Daily News Editorial

Premier sets the record straight

13 September 2016


Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Saturday speaking at the UNP’s 70th anniversary celebrations raised an issue that occurred just over a decade ago that may have been erased from the memory of many. The Premier recalled the circumstances under which the Presidency was snatched from his grasp as a result of a pact entered into by UPFA Presidential candidate Mahinda Rajapaksa with LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, whereby the latter was to engineer a polls boycott in the North.

However, the thrust of the Premier’s speech was aimed at demonstrating the hypocrisy of Rajapaksa who right along had been accusing the UNP and its leader for being pro-LTTE. The means adopted by Rajapaksa, the super patriot, who had no qualms in entering into deals with Prabhakaran in order to win the election, was hidden from the public until it was exposed by one of the actors who was involved in the deal, after having fallen foul with the former President. Sripathy Suriyaarachchi is his name. The UNP too stands guilty of failing to expose this hypocrisy, letting the Rajapaksas get away with their glib accusations.

The Premier stressed that he too could have made deals with the LTTE in order to come to power but such treacherous acts were beyond him. He would rather lose the election than winning by treachery. In the end the Premier said Rajapaksa, the patriot, won with the help of Prabhakaran while he lost. The whole sordid deal was laid bare in parliament by the late Sripathy Suriyaarachchi who also named the other actors involved, including Basil Rajapaksa, a newspaper publisher cum wheeler dealer and LTTE top ranker Emil Kanthan.

None of the modern day patriots, particularly those in holy robes, who never miss an opportunity to yet link the UNP with the LTTE have seen anything unseemly or unpatriotic in the Rajapaksa- LTTE deal. To this day, nary a word has been said in this respect by Ven Muruttetuwe Ananda, Bengamuwe Nalaka or Elle Gunawansa, all epitomes of patriotism and champions of the Sinhala race. Is it that they see nothing wrong in Mahinda Rajapaksa colluding with the separatist LTTE in order to queer the pitch of another Sinahla Buddhist leader, just so long as they have their man at the helm? Their hypocrisy is also bared by the fact that they saw nothing wrong in Karuna Amman, responsible for the attack on the Sri Dalada Maligawa and butchering of a bus load Samaneras in Arantalawa, being made a Cabinet Minister by Rajapaksa. These so called patriots who are weeping buckets of the alleged ill treatment of our war heroes were also mum when the war winning Army Commander was unceremoniously thrown behind bars and treated like a common criminal. Where were the likes of Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera when the war heroes were condemned to sell vegetables and made to do domestic chores in the homes of the Rajapaksa siblings? It is time to call their bluff and expose the duplicity of these imposters.

The government, or at least Premier Wickremesinghe, who but for the Rajapaksa machination that deprived him of the Northern vote, would have been President, should reopen this whole sordid saga and get to the bottom of the affair. There was talk sometime ago that Emil Kanthan who acted as go between to Prabhakaran would be arriving to give evidence in court on the matter. No stone should be left unturned to expose all those involved. Premier Wickremesinghe lost the election by a mere 180,000 votes. The Northern electorate had nearly 500,000 registered voters and there is little doubt that the overwhelming majority of northerners would have voted for Wickremesinghe as per the voting pattern in past elections.

Mahinda Rajapaksa should be confronted with this episode whenever he accuses the UNP of being pro- LTTE. All these years Rajapaksa has been able to getaway in this fashion but the time has come to remind him of his treacherous act and lay bare his dubious patriotism. The UNP should also tell the people of the party men and leaders who had fallen victim to the LTTE. This will certainly clear all doubts to claims of UNP collusion with the LTTE. The Tiger label had stuck for too long on the party without efforts being made to set the record straight. The UNP as a party had lost the most number of leaders to LTTE bombs. President Premadasa, Lalith, Gamini, Weerasinghe Mallimarachchi. G.M. Premachandra readily come to mind. Yet it had been branded as a party sympathetic to the LTTE courtesy Opposition propaganda which had not been countered effectively by the party, while ‘super patriots’ such as Wimal Weerawansa had no qualms in sitting alongside Karuna Amman in the Cabinet. Premier Wickremesinghe has hopefully set the ball rolling for others in the party to follow suit in effectively negating the false and damaging accusations that have been made against it by persons who have no right or proprietary to level these accusations.