In 1993 Pooneryn, along with the LTTE attack on the Janakapura army camp in Welioya, was the first of a string of military debacles that Sri Lankan governments were to suffer at the hands of the LTTE in the decade of the 1990s, culminating in the greatest debacle of all - Elephant pass. General Cecil Waidyaratne who was the army commander during the Pooneryn and Janakapura debacles took responsibility for the disasters and resigned. One of those appointed to the military Court of Inquiry to investigate the Pooneryn debacle of 1993 was then Brigadier Sarath Fonseka. The Pooneryn camp was never completely overrun by the LTTE even though around 600 soldiers died trying to defend it. A small group of soldiers held on until reinforcements arrived.

At the Pooneryn inquiry it transpired that the debacle was entirely due to the negligence of the officers on site. The forward defense lines had not been secured in the proper manner and within the FDLs there had been a refugee camp. The LTTE had been infiltrating the refugee camp for weeks before the attack was launched. Later it was discovered that many of the dead LTTE cadres found on the scene had in fact been carrying army rations – which had been given to the refugees for their sustenance! That was a time when there was extensive Tamil civilian support for the LTTE. This shows how much things have changed between now and then.

Today the LTTE finds it difficult to enthuse the civilian population to voluntarily give them such cover. The liberation of Pooneryn was cause for much celebration in the country last week. The Mahanayake of the Asgiriya chapter summed up the popular feeling in the country when he told the president who visited the Dalada Maligawa that military policy which had been floundering for three decades had been brought into line by Rajapakse. These thoughts were echoed by the Mahanayake of Malwatte as well. He advised the president that he should not retract the step he took forward.

It would appear that the government is trying to gain some political mileage from this victory as the first thing the president told the SLFP central committee which met last week was that they should gear themselves for a provincial council elections in the remaining provinces which will not be staggered but held together. He advised the SLFP members not to allow what happened at the NCP and Sabaragamuwa PC elections, where the relatives of ministers were fielded as candidates, to occur again. He said that up and coming rural leaders of the SLFP had to be given a chance.

With the provincial council elections coming up, the burning of Dr Johnpulle’s house in Anuradhapura was beginning to haunt the SLFP. This was the single most significant election related incident after Mahinda Rajapakse came into power and it was discussed at the SLFP central committee meeting. Members pointed out that even though the burning of the house was highlighted by everybody, nobody was speaking of the shooting that took place from within the house which seriously injured two in the UPFA procession which was passing the house thus turning the procession into an enraged mob. But no mention was made that the shooting, by Johnpulle’s account, was when processionists entered the premises, attacked a cut out of Maj. Gen. Janaka Perera there and beat up Johnpulle himself.

Dr Kumar Rupesinghe, the NGO kingpin in this country, says that all is not lost with regard to GSP+ and that some people are working behind the scenes to salvage it. He insists that this question of an investigation has been misconstrued and that when GSP+ is to be extended for another period, there is a routine inquiry as to the proper implementation of the 27 international conventions and this should have been allowed by the government. He also says that the government should have invited the trade unions to be involved so that they could have presented a common front to the EU. In its last letter to the government on the extension of GSP+, the EU had stressed that they were interested only in three areas. Viz; the implementation of the provisions of the ICCPR on the ground, the implementation of the convention against torture and the question of child recruitment in contravention of the convention on the rights of the child and that an investigation will be launched with regard to these three areas. One of the things that the EU had conveyed to the government verbally was that they were not interested in the debate that erupted in Sri Lanka late last year to the effect whether the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was applicable in Sri Lanka.

Just two weeks ago, the leader of the opposition said that GSP+ could be retained by amending the constitution and that the UNP would be prepared to give the government the required two thirds majority in the House. This was flatly rejected by the prime minister. If the constitutional amendment was thought to be what was required to get GSP+ extended, then that was not going to happen, because what the EU was interested in was not the question of the applicability of the ICCPR in Sri Lanka – they seemed to have for all practical purposes accepted the opinion of the supreme court on this matter. The court held that the existing laws of the country incorporate the provisions of the ICCPR. What they were looking at was the implementation of these provisions on the ground.

When the government asked the EU what an investigation will entail, the EU had said that representations will be received from all parties concerned and an investigator will be appointed. When asked what sort of a person this ‘investigator’ will be, the government was told that it would be a law professor familiar with the 27 international conventions. It was at this point that the government had conveyed to the EU that the government would not be willing to countenance an investigation.

Among the arguments of the government is the contention that there is no provision in the EU’s own regulations for the delegation of such an investigation to third parties. Be that as it may, the main reason for the government’s reluctance to allow this investigation to take place was due to the negative sounds emanating from the EU. One of the main reasons for the government’s decision was the use of the word ‘weapon’ with regard to GSP+ by the EU’s External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner at a gathering which included Sri Lankan government bureaucrats such as the then Director of Commerce Ms Manel de Silva and a representative of the garment industry, Mr Ajith Dias.

Kumar Rupesinghe, analyzing the last letter of the EU to Sri Lanka says that what the EU is mainly interested in with regard to the implementation of the ICCPR is the direction of the presidential commission of inquiry into extra judicial killings. Rupesinghe says that the presidential commission of inquiry is in the process of completing its work and has completed some of its investigations. He says that what is necessary now is for the witness protection bill now in parliament be amended to satisfy international standards. On the issue of torture, he says that there is a special rapporteur’s report on addressing the issue in Sri Lanka, and those recommendations have to be implemented, because torture is not something any democracy should tolerate.

He suggests that a high powered committee be appointed like the one that was appointed to look into the spate of abductions in the recent past to see that proper action is taken to bring those responsible for torture to book. With regard to the issue of child recruitment, at least with regard to the TMVP, there has been significant reduction of child recruitment and that if these cadres join the armed forces, the problem will cease to exist. Rupesinghe says that therefore the government should have faced up to the inquiry. When there is a war going on, certain untoward incidents may have occurred, and what was important was to demonstrate that action was being taken on those cases. He says that these measures will suffice to demonstrate that the concerns of the European Commission have been met.

When it was pointed out to Rupesinghe that the whole tenor of the pronouncements with regard to Sri Lanka by the European Commission, over the past several months has been extremely negative, he says that the last letter that the European Commission sent is not all that strident. Rupesinghe further says that the persons who are issuing the press statements are not conducting the inquiry. He says that these bodies don’t believe in rhetoric and that all they are interested in is whether the government seems keen to implement those international conventions. He says that the statements issued by the political wing of the European Commission has nothing to do with GSP+ and that those conducting the inquiry will consult the 27 bodies overseeing the 27 international conventions as to what is happening in their own areas of interest. These are professional bodies that will not be swayed by rhetoric.

With regard to the UNP(D) group, no decision has at yet been arrived at as to whether they are going back to the UNP. To those agitating within the UNP for the return of the 17 defectors, Ranil Wickremesinghe had given the reply that he would be calling them for discussions after he returns from India. He returned from India on Thursday. But within the UNP(D) group, as the discussion about their future drags on, there is less and less conviction that anything within the UNP was going to change. There is moreover the suspicion about the bona fides of the UNP. They do not suspect the good intentions of those who invited them back, but the intentions of the party leader are not yet clear to them. They feel that the UNP leader is trying to do to them what they say he did to Wijepala Mendis in 2001. Mendis, after a running battle with Wickremesinghe, defected to the Chandrika Kumaratunga government in 1999 on the eve of the presidential election of that year.

In 2001 as Gamini Atukorale and others stepped up their campaign to topple the PA regime, one prong of that strategy was to win back UNPers who had defected to the PA. Mendis was taken back in 2001 on that basis. The UNP(D) group says that after taking Mendis back, the UNP leader fielded Olitha Premathiratne from the Gampaha district and promoted him instead of Mendis. Olitha made it to parliament and Mendis lost. So some members of the UNP(D) group says that with these latest moves to get them back, is an attempt to do to them what was done to Mendis earlier. When the present writer pointed out that Wickremesinghe went to the Gampaha district in 2001 and asked the people to cast a vote for Wijepala Mendis, they still insist that Wickremesinghe promoted Olitha against Mendis and even financed his campaign.

Even though the UNP(D) group has been discussing their future for weeks now, nobody has as yet expressed confidence that there’s going to be any change within the UNP. The UNP(D) group is also mindful of the attitude of their old detractors within the party. Some weeks ago, Galle district parliamentarian Vajira Abeywardene had addressed the Matale electoral bala mandalaya at the house of Ranjith Aluwihare where he had been asked some questions about the return of the UNP(D) group. When he had been asked by one party activist what kind of position they will have once they return, Abeywardene had pointed to the back of the meeting where there had been some empty chairs and said "That’s where they will be"– or so the UNP(D) group says.

When this newspaper contacted Abeywardene and asked him whether he had spoken at the Matale electoral bala mandalaya meeting, he answered in the affirmative. When asked what he had said about the UNP(D) group returning to the UNP, he stated that what he had said was that anybody who leaves can always come back to the party and that the doors were open. Asked whether he thought that those who return should hold the same positions in the party they held earlier, Abeywardene declined to comment on that.

As this columnist said a couple of weeks ago, the UNP(D) group is now in the position of waiting to be re-admitted to the UNP obviously not on their terms but on the terms of the party leadership. Last week, UNP dissident Minister Gamini Lokuge and UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake had both been invitees at the opening of a new public crematorium at Arewwawela in the Kesbewa electorate. When the people present had surrounded Lokuge, who is a very popular politician in the area, and asked him whether he was going to contest the next election from the UNP or the UPFA, Lokuge, who stands a good chance of getting elected from either party, had pointed to Attanayake and said, "The party general secretary is here. Why don’t you ask him?" In other words, the UNP now has the upper hand completely and the UNP(D) group knows that. Attanayake replied non-commitally saying that there were no permanent friends or enemies in politics.

When the UNP(D) parliamentary group met last week, Karu Jayasuriya said that they had been discussing matters in a very democratic manner and that he needed the personal decision of each member as soon as possible. Jayasuriya himself, can get elected from either the UNP or the UPFA. But some of the others don’t have the same confidence and as the leader of the group, he will have to bow to the majority opinion within the group. As a whole, the UNP(D) group’s decision to join the government was ad hoc and not as well thought out as the decision of the Weerawansa group to defect from the JVP.

The complicating factor in the UNP(D) group is that none of them have anything against the UNP as a party. The only issue they had was with the leader and the way things were done within the party. But in the JVP’s case, there was a fundamental shift of party policy and that made it impossible for those disagreeing with that shift, to remain within the party. Some of those in the UNP(D) group may be wondering quite rightly whether it is worth severing links with the grand old party simply because they have an issue with the leader. They may feel that it is better to go back and eat humble pie for a while and see which way the cookie crumbles because there is this feeling that Wickremesinghe may not be able to cling on forever and that he may go after the provincial council or parliamentary elections if he loses them.

If this happens then the UNP(D) group may have severed links with the UNP for no reason! In this context, it may be noted that the president’s astrologer, Sumanadasa Abeygunawardene, had said in an interview with the Silumina some time ago, that astrologically speaking, Wickremesinghe may not be able to hold on to the UNP leadership after December as he is coming in for a bad period which indicates loss of position. Even without such astrological predictions, Wickremesinghe’s position is precarious, which is obviously why there is so much indecision and humming and hawing within the UNP(D) group as to which path to take.

This column has been saying in the past few weeks that the JVP was showing signs of thawing towards the government. Another indication in that direction became manifest last week in a background where the JVP had made a prior announcement that they would be voting against the budget. Last week, the JVP central committee met in the absence of party leader Somawansa Amarasinghe who was away in Italy attending commemorations of the JVP’s second insurrection. One of the issues discussed was the liberation of Pooneryn.

Vijitha Herath said that Pooneryn was militarily vital and also important in opening up a land route to Jaffna. He said that it will also enable the government to consolidate the areas they have already liberated and that the honour of this victory should go entirely to the armed forces. However, the country must also thank the political leadership that made this victory possible. After the JVP distanced itself from the Rajapakse regime, they continued to praise the victories of the armed forces but they criticized the government for trying to make political capital of the victories. This was the first time since they broke with Rajapakse, that the JVP acknowledged the role of the political leaders who were providing leadership to the war.

The JVP central committee also discussed the question of a snap parliamentary election and observed that in the face of the worsening economic situation the future did not look too bright and that this might motivate the government to have a snap election. Anura Dissanayake said that the government will use the military victories in their election campaign. When the JVP controlled Patriotic National Centre met last week under the chairmanship of the Ven Dambara Amila, they too praised the Pooneryn victory and decided to carry out a poster campaign to mark the event. Thus almost at every turn the JVP ends up wittingly or unwittingly applauding the government’s achievements. Last week at the SLFP central committee meeting, when Maithripala Sirisena reported that he had held discussions with the parties in the alliance and got a good response, Basil Rajapakse had said that they should also talk to parties outside the alliance such as the JVP, the SLMC and the JNP. This perhaps is the opening that the JVP may have been waiting for.

Last week, a delegation of the JHU had a discussion with the Indian High Commissioner and other officials of the Indian High Commission in Colombo. The JHU delegation pointed out that because of the Indian intervention of 1987, the Sri Lankan population regarded India with a certain amount of suspicion and that India should take steps to dispel those fears and that pro-LTTE forces both here and in Tamil Nadu were trying to disrupt the good relations between the two countries. Ven Omalpe Sobitha said that the pro-terror groups in Tamil Nadu had to be marginalized by building up the anti-terror lobby in India. In reply to this, the Indian High Commissioner had said that India was against terrorism, but at the same time, they were also vigilant about the humanitarian needs of the Tamil people.