By Sena Thoradeniya

JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake has started his Presidential campaign” in America, months ahead of any Republican or Democratic candidate! He began his campaign in Los Angeles on October 28, 2023 addressing some Sri Lankans domiciled in the US, who do not have voting rights in Sri Lanka or cannot influence the Sri Lankan electorate by any means except throwing a fistful of dollars to JVP’s ever increasing largess. From Los Angeles he will tour Houston, Norfolk, Virginia, Washington DC and New York. It is difficult to comprehend why these cities were selected for his primaries”.  Only explanation we can give is, these are the few places where some JVP/NPP admirers residing.

Just a few days ahead of AKD’s departure US Ambassador Julie Chung visited JVP’s Pelawatte party headquarters. Chung was accompanied by US Embassy’s Political Officer Mathew Hinson and its political expert” Nazreen Marikkar. AKD was with MP Vijitha Herath and another person called Muditha Nanayakkara. After their meeting Julie Chung posted on X (formerly twitter) on 19, October, 2022: Today I met Anuradiasanayake and discussed current political & economic issues. Important to listen to diverse perspectives and engage with various political parties in a democracy”.

There are two salient points in this message. (1) In this instance, Chung does not make any reference to Anura Dissanayaka’s party affiliations. This is a complete departure from her other messages. Chung even after meeting Ranil Wickremasinghe messages, Today I have met President RanilWickremasinghe”.  (2) The other most important aspect of this message is her coverup of AKD’s impending US trip. In all her previous messages she posted, after meeting students or any other groups of persons visiting US she had mentioned about their visits. JVP released a press communique on Chung’s visit without mentioning AKD’s US tour.

Readers should be reminded that this was the second occasion these two collaborationists met in recent times. Just a few days before July 9, 2022, Chung met with AKD and twittered: To me JVP is a significant party. They have a growing presence. They resonate with the public during recent times. They are a growing political party and their ideas are accepted by the public.”  In this message Chung indirectly commended JVP headed by AKD for its role in US instigated protests at Galle Face Green. A few days later President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was deposed.

Soon after Chung’s visit, it was rumored that Chung had visited Pelawatte to wish AKD ‘bon voyage’ and provided viaticum (provisions or an allowance for a journey) for his journey. In social media posts AKD’s curtseying to Chung with folded arms – his body language – was ridiculed in prose and verse as kowtowing before the ‘Walawwe Hamuduruwo’ .  People asked, is it befitting the President-in-waiting” paying obeisance to an ambassador behaving like her lapdog?

An apologist of Julie Chung had released his so-called investigative journalism piece on 30, October, 2023, under the caption, Fact Crescendo: Fabricated Newspaper Clipping Claims that US Ambassador Sponsors AKD’s US Tour”.  He claims that he is a Verified Signatory of IFCN Code of Principles”.  IFCN stands for International Fact-Checking Network, an American organization funded by several funding sources, including corporate sector, many foundations, government agencies and individual donors. It considers a contribution of 50000 US dollars or more as a significant funding source.  

His fact checking” begins like this: We recently came across social media posts stating that Ms. Julie Chung is fully sponsoring the US tour of one of Sri Lanka’s Leftist political leaders Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) including food and lodging. The claims were made via purported newspaper clipping as seen below” (a Sinhala newspaper clipping shown).

Under credibility of the source” the fact-checker” adds: The purported claim appearance and size all resemble the Mawbima” newspaper, hence we checked the last few editions of this newspaper, yet were unable to find any such news item.” Then he had contacted Mawbima” editorial and they had denied publication of such a news item.

Next the fact-checker” checks for any official statement from the US Embassy related to AKD’s US visit. We had stated earlier that Julie Chung artfully had not mentioned anything about AKD’s US visit in her October 19, X post. According to the fact-checker” a spokesperson of the US Embassy in Colombo had denied this rumour. This reminds us the pithy Sinhala saying, horage ammagen pena ahanawa wage” (it is like asking the mother of the thief to do witchcraft to catch the thief). Similarly, Jathika Jana Balavegaya (the surrogate mother of the thief) also had rejected these claims that US Embassy is sponsoring AKD’s US trip.

We checked with many Facebook subscribers whether they have received the message mentioned by this fact-checker”. None of them have seen it. Now we have to fact-check” fact-checks” of fact-checkers”! 

Under the guise of fact-checking” this fact-checker” gives undue publicity to AKD’s US tour with dates and the locations of his US meetings. Fact Crescendo” continues: Anura Kumara Dissanayake landed at Los Angeles International Airport on 27^th October”. For our perusal he posts some photographs of a small crowd of Sri Lankans carrying lion flags and stars and stripes flags posing with AKD. One middle-aged man wearing a stars and stripes shirt and a similar cap was seen putting his arm around AKD’s shoulders.

Venues of AKD’s meetings were decorated with Sri Lankan and American flags. Backdrop of the rostrum was also adorned with Sri Lankan and American flags. As no other American politician sharing the podium, this décor no doubt was a sign of appeasing AKD’s benefactors including Julie Chung who issued him with a visa, who denied visas to war-winning Presidents, Generals and Admirals of Sri Lanka Army and Navy respectively. MP Sarath Weerasekera as Chairman of a Parliamentary Oversight Committee was denied a US visa to participate in a study tour. The SJB MP who desecrated the mace of the Parliament recently was included in this tour party.

What was said at his US meetings by AKD does not deserve any attention as they contain nothing new, full of old verbiage.  Q & A sessions were not different.  Many who posed questions did not have any knowledge of the ground situation in Sri Lanka. The Muslim person who commended JVP for the stand they took after Easter Sunday massacre was ignorant that the father of two suicide bombers was in JVP National List.

One middle-aged gentleman who wanted to ask a question from AKD, began saying that he is not a racist and there is a big difference between racism and nationalism; he provided a detailed account of the pathetic situation faced by Sinhalayas  in Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka; he was prevented from continuing by  a JVP goon (may be a bodyguard flown to USA with courtesy of Julie Chung) who grabbed the microphone from him. He was seen taking the floor again, but was denied an opportunity for the second time, employing usual tactics of JVP from Wijeweera days, silencing dissension.

AKD was naïve enough to say that ancient nation formation is not valid now. He said something short to multi-culturalism”, the catchword of NGO cabal.

The funniest part was dramatised when AKD replied to a question, how he proposes to pay back the debt taken by the Sri Lankan government. Keeping in line with Western governments, Western media, US funded think tanks” operating in Sri Lanka and Julie Chung, he said China is our biggest debtor. (This canard has been disproved by many eminent writers.) When he said that he is going to get a mandate from the people to re-negotiate with the IMF, he towed the line of SJB, showing that he has nothing new to offer as his solution”.

AKD’s ignorance of mineral resources of Sri Lanka was revealed when he wanted to turn our miniran (plumbago/graphite) into graphite to earn more dollars.  According to his statistics we sell a ton of miniran for 2000 US dollars, while the price of one kilo of graphite is 5000 US dollars! I have heard that AKD is a science graduate, what science I do not know. If he had an elementary knowledge of English he will not fall into this pit. This also shows that the man who pretends to represent workers has no intimate knowledge of the workers and where they work.

The then Graphite Corporation formed after nationalization of graphite industry in Sri Lanka, (later privatized as Bogala Graphite Company and Kahatagaha Graphite Lanka Ltd.) was known by the workers as Graphite eka”. There was not any sensible Sri Lankan- American in the audience to correct him; we don’t need a geologist, a chemist or a mineralogist to do this.

We don’t know that it was a faux pas, that AKD meant Graphene, the strongest material ever found, more than 40 times stronger than diamond and more than 300 times stronger than structural steel.  How AKD is going to create or isolate graphene and finding knowhow, expertise, infrastructure coupled with massive investment for isolating graphene is the biggest question in a country for decades exporting mineral sands in raw form!

Most of the questions asked by the audience revealed their low political thinking, lack of political ideology, poverty of ideas and how far they are removed from ground realities. There was none to question AKD about his past, his honeymoon with yahapalana government and many more vital issues.  What was reiterated by AKD was that we will be in power; we will do what is needed”. Neither the speaker nor the audience was able to elaborate or ask: HOW? WHEN? WITH WHOM?

How JVP/JJB combine increases its 3% to 50% and 1 vote? Of the total registered voters in Sri Lanka only 75% cast their votes. Of this 75% at least 5% are rejected for various reasons. This time it is obvious that polling will go below 70%. With all that reductions if we assume for argument sake that JVP/JJB will poll 5-8 % as a result of present wave of enthusiasm it has generated, public discontent, spiraling cost of living and opposition of masses and the entry of young voters who will vote for the first time, the majority the JVP could muster is only 8.5 – 13.6 lakhs. Getting nearly a lakh of votes from an electoral district is an uphill task. There are 22 electoral districts in Sri Lanka. It cannot come even closer to that magical figure in Jaffna, Vanni, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Ampare, Kandy, Badulla, Nuwara Eliya and Puttalam electoral districts. To compensate this, it has to poll more from other electoral districts which is an overstated proposition. If it considers Hambantota electoral district as its pocket borough it has to get more than 2 lakhs, again an impossible task.  So, coming into power by an election is only a pipedream.

Then why does Julie Chung and her ilk pamper AKD?

Western countries and Australia grant visas to Sri Lankan performing artists, comedians, dance troupes and performers of stage plays without any hindrance. They know that they come to entertain, mostly the old Sri Lankan parents domiciled in their countries who are eager to revive old memories and performers to earn some money. Young and not so young people throng to these places as these events are organised and tickets sold by their groups”.  No harm done. AKD’s trip to US is a similar entertainment and US authorities know that he is coming to entertain Sri Lankans, who cannot influence the Sri Lankan electorate.

Julie Chung’s political intents are different. She knows that now AKD does not utter a single word against, capitalism, American imperialism, neoliberalism, foreign investment, Indian expansionism so on and so forth. She has sensed his anti-China venom. Will AKD say anything against US intervention in Korea, Vietnam and Indo China, Latin America, Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya while touring US or allow any questions about devastation of Gaza by Israeli defense forces, American collaboration in it and Joe Biden declaring that I am a Zionist”? No. Never.

Julie Chung is only inflating AKD’s ever- increasing ego.  At the same time a deflating process and debunking JVP myths is also carried out by Chung’s apologists. 

We again turn to the fact-checker”, how he fact- checked” AKD’s visit to South Korea.  He says: The NPP leader visited a few other countries during the past few months including Australia and South Korea, which were also subjected to misinformation drives”. He gives links to these social media posts. It is easy to comprehend that these are invariably manufactured by JVP propaganda machine.

A post posted on April 18, 2023: Kim Il Sung, the Mayor of Taegu/ Daegu City in a Statement had praised AKD to the hilt. He had encountered a big problem as 90% of the Sri Lankan work force had applied for leave to attend a meeting of a Sri Lankan political leader. Bewildered he had listened to a Korean translation of his speech. He was utterly fascinated by his spoken words; every word of his speech carries a powerful meaning he says; it puzzled him whether such an intelligent leader exists in a backward corner in Asia he asks. He is doing a great service to future world. In future I wish to build up a strategic relationship with him”.

Fact Check” reveals that there was not a Mayor called Kim Il Sung; the photograph shown with his purported Statement belongs to Park Won-Soon, Mayor of Taegu/Daegu City who committed suicide due to a sexual scandal in 2020, 3 years before AKD’s arrival. The Mayor of the city at the time of AKD’s visit was one Hong- Joon- Pyo.

How ignorant the people in-charge of JVP propaganda machine to choose the name of Kim Il Sung, the great leader of Korean people, who liberated Korean Fatherland from Japanese and American Imperialists, founding father of Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea, who conceptualised Juche Principle, the ideology of Workers’ Party of Korea?

The second example is more interesting: a Korean businessman involved in fish trade who is employing about 150 Sri Lankan workers said that his Sri Lankan employees had requested leave to attend a meeting of a Sri Lankan political leader at Taegu/Daegu City. He was amazed how these workers were attracted to a young political leader. The spin doctors of JVP has spun a similar story. This businessman also gets a translation of AKD’s speech. He says a similar leader who has a vision is not found in Korea today; he was surprised why this person has not become the leader of Sri Lanka.

Fact-Check” says that the photograph posted with this post was a stock photo used to portray happy old mature Asians.

Intentions of the Fact-checker” is clear which are two-fold. Firstly, he rescues Julie Chung from an embarrassment, that she had facilitated AKD’s US tour. Secondly, he paints JVPers as a bunch of modern myth – makers.

We have seen this phenomenon in the international arena, how the creators of Taliban became its destructors. Now creators of Hamas have become its destructors.

At a presidential election or a parliamentary election as explained above, JVP/JJB combine will realise that what was shown superficially at their political rallies will not be reflected in the people’s choice and they will have to bite the dust. The hurrah boys will become more and more disillusioned and decamping process will begin. It is a fallacy propagated by Colombo-based theorists and foreign domiciled columnists who write to English weeklies here, (a friend domiciled in Brisbane asks, let them at least write to a Hit-ad” supplement in their countries!) that the JVP is a cadre-based party. That JVP died a natural death after the Tsunami days. In such a situation the JVP has no other alternative than becoming the destabilizing force. It is the time of Julie Chung and others to create another monster in this part of the world.