{"id":96104,"date":"2019-12-07T16:37:41","date_gmt":"2019-12-07T23:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=96104"},"modified":"2019-12-07T16:37:41","modified_gmt":"2019-12-07T23:37:41","slug":"harim-pieris-roadmap-for-the-unp-with-no-mention-of-the-bond-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/12\/07\/harim-pieris-roadmap-for-the-unp-with-no-mention-of-the-bond-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"Harim Pieris’ Roadmap for the UNP with no mention of the Bond Scam"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bodhi Dhanapala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

A version of this article appeared \nin the Island Newspaper, 6th Dec) Harim Peries (HP), writing to The Island on \nDec 5. about “The UNF loss and looking ahead”, gives a road map for the UNP. It \nshould make strange reading to most Sri Lankans except those who, by a Freudian \nslip, have pushed out of their minds some of the most important matters that led \nto the collapse of the UNP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his essay, HP has not mentioned anywhere \nabout the bond scams, the first of which was carefully planned by first placing \nthe Central Bank under Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, and then handing over its \ngovernorship to a Singaporean National that he personally endorsed. The \nparliament was dissolved to prevent the submission of the first COPE report, and \na second bond scam, which was even bigger than the first, was carried out by the \nUNP the following year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came the clash between the Prime Minister \nand the President, mostly because the PM tried to run the country with a coterie \nof cronies to the great annoyance of a rather simple minded President; who felt \nslighted after having been elated by simple gestures like the “Queen shaking \nhands with him even without gloves”! Sirisena realized that he was being duped \nby a Cabal which gave him doctored Sinhala translations of key documents which \nsaid quite different things in English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was this personal friction \nthat ultimately led to the President looking at the UNP leadership with \nvengeance. His setting up a Presidential inquiry into the bond scam was for the \nfortunate outcome of that falling-off among thieves. It was the revelations from \nthose inquiries that rocked the country and revealed the depth of the canker of \ncorruption that has cut into every vein of the UNP and the legislature. A top \nleader of the UNP had to claim that he did not know who paid the rent for a \nluxury penthouse he lived in, and allegedly paid for by scam money. Every UNP \nleader had been to that Penthouse, and probably knew about its secret. These \nsame people added footnotes to the COPE report on the Bond Scam to undermine it, \nand many were probably beneficiaries of the bond scam. To satisfy an angry \npublic, the Penthouse Minister was gently removed from the Cabinet, but not from \nthe top of the UNP, and then quietly brought back to other Ministries, where he \nhad access to even more trade deals that allegedly yielded even more commissions \n\u2013 so the public felt. Premadasa said nothing and Harim Peiris says \nnothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Harim Peiris says that “There was a surprising renaissance \nof sorts after the October 2018 constitutional putsch and the resultant very \nshort lived UPFA administration, which was subsequently deemed ultra vires the \nconstitution by the superior courts”. How does Mr. Peiris know that “there was a \nrenaissance”? True, the western diplomats in the Parliamentary gallery \napplauded. But no public vote had been taken. In fact, Mr. Peiris himself says \n“SURPRISING renaissance”. Indeed, if there was a renaissance, it was only in the \nminds of the Colombo-centric individuals who even believed that a counting of \nthe second preference vote to Anura Kumara Dissanayake will clinch the \npresidential vote in favour of the UNP\u2019s Premadasa who will come neck and neck \nto Gotabhaya. That was their level of (mis)understanding of the political pulse \nof the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Harim Pieris has not recognized the repugnance \ngenerated in the minds of the public by the acts of Mr. Mangala Samaraweera in \nGeneva, and in the country where he has claimed that Sri Lanka is not a country \nfor Sinhala Buddhists. All Sri Lankans have equal rights, but the total amount \nof Taxes collected from the country comes mostly from the Majority areas, and it \nis those taxes and their fair-minded policies that paid for the war, the \ncleaning up of the North and East, the re-development of roads, infrastructure, \nand appointing a provincial council after a lapse of three decades. Most of \nthose people who fought the terrorists were the Sinhalese, with invaluable help \nfrom the Muslims who were also victims of Tamil terrorism. The UNP leadership \nmocked the war and tried hard to hand over power to the terrorists; and joined \nhands with the TNA who was proxy to the LTTE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UNP, with Ranil, \nSumanthiran and Jayampathy writing out the constitution under the aegis of their \nDaispora and Washington gurus, gave the appearance of being ganged up against \nthe majority community. They believed that the key to electoral success is in \nwinning over the minorities. Of course, they had no wish to grant anything to \nthe minorities either. The draft constitution was disowned by Mr. Wickremesinghe \nhimself and the UNP, with the TNA and Jayampathy holding their baby. The \npresident could complain, in many instances, of his being duped by the \nRanil-Mangala cabal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The upper-class Tamil lawyer-politicians anchored in \nColombo have misled the Tamil electorate since the 1930s. The UNP hopes to \nprofit from the power of the Periya Dorai forever. There are visible cracks \namong the Periya Dorai clan. Furthermore, even the Periya Dorai distrust the \nMuslim leaders like the upstarts from Mannar. And then, we saw the likes of \nMervyn de Silva and Sajin Vas Goonawardena on Premadasa\u2019s political platforms, \naddressing meetings! Were the UNP organizers crazy? Were they working hard to \nundermine the personal popularity of Sajith Premadasa, as against the UNP \nactivists and MPs, many commission “kakkas”?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tragedy of the UNP is \nseen not in what Harim Peiris said, but in what he glossed over and couldn\u2019t \nsay. He says that the objective of the UNP in the coming months should be to \nprevent the SLPP from getting a 2\/3 majority. More realistically, the objective \nof the UNP should be to at least get 21% of the votes, given that Sajith got 42% \nas a personal endorsement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can the UNP do even that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UNP \nshould declare “Mea Culpa”, and hold its own Bond Scam investigation and purge \nevery scammer from the party, from the top man to even those with a mere grain \nof suspicion. It must re-start with a clean Tabla Rasa. Criminal action against \nthem is a matter for the police. Furthermore, the UNP should purge the party of \nmen and women whose hearts and allegiances are in Washington, well knowing that \nsome of them hold Samantha Power as their “Ishta Devathaava” or Guiding Angel, \nhaving even rejected the Triple Gem. Does Sajith have the strength to do \nit?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UNP should purge from the party those men and women who cannot \nthink and feel in the vernacular. There are those who know only the misinformed \nidiom of the Geneva script and the Swiss Ambassador\u2019s mindset that led Mr. Mock \nto mock himself and the diplomatic corps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bodhi Dhanapala A version of this article appeared in the Island Newspaper, 6th Dec) Harim Peries (HP), writing to The Island on Dec 5. about “The UNF loss and looking ahead”, gives a road map for the UNP. It should make strange reading to most Sri Lankans except those who, by a Freudian slip, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bodhi-dhanapala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96104","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=96104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}