UNP-SLFP leadership. Only a JVP minister was on record for not
allowing a World Bank agent to bully him. Above all in 2005 JVP made
sure that a rural man becomes the new president. Otherwise, by now all
those sites of Buddhist ruins in the Northern and Eastern Province that
the Ven. Ellawala Medhananda Thero has cataloged during the past forty
years would have been razed to the ground. But the world does not allow
a mother to kill a child because she gave birth to him. Apparently,
the JVP thinks it is above this rule.
If there is a conflict, then JVP, as a political organism, has every
right to resolve it in any way it wishes. But is there a conflict with
the budget vote? Or was JVP getting into a prison of its own with imaginary
or impossible demands? If JVP wants to finish Prabakaran then the only
alternative it has is to help Mahinda R for at least one more year with
their vote on the war budget. Any other behavior by JVP at this stage
is no different from it joining with the UNP camp to protect Prabakaran.
This decision by JVP and its leader’s statement praising the cruel
dictator Stalin takes us back to the way he escaped from death just
yards away from the place where Wijeweera was captured. It has to be
more than the fact that his sister had connections with the government
ministers. It is a mystery how India secretly helped him to escape when
his movement was killing Indians. It is true that London was an oasis
for political dissidents including Karl Marx, but not for leaders of
underground movements who murdered people in the hundreds. Recently,
Russia accused London of harboring and training ‘dissidents’
as agents of western imperialism. The JVP leader’s stay in London
cannot be compared to CBK’s exile or that of Prins Gunasekara’s.
If the JVP is the symbol of truth and justice in present day Sri Lanka,
it has a public duty to tell the whole story of its leader’s past
to the people now and not after his death.
Mahinda R is not a saint and cannot be a saint. He had to fight an
election against all odds and against local and foreign money. Those
who helped him with funds cannot be ignored by him without giving some
favors. But he is almost like Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had a cabinet
made out of most of his political rivals. Lincoln had a choice while
Mahinda R had no choice. The bahubbotha vyavasthava (a death trap for
Sri Lanka) of the late A.J. Wilson (a political science professor and
the son-in-law of SJV Chelvanayagam) created a system in which the president
could end up being a prisoner in the hands of MPs who become MPs under
a unique chit system by the party bosses. Thus, JRJ, who boasted that
he can do anything except make a woman a man, had to obtain a blank
letter signed by his MPs as a protective measure. RP, it was rumored
had to bribe MPs and resort to black magic to derail the impeachment
plan. CBK did not even know about the 2002 CFA signed by the PM and
Prabakaran and she could not even chair the Cabinet meetings because
it was alleged that she carried a hidden camera in her purse! MR had
to bribe the MPs with ministerial posts to keep the government running.
Under such circumstances was JVP reasonable or realistic in demanding
MR to reduce the cabinet to 30?
The JVP cannot perform a Yama maha perehara blowing hot and cold air.
It cannot play a double game. Yes, people are suffering but by defeating
the war budget people will suffer more and longer. If JVP thinks that
people cannot understand this simple fact it is still in 1971, when
it tried to overthrow a popular government months after it came to power.
It is unbelievable that JVP is entering a jungle when the path is so
clear. It may be hard for them to understand that MahindaR is like the
King Valagamba in hiding with the wisdom of the old woman already in
his head on how to eat the hot milk rice. Why the JVP does not want
to give Gotabhaya a few more months to destroy Prabakaran’s bunker
takes the JVP into the backyards club of US Senators Patrick Leahy,
Hillary Clinton, UK ambassador Chilcott and the million-rupee salaried
Colombo peace lobby.
MR came to power despite a conspiracy by the local anti-nationals and
foreign INGO forces (5,000 of them in Sri Lanka today!!) wanting to
keep Prabhakaran alive and well and the military demoralized. MR disproved
the "war is not winnable" theory by a simple non-act (omission
not commission) of allowing the army to take care of military affairs.
Military is now run by military professionals and not by former election
commissioners or arm-chair political generals. Why cannot JVP understand
that the end of Prabhakaran is nearing and any vote against the budget
at this moment could adversely affect the war effort? Are they prepared
to waste all their past work at the 2005 election making it a case of
throwing wood into the river (gangata ini kapeemak)?
No one denies that the real war in Sri Lanka will begin after the end
of the Eelam war. Waste, corruption, crime and the hopelessness of civil
administration have become antho-jata-bahi jata problems during the
past 30 years. It is unreasonable and unfair to expect that MR has a
magic wand to even begin eradicating them from a Sri Lankan society
where the situation now is parents selling children or children selling
parents for dollars. MR cannot touch this problem on a systematic basis
until the war is over. Why the JVP is not willing to give the benefit
of the doubt to MR on this issue is problematic.
MR, JHU and JVP benefited from Ven. Gangodawila Soma’s efforts.
Ven. Soma came forward when laymen were afraid of talking for fear of
death. It was the Lalith A-Gamini D- Gen. Kobbakaduwa syndrome. No one
knows for sure who really killed them. Monks waited on road sides to
tie pirith nuul on the wrists of JVP walkers because JVP was linked
with Ven. Soma’s vision. The JVP should learn from history that
the common man and woman are watching their behavior from an Ehi Passiko
perspective – come and examine, not come and believe.
The JVP will have no monopoly control over people’s poverty issues
to take them on for a ride. The JVP can begin a campaign to grow more
food on its own at the GSN unit level if it cares about the people’s
hunger. It has time to re-think and vote with the government on Dec
14th.
For example, if Mr. Amirthalingam was an MP he would have voted for
the budget without any doubt. His recent letter to 60 million Tamils
in Tamil Nadu asking them not to make a historical blunder (about the
killing of Thamilselvam and supporting Prabhakaran) was a courageous
act by a long-suffered Tamil man about his people. It was an act of
wisdom which the late Amrithalingam could not think of as the Leader
of the Opposition in 1978. There are two clear paths awaiting in Sri
Lanka to be taken by two entities: one is Mr. A’s TULF publicly
declaring that there are no homelands in Sri Lanka; the other is if
JVP does not want to be another LSSP in 2007-2008 it should vote for
the war budget now. The choices are clear and concrete.
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