[Tribute]

The photo that he never saw

by Shanika Sriyananda

[email protected]

After concluding the interview for Sunday Meeting the busy Minister was about to get up from his seat to go for an important meeting at the Ministry. I could not but help interrupt him: “Mr. Minister can I ask just a few more questions?”. He made a face but did not say a word.

“Can you tell me about your childhood?”, I posed the question with trepidation, expecting a terse reply. In fact, I thought I would be chased out for asking such a naive question from a such a busy person and waste his precious time! Instead, he went back to his mischievous past quite candidly , recalling his childhood, sometimes with a touch of humour as well.

I was able to pen down the political interview with a more humane touch thanks to his description about his personal details. His stressfulness was eased as he started talking about his plans for the future. I realised his biggest dream was to see his son, who wants to do law to follow his footsteps.

“But, I know my wife would not allow him to enter politics, because it is so tough and risky”, perhaps he might have sensed that his life is in danger because of his bold criticisms of the LTTE and terrorism.

Minister of Highways Jeyaraj Fernandopulle after the interview asked our photographer Vipula Amarasinghe to take some pictures of him which he wanted to make use of at the election campaign. He called one of his staffers to greet him like a party supporter.

Minister posed for the photo with his usual attractive smile. Vipula took some other photographs of the Minister too. I do not know whether he ever saw those pictures but some of them were in the posters which have been stuck on the walls of Colombo, after his demise. Today we carry the caricature by our cartoonist Jagath Punchihewa with the same photo, which he did not see.

A week after the ‘Sunday Meeting’, Minister’s Chief Security Officer Chief Inspector, Dileep Kannangara called me saying that Minister Jayaraj wanted to speak to me. “Thanks for the article. I enjoyed it”, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Dileep who coordinated the interview with the Minister, too breathed his last on that fateful day with his master, where their lives were blown off in a terrorist bomb explosion.The truth is the Minister Jayaraj is no more.

But the universal truth is that the LTTE and terrorism is still in existence. The single most crucial question, people of Sri Lanka, irrespective of ethnicity, ask is when to end this gruesome terrorism.

The Mahinda Rajapaksa Government while addressing all other economic problems, is marching ahead defeating terrorism effectively. At this juncture, where the country’s leaders are being killed one by one, how fair for us to remain politically divided and fighting for power?

The only direction that we, who are divided into blue, green, red and white, are leading to destruction, while the LTTE terrorism is thriving ‘eating’ into the entire country. It is a pity that our politicians who are mandated to foresee the future of this country are ‘blind’.

In developed countries, all the political circles are in one fold when addressing national issues. But, the politicians who mourn and give pledges to eradicate LTTE terrorism when their colleagues were getting assassinated, help the LTTE terrorism in their ‘greed’ for power.

But, all politicians need to remember that the LTTE Leader Vellupillai Prabakaran does not have friends in this bloody war- in his pipe dream - Eelam.

The kilings of political leaders started with the Mayor of Jaffna Alfred Duraiappaha and up to now Prabhakaran has silenced nearly two dozens of political leaders who went against the LTTE.

Once in an interview with a web based news agency, Ven. Maduluwawe Sobitha Thera said : “If the LTTE’s killing of political leaders increases, there would be no politician left other than Prabhakaran, who would remain to rule the country in future”.

Instead of mourning and issuing a statement, the need of the hour is to join hands to defeat this ‘tumour’ - the LTTE and Prabhakaran

That little boy, who was brave enough to walk eight miles alone, had sufficient courage to swim against the ‘tidal waves of terrorism’ for the freedom of the land, not only for his own community but for the sake of all Sri Lankans.We all wish that Minister Jayaraj to be the last ‘prey’ of Prabhakaran!

Who is Jeyaraj Fernandopulle

(Reproduced from Sunday Observer February 24, 2008)

The little boy was tough to his age. And also being ‘brave’, the five year-old lower kindergarten kid walked eight kilometres alone from the Ave Maria Convent, Negombo to his house, the day he was punished for wasting water filled in a bucket at the school premises.

“When I recall that incident which happened in 1958, now I feel, bit scary and dangerous to walk eight kilometres alone at that age”, that was the feeling of a Minister about his own mischievous past where he was the naughtiest of his family.

Having no hopes any more, he is happy that he could fulfilled his life long desire to become a Cabinet Minister. “I have no other hopes. But I like to see my son, who wants to do law, in politics one day”, that is the wish of the Government Whip and the Highways and Road Development Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle.

Unable to bear injustices, the young Jeyaraj, who was the Head Prefect of the school, protested against a certain decision of the Chemistry teacher of the Maristela College when he was doing Advanced Level Examination.

He led a group of 37 students to boycott the exam and refused to ‘say sorry’ as he believed he did not do any wrong. But he was suspended from doing the exam. This incident spiked his longing to become a politician and the determined youth decided to become a lawyer before entering into politics.

Today, this experienced politician who faced many ups and downs in his political life believes that the younger generation needs a tough skin to survive in politics. “I do not think that they will be able to face the agony we faced in politics”, he said.

Planning to practise law from the day he quits politics, this Government Whip, who is not dared to say anything against those who harm the image of the country, says he is a very humble and simple person in his normal life.

Basil Rajapaksa, MP, Senior Advisor to the President

He is not only a political friend but also a family friend. He was a batchmate of my brother Mahinda Rajapaksa at the Law College. During the Presidential elections he helped President Rajapaksa a lot and worked along with me.

I still remember how happy he was on the day, I was the Parliament. Minister Jeyaraj is like a brother to me. He always advised me and guided me. I can still remember the day I delivered my maiden speech. He was in the front row as the Government Chief Whip but moved to the back bench and sat next to me giving me the courage. He was there until I finished my speech.

That fateful day he called me at 5.30 in the morning and asked what I was doing. I jokingly said what else to do other than sleeping. Then he told me “you people are sleeping, I have already started my work”. Then we discussed about the election campaign

.I miss him a lot.

Prof. Ravindra Fernando

A few days after Minister D. M. Dassanayake was assassinated, I heard over the radio Jeyaraj Fernandopulle saying that the deadly LTTE claymore bomb was not targeted at him but for Minister Dassanayake.

I immediately telephoned Jeyaraj. He was at a meeting and I gave my contact number to his security officer. A few minutes later Jeyaraj rang and asked “Why Professor.” I told him that I am certain that he was the target of the claymore bomb and as to why he is denying it.“I know it Professor. It was for me. But if I admit that my family will be worried,” he said. “But you have to be careful.

They will try again” I advised him. “Yes, I know I have to be careful” he admitted. But was he? As a politician moving very closely with the common man, he perhaps did not take the advice of his security personnel to take necessary precautions.

As a prominent Minister of the Government who is highly critical of the LTTE, his security personnel should have known that he would be a target. After his death, Jeyaraj is made a ‘hero’, ‘martyr’ and a ‘patriot’.

‘Yes, absolutely’: no doubt about that. But I would like to see these ‘heroes’, ‘martyrs’ and ‘patriots’ among us ‘alive and well’ and serving the nation, rather than dead. How many more Jeyarajs, Premadasas, Kadirgamars, Ranjans, Gaminis, Laliths and CVs would be assassinated before we see the dawn of peace?

Dayan Jayatilleka, Ambassador to the UN in Geneva

The assassination of Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle is the second killing of a Government Minister for this year, but only the latest of many dozen politicians, government and opposition, Sinhala and Tamil, Buddhist, Hindu and Christian, slain over the years by the Tamil Tigers.

The Tigers kill our leaders, our elected representatives, our children. They terrorize our towns and threaten our territorial integrity. They besiege our todays and our tomorrows. Taken together, the Tigers pose an inescapable threat to our existence, as a state and as citizens, as a collective and as individuals, at every level and in every sphere.

We, none of us, are safe, so long as the Tigers are not overcome; so long as they have not been divested of the capability of waging war against our state and society.

This divestiture cannot but be coercive, violent. If we are to survive, the Tigers have to be destroyed. In the aftermath of the assassination of Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, we must renew that realization and rededicate ourselves to that task.

There is no alternative for us; for Sri Lanka as a state and Sri Lankans as a (multiethnic, multicultural) nation and a people.

To put it bluntly, the best answer to the loss of Jeyaraj is to politically empower those Tamil politicians who by a reactivated 13th amendment, can cut across the global narrative of a Sinhala war on the Tamils, and inflict strategic (politico-military-social- psychological) damage in the rear of Prabhakaran, our absolute, existential enemy.

Nesan Shankar Raji, Senior member of the EROS

Minister Fernandopulle was a great Tamil-Catholic leader and a respected politician who had committed so much of his life for the benefit of all our communities living in Sri Lanka. It is a great loss to our nation.

It is precisely because of continued killings of our national leaders by the LTTE that the Government of Sri Lanka has no other alternative but to deal with the LTTE and treat them as terrorists.

The LTTE deserve no mercy and this is something that should have been understood a long time ago. Our country has allowed this terrorist movement to grow and grow... The LTTE are not the representatives of the Tamils and they can never claim to be. They are just cold-blooded terrorists who choose to cause nothing but death to our people and destruction to our beautiful country.

We trust and hope that the Government of Sri Lanka and our Armed forces will do all they possibly can, to liberate the remaining territories in the from the clutches of the LTTE and restore peace and democracy to our entire island nation.