by Malinda Seneviratne
Dodge-ball is a game that children play. It is a game with simple rules. All you have to do is to dodge a ball thrown at you by your opponents. Politicians play different versions of the game. Some people call it passing the buck. The skilled player has greasy hands making the transfer slick. The experts can actually convince the people that the buck never came his/her way. The latest version of the game has a title: dodging the terrorist ball. Actually it is a bomb, not a ball, although a lot of people have a ball over it; peace velendas, arms dealers, politicians, and if Purahanada Kaluwara is anything to go by, Grama Niladharis, undertakers and others as well.

Election time is probably the most difficult period for dodge-ball players. They have to come up with manifestos. They have to defend positions on rathu ira and jana handa. They are liable to be parodied in kathura. The easiest thing is to be as vague as possible when it comes to Mr.Terrorism. Or make the wildest allegations possible. The main parties in the fray, UNP, PA and JVP are happily engaging in this ritual these days. I am not asking them to pick up a bomb which is about to explode. The people, however, need to know what they are going to do about it. And how they propose to stop these bombs from popping up all over the place. None of these parties, given their track record with respect to Mr. T have any moral right to point fingers at each other. The people, on the other hand, have still not lost the right to accuse.

Let me begin with the PA. Our armed forces suffered the most severe defeats under the PA. The casualty rate took an upward turn after "peace-talks" fell through. The PA’s fellow peace-travellers themselves allege that profiteering from arms deals escalated during the PA regime. The President tells the international media that she is ready for unconditional peace-talks. The Prime Minister rants and raves about there being no option but a relentless military engagement. Clearly they don’t know if they are coming or going.

This is why over the past 7 years they have basically been twiddling their thumbs with regard to military action. Sudden and inexplicable transfers of key officers, down-right military blunders and huge security lapses have been effectively "complemented" by a state-backed effort to demoralise the soldiers and to disarm the Sinhalese ideologically. The PA has bent over backwards to tell us that the Tamils (in my mind the most privileged minority in the world) have been discriminated against. The PA’s Eelam lobby talks about self-determination as though it is coterminous with Eelam. Nothing about the right of self determination for the Sinhalese. The PA, overall, has done everything it can to grant victory to the LTTE, militarily and ideologically.

And what has been their political answer to Prabhakaran’s terrorist kotiyas? Douglas Devananda, a key coalition member of the PA-JVP ‘Parivasa’ Government! Now Doughie’s party has a name: the ‘E’ in EPDP stands for "Eelam": EELAM people’s democratic party.

The PA at times picks up the gun, at times the white flag. It conspires with Tamil racist parties to introduce a federal constitution, promises the sun and moon to Rauff Hakeem, betraying the Sinhalese people. Then it does an about-turn, withdrawing the federal constitution, effectively pushing these racist minority parties into the lap of the UNP. They in turn, turn things around and before you can bat an eyelid, the UNP is sitting on their racist laps.

So what about the UNP’s "position"? Or should I say absence of a position? Today all that the UNP says about the "ethnic issue" is that it does not have a pact with the LTTE. This ali-koti story, as some UNP MPs say, is something that the PA remembers periodically, especially during election time. The point however is that the ali-koti story is not a fairy tale. Just before the presidential election of 1999, UNP MP, Seyed Ali Moulana, leading Ranil Wickramasinghe’s campaign in Batticaloa, went on record to say that "the LTTE has signalled to the Tamil people that they should back the UNP". This statement was never denied by the UNP. In that election the PA polled 58,975 as against the UNP’s 1,04,100. This same MP, by the way, is again leading the UNP campaign in this district.

There is another interesting statistic. In the same election, the UNP candidate polled 31295 (78.78%) as opposed to the PA candidate’s 6961 (17.53%) in the Padirippu electorate. Padirippu is located in the "uncleared" areas, i.e. where the LTTE rules and tells people where, when and how to eat, drink, piss etc.

Ok, let’s call all that "old hat". How about the "new hat"? Today the UNP official position is "we will talk, we will install an interim administration in the North-East (and this for an undisclosed period of time)". They are quiet about the composition of this interim body. The UNP has gone on record to state that the PA sacrificed the East to regain Jaffna. I don’t know who advises Ranil about these things. What would have happened if Jaffna was not recaptured? What would have happened to Palaly? What the PA didn’t do is to push on to Mullaitivu after recapturing Jaffna, but by that time the ayudha javaram karayo had settled in to fatten their bank accounts. The "east" by the way is little more than the Tiger’s tail. Prabhakaran is willing to let the Sri Lankan army take a nibble or two of that end.

There’s more to this new UNP hat. The JVP is shouting themselves hoarse asking Ranil to reveal some UNP-LTTE agreement. They say nothing about the most tangible and "above board" agreement that has been thrashed out by the UNP, the one with the racist Tamil and Muslim parties. The UNP has accommodated at least 40 SLMC, CWC and dissident PA candidates on its district and national lists. To begin with the leadership has for all intents and purposes dissolved its multi-ethnic membership base by allowing the SLMC to dictate terms in the Batticaloa and Ampara. In other words, this is the pound of flesh that the SLMC has extracted in return for "supporting" the UNP: THERE CAN BE NO MUSLIMS IN THE UNP.

The Tamil parties have been more subtle. They have openly rejected supporting the PA, and have tacitly expressed their support for the UNP, which they believe will come to power after December 5th. Even if the UNP wins the most number of seats in parliament it is very likely that it will be depending on Tamil numbers in order to form a government. And what will be the conditions put forward by the Tamil alliance? The very same which the LTTE has proposed a pre-conditions for peace talks.

The Tamil alliance has openly pledged support for the LTTE and have now become the mouthpiece for Prabhakaran. It has stated that the LTTE is the sole representative of the Tamil people. In other words, these people have become de-facto members of the LTTE. I am wondering why they are not being arrested. They would make perfect cell-mates for all the peace velendas who have argued for the same position. The UNP, therefore has dodged Mr.T’s ball by embracing Mr.T’s ambassadors. Warmly. In short, the UNP has forfeited its right to speak for or canvass the Sinhala people.

Then there is the Left and the Leftovers. Let’s start with the former, i.e. the JVP. Ideologically speaking the JVP is a mass of contradictions which makes them populists at best. But it is when it comes to Prabhakaran’s potent ball that the JVP has demonstrated its considerable footwork. They are the most skilled dodge-ball artists around.

In the first National Congress of the party, the JVP advocated "self-rule" for the Tamil people. In the congress held just before the 1982 presidential election, the position was that the Tamils were pushed towards separatism because of Sinhala chauvinism and a separate state for the Tamils was officially proposed. Wijeweera’s campaign in the north was based on this position. By 1986, the position had undergone change. It was argued that socialism needs larger nations and not nations breaking into pieces. What was advocated was a larger confederation, presumably of South Asian states. With the Indo-Lanka Accord, party ideology went into a nationalistic phase. And today it is back to a nebulous idea of identities and identity-based issues disappearing when the JVP establishes socialism in Sri Lanka.

We are in the second week of November, 2001, and less than 4 weeks to go for the elections. What does the JVP have to say about Mr.T? First, for them, it is still an "ethnic conflict". They don’t tell us how or why they believe it to be an ethnic conflict. Having assumed a "conflict" based on ethnic identity, they proceed to propose a solution: "We will resolve the ethnic conflict on the basis of equality". This should win a prize for vagueness! Surely a party that has come up with a 5-year plan to rebuild the country can give us some details? They ought to have elaborated on substantive issues.

As things stand, the JVP’s position is nothing more than saying, "First give us power. Then we will establish a socialist society. Then your problems will disappear". Doesn’t make any sense to me for several reasons. The JVP has no sense of socialism. They are outwardly social democratic, but are inherently fascists. They talk working class rhetoric when they speak with the underprivileged. They are "pragmatic" when they commerce with the business elite. They have aligned themselves with the PA, dropping their hammers and sickles and picking up the mukkuva and the jak. They are comfortably pally with the likes of Mangala Samaraweera and Sirisena Cooray. More fundamentally, they are shy to acknowledge their political base among the Sinhalese. Being Marxists, they are ideologically committed to the issue of class. Practically they know that culture matters as much. They are not competent to address any identity based issue because this has historically been the quicksand in which Marxists flounder.

Then there are the Leftovers, Bahu and Vasu. Bahu has become more Eelamist than Prabhakaran himself. He has said it is ok for the LTTE to have parliamentary representation. In other words, he is sanctioning the ethnic cleansing that the LTTE has engaged in, the terrorism that it practices and of course its rabidly racist approach to all things. In terms of getting entangled in ideological contradictions, Bahu is second only to the JVP. On the other hand Vasu, if his recent performance on rathu ira is anything to go by, is doing little more than mouthing the Sihala Urumaya position.

None of these parties have a plan. None of them really know what to do with Mr.T’s bomb. They can only dodge the issue. My feeling is that they have all become acolytes of my colleague, C.A. Chandraprema: their political position is, "We will talk about talks, and hopefully out-talk our opponents". They are all striving to be the best talkers about talks. This, I grant, is infinitely better than actually talking to a bunch of terrorists. It can work, however, only if they take a leaf out of Prabhakaran’s book, i.e. sending a continuing stream of bullets at the other guy while solemnly pronouncing that they are ready for talks, a strategy which Chandraprema advocates.

None of these parties are willing to do this. Why? They want to play "holding-hands" "beat around the bush" "kiss-and-not-tell" or any other game that falls under the category "enga bera geneema". Meanwhile, Mr. T is laughing. For the Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim people who have to suffer, this is not a joke. And when things are as serious as they are, the first thing to do is to send all the jokers packing.