During the turbulent years of J.R.Jayewardene’s rule in the 1980s, it was towards the middle of the year that there was a sharp increase in political unrest - the July 1980 general strike, the anti-Tamil riots of July 1983 and the riots accompanying the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord of July 1987. The middle of the year has always been known for unrest and untoward happenings apparently due to the planetary positions, which is probably why in colloquial Sinhala, July is called Mala Juliya! We seem to be shaping up for another eventful July because of developments on two fronts, the LTTE and the JVP. The LTTE has stepped up its attacks on Sinhala civilians in the south obviously with the intention of creating ‘war fatigue’ among the Sinhalese or with the intention of provoking a backlash against Tamil civilians.

But the likelihood of the Sinhalese reacting in the pig headed way they did in the 1980s, when even the house of Inspector Bastiampillai – a key police figure in the crack down on Tamil terrorism in the 1970s - was torched during the 1983 riots, is quite remote now. Also it is unlikely that attacks on civilians is going to make the Sinhalese sue for peace at any price. If at all, it may lead to a hardening of attitudes. After the Nugegoda bomb some months ago when a time bomb exploded in the Next outlet at the Nugegoda junction, the National Movement Against Terrorism set up a board at the site for people to express their views. Instead of messages extolling the value of peace and the need to stop the carnage, what was written were hate messages, threatening dire consequences for terrorists and their sympathizers! There is also the perception among most Sinhalese that the reason why the LTTE is attacking civilian targets because they can no longer hold the military back.

Thus, contrary to what the LTTE may expect, every civilian attack reinforces the belief among the Sinhalese that the LTTE is on its last legs. The fact that most of these bombings are not suicide attacks but time bombs or remote controlled explosions, adds to this perception. Wave after wave of suicide attacks, gives an organization the appearance of virility – it shows that the organization still has people willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause. But when an organization renowned for suicide attacks, resorts to time bombs and remote controlled devices, the impression created is one of weakness, and the required fear factor may not manifest itself.

Another July 1980?

Far more significant is a new development involving the JVP. For the past couple of weeks, the JVP has been putting up posters all over the country demanding a Rs. 5,000 wage hike for all employees. The JVP made this demand for a Rs 5,000 wage hike about ten years ago during the Chandrika Kumaratunga regime as well. But at that time, Rs 5,000 was a ridiculous amount. Today however, in view of the recent price increases, the Rs 5,000 demand does not seem excessive at all. The reason why the JVP has fixed on a sum which is not excessive this time around is probably with a view to harnessing the maximum support for their demand, and to increase the chances of success. That the JVP has been planning a show of strength in the form of a general strike has been in the grapevine for some time. At a press conference held last Friday, the JVP gave an indication that this indeed was on their minds and that they would be coming to it sooner rather than later.

Speaking on a Ceylon Electricity Board Bill which was due to be brought before parliament on Friday, the JVP revealed that had the Bill been taken up, they would have called for a strike in the CEB. The JVP’s allegation is that the new Bill seeks to do away with the monopoly that the CEB has over the generation and distribution of electricity. The JVP alleges that this new Bill was aimed at giving the Indians who are planning to build a coal power plant at Sampur in the east, an IOC-style stake in the electricity industry in Sri Lanka. Most ominously, the JVP says that this bill which was supposed to have been brought before the house on Friday, will be taken up on June 17, and has threatened to prevent the passage of this bill even if they have to make it impossible for parliament to continue sittings on that day.

This threat to disrupt sittings may turn out to be empty bluster because the JVP has lost one third of its seats in parliament to Weerawansa’s JNP. The disruption caused by 26 MPs is different to what can be achieved with 39. With their current number, the disruption that the JVP will be able to cause will be like that of the TNA which has 22 MPs and which does put up such shows in parliament. But whether that kind of thing will suffice to disrupt sittings and prevent the passage of the Bill, is a moot point. Readers will remember that the four financial bills that were passed by parliament just before the budget last year were also passed in a situation where there was a concerted effort to prevent their passage. The point is that if the government has a majority in parliament disruption by a minority is unlikely to prevent the passage of legislation. Today the government has the numbers in parliament to command a comfortable majority.

If legislation is introduced to do away with the monopoly granted to the CEB on June 17, it dovetails with the JVP ultimatum that the government should respond to their more general demand for a Rs 5,000 wage hike before June 16. If the wage hike is not granted, the JVP plans to take industrial action. Even though the word has not yet been used, what we are confronted with here is the threat of a July 1980 style general strike. The reason why the word is not being used is probably because there has been no general strike in this country for the past twenty eight years and the memory of the last one would hardly be conducive to enthusing potential strikers. President Jayewardene effectively broke the back of the trade unions in this country by sacking the workers who struck work in July 1980. Trade unionism has never been the same since.

As for the workers who were dismissed by Jayewardene, many were either taken back or have found alternative employment. But for 28 years, the July strikers who fell by the wayside, have maintained their own trade union and have a separate May Day rally. The irony of it is that for nearly 14 of those 28 years, the leaders of the July 1980 strike have been in cabinet; but the problem has remained unresolved to date. Many of the July 1980 strikers who are now left, are elderly men and women who are long past retirement age and cannot be reinstated.

Last year Minister Rajitha Senaratne negotiated a compensation package for the remaining July 1980 strikers, which was that the government would give either a piece of government land or a foreign employment opportunity to a nominated family member of the remaining July strikers. In 2007, the July strikers had planned to celebrate May Day that year by smashing coconuts to invoke curses on those who led the strike. But it was called off and a normal rally held because of this package. But the July strikers held a May Day rally this year as well indicating that the compensation package that Minister Senaratne negotiated for them has not been implemented.

The sight of these elderly men and women going about their quest for justice has been a reminder for subsequent generations as to what can happen if a strike does not go according to plan. What the JVP is now planning is something like the 1980 July strike. But in 1980, the JVP which was then in democratic politics, opposed the strike. The 1980 July strike was led by the traditional left parties, the LSSP and the CP. Both the CP and the LSSP went through a life cycle when they from small beginnings built up a trade union base and a mass following in the country. Thereafter, their mass appeal declined, the leaders aged, with no young blood coming into those parties. But even in this declining phase the trade union base remained strong. By July 1980, both the LSSP and CP had ceased to be a force in local politics, but their trade union base was still strong.

The JVP now seems to be at the same stage in their life cycle that the LSSP and the CP were in at the time of the July 1980 strike. It is fast losing its popular appeal and the party is aging but is still a formidable presence in the trade union sector. Some weeks back the JVP won the elections to the Educational Cooperatives, defeating the SLFP. The whole country will have to wait with bated breath until next week to see whether the JVP is going to carry out their threat of a general strike. This may be a huge gamble on the part of the party. If their strike succeeds, their fortunes will be on the mend. However, if they call for a general strike and it turns out to be a flop, then their decline will be accelerated. There is plenty of cause to protest; but in this apolitical era, there are no guarantees that protests and demonstrations are going to succeed, especially if they require mass participation and are not limited to an organized minority.

The UNP called for a vehicle protest last week where vehicles on the roads were supposed to stop moving for five minutes and flash their headlights and blow their horns at 12 noon. However, even the traffic block that one usually sees at Lipton Circus at 12 noon was not to be seen on that day. Even while the Opposition Leader was on the roundabout trying to enthuse protestors, traffic was moving easily in the background. People these days don’t quite respond the way they may have in the past. The same issue may dog the JVP if they embark on a general strike. Either way, we will know what’s on the cards by next week.

Rukman Senanayake

For the past two weeks there have been whisperings about another leadership challenge within the UNP. One story doing the rounds, was that Lasantha Wickremetunga and Malik Samarawickreme had gone to Ranil Wickremesinghe and told him to become the presidential candidate and leader of the proposed grand coalition between the UNP, SLMC, SLFP(M), Chandrika Kumaratunga and the JVP but to allow Rukman Senanyake to take over the leadership of the UNP. This rumour, helped inflame the expectations of many people because if Samarawickreme and Wickremetunga both wanted Wickremesinghe out, there was no way he could continue. The present columnist heard this story two weeks ago, but didn’t bother to make any mention of it in this column because as I told the starry eyed messenger, Wickremesinghe is not going to agree to any suggestion to kick him upstairs and that even if this thing had actually taken place, Wickremesinghe’s only reaction would be to tell them to make Rukman Senanyake the leader of the grand coalition and the presidential candidate and that he’ll continue to remain UNP leader! Upon inquiry, it appears that neither Wickremetunga nor Samarawickreme had gone to Wickremesinghe with any such suggestion.

Then another rumour that did the rounds was that Johnston Fernando, Gamini Abeyratne, Lakshman Seneviratne and others had met at a Chinese restaurant down Galle Road, and were heard giving vent to their frustration with Wickremesinghe. In fact, Mahinda Ratnatilleke had brought this up in parliament last week with the remark that some people in the UNP were violating Wickremesinghe’s human rights by criticizing him in various restaurants. When the government parliamentary group met last week, Rajitha Senaratne asked Basil Rajapakse whether a group from the UNP had approached him to request his neutrality vis-a-vis the attempt to make Rukman Senanyake the leader of the party. Basil smiled but said nothing. Basil is an important player in any internal drama in the UNP because It he, among the three Rajapakse brothers, who is most keen to see that Wickremesinghe continues as UNP leader.

He played a major role in undermining the UNP reformist group – of which minister Senaratne is a member - at the height of their rebellion against Wickremesinghe, leaving them no option but to abandon the struggle and seek refuge in the Mahinda Rajapakse government. The reaction within the UNP to the defeat at the presidential elections was immediate, with some people deciding that Wickremesinghe had to go on the very day that the results were announced. The reaction to the defeat at the EPC elections has in contrast, been slower in coming, but something is certainly taking place with Rukman Senanyake as the focus. To many in the Wickremesinghe camp, Senanayake would be a more acceptable candidate for leadership than either S.B.Dissanayake or Sajith Premadasa. Moreover, Senanayake is not unacceptable to the Dissanayake and Premadasa camps either – with Senanayake having been very closely associated with President Premadasa.

The GSP+ nightmare

Wickremesinghe is being assailed from two sides, from within his own party and the government as well. The government orchestrated anti Wickremesinghe demonstrations which began upon his return from Europe to discuss the extension of GSP+ continued last week as well with a demonstration being held at the turn of to parliament drive. This is one of the main reasons why the PA government in general and Basil Rajapakse in particular wants to see Wickremesinghe continuing as the UNP leader. No one else in the UNP lends himself as well as Wickremesinghe does to labeling and demonizing. Take the headline story in last week’s Morning Leader for instance. The Morning Leader is not a newspaper critical of Wickremesinghe. The headline story was on a meeting between Wickremesinghe and some garment factory owners where the factory owners had requested Wickremesinghe not to canvass against the extension of the GSP+ scheme under which garments are exported to EU duty free.

So even these capitalist garment factory owners seem to believe that Wickremesinghe is out to prevent the extension of GSP+. If these people who are from Wickremesinghe’s own social and political milieu believe this, then the pro-government demonstrators who have been following Wickremesinghe around, believe that they are actually demonstrating against a traitor. The government orchestrated demonstration against journalist Iqbal Athas was amateurish and flat footed, because the demonstrators did not know who they were really demonstrating against. But when it comes to Wickremesinghe, even the most ignorant pro-government demonstrator is on familiar ground and this is reflected in the attitude of the demonstrators.

The story the UNP gave out to Sunday columnists about that meeting with garment factory owners was that Wickremesinghe told the anxious garment magnates that there was no point in applying for the GSP+ facility in a situation where the government is continuing to violate human rights. This is probably the last thing that the garment factory owners wanted to hear. The very purpose of that meeting was to ensure that the whole country speaks with one voice on the GSP+ issue, but Wickremesinghe has in effect refused to fall in line. He has not been forthright on this issue. His statements have been far from unequivocal, unlike the statements issued even by non-Sri Lankans like Niranjan Devaditya.

Wickremesinghe has however been consistent on one point – that he would be willing to provide the two thirds majority required to amend the constitution to render the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights fully applicable in Sri Lanka. We have been hearing differing opinions on this matter, with the government insisting that the ICCPR is fully operational in Sri Lanka under the existing legislation and the special enabling legislation passed late last year. The sticking point is apparently the first optional protocol to the ICCPR, which is not applicable in Sri Lanka. It is with regard to this that this talk of a constitutional amendment being necessary has emerged. If the constitution is amended to make the first optional protocol of the ICCPR applicable in Sri Lanka, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka will no longer be the final court of appeal and the decisions handed down by various international courts will be binding on Sri Lanka and on the Supreme Court. This is a point to which the government will never agree to because it has to do with the sovereignty of the country. The contest here is between ceding judicial power to foreigners and retaining such powers in Sri Lankan hands.

Naturally, the garment factory owners in this country will hardly be happy that their industry, which has been painstakingly built up over many years, has been placed in jeopardy because of a highly abstract controversy concerning the supremacy of the Supreme Court as against the supremacy of international courts of law. The last thing that Wickremesinghe needs at this stage is to be labeled as the individual who wants the SC to abdicate power to international courts in return for getting an extension of the GSP+ facility for another three years. Besides, GSP+ will be only for three years whereas the ceding of judicial authority through a constitutional amendment, is for all time.

Wickremesinghe has the unfortunate tendency to get identified with the wrong issue at the wrong time. Once the Sinhala public gets wind of the fact that the UNP wants to make the SC subordinate to international courts manned exclusively by Westerners, there’s going to be fireworks. And when they learn that this is in exchange for a measly three year extension of a 15% duty waiver, the UNP is really going to find it difficult to explain themselves.