Lakshman Kadirgamar, shot in his home by LTTE snipers
The LTTE are terrorists and they killed Kadirgamar. However, the lapse in security and failure of the peace process is the fault of the SLFP, JVP and Chandrika Bandaranaike. She has sold out the country for personal power, and now Lakshman Kadirgamar has paid with his life. By sold out, I mean that after Ranil painstakingly built up the cease-fire, she rallied the forces of Sinhala Chauvanism (JVP) and seized the ministries and Parliament. Just like her father before her. She made a deal with the devil to hold power, and now the devil has taken his due. Since her election there have been no negotiations and no peace process. With her gone and Ranil back we can maybe salvage something from this mess of inaction.
To start, this is an excerpt from Bradman Weerakoons book ‘Rendering Onto Caeser’ – documenting his life serving 9 Prime Ministers and Presidents.
. . .
Throughout the two year process, what was unhelpful was the non-collaborative attitude that the president took… It takes two to tango as the saying goes and there was much that Ranil could have done by sharing information and more consultation to change her confrontational attitude. Ranil always countered this charge by insisting that she was being informed by their mutual friend Lakshman Kadirgama.
I personally felt that the president believed that the peace process which was rightfully hers, had been now usurped by an outsider. What was most galling was that the outsider, Ranil, was now seen to be making unexpected progress towards a settlement.
Ranil Wickremesinghe set about managing the peace process like a chief executive officer. The vision was clear: there was a strategic plan, there was a road map with mile posts to be negotiated, and so on. There were things to be done within Sri Lanka and things outside. Following this strategic plan, his action was literally based on three pillars: thinking out of the box, having trust in those one was dealing with, and using the support of friends. It proved to be a simple and effective tripod. (pg 338-339)
The heart of the peace process lay in the Cease-Fire Agreement signed between Prabhakaran and Ranil Wickremesinghe, prime minister, on behalf of the government of Sri Lanka. It was the first time in history that we had gone so far as to agree in writing on the details of the cease-fire and the course of future action…
Ranil spent a great amount of his time domestically on the conduct of the peace process. He was occupied, sometimes preoccupied by it, every day on most weekends and sometimes late into the night. The road to peace could literally be said to be marked by a number of illuminated sign posts – Bangkok, Berlin, Oslo, Hakone and Tokyo. In Oslo, between 2-5 December 2002 leading representatives of the two sides – Ministers G L Peiris, Milinda Moragoda and Raug Hakeen on the government side and the leader of the Political Wing S P Thamil Selvan, Anton Baslasingham and Jay Maheswaran on the LTTE side – achieved a great breakthrough. It culminated the historic agreement when for the first time, the LTTE gave up its unwavering and consistent demand of over 20 years, for a seperate State of Tamil Eelam:
Responding to a proposal by the leadership of the LTTE, the parties agreed to explore a solution founded on the principle of internal self-determination in areas of historical habitation of the Tamil-speaking people, based on a federal structure within a united Sri Lanka. The parties acknowledged that the solution has to be acceptable to all communities
This was a massive achievement apparent to anyone who had followed the history of the tortuous road of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict and attempts at resolution. Ranil had won a major victory for his people and his country.
. . .
What he did not win, however, was a victory for Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, and that is the only thing that matters. CBK, under our odd constitution, simply took over the Ministry of Defence on the grounds that there was an ‘imminent threat’ (despite the, uh, cease fire). She then called elections and sold out to every fringe lunatic party in order to cobble together her government. Just as her father rose to power on the tide of Sinhala racism, she went to the dark side and allied herself with the JHU (Sinhala Chauvanist monks – who should not be in politics by the way), and the JVP (who killed thousands, cut of voting fingers, and possible assassinated her husband). Just like her father, she preyed on racism and fear to sell the country out and keep power for herself.
Upon getting power she has done absolutely nothing. To quote AFP via LBO, “Peace talks remain on hold since April 2003 after six rounds of inconclusive talks that began in September 2002”. Any moves she did make had the JVP nipping at her heels, but she couldn’t make much of a difference anyway. She sold out the peace process to keep power, and now Lakshman Kadirgamar has paid for it with his life. She has so lost touch with reality that she now that 6 = 7 (for the Queen). Luckily for us the Elections Commisioner has called elections for 2005. She needs to go. We had a peace process and she exploited every bit of Sinhala Chauvanism to kill it. It’s time for her to get voted out and someone sensible like Ranil to piece things back together. And Mahinda is a Sri Lankan Gap Ad, so forget him.
How the fuck did she ally herself with the JHU?
Was it part of the coalition, genius? Is that why all her newspapers went into overdrive trying to sling mud at the JHU?
What are you on?
Just because you want to appear a “moderate” and get a few pats on your back there is no need to cook up some fecal matter, really.
God ignorance is ugly.
Nice post Indi. I have to say that I agree with most of what you’ve got to say.
But I’d also like to point out something you might’ve missed while looking at the world from behind those green-tinted glasses –
The LTTE has on three previous occassions agreed to a ceasefire. On each of those occassions, the ceasefire was meant as a means of bolstering their position when weak. Something the GOSL, in its attempts to show the world how “humane” it is, fell for, each and every time.
Prior to the ceasefire in 2002, the LRRP was the Sri Lankan Army’s best weapon against the terrorists. It had been able to neutralise much of the terrorists’ best cadre. As a result, just like in the past, the LTTE called a ceasfire to catch its breath.
And guess what happened to the LRRP? During the “ceasefire” “negotiated” by your hero Ranil, the LRRP was exposed by UNP backed police teams, further exposed thanks to Sarath Amunugama and subsequently killed off by the LTTE. Tilak Marapana of the UNP (then the minister for defense) had the gall (typical of a Sri Lankan politician) to say that the intelligence operatives of the LRRP had outlived their importance. Whatever happened to him anyway?
I agree with you, CBK is deranged and has to go.
But Ranil as an alternative? Find another puppet on a string – maybe one with more backbone. Ranil’s main concern is getting into power, with all other concerns secondary.
You need to get out more and get more in tune with what’s actually going on. Talk to Iqbal Athas sometime – you’re with the Times, after all.
You’re right about the JHU, they weren’t part of the coalition. That’s edited. They did split votes at the expense of the UNP, and when it came to the President’s line about ‘the nation is under threat’ they were right there. JVP was the real tie-breaker.
As to your other points, I have an occassional arrack and coke and I’m quite regular, thank you.
Yeah, I think the LTTE is still restraining themselves because any act of terror will now get them lumped with Al Qaeda, 9-11, Madrid, London – as they should be.
I don’t think the UNP is especially admirable, or that all the compromises made in a peace process are good. They’re just that, compromises. They’re basically bets placed in good faith and we lost a lot of them. It doesn’t mean we have to stop the peace process.
As for Ranil as an alternative, the other choices are Anura Bandaranaike (which is more of the same) and Mahinda Rajapakse (who has no vision beyond combing his moustache in the mirror, and barely speaks English). I won’t say that Ranil inspires me, but he is at least competent and under him the economy and peace process were moving forward.
well kevin… unfortunately.. for the majority of the new generation colombo youth, supporting UNP and Ranil has become the “in thing”… the political vision, proposed and running policies, whether the leader(s) have a backbone to take a solid stand in national matters etc. are deemed irrelevant.. respect for UNPers (in terms of their right to have an opinion) who’ve conciously decided to support the party and ranil after considering the differences among the parties… but its sad to see others doing the whole “capitalism is so cool” thing or make the “stock market doing good -> economy must be brilliant -> UNP is awsome” connection… not trying to white wash the SLFP, JVP, JHU or other such jokers here, but this almost reflex tendency to bash anything “not-so-right-wing” is becoming just so stale…
a word about the news 1st bill board… “we report, you decide” is highly misleading… time and time again its been obvious that the “reporting” has been injected with a healthy dose of bias…
Touche.
How about Ranjan Ramanyake (One Shot)? After all, he even mentioned that he’s willing to marry Prabhakaran’s daughter to bring peace to the country (See Daily Mirror – Life section, somewhere during August).
‘this almost reflex tendency to bash anything “not-so-right-wing†is becoming just so stale…’ well the reflex tendency of a large portion of sri lankan blogosphere to bash anything as right wing and capitalist (as if that is a insult) and then to launch in to personal attacks is rotten. it was rotten even when it was done off line by the traditional left leaning print media establishment.
capitalism may be not ‘cool’ but it sure makes one and the country rich if you just allow it.
Totally agree with the Ranil comment- he knew how to tactfully get the economy of the country moving and most importantly get the tigers onto thye table for talks whether it be serious or a passtime.
ya maan… lets run the economy for Colombo and Kandy… screw those un-cool buggers elsewhere…
kandy! you equal dump that with colombo?:-)
seriously what has years of interventionist policies done to the rural masses? made them into baggers dependent upon government for the fertilizer subsidy? made them in to serial protesters to get the government to buy their useless harvest each season?
oh no… not at all… especially since i’ve declared an official ‘i hate Kndy’ state until further notice after sunday’s CR vs Kandy game.. :).. just that those two are the closest to proper cities we’ve got…
well.. you might be much better qualified to do a socio-economic policy appraisal… but for me… a purely market driven economy sounds just as absurd as a extreme socialist one… for instance, i highly doubt we would’ve come even this far in terms of development if not for the continued implementation o f free education and health poilicies… everybody bitches about the fertilizer subsidy, but nobody thinks twice about extended tax holidays given to BOI approved companies or how much of a role the quota system played in getting the sri lankan garment industry off the ground… true, continued subisidies is not the way forward.. what should be done is the provsion of subsidies for select sectors (including agriculture) initially and a gradual withdrawal… that however requires sound high level policies… which unfortunately brings us back to politicos and policy makers….
kandy a proper city? you have visited kandy right?:-)
what development? countries that were far behind us in 1950 has continued to overtake us even without the free education and heath service because they were more market friendly.
tax holidays and subsidies are two different things. taxes basically take part of value created while subsides help destroy value.
yes, tax holidays for special interest groups is ‘unfair’ taxes(if any) should be same for everybody.
without the quota system(whose aim was to protect developed country industry not us) our garment industry would have been in a much stronger position in the first place.
you have identified the basic problem, who will decide what are the ‘select sectors’ that needs ‘help’? politicians dependent on voters(hopefully)? result is sri lanka. nobody has the moral right to decide that question.
I voted for CBK in 1994 because
(a) she promised to deliver peace
(b) she promised to rid us of the executive presidency.
She did neither. She proved herself incompetent at government, brought about more war, more corruption and near economic meltdown in 2000-2001. Remember when the rupee went into free fall- from 70 to the $ to 80 within a week? And then from 80 to 90? And now 97 to 101.
The only thing that is holding the rupee up is the promise of tsunami aid-if not it should be between 104 (where it was just before the tsunami) and maybe 107-110.
The biggest problems with the war (apart from the enormous direct expenditure and the loss of life) are:
1. Rampant corruption, which started in weapons tenders and then spread everywhere including the private sector. This pushes up the cost of business, restricts business expansion to the cronies who are connected or willing to shell out. Makes a few rich whilst strangling opportunity for everyone else.
2. The steady flow of armed deserters (now 30,000+) who swell the ranks of the underworld. They join becuae of teh lack of other job opportunities, desert with weapons at the first signs of a fight, cannot return to their villages because the army is looking for them. What is left for them to do but head to the big, anonymous city where they can disappear and where they will be eagerly sucked up by the underworld. Crime explodes, law and order breaks down and the very foundations of the state come under threat.
Ranils’ putative administartion of 2001-2003 got the big picture right.
1. Found an interim solution for the war. (Far from a solution but at least this stopped the fighting. There has been no major battles sinec 2001 – this is almost five years of relative calm. The skirmishes taking place now in the East and elsewhere are due to CBK’s fault of allowing negotiations to wither on the vine.
2. Sound macroeconomic policies brought about a reduction of the budget deficit, the stability of the rupee, the reduction of interest rates and most importatnly, the building of confidence.
Many people say all Ranil did was to create a “feel good” factor, an ephemeral, useless thing. What people don’t understand is that the feel good factor is confidence, and without confidence no investment is possible. And without investment no growth is possible.
Compare the policies of the Regaining Sri Lanka manifesto with the stupid mish-mash that is teh Rata-perata manifesto, which Mahinda says he will continue with.
Compare the two year under Ranil and the two years under the UPFA and you will see the difference.
Mahinda’s speech at the EDB was dreadful- it was plain that he did not understand a word of what he was reading. He claimed to favour stable and prudent fiscal management but did not explain how this contrasted with current practice in the UPFA government. How can you hope to balance budgets when the government is legislating (even as I write) on minimum salary increases, reviving the CTB, increasing pensions, fuel subsidies for three wheelers – anything indeed to grab votes for the election and the rest be dammned?
What about the rampant printing of money, that is driving up inflation? What about the stupid taxation policies of increasing taxes of alcohol and tobacco, whcih has resulted in reduced government revenue and a thriving illegal liquor/tobacco industry – run under the protection of politicians?
I think Ranil
a. understands the problems
b. has a workable solution.
The rest have’nt a clue as to what is going on.