16.12.2007
By Tisaranee Gunasekara
“For
human good depends on human will”.
John Dryden (Absalom and Achitophel)
It
was a repeat performance of an old movie. The JVP can
be depended on to prop up the PA so long as Ranil Wickremesinghe
remains the leader of the UNP. There would have been supplementary
reasons for the JVP’s decision to abstain from Friday’s
voting: the certitude that its parliamentary strength
would be reduced by more than half in any future election
and the fear of losing the Sinhala hardline soul to its
bête-noir, the JHU, may have prompted the JVP to
abstain from voting in any case. But the primary reason
for the UNP’s failure to defeat the government at
the third reading of the budget was the JVP’s determination
to prevent a Ranil victory, at any cost.
There
was nothing secret about the JVP’s stand; in the
run up to the budget vote the JVP gave ample hints that
it would abstain if the regime’s survival was in
jeopardy. There is no reason to believe that Mr. Wickremesinghe
was unaware of this. His main objective is not the defeat
of the government but the retention of his hold over the
UNP. He needs to keep shifting the goal posts to keep
his restless party members occupied, until the Rajapakse
regime, through its own crimes, misdeeds and blunders,
creates a 1977 type mentality in the electorate. Since
the JVP, alarmed by unexpected shits in the political
sands, was forced to reveal its hand by abstaining, Mr.
Wickremesinghe has his consolation prize. He can blame
the JVP for the Budget failure thereby keeping his restive
party members quiescent.
Ranil
Wickremesinghe will not willingly relinquish the leadership
of the UNP. Thanks to repeated crossovers the party no
longer has a personality capable of becoming an acceptable
alternative to Mr. Wickremesinghe. Karu Jayasuriya has
shown himself to be rather less than a Mr. Clean while
SB Dissanayake’s profile makes him unsuitable to
lead the UNP. Since the continued existence of Mr. Wickremesinghe
as the leader of the UNP is crucial for the continued
survival of the regime, the Rajapakses will help forestall
or thwart any internal UNP rebellion. On several previous
occasions the then President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga
helped Mr. Wickremesinghe to survive inner-party revolts.
There is no reason to think President Rajapakse would
behave differently.
The
government won on Friday because the JVP abstained from
voting and signalled its intention to do so. What price
the JVP would have set for this favour and how the Rajapakses
would honour their bargain are as yet unknown. Though
the budget was won and the government survived, the crisis
will not abate. A regime wedded to a Sinhala-Buddhist
agenda cannot ensure normalcy in a pluralist land; a regime
committed to the enthroning of one family cannot but find
democracy irksome; a regime that is blasé about
the plight of the poor and the powerless cannot bring
about meaningful development. The current political crisis
– as distinct from the general systemic crisis -
is partly sourced in the very nature of the Rajapakse
administration; consequently if that nature persists the
crisis cannot but exacerbate.
Ignoring
Minority Concerns
Until
the SLMC left the government, the outcome of the third
reading looked a fait accompli. The political upheaval
of the last few days was created by the SLMC’s unexpected
cross-over. Predictably this political upheaval germinated
in the East, as an inevitable outcome of the regime’s
blatant attempts to implement a Sinhala-Buddhist agenda
in this most pluralist of Lankan provinces. There have
been many expressions of dissatisfaction and many cries
of warning about the manner in which the regime was conducting
affairs in the East, post ‘liberation’ –
all to no avail. A serious effort is not made to restore
normalcy and democracy in this afflicted promise while
development is limited to propaganda gimmicks. The TMVP
(now led by Col. Karuna’s erstwhile deputy, Mr.
Pilliyan) is permitted to rule parts of the East; the
regime remains mute as its Tamil ally conscript children,
kill political opponents, abduct civilians and engage
in extortion, as if in competition with the Tigers. Elsewhere
in the East, the JHU hurries on with its Sinhala supremacist
agenda under the guise of development or security. The
minorities should be pardoned for concluding that, post-LTTE,
the administration is giving free reign to its majoritarian
instincts and hegemonic aims.
Perhaps
Rauf Hakim was looking for an excuse to cross-over. If
so, all the more reason not to provide him with a just
cause, on a platter. Unfortunately a regime intoxicated
by the victory in the East and in thrall to Sinhala hardliners,
tends to see reason and sensibility as unnecessary baggage.
And though it may be possible to cast aspersions of the
motives of Mr. Hakeem, it is impossible to deny the plight
of Eastern Muslims facing displacement. Many sources,
including unimpeachable ones such as the UTHR, have documented
the existence of a systematic campaign by the JHU (with
the active support of a segment of the state machinery)
to change Eastern demographics via land-takeovers in the
name of security, development and archaeological preservation.
The dispossession of Tamil villagers in the area around
the Kunjithapathamalai hill in the Verugal division and
the allocation of thousand acres around the Shastriveli
STF camp in Pottuvil to the Shastriveli temple, thereby
depriving the Muslim villagers of its use, are merely
two cases in point.
According
to media reports this policy of ‘ethnic engineering’
is causing considerable distress and discontent among
the Eastern Muslims. Akin to rubbing salt on this wound
are other acts such as the imposition of the Sinhala lion
on the district flag of the Muslim majority Ampara and
the appointment of Presidential sibling Basil Rajapakse
to the national list seat set aside for Eastern Muslims.
The totality smacks of abuse of power by the majority
community, post-LTTE. If Mr. Hakim, in order to enjoy
his ministerial perks, ignored the plight and the disaffection
of the Eastern Muslims, they may have sought a more ‘assertive
alternative’ which the Sinhala state can neither
take for granted nor treat with dismissive contempt. From
the point of Lankan unity and stability, such a sea-change
in Muslim politics, the replacement of the moderate democrats
with extremist non-democrats (who would of course be armed)
is the greater danger. Better for the country and for
democracy that Mr. Hakim retains the support of Eastern
Muslims by leaving the government, rather than facilitates
the creation of a vacuum to be filled by a Muslim Pirapaharan.
Mr. Hakim did not defend the Eastern Muslims when they
were being persecuted by the LTTE during the third peace
process and that led to the creation of miniscule armed
groups to resist Tiger terror. If the democratic Muslim
leaders fail to impede the regime’s majoritarian
agenda, the resorting to weapons would be more widespread
and the target would be the Lankan state. That such a
situation would be a blessing for the LTTE is self-evident.
Whatever
the East may have been in the ancient past, today it is
home to Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims, almost in equal
measure. Ancient demographics cannot be allowed to over
determine current political realities. The President should
have been cognizant of the dangers inherent in the path
his administration has embarked upon under the guidance
of hardliners such as Minister Champika Ranawaka and Defence
Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse. Instead of heeding the
warning signs and reigning in the hardliners, he allowed
the problem to fester, thereby risking the survival of
his regime.
The
following remark by official spokesman Minister Keheliya
Rambukwella at a media briefing on December 12th reveals
the Sinhala chauvinist mindset of the regime: “All
Tamil people in this country are not terrorists. But a
majority are involved with terrorism” (Lankadeepa
- 13.12.2007). The Rajapakse regime includes such appeasement
luminaries as Ministers GL Peiris and Milinda Moragoda;
Minister Rambukwella himself was a loyal supporter of
Ranil Wickremesinghe when he was kowtowing to the LTTE
in the name of peace. On what basis can such a regime
and such a personality accuse most Tamils of being ‘involved
with terrorism’? Has any Tamil arrested over that
black weekend assisted the Tigers as much as Ministers
Peiris and Moragoda did during the last peace process?
Be that as it may, the regime’s belief that a majority
of Tamils support the Tigers is disturbingly similar to
the propaganda claims made by the Tigers and their allies
in defence of the Eelam demand. An irony, but not a surprising
one, since extremisms do collude in their unworldly claims
and immoderate aspirations.
Heedlessness
The
regime’s heedlessness is its common denominator.
According to a government statement in parliament Mihin
Air CEO, Sajin de Vaas Gunawardene, Presidential advisor
and favoured trouble shooter, draws a monthly salary of
Rs 450,000. While the chairman of Mihin Air, Presidential
sibling Gotabhaya Rajapakse works in an honorary capacity,
the combined monthly salaries of four other top executives
are a staggering Rs. 1.8 million. Juxtapose this revelation
with a recent poster by the National Movement Against
Terrorism (NMAT), an alter ego of the JHU. The poster
was expressive and, as it was by a close ally of the regime,
portentous: ‘If we ate bajiri in a war that was
not ours should we think about our stomachs in a war that
is ours?’ The reference was to Lankan people being
compelled to eat bajiri by the unelected colonial administration
during World War II; the message was that our people should
be ready to make limitless sacrifices, willingly, for
‘our’ war.
In
the parliamentary canteen bajiri is not on the menu. The
ministers and their hangers-on live in the lap of luxury
while the regime tries to bribe opposition members with
ministerial portfolios. Such pampering of the political
elite, though grotesque, can still be logical from the
point of naked political exigency. But Mihin Air has no
bearing on the regime’s chances of survival. It
is merely there to gratify a vainglorious President (Mihin
Air is named after him) and to indulge his political favourites.
Will these favourites, who adorn the summit of Mihin Air
at such stupendous cost to the tax payers, be expected
to eat bajiri,or its Eelam War IV equivalent, in the name
of patriotism? Manifestly not. That is a singular honour
our patriotic leaders have reserved for the struggling
masses, some of whom, reportedly, are reduced to eating
one meal a day already. The regime is as heedless of the
distress caused to the Sinhala masses through its nepotistic
policies and wastrel conduct as it is heedless of the
plight of the minorities subject to majoritarian rule.
Nor does it believe in preventive action, even when it
is dealing with Sinhala University students with JVP sympathies.
The counterproductive police assault on university students
on the Human Rights Day could have been avoided if the
regime made a serious effort to settle the issue through
negotiations, as it did post- attack. The December 10th
attack on one of its most important constituencies would
make it that much more difficult for the JVP to prop up
the regime whenever the Rajapakses, blinded by unthinking
arrogance, plunge into a crisis of survival.
Post-budget
vote, the crisis will continue and the regime’s
capacity to deal with it will lessen as it paints itself
increasingly into the Sinhala supremacist corner and becomes
even less concerned about the suffering of the Sinhala
masses. The two together will exacerbate the crisis and
pave the way for the eventual downfall of the regime.
Courtesy - Asian
Tribune