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| Sunday, 12 February 2006 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Politics unpacked : Peace and makeovers A life in the day of GL
Some say that Professor Peiris's problem is that one and two are right, and the second one is also right, except what gets to him is that nothing can be done about the second. On his own certainly he is small beer compared to Ranil Wickremesinghe in terms of political stature. But, they say he is always ready and willing to sponsor a giant such as an Athulathmudali or a Gamini Dissanayake to make that second reality an unreality which is to make Wickremesighe scoot from the party leadership. But there is nobody in the party that he can sponsor to do this for him. No Athulathmudalis nowadays. So what do they do with Professor Peiris, on the government's side of the political divide? From that side, we guess there is however, a pleasant view of the Professor as a benign soul. But what can anybody do about the Professors' possible internal political confusion?? One day it's almost certain as bird flu swamping some parts of world that Professor G.L. Peiris would cross over. But the next day he issues a statement which makes us think that if not real marriage he has at least a common law marriage with the UNP. We must say in all fairness how are we sure whether he wanted to crossover or not? We are not sure at all, mind readers we aren't. But its heady, it must be, his political existence. So we represent him thus (see accompanying sketch?) Does Professor's Peiris's worst nightmares (or his sweet dreams) end up looking like this at all, Mr. or Mrs. or Miss reader? Moragoda makeover?
An off the wall columnist recently wrote that the voters have dumped Mr. Moragodas' neo-liberal pro-American Economic Chinthanaya. But the man who is more Bush than George Bush this time took the columnist's attack gently. He asked the faithful flunkey who works in the Moragoda inner sanctum to call the writer and say mea culpa maybe you were correct and I was wrong about at least some aspects of my Chinthanaya. Does that mean that this country is now forever discarding the Moragoda Chinthanaya because the chief apostle himself has turned out to be a Judas to his own philosophy? At least he is self effacing, and we need to say chuck it chum, to a man who whether sincerely or in the interests of good PR, calls columnists to say that he is re-thinking his basic political value system. It's good economics too, at the cost of one cellphone conversation. Peace with Nimal
So inevitably there are some who are feeling so left out that they are almost out of the frame. One such person commenting on Mr. Nimal Siripala de Silva's helmanship of the peace ship, said that Mr. de Silva does not have a peace track record...... But when they learnt that there were so many people from the peace industry and outside educating Mr. Silva, they backed down and quickly hid their criticism under a bushel. Translation: conflict resolution specialists are now finding it difficult to pick much holes in the peace team's preparations. Well okay, performance at the talks is another matter - but the team has been briefed by most everybody from pacifists to the ever watchful and overcautious. Those in the industry cannot doubt the sincerity of the peace team under these circumstances. So finally they resorted to saying something like this: "Nimal Siripala de Silva is short in stature, how is he gong to look physically in contrast to Solhiem and Balsingham and Tahmilchelvan and the other key players who have longs legs.'' Poor in terms of comeback, rich in terms of imagination. Pressing issues
We do not want to go into the right or wrong of the issues here; all we want to say is that Mr. Peiris was keen to meet somebody from the press who might actually talk to him like a human being. He was surprised that there were some who were willing to raise a cup of cheer with him, no matter where they or their newspapers stood on the issues. It appeared that Mr. Peiris saw the human face of press freedom in this country and he was heartened. When or how he wants to set the record straight for himself or whether he wants to do it at all is another matter; as far as the press is concerned he may even get the idea that scribes are after all only doing their job. Money money money
Without Claymore mines or grenades, under-radar, there may be a stealth bomb aimed at Colombo in the form of economic encroachment by the felines. There is some anxiety that real estate and key economic areas particularly in private enterprise may go under control of those who represent the Tigers? Some big businesses they say have run the risk already of falling under the cat's claw. This conflict went from outright warfare to propaganda warfare to
economic warfare. How many new other fronts can open up? |
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| Produced by Lake House |
This is still an apocryphal story - but it so close to the truth that we
almost touch it. Professor G. L. Peiris is supposed to have said that there
are three certainties in life as he sees it today.(a) One is that Mr. Ranil
Wickremesinghe will not leave the UNP Party Leadership, (b)The second is
that the party cannot get rid of him. (c) The third is that UNP cannot win
any elections with him leading it. 
Milinda Moragoda is enjoying his stay in the opposition so much that it
appears almost as if he never expected the UNP to win. Just joking!!!! But
if are to take it from the vibes that come from his inner circle, he is
seriously refurbishing the Moragoda Chinthanaya. 
A hurricane blew through the entire peace industry and left many of the
industry captains feeling left out, but eventually we say with all due
respect that most of them contributed in their traditional way of providing
conflict resolutions nostrums and manthrams. But not every peace expert's
fantasy can obviously go into the governments peace-making package. 
Ronnie Peiris who was feeling quite aggrieved due to some sort of
newspaper reporting that had to do with him, was recently back in the
country returned from old Blighty. 
With the talks coming around in Geneva, there is some concern about the
fact that there are several ways that the striped kind can assert itself.
