This is the last Sunday before the make or break eastern elections. Some in the UNP are very optimistic that they will win. What one UNP parliamentarian told the present writer was that government politicos were visiting the east, but not venturing out of their hotels for fear of LTTE assassins. Last week, UNP parliamentarian Gamini Jayawickrema Perera was shown on TV, speaking at an eastern election rally where he said with a sardonic smile that even though government ministers have been visiting the east, they have not been leaving their hotels to do election work. Government ministers were not canvassing even in a relatively safe district like Amparai, which is what gives the UNP the confidence that they are going to win the election. Last week’s cabinet meeting was very poorly attended with only about 20 ministers present, because everybody was in the east – and if these reports are true - hiding in hotels rather than canvassing for their ticket!

Government politicians were caught up in a conundrum – they claimed that the east has been cleared, but yet they hesitate to go out among the people. The same situation prevails even in Colombo which is not controlled by the LTTE, but government politicians have to be careful nevertheless. Last week, the president himself had to face this dilemma at the Dehiattakandiya May Day rally of the PA. A special enclosure with bullet proof glass panels was constructed for him to address the meeting but Rajapakse refused to use it saying that the government had been telling the world that the east has been cleared, and that if he speaks from behind a glass enclosure that would give the lie to the government’s claim. The president not only spoke without the bullet proof cover, but also went among the crowd to accept a petition. Either MR has learnt nothing from the Jeyaraj assassination, or it was a publicity stunt carefully stage managed by his loyalists. Many would hope that this position in Dehiattakandiya was more the latter than the former.

The present columnist spoke to M.H. Hizbulla the government’s man on the ground in the Trincomalee district, but he did not seem to be overly concerned about the security situation. "There are no incidents, especially in the Batticaloa district", is what he told us. As we pointed out on a previous occasion, the Muttur Pradesheeya Sabha is already controlled by the SLFP and when Hizbulla was asked whether he is confident of carrying Muttur once again, he answered in the affirmative saying that the PS Chairman himself was running at the PC elections. When asked whether the UNP/SLMC’s slogan of a Muslim chief minister was not going to attract the Muttur vote, Hisbulla’s reply was that the PA will also appoint a Muslim chief minister if the Muslims have more representatives on the provincial council and if the Tamils have more representatives, then the chief minister will be Tamil. Thus, while the UNP/SLMC appeal is addressed mainly to Muslims, the PA’s appeal is extended to both the Tamils and the Muslims.

Hizbulla says that in Trincomalee, the TNA has been working very hard for Hakeem with two prominent TNA supporters Varathan and Parasudaman spearheading the campaign. Therefore, the UNP/SLMC may get some Tamil votes from the Trincomalee district but, according to him, not the Muslim vote. It is a well known fact that the TVMP is weak in the Trincomalee district. However the government also has allies in the EPRLF and PLOTE who are contesting in Trincomalee. The EPDP list in that district was rejected.

Poor old revolutionaries

As neither of the two main parties held May Day rallies in Colombo, the main event in Colombo was the rally organized by the JVP. This time the JVP took precautions to avoid a repetition of what happened at the commemoration of the 1971 insurgency held on the April 5 which was very poorly attended and had to be delayed by more than two hours in order to collect an audience. This time, it was absolutely imperative that the JVP put up a good show in order to show the world that they have not been affected by Weerawansa’s break away. Weerawansa took with him 11 MPs including himself and with Nandana Gunatilleke made it 12. To this number has to be added the name of former JVP Parliamentarian Amarasinghe (No relation of Somawansa’s) who simply upped and left some time ago claiming that he was too ill to fulfill the duties of an MP. He left the JVP, and resigned from parliament without even waiting to qualify for the life time pension.

He miraculously recovered his health after leaving and now holds a top government position. So this is a loss of 13 parliamentarians out of the JVP’s original 39 MPs – exactly one third of their parliamentary strength. Given this situation, a repetition of the April 5 fiasco would have been disastrous for the JVP. Hence this time around, the JVP took pains to bus thousands of supporters from all over the country to their May Day rally at the Town Hall. Green Path, to the south of Viharamahadevi park, was packed with row upon row of mainly CTB buses in which the JVP had transported crowds for the rally. Judging by the number of buses, the JVP seemed to have bussed in the majority of those present at the rally. This raises the question of the JVP’s strength in the Greater Colombo area. The reason why their commemoration meeting on April 5 was a flop also could be ascribed to this waning support in this area.

The JVP rally was well attended and it left no doubt that the entire party machinery was firmly in the hands of the Somawansa faction. But one thing that could be immediately noticed is that the JVP is now going the way of the LSSP and the CP. The age group of those attending the JVP rally, were predominantly middle aged. The JVP is ageing with the younger generation not being attracted to the party any more. As the present writer drove past the rally along Dharmapala Mawatha, I saw an old man well beyond three score years and ten, with a flowing white beard up to his midriff coming out of the JVP rally, wearing a red cap and clutching a red flag. When we were young, we saw such individuals only at LSSP rallies. Now the JVP too has them. Gone are the days when Somawansa Amarasinghe, then in his forties, was the oldest person in the JVP Central Committee.

When the JVP politburo met last week, K.D.Lal Kantha said that some people are trying to create panic among the public by saying that the JVP was re-arming and that some media organizations were fanning these fears. Somawansa Amarasinghe said that such was quite normal for the JVP because even before 1971, G.I.D. Dharmasekera broke away from the JVP and then flung bombs at the American Embassy and tried to foist the blame on the JVP, but the truth came to light soon after. Then after 1971, a Maoist group led by one Samaratunga had instigated some actions and that when people conspire against the party and fail, this is what they resort to – leaving the party and making various statements, and this reflects their bankruptcy. Amarasinghe said that they should not be too concerned about this propaganda and that they should prove their democratic bona fides through their actions. This should not be too difficult, because, most of the JVP’s members are now too old to bear arms anyway.

The JVP had also been stung by the story going around that some JVP overseas branches had stopped funding the party in the wake of the split. As was mentioned in this column, the JVP split has extended throughout the length and breadth of the party, and as in parliament, there are pro-Weerawansa and anti Weerawansa factions at all levels including the foreign branches. The Japanese branch is said to be in the pro-Weerawansa camp and is said to have cut funding to the party. At the last politburo meeting Vijitha Herath suggested that the JVP’s foreign branches be given the task of collecting pledges of support from their overseas well wishers. He also said that even though the story is being floated that the JVP’s funding from overseas branches has been cut off, the branch in the UAE had already sent money for the eastern elections. He said that branch organizations from other countries were also due to send in their contributions.

Speaking of the eastern elections, Chandrasena Wijesinghe said that Prado’s were going to and fro in the east and state property was being used for the election and that that this is more a war than an election. In this, the JVP appears to have found common cause with the UNP. Last week the UNP’s propaganda committee for the eastern elections met at Cambridge Place and present on the occasion was Ranil Wickremesinghe, Tissa Attanayake, Ravi Karunanyake, Lakshman Kiriella, Joseph Michael Perera and others. Wickremesinghe wound up the meeting by saying that one message must be consistently carried to the people in the east and that was that the Pillaiyan group was threatening and terrorizing UNP candidates. Last week, a UNP delegation also met the elections commissioner to make known their complaints. Present on the occasion was Tissa Atttanayake, Ravi Karunanyake, Jayalath Jayawardene, And Nizam Kariapper of the SLMC. Written evidence of election law violations by the government was also handed over to the elections commissioner.

Western ‘encirclement’

The visit of the Iranian president Mahamoud Ahamednajad is being touted by the government as a great diplomatic victory for the Rajapakse government. While the Iranian president was still in Sri Lanka, CNN was quoting the US state department to the effect that Iran was foremost among the countries sponsoring terrorism. It was also last week that ITN re-telecast Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal’s interview with BBC where he was asked by the interviewer whether it makes sense to him as a professional, that the government was drifting away from the west and getting closer to countries like Iran, China and Burma.

It must be said in this regard that the west gave the Sri Lankan government little choice. The Rajapakse regime had to forge links with the non-western block in order to keep its head above water in view of the western ‘encirclement’ of Sri Lanka. The government is operating on the premise that whoever helps us in our hour of need is our friend. Indeed, the attitude of the alternative global power centers has been refreshingly different to that of the west. From the point of view of a political commentator, the main advantage of friends like Iran and China is that we don’t have to listen to the inanities of western governments. Sri Lanka now has a new British High Commissioner Peter Hayes. High Commissioner Hayes has thus far, maintained a low profile unlike his predecessor Chillcott. People like Chillcott and the present American Ambassador Blake, had a lot to do with Sri Lanka looking for other friends. If Hayes reads the Dudley Senanayake memorial lecture delivered in late 2007 by Chillcott, and carefully examines what Chilcott had to say about the LTTE and the doctrine of R2P (Right to Protect), he will see that there is no connection between the two. If the LTTE was what Chillcott said it was, then why was that talk of R2P necessary?

The talk of R2P was a veiled threat to the government of Sri Lanka. This, in a situation where Tony Blair, arguably the most successful prime minister in the history of the British Labour Party, had just got kicked out of office for having taken the country to war in Iraq. Gordon Brown has all but stopped fighting in Iraq, and is desperately looking for a way to get out. In the midst of all this, here was a British envoy talking about R2P, implying that the British government had a right to intervene in Sri Lanka. Are they really in a position to intervene anywhere after Iraq? Two British dead bodies from Sri Lanka and Gordon Brown also will join Blair in the list of former prime ministers. So basically this talk of R2P is nonsense. The new high commissioner to his credit, has spared us the pain of listening to such inanities, by keeping his lips sealed. Let’s hope that continues for some time at least. It could well be that Gordon Brown specifically instructed his new envoy to keep his trap shut without committing Britain to a theatre of conflict which involves the world’s deadliest terrorists.

The Americans were no less inclined to talk nonsense. The avowed policy of the American government is that they will not negotiate with terrorists. The FBI, has officially named the LTTE as the world’s deadliest terrorist organization beating even Al Queda to win that dubious distinction. The Americans, while refusing even to negotiate with terrorist organizations lower down the list, want the Sri Lankan government to not just to negotiate but also to unilaterally stop military action against the terrorist group that is right at the top of their own list. It is this lack of logic in the positions adopted by the west that has driven the Sri Lankan government round the bend, to seek the company of others who are less illogical in their attitude to the Sri Lankan problem. Like Britain, the Americans too, are in no position to intervene anywhere. The democratic candidates in the presidential race are committed to ‘bringing the boys home’ from Iraq and after America makes a tail-between-the-legs exit from Iraq, they will not have the political will to intervene anywhere for a very long time to come.

That’s the situation with Britain and the USA. What then is the situation with the EU? The EU is very much a part of the western encirclement of Sri Lanka. The threat to withdraw the GSP+ facility under which Sri Lankan garments are imported duty free into the EU because on human rights grounds is a case in point. If the facility was being withdrawn because the EU feels that the Sri Lankan garment industry has matured to a stage where they can now do without the GSP+, then that would be quite in order because the whole intention of the program was to help an industry to attain a certain level of development. But this threat to withdraw it is entirely due to the EU’s desire to see the war against terror in Sri Lanka stopped and not due to the reason that the Sri Lankan industry has reached a point where they could manage without it. When a concession is withdrawn without the industry being able to cope, this may result in the collapse of the industry throwing hundreds of thousands of female workers out of work. The very fact that the EU is willing to go to this extent to have the war against terror stopped, is indicative of the fact that their morality is not that of Ahamednajad’s but of that of Saddam Hussein.

In all western countries, it is an established practice that even when arresting a dangerous criminal, only ‘reasonable’ force can be used. If excessive force is used in making an arrest, those involved will have to answer for it. Furthermore, nobody, not even the LTTE, takes family members hostage when looking for a fugitive; but the EU is doing all this. The GSP+ facility has not been withdrawn yet, but the duress being put on the government negotiator Minister G.L.Pieris, suggests the coming colour. When a foreign donor threatens a government with the prospect of job losses numbering in the hundreds of thousands, what does that say about the donor? It is in this context that Sri Lanka has been forced to look for new friends. In a situation where the west is both irrational and unprincipled with regard to Sri Lanka, there is no alternative.

In 1956, when S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike changed the foreign policy of Sri Lanka from being pro-western to being middle of the road, that was entirely due to ideological reasons. But the foreign policy shift that Mahinda Rajapakse has been forced to make, has been more due to practical considerations than due to ideology. And as for dropping Iran, just because the west is concerned, we’d be fools to do that because many western countries had close links with Saddam Hussein when he was in his repressive prime. Besides, Hussein was a dictator whereas, Ahamednajad is a popularly elected leader.

NGO wars

How important the outcome of the eastern elections is for both the UNP and the PA can be gauged from the fact that this election has caused the mushrooming of new elections monitoring NGOs. For many years, the People Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) which is an umbrella group of many other NGOs, ruled the roost. But now, we see a new organization which is being given prominence by a certain TV channel. The new organization is called Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CAFÉ). In Sinhala PAFFREL goes as ‘Nidahas ha sadharana methiwarana sandaha jantha kriyakarithwaya, and the new organization which just came up for the eastern elections is called ‘Nidahas ha sadharana methiwarana sandaha janatha vyaparaya’. Needless to say that in Sinhala, news broadcasts the new organization passes off for PAFFREL as the general public is not yet aware of the subtle difference between the two names.

When the present writer contacted Kingsley Rodrigo, the chairman of PAFFREL and asked him about this new organization that has a name so similar that of his own organization, what he said was that the UNP has formed an elections monitoring NGO. He said that he welcomed more organizations getting into elections monitoring, but that they should not be affiliated to political parties. He said that PAFFREL had been around for twenty years and that this was the twenty sixth election that they were monitoring. In the meantime, another organization called Lanka Polls Watch made its appearance on the scene last week. Newspaper offices got a press release from them on Friday. The number of election related incidents reported in the east by the new organization Campaign for Free and Fair elections (CAFÉ), is much higher than the number of incidents mentioned by PAFFREL.