CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

THE 2ND LANDING OF PARACHUTE CHANDIRKA AUGURS PERIL FOR SRI LANKANS.

A.A.M.NIZAM MATARA.

There is a growing justifiable aversion among the masses through the country to the purported news of former President Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunge re-emerging in the island and planning to get herself involved in active politics. Getting involved in politics or not is one of the fundamental rights guaranteed to all Sri Lakans under the Constitution. No one has the right to deny her this privilege.
Nevertheless, her re-entry is shrouded with many conspiratorial designs that undoubtedly would affect the political spectrum of this country and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party that at last has ended a period of turmoil and getting firmly established under the leadership of President Mahinda Rajapakse. People as well as the President should be extremely cautious about the 2nd landing of this parachute remote controlled by NGOs and vested reactionary forces.

Just before the termination of her Presidency in November 2005, in an interview with the Frontline Magazine, Mrs. Chandrika claimed that she would give up politics and said that “I will have to call it a day.

There comes a time. I have lots of things to do in life. Such as reading, writing, there are lots of things I can do, helping poor countries with projects, even my country. I want to have a trust where I will do a lot of work for our people, but I don't want to get involved directly in politics and doing this one's and that one's dirty job”.

In the same interview responding to a question about her children coming into politics she said, “I don't want them to come into politics as long as it is so dirty as it is in Sri Lanka. The decent people don't come into politics. Sri Lanka's most decent are out of politics or abroad.” (Frontline : Volume 22 – Issue 24, Nov. 5-18,2005)If we are to go by her own words as outlined above she contradicts her own pledge of not getting involved in politics (one of her customary characteristics) and moreover she confirms that she is not decent because she once again comes in to politics. Also she does not categorically states that her children will not get involved in politics, and it is an open secret that she grooms her son the “Vet- Doctor” to the highest seat of the country.

There had been many reactionary intrigues in Sri Lanka to consolidate the rule of the urban elite and deprive the rural poor the fruits of governance and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party being the flag carrier of the rural poor had to face the brunt of the many of these intrigues.

Faced with failures in toppling the SLFP governments through coup d’etats and buy-overs, the reactionary forces realized that the only way to prevent the ordinary Sri Lankans occupying the seats of power was to destroy the Sri Lanka Freedom Party within. This resulted in parachuting of international dollar-crow Kumar Rupasinghe in the 1970s.

Clashes of Bandaranaike siblings for control of the party led to humiliation and setbacks for party stalwarts sandwiched between these power groups for several years. Chandrika’s greed for power and attempt to get nominated for the Attanagalle seat fell vacant due to disenfranchisement of Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike split the party into two and instead of representing the masses the two groups were battling with each other through Courts and other venues until this matter was resolved in 1982.

Chandrika and her husband Vijaya failing to capture power in the Party formed their own party Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya in 1984 and since then worked to break the power base of the SLFP. They openly supported the 13th Amendment to the Constitution which was opposed by the SLFP. When Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse and other party stalwarts were battling in the streets against the Indo- Lanka Accord and getting beaten with batton-charges, Chandrika, Vijaya and their cohorts were feasting with the Indian Viceroy Dixit.

It is a widely circulated erroneous propaganda that it was Chandrika who revived the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and made it successful in winning the elections in 1994. The true fact is that if her party SLMC candidate Ossie Abeygunasekera did not contest the 1989 Presidential election Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike would have won the1989 Presidential election ending UNP’s dark regime in 12 years instead of 17 years and revived the SLFP to its past glory.

Based on a formula presented by Lalith Athulathmudali that prevention of voting in the rural areas and confining the election only to the urban areas the UNP candidate R.Premadasa would win, the UNP election campaign led by Sirisena Cooray employed state terror to prevent voting in the rural areas creating a fear psychosis in the minds of the people. Pasting of posters in this election on behalf of UNP was mainly done by selected security personnel. The results showed that Chandrika’s party candidate Ossie Abeygunasekera had eaten into a significant block of Mrs. Bandaranaike’s votes taking 235,719 votes (4.63%). The combined votes against Premadasa had a difference of only 43,624 votes.

In the post 89 period the reactionary forces strongly felt the necessity to exercise political control in the rapidly dwindling popularity of the UNP. This resulted in the parachuting of Chandrika
from her self-exile in U.K and making moves for her party SLMP to creep into the SLFP and take control of it. However the a group of SLMP leaders led by Ossie Abeygunasekera did not consent to the SLMP rejoining the SLFP and hence Chandrika was forced to form her own party the Bahujana Nidhahas Peramuna (BNP) and join the SLFP.

This is how the reactionary forces parachuted Chandrika to prevent transfer of power to the hands of Mrs. Bandaranaike and ensured the free market economic policy introduced in 1977 destroying national industries and self-reliance to prevail throughout the presidency of Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunga. People need not be remembered how aggressively the NGO organs such as Ravaya, Yukthiya etc., canvassed for installing Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunge in the presidency of the SLFP and promoted her as the presidential candidate in 1994. If Mrs. Bandaranaike was allowed to contest the 1994 Presidential Election she would have created another world record receiving highest ever percentage of votes anywhere in the world.

During her 11 years of Presidency Mrs. Chandrika gave no prominence to the people friendly indigenous policies of the SLFP and instead consolidated country’s dependence on the free market policies, conceded to IMF/World Bank dictates, furthered privatization, and made the country more and more foreign dependent.

Meaningful steps were not taken to arrest the terrorist problem and despite friction with the UNP regime on mundane matters Ranil Wickremasinghe and his cohorts were given a free hand to continue with the shameful appeasement of the terrorist outfit.

When the Tsunami struck the country devastating the coastal areas, instead of providing assistance to the real victims, intensive efforts were made to accord international recognition to the terrorist outfit and divert international relief assistance to be managed under their control.

SLFP stalwarts who laboured even under death threats to build up the party organizations in the rural areas, during the draconian UNP regime were sidelined and the Purple-Gang (the BNP minority) was given prominence in government positions and party organizations.

It was only under duress Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse was appointed as Leader of the Opposition and subsequently to the post of Prime Minister.

Despite Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse being the nominee of the party under her leadership, all possible steps were taken to prevent him getting elected.

Recently there was a news item in one of our national dailies that Mrs. Chandrika met some Sri Lankans at a supermarket in London and when she found that they are Sri Lankans she told them “Ehe inne hari yakku tikak ne?”(It is some devils you get there – no!, Isn’t it?).

How sad it is to hear such a degrading utterance about her own countrymen from a former President, who still derives a sumptuous pension from these purported Devils. The best thing for her to do is to stop meddling in the lives of Sri Lankans and live an exemplary retired life as it is being done by former President Mr. D.B.Wijetunge.

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