Many government ministers and opposition politicians were on jaunts abroad last week. At home, there was speculation about an impending cabinet reshuffle. Hectic negotiations were apparently being carried out for cabinet ministers with multiple portfolios to shed a subject or two, so as to accommodate newcomers. There was also a proposal to create District Ministers who would hold non cabinet status. That alone would create 22 new slots.

The questions looming large in the minds of UNPers was who would join the government, how many will remain, who will be elected members of the Working Committee etcetera. Another question that rankled in the minds of UNPers was whether Karu Jayasuriya will be re appointed as the Deputy Leader.

Since the party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe was holidaying in Tanzania these issues remained in a state of suspension at least until his return.

JHU’ s Concerns about the
suspension of German Aid

The JHU held its first central committee meeting for the new year on Tuesday, under the Chairmanship of Ellawala Medhananda thera. A committee headed by Athureliye Rathana thera had been appointed earlier, to plan the programme for 2007. The committee discussed the action plan put forward by Rathana thero. The JHU plans to win over 10 temples in each electorate to its cause and build up its support base on that foundation. Among the national issues that were discussed was the German decision to halt bilateral aid to Sri Lanka. Champika Ranawaka said that Germany was the second largest donor country after Japan and that its decision to halt aid, would have serious repercussions on the country. Udaya Gammampila stated that after the open economy was introduced in 1977, the country has become dependent on aid and that we have to accept this reality. Omalpe Sobhita thera posed the question whether the German government was supporting Prabhakaran against the democratic government of Sri Lanka.

Rathana thero, criticized Sri Lankan foreign missions abroad for not doing more to convey the correct information to foreign governments. Only Lakshman Kadirgamar did this task properly, he said.

Champika Ranawaka said that German aid had been stopped on issues such as human rights and the breakdown of peace negotiations. The government has not put its cause across effectively, so at least the JHU should do it. It was decided that the JHU would draft a letter to the German Embassy in Colombo, addressing the issues which led to the suspension of bilateral aid.

On Thursady, the Indian High Commission in Colombo held discussions with a JHU delegation comprising of Champika Ranawaka, Athureliye Rathna thera, Ellawala Medhananda thera and Udaya Gammanpila. The JHU delegation explained to the diplomats of the Indian High commission, why the de-merger of the northern and eastern provinces was justified, and the concerns arising from the possible environmental and social impact of the Sethusundaram project on Sri Lanka. They also stressed the fact that India had a tendency to look at the Sri Lankan problem from the point of view of the Tamils only, and that India has to take a more wholistic approach to the Sri Lankan problem. By looking at it from the Sinhla and Muslim perspectives as well. They pointed out that the danger to India’ s territorial intergrity was posed by the LTTE and not by either the Sinhalese or the Muslims.

The President’s largesse

President Mahinda Rajapakse on the last Friday of the old year summoned a meeting of SLFP Provincial Council members and SLFP members of all Local government bodies numbering about 2500, to Temple Trees. At the meeting he told them that he was very grateful to them for supporting him wholeheartedly during the presidential election campaign.

"I have not forgotten the support you lent me and am aware that my election to the presidency was due to you. In return I am prepared to do my best for you and I have increased the allocation to the Provincial Councils by 10 to 15 million rupees for the new year," he said.

However the Chief Minister for UVA Vijithamuni Zoyza said his provincial council had not received any additional funds.

The President who was apparently irked by Zoyza’ s remark fired back saying, "You people are very good at counting the amount allocated to you but are not so keen in counting when the funds are spent. I propose to look into the expenditure of funds by the provincial councils."

A provincial council member then rose to say that Chandrika Kumaratunga was once again trying to undermine President Rajapakse. The President got up and walked over to the microphone while this PC member was holding forth on Chandrika and said he did not summon them to discuss such political issues but to discuss development related issues.

After briefing them about the implementation of development programmes for 2007 the President hosted them to dinner.

Beggarly ‘Beira Gedara’

A surprise was waiting for the staff of Lake House last Friday. President Rajapakse paid an unannounced visit to the oldest newspaper office and started looking into all the editorial departments and the administrative division. When he remarked to some members of the staff that there was a very large number of people, one of them told the President that some more of the staff were in the library and some were in the canteen. Some were standing since they had no chairs to sit on.

The President who was surprised to hear the predicament of the staff said he first visited Lake House in 1971 when it was under private management and it looked very clean and orderly then and he said he wished to discuss the problems of Lake House with the executives and officials of the trade unions. When he said he remembered seeing couches in some of the editor’ s offices and one was in Martin Wickramasinghe’ s office a member of the staff said that some persons had removed the furniture used by Wickramasinghe.

After seeing for himself the sad state of Lake House he told the management that he wants to discuss all the problems of Lake House on January 5 at a meeting to be held at Temple Trees. He invited the management and TU leaders for the meeting.

President Rajapakse also paid another surprise visit to the prelate of the Ramanna Nikaya the Most Ven Divuldena Gnanissara Thera last week. The Prelate was celebrating his 92nd birthday and the President had a car brought to the Prelate’ s Temple at Nugegoda, as a birthday gift.

UNP celebrates New Year without Ranil

Though UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe was on holiday in Tanzania, some office bearers of the UNP came to the party headquarters ‘Sirikotha’ on New Year’ s day. Tissa Attanayake, M.H.Mohamed, Sirinal de Mel and a number of others had come early in the morning and joined the traditional festive breakfast of kiribath, kevun and plantains. The centrepiece of the breakfast table was a huge cake made in the shape of a green elephant. It was M.H.Mohamed who did the honours, cutting the cake.

The UNP Management Committee meeting was also held on the same evening but the Party President Rukman Senanayake was absent since he was attending a F.R.Senanayake commemoration meeting elsewhere. Tissa Attanayake chaired the meeting at which it was decided to summon a number of candidates to be interviewed for party electoral organizer vacancies again as some of the candidates had not turned up for interviews on a previous day.

Ranil Wickremesinghe got several phone calls while he was still in Tanzania and one of the callers was former party Chairman Malik Samarawickrema who was given an assignment by Ranil. Ranil wanted to know the truth about the stories circulating in Colombo at the time. One was a story attributed to President Rajapakse who had said that many elephant cubs were in his pocket and another story that G.L. and Mahinda Wijesekera were also in the list of those wished to join the government.

After that Rukman, Malik and Tissa had come to Sirikotha again to discuss the latest political situation and to report to the leader about what was happening. When Malik telephoned Ranil in Tanzania, the party leader said it is not proper for President Mahinda to take in UNP parliamentarians adding that it will damage the SLFP-UNP MOU but warned Tissa and the others not to make any statements to the press about these matters.

Meanwhile once again there was tension among UNP members about the appointments to the Working Committee since M.H.Mohamed, Dharamadasa Banda and Imtiyaz Bakeer Markar were not among those appointed (they went to court to try and stall the party convention) and there was a story that some UNP members had sought legal redress regarding the appointment of members to the working committee.

Last week, when Rajitha Senaratne and Ravi Karunanayake were holidaying in Bangkok with their familes, Lasantha Wickrematunga the editor of the Sunday Leader phoned Ravi K and told him that the government was planning to arrest him. Both Ravi K and Rajitha Senaratne had pledged their support to Wickrematunga. A little while later, Wickrematunga had phoned them agaian and asked Rajitha Senaratne, whether the President was planning to take a group of UNP MP’ s into the government using the de-merger of the northern and eastern provinces as the basis for the union. Rajith Senaratne had replied that the main issue was not the de-merger but the lack of a clear agenda for the implementation of the UNP reforms.

Karu Meets Mahinda

There were also various rumours afloat about the former UNP Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya and one was that he was going to join the government together with 18 other UNP parliamentarians. Though these rumours were in circulation for some time the real reason for them springing up at this juncture, was a visit by Karu Jayasuriya with his wife Dr Vasantha Jayasuriya to the Kirivehera in Kataragama at the same time that President Mahinda Rajapakse with the First Lady Shiranthi and minister H.M.Chandrasena were also visiting Kirivehera on the 1st January.

It was of course a mere coincidence that both parties were invited at the same time to the Kirivehera by the Chief Incumbent of the shrine Ven Aluveve Soratha Thera. The Jayasuriya’ s like almost all other political leaders visited Kataragama during the new year. They have a charity organisation, the Suriya Foundation which did voluntary services with a mobile clinic at Kataragama each year.

Though the clinic was not held this year they were there to take part in religious observances. However it did provide an opportunity for Karu Jayasuriya and President Rajapakse to have a long chat in the office of the Chief Incumbent of the Kirivehera. It was a one to one discussion with no others present.

After the conclusion of religious observances at Kirivehera and the Kataragama Devale, President Rajapkse took a helicopter to Anuradhapura where he took part in religious observances at the Sri Maha Bodhi and Ruvanveli Seya.

The Cuban National Day was celebrated on Friday with a party at the Cuban Embassy which was attended by many old left wing stalwarts like DEW Gunasekera, Tissa Vitarana, Raja Collure and Rajitha Senaratne. Karu Jayasuriya also had attended but left early. Raja Collure chatted for a while with Rajitha Senaratne and stressed the need for the two main parties to join up. Sunimal Fernando who was also in the gathering had stated that it is impossible to arrive at a solution to the ethnic problem without the help of India.

Raja Collure had been of the opinion that the JVP was trying to create an anarchic situation in the country by opposing all progressive moves made with a view to solving the problem. They had all wanted to know whether Rajitha Senaratne was going to team up with the government. The same question posed to Karu Jayasuriya had not elicited a reply.

The President commenced work in the new year on January 2 at the Presidential Secretariat and after the usual reception he addressed the officials. He said the Presidential secretariat was the apex body of government administration and problems of all people who seek redress from it should be addressed by the officials. You are all bound to serve each and every member of the public who seek your attention, he told them.

Chandrika to Join UNP in March?

The controversial former President Chandrika Kumaratunga once again came to the attention of the public when she characteristically delayed a Sri Lankan Airlines flight to Male by one hour. In the meantime, President Mahinda Rajapakse received a letter from one of his loyalists requesting him to appoint a commission to clear the air about many allegations being made against her. The writer was Nirmala Kotelawala who also mentioned Victor Ivan’ s book Chaura Rejina (The bandit queen). Kotelawala requested in his letter to clear the name of Chandrika Kumaratunga who was not only the former President but also the former President of the SLFP.

Before Chandrika Kumaratunga departed, she had a friendly meeting with Milroy Fernando, Lasantha Alagiyawanna and two old Mahajana party veterans Mr Kabir, a businessman and one Herman, a childhood friend of Vijaya Kumaratunga. They had discussed the Vijaya Kumaratunga commemoration held at the Elphinstone theatre in December where Rajitha Senaratne had made an emotional speech about Vijaya.

Pointing to the photographs which adorned the walls, Rajitha Senaratne had stated that everybody in those photograp, Vijaya Kumaratunga, Ossie Abeygunasekera, Uma Maheswaran, Padmanabha, were all dead except for Minister Felix Perera who was present in the audience. Rajitha had stressed the need to resolve this conflict which has swallowed up so many worthy leaders. Chandrika Kumaratunga, had stated that Rajitha Senaratne was always very fond of Vijaya Kumaratunga. The former President had also stated that she would be coming back to Sri Lanka in March after her daughter’ s wedding which will be held in London. According to intimates, her focus will be on forming a UNP government after she returns.

JVP and SLFP mourn the execution of their benefactor

The execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussain was another issue which made an impact on the local political scene. Protests were organized where the United States came in for severe criticism. Former Deputy Mayor of Colombo Azath Salley invited 14 local political parties to a press conference on Saddam Hussein’ s execution on January 3.

It was held at the Azath Salley Foundation with the government represented by Minister Hussain Bahila, JVP by Wimal Weerawansa, UNP by Rajitha Senaratne.

Saddam Hussain was a figure who was close to both the SLFP and the JVP. According to Victor Ivan’ s book ‘Chaura Regina’ Mrs Bandaranaike had spoken to Saddam Hussain and got Harry Jayawardene a monopoly exporting tea to Iraq. Harry Jayawardene in turn became one of the main financiers of the SLFP. With regard to the JVP too, it is well known that they received Iraqi funds in the 1980s. So quite apart from the feelings of the Sunni Muslims of Sri Lanka, two main Sinhala political parties also lost a good friend.

When the Trotskyite Wickramabahu Karunaratne observed the wide political spectrum represented at the press conference he remarked that Thamil Selvan of the LTTE political wing too should have been invited. "Why don’t you do it yourself?" quipped Weerawansa immediately silencing Wickramabahu.

The Press Conference was followed by a protest march starting at the Maradana Mosque and ending on the Galle Road opposite the US Embassy on Friday.

The JVP politbureau met last Tuesday where once again they discussed the possibility that President Rajapakse will call for a snap Parliamentary Election. They decided to hold their annual party convention in March and to prepare for an election soon.

The JVP’ s social services arm Rathu Tharuva (Red Star) got to work under the leadership of the JVP trade union leader and parliamentarian K.D. Lal Kantha. He led a group of JVPers to Vakarai and Valachchenai and provided the displaced civilians of the two areas with dry rations, medicine and sanitary kits. The value of the material donated to the displaced persons was around one million rupees.