{"id":93644,"date":"2019-10-07T14:30:14","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T21:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=93644"},"modified":"2019-10-07T14:30:14","modified_gmt":"2019-10-07T21:30:14","slug":"a-chilling-reminder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/10\/07\/a-chilling-reminder\/","title":{"rendered":"A chilling reminder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editorial Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Tuesday 8th October, 2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

UNP General Secretary and Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam has drawn heavy flak over a deplorable statement he happened to make, at the recent UNP convention, where the party\u2019s presidential candidate, Sajith Premadasa, was officially named. Stressing that the UNP had to spare no pains to win the presidential election, Kariyawasam lamented that his party had not been able to take revenge, the way it wanted. His statement was the proverbial smidgeon of dung that spoils a pot of milk. What may be described as a Freudian slip, on his part, took the shine off the event.
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Kariyawasam may not be of a violent disposition, but as the General Secretary of a major political party and, most of all, Minister of Education, he must exercise control over his tongue. What if the UNP activists take his statement as a call to arms? There is also the danger of Opposition supporters using it as an excuse to turn on their rivals in case of their victory.
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Minister Kariyawasam\u2019s statement evoked our memories of the shocking spree of violence following the 1977 regime change. A graphic description of how savage political violence can get, in this country, which prides itself on being home to four great religions, finds itself in the report of the late Justice T. A. D. Wijesundera Commission, appointed by the Kumaratunga government to probe incidents of political violence, from 1977 to 1994, and make recommendations for the payment of compensation to the victims.
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The 1977 general election saw the advent of a UNP government with a steamroller majority, which it abused in every conceivable manner to suppress democratic rights of the Opposition. Its leaders turned a blind eye to the spate of post-election violence unleashed by their supporters, who were given free rein.
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Following the 1977 regime change, an estate worker, affiliated to the SLFP-led Opposition, his wife and their young daughter had stones hailing down on their tin-roofed hut. The man went out to see what was happening. A group of sword-wielding pro-government thugs set upon him and severed his head. His wife and daughter rushed out and held his headless corpse, weeping. The mob doused them with petrol and set them on fire. Both suffered serious burn injuries, and only the mother survived to tell the story. There was not a dry eye in the house when she described, before the Wijesundera Commission, her agony.
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Opposition activists underwent untold suffering under three UNP governments (1977-1994) and, therefore, it was feared that the change of government would lead to a bloodbath. But newly elected Prime Minister Chandrika Kumaratunga, to her credit, handled the situation well. She transformed all SLFP organisations at the grassroots level into peace committees and ordered them to prevent political violence. Her effort yielded the desired results.
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Sajith\u2019s late father, Ranasinghe Premadasa, served as a senior minister, the Prime Minister and the President during the 1977-1994 period, characterised by unprecedented political violence, which the UNP will never be able to live down. Kariyawasam\u2019s aforesaid statement will surely be grist for the mill of the political rivals of Sajith, who cannot be unaware that such irresponsible utterances by party heavyweights are likely to be the kiss of death for his presidential bid. One of his trusted lieutenants has already threatened to put the main Opposition candidate in a \u2018jumper\u2019 in case of his victory. With friends like that who needs enemies?
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The present government came to power, promising a new political culture. The people voted for it because they detested the suppression of democratic rights of the Opposition under the previous regime. The UNP owes an explanation to the public as regards its General Secretary\u2019s veiled call to arms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editorial Courtesy The Island Tuesday 8th October, 2019 UNP General Secretary and Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam has drawn heavy flak over a deplorable statement he happened to make, at the recent UNP convention, where the party\u2019s presidential candidate, Sajith Premadasa, was officially named. Stressing that the UNP had to spare no pains to win the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}