By
C.A.Chandraprema
One thing that became clear over the past few days is the manner in which president Mahinda Rajapaksa has kept the lines of communication open between himself and even his bitterest critics and opponents. On Thursday last week, the websites were full of the news that the president had met Ven Maduluwawe Sobitha Thera at the house of DNA parliamentarian Tiran Alles in the company of SLFP veteran Nimal Siripala de Silva and others and tried to charm the monk into withdrawing from the floundering common candidate platform.
The anti-govt. websites had portrayed this meeting as a case of ‘threatening’ Ven. Sobitha. But the senior monk himself scotched such rumours. The opposition platform probably fears that Ven. Sobitha would succumb to the Rajapaksa charm. Indeed President Rajapaksa has no reason to threaten anybody. The whole common candidate drama is now an embarrassing fiasco with well known anti-government websites like Colombo Telegraph and Sri Lanka Mirror reporting that even Maithree Wickremesinghe and Sunethra Bandaranaike are being considered to be the common candidate!As far as anybody can see, MR has already won the next presidential election even before it has been officially declared.
Another name that is being suggested as a possible common candidate is DNA parliamentarian Arjuna Ranatunga. Karu Jayasuriya’s name was being suggested but as the week came to a close his name too has been receding into the background probably due to the fact that his candidature will not be welcomed by either the Ranil or Sajith factions of the UNP. Back in December 2011, when Karu contested against Ranil Wickremesinghe for the leadership of the party Karu got only 26 votes as against the 68 that Ranil got. Even of the 26 that Karu got, almost all were votes of the Sajith faction.
It’s difficult to see the UNP working committee or parliamentary group backing Karu as the common candidate. He simply does not happen to have the necessary support to carry the party with him. At the parliamentary election in 2010 when Karu Jayasuriya was the officially designated deputy leader of the party, he came in third on the UNP list in the Gampaha district trailing well behind two complete newcomers to politics Ruwan Wijewardene and the teledrama starlet Upeksha Swarnamali. Karu J got a mere 60,310 preference votes and only 22.6% of UNP voters had voted for him in the Gampaha district. That is hardly the profile of a promising presidential candidate.
A remarkable demonstration of the manner in which President Rajapaksa maintains lines of communications even with the unlikeliest of individuals was the way Mangala Samaraweera very nearly ended up back in the government. The government making use of his apprehensions about his future following the elevation of Sajith Premadasa to the position of deputy leader made overtures to get him back into the government. Mangala apparently used this invitation as leverage to extract a pledge from Ranil Wickremesinghe not to contest and to agree to a common candidate. But there is no common candidate in sight. To have even RW’s wife Maithree Wickremesinghe in the running to contest against Mahinda Rajapaksa shows the state the joint opposition is in today. The only positive signs for the opposition are the fact that Nandana Gunatilleke the Panadura UC chairman has parted company with the UPFA and that Fisheries Minister Rajitha Senaratne has added his voice to those calling for the abolishing of the executive presidency.
In the midst of all this there were rumours that Maithreepala Sirisena in disappointment at not getting the prime ministers position was planning to defect. But last week, minister Sirisena laughly dismissed rumours that he was going to crossover. He also denied that he was harbouring dreams of being the next prime minister. The beleaguered fisheries minister Rajitha Senaratne who has been under siege by his own colleagues in the SLFP over fishermen’s issues however struck a discordant note last week by openly declaring his opposition to the executive presidential form of government thereby echoing the views of the opposition. This has given rise to speculation that Rajitha Senaratne might crossover.
The spat with Zeid Al Hussein
In the meantime, another drama which is closely connected to the forthcoming presidential election was playing itself out in Geneva. Most people in Sri Lanka think that an early presidential election is being called due to the advice of astrologers and many blame Sumanadasa Abeygunawardena for the election scheduled for January. But in actual fact this election may have more to do with Zeid Al Hussein than Sumanadasa Abeygunawardena. The investigation against Sri Lanka that is being conducted by the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) is due to conclude in March next year. As such the campaign by the western powers will come to a head in the first quarter of next year. What the government will face in a few months time will be pressure akin to what the J.R.Jayewardene government faced in 1986/87 by India multiplied several fold. But of course while JRJ did not have any friends to turn to in 1987, Sri Lanka has the backing of China and Russia.
Despite this an early presidential election is also being held obviously to face the OHCHR challenge with a fresh mandate from the people. The OHCHR functions as the secretariat of the UN Human Rights Council and this body is 75 to 80% funded by about 15 Western nations. Most of the money comes in the form of earmarked donations where the Western nations dictate what that money is to be spent on. A good part of the ‘funding’ comes in the form of government servants in Western countries being seconded for service in the OHCHR so that their staffing requirements are met at no cost. That is basically how the UN Secretary General’s Office also functions. Little wonder that Barak Obama referred to the UN as a ‘force multiplier’ of US foreign policy in his West Point address this year – because that indeed is what the UN is – a foreign policy instrument of the West.
The latest spat between the OHCHR and the Sri Lankan government was due to the discovery of blank forms with the signatures of persons purportedly affected by the conflict in the possession of one Sinnatamby Krishnarasa a former LTTE cadre. He had been collecting signatures on these forms from people at the behest of one Alva Pulle Vijendrakumar (also said to be known as Sun Master) who was revealed to be an activist or supporter of the TNA. The signatures had been collected on the pretext of being applications for compensation from the UN. If not for this current controversy involving the presidential election and the selection of a common opposition candidate, this perfidy on the part of the OHCHR would have been headline news and the main topic of TV and radio talk shows. But thanks to the issues surrounding the presidential election this issue has not come to the fore of public consciousness the way it should.
In a press release issued by the External Affairs ministry on the activities of Krishnarasa and Vijendrakumar, the EAM had highlighted another perfidious act of the OHCHR – the surreptitious extension of the deadline for accepting submissions on Sri Lanka. The deadline ended officially on 30 October and was not extended but even on 2 November the OHCHR spokesperson was telling news papers that late submissions would not necessarily be refused. The Sri Lankan government cried foul at this claiming that this would give the OHCHR leeway to selectively accept submissions after the deadline ended. The government summoned a meeting of heads of Western missions in Colombo to protest.
The OHCHR issued a press release in response to this alleging that the Sri Lankan government was engaged in a campaign of disinformation and distortion with regard to their investigation and that there were attempts to prevent bona fide witnesses from submitting information to the investigating team through intimidation. They also stressed that the arrest of a man with signatures on blank forms which were supposedly to be filled in and submitted to the OHCHR would not compromise the investigation in any way because they don’t accept anything at face value and UN investigators are trained to spot fraudulent submissions.
The OHCHR also candidly stated that they will not be releasing information on the interviews they conduct or when and where they take place due to the possibility of reprisals and they also told the Sri Lankan government to focus on the substantive issues involved and not to obscure them by the constant questioning of procedures which are not the heart of the matter! What this exchange of words between the Sri Lankan government and the OHCHR indicates more than anything else is the advisability of the government buttressing itself with a fresh people’s mandate to face the challenge that will come from the West early next year.
Courtesy:Sunday Island