Ranil must quit politics to save the nation

by H.L.D.Mahindapala

One of the common criticisms levelled against Ranil Wickremesinghe by his close associates in the party and the media is that he is very slow on the uptake. This explains why he has missed the bus so frequently.

By the time he wakes up to the issues that need attention he finds that the issues have run away, or gone right round him and returned like a boomerang to whack him on his head.

Example: the mass exodus of his party men. Obviously, this is a clear sign of a man out of touch with the trends, the people, and most of all his own party. If a leader cannot feel the pulse of his own party then he ceases to be a leader. He has to revert to the backbench as a follower.

Besides, he has this tendency to evade confronting issues. Each time he faces a crisis he appoints a committee and goes to sleep, hoping that the crisis will go away on its own.

When he was in office he appointed scores of committees and nothing has come out of their reports. It is even doubtful whether he read any of those reports. That is Wickremesinghe at his best!

Farce

The tragedy is (for him) that whenever he decides to chase an issue it ends up as an irrelevant farce. Example: dressing up farmers in jeans and promising them computers as an election gimmick - an issue exposed publicly in the in-house publication of the leading advertising agency, Phoenix, run by his former organiser of the Maharagama electorate, Irvin Weerakkody.

Election results too have confirmed that he is the most irrelevant politician of the day, next of course to the lumpen Marxists like Vasudeva Nanayakkara and Dr. Vikramabahu Karunaratne. Sri Lanka today is faced with an irrelevant Right and Left. The upshot of this is that their irrelevant politics has placed the "Mahinda Chintanaya" right in the centre attracting diverse forces in the political spectrum.

The Right-wing represented by the UNP was relevant to the nation ever since it was established by the nationalist Senanayakes towering heads and shoulders above the more politically sophisticated Left-wing intellectuals.

In a sense it was the fashionable Marxist theories of the Left that made them irrelevant to Sri Lankan politics. Stuck in ideological fantasies they ended up in the bosom of the right-wing parties they condemned.

Right now the Right-wing too is going through the same charade of ideological fictions that ruined the Left-wing. Wickremesinghe's West-leaning political fictions have not brought any rewards to them except some photo opportunities for him to pose with Bush, Blair and John Howard.

The UNP did not establish a mass base by posing for pictures in various capitals of the world. The masses identified with the UNP mainly because the founding fathers of the party, the Senanayakes, were seen as guardians of the nation.

Right-wingers in any sphere of politics have relied essentially on a strong nationalistic base. Right-wing economics - attractive as they are in globalised markets - has to contend with nationalistic politics.

It is the Left-wing that goes for cosmopolitan politics of a universal brotherhood, at least in theory. Right-wing politics, though it professes liberalism without the left-wing rhetoric, does not go that far to abandon its nationalist base.

UNP learnt this when the party deviated under Sir John Kotelawela into a decadent Western style. He was perceived, rightly or wrongly, as the anti-national stooge of the West in the year of the Buddha Jayanthi.

It was the nationalist Senanayakes who had to rescue the party from the "Purple Brigades" of Sir. John, la-di-daing merrily on pigs roasting on the spit, as rumoured at the time.

The UNP is in this mess today because Wickremesinghe has dragged his party into the sterile politics of anti-national alliances and programmes. When the Senanayakes left the UNP it confirmed to the electorate that the UNP has been taken over by the anti-Sinhala- Buddhist forces. Wickremesinghe today is in the same predicament as Sir John.

Not only the electorate, even his party has marginalised him, forcing him to rely on horoscopes or acts of bravado that are as powerful as the fizz of a soda bottle. After it bubbles and boils over it goes flat.

Wickremesinghe's Achilles heel is the national question. On this critical issue he is trying to outdo Vasudeva Nanayakkara and the NGOs - a recipe for disaster. When he tells the World Press Freedom day (May 6, 2002) at the BMICH in Colombo, that "Tyranny of the majority prevails in this country" accusing the Sinhala-Buddhist majority of being tyrannical he is kicking the ladder that is supposed to take him to the top. Western audiences

It is, no doubt, music to the ears of the ICES from where his Secretary Bradman Weerakoon draws his pay cheque when he is not working for him. But what is the message he is sending to the Sinhala-Buddhist majority? His strategy, quite mistakenly, was to take the majority vote for granted and go for the minority votes, not to mention the Western audiences who have no votes at all.

In the end he neither got the majority vote nor the minority votes. This is how Wickremesinghe dug his own grave with his own two hands.

Some old party pundits have been producing reports highlighting the need to revamp the UNP. But there is nothing wrong with the UNP. It has a solid base and far-flung network in all the electorates.

The only thing wrong with it is its leader who is driving it to the ground with his blinkered politics of refusing to accept the realities undercutting the ground on which he stands. Even after successive defeats he refuses to learn the lessons staring in his face.

The thrust of his politics is to be more like Vasudeva Nanayakkara and Vikramabahu Karunaratne - i.e., to be more left than the loony left on the national issue without recognising that his battle is with the more astute Mahinda Rajapaksa who has beaten him hollow by occupying the centre.

President Rajapaksa has defined the centre and Wickremesinghe is making a vain bid to drag the "centre" to the left. Wickremesinghe would have won hands down if he adopted a centrist stand.

His futile attempts to define the viable centre by abandoning the national base of the party and the nation have landed him in the wilderness. There is no one to blame except himself. When he was rejected in the last presidential election with the combined forces of the south and the north he was spared mercifully a blood bath which he could never have handled.

Assuming that the electorate had given him a mandate he would have rushed to push his plans to hand over territory and adminstration to the Tigers. He would have reactivated the ISGA (or its equivalent) which Chandrika Kumaratunga had to abandon amidst rising opposition.

With the Mahinda Chintanaya reaching its peak, backed by the JVP, JHU the Patriotic Nationalist Movement he would have had to face a revolt from the south in addition to the one in the north. All in all, it is fair to say that Wickremesinghe was saved by his own folly. The nation too was saved another bloodbath by his defeat. His defeat in the last election was a victory for the nation.

Even at this late stage he has more to gain nationally and politically if he aligns himself with Rajapaksa than with the never-do-well Nanas and the Bahus of the nutty left. But he refuses to plan his future on viable strategies.

He either thinks that he can do it on his own by relying on his horoscope or that he has a better chance winning by outdoing the Nanas and Bahus. Only a leader of the crackpot Right would ever think of occupying the political space of the crazy Left.

Desertions of his keymen in the Party are just not a sign of their inability to relate to Wickremesinghe personally but also to his anti-national policies. His latest moves to topple the government are symptomatic of his inept politics.

His statement in parliament was supposed to be his ground-breaking policy statement on which he was planning to wage his war against the Rajapaksa government. It was even revised and published in The Hindu. But does it add up to anything? Consider, for instance, the following statement, relating to the bombing of the Katunayake air base:

The government has also proclaimed that it knew about the LTTE's Air Force and airstrips since 2005. Then how was it possible that such an attack was allowed to take place? It makes nonsense of the government's claims of defending the integrity of our country and protecting its people - the primary duty of any government of Sri Lanka.

A major plank of Wickremesinghe's latest offensive against the Rajapaksa government is based on the Tiger light planes bombing the Katunayake air base. His claim to defend the integrity of our country and protecting its people will be examined later. But the question that arises immediately is whether he is genuinely concerned about defending the country or is he, in the guise of speaking for the integrity of our country, attempting to make political capital out of a security lapse.

No doubt, this lapse must be investigated. But has he paused to examine his share of the blame for the attack on the Katunayake air base?

Vinyagamurthy Muralitharan alias Karuna, who was close confidante of Velupillai Prabhakaran and knew the other side of this story not only debunks Wickremesinghe's accusation but points the finger at Wickremesinghe.

Revealing that the LTTE had plans of strengthening their aerial attacking system and made use of Wickremesinghe's Ceasefire Agreement to rearm and consolidate his military capability Karuna states: "Ever since Jaffna was captured, Prabhakaran planned to purchase several small planes known as light aircraft from Thailand and other countries in the east to be assembled here.

After 1994, after the Riviresa operation, Prabhakaran started on a plan to purchase light aircraft. When the Cease-Fire Agreement (CFA) was signed between Ranil Wickremesinghe and Prabhakaran, the interim period was used to purchase light aircraft," he said.

As per the CFA, the LTTE was allowed access to and use of the sea for training and fishing after five months, the LTTE commenced smuggling weapons, ordnance and dismantled light aircraft by ship, aided by the clauses in the CFA," said Karuna.

He also stated that the LTTE also smuggled artillery during the CFA, "Some six 130 mm artillery guns, four 152 mm guns and more than 20 122 mm guns and Multi Barrel Rocket Launchers (MBRL) were smuggled in. They were brought by ship and unloaded off Challai near Mullaitivu".

What was Wickremesinghe doing when all this was going on? What was he doing when Prabhakaran was rearming himself to the teeth during the time he was Prime Minister and Minister of Defence?

To deny any culpability he states in The Hindu: "The government has also proclaimed that it knew about the LTTE's Air Force and airstrips since 2005." But Karuna in an interview with the media stated that "LTTE had plans of strengthening their aerial attacking system since the Government of United national Party (UNP) in 2002."

So isn't Wickremesinghe more responsible for the Tiger attacks than President Mahinda Rajapaksa who inherited the legacy left behind by him?

Karuna also revealed more damning evidence when he told the BBC that Prabhakaran was never interested in peace or a federal formula. His objective was to drag the peace talks for another five years or so until he could consolidate his position militarily, said Karuna.

Karuna's statement confirms what was commonly known in political and intelligence circles. But what action did Wickremesinghe take to meet the security threat posed by Prabhakaran from 2002? His only response was to send his peace emissaries to follow Anton Balasingham and Erik Solheim from city to city, surrendering to their demands without any reciprocal benefits to either to 'the integrity of our country' or for the protection of our people. Wickremesinghe's credibility has been shot to smithereens by Karuna's revelations.

It is also apparent that, as Prime Minister, he has failed to live up to the security standards he has set for President Rajapaksa.

One can agree with him that the Katunayake air raid was an incident that could have been avoided if the air base acted promptly and with greater vigilance. But in hindsight this could be said of even the 9/11 attack on the twin towers and Pentagon - the mightiest fortress in the world! Incidentally, if by any chance, he had discussed 9/11 with President Bush when he sat next to him in the White House did he make a big issue of the failure of national security and pressed him to change the guard at Pentagon?

Wickremesinghe is targeting the Defence Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, not because he is genuinely considered about national security or the people. How can he claim that when he exposed the most effective deep-penetrating unit on the concocted story that they were planning to target him. Because of his expose senior and skilled Police officers were shot inside Police station in Colombo.

Did he debate those security lapses in Parliament? His voice raised now to defend the security of the nation rings hollow when he had no qualms in dismantling the deep-penetration unit which was successfully targeting Prabhakaran's strategic points.

His known record in defending the nation is deplorable. Before Parliament decides to debate the Katunayake air base - not that it is necessary - it is imperative that a Parliamentary Committee should be appointed to investigate how Wickremesinghe ran down the defence establishment to appease Prabhakaran.

Wickremesinghe is degrading his own credibility by going down this futile track. His outburst in Parliament is riddled with hypocrisy. Take this sentence, for instance: "The private media are shackled and made voiceless." How soon he has forgotten what he did to Paul Harris?. He hounded him until he was given the marching orders to leave the country. He even banned him from returning to Sri Lanka.

Paul Harris told me that Wickremesinghe posted a security officer at Galle Face Hotel where he was staying to watch his movements. All because Paul spoke out against "the most scandalous and biggest sell out of a nation!"

Wickremesinghe also wrote in his revised article sent The Hindu under the pompous title "The way to resolve Sri Lanka's political crisis: The only way of getting out of this mess requires us to be transparent and take the people into confidence.

One can't resist but cry out: 'Bravo, Wicky, old boy!' In the same breath, one can't also resist asking: "Why the heck didn't you set the example when you signed the secret agreement with Prabhakaran without telling the President, the Cabinet, the Parliament, the Parliamentary Group, the party and above all the people who are now paying for the sins committed in the CFA?"

Here's another gem from his speech: "We the elected representatives of the people have a collective responsibility to work together to overcome this situation. This hypocrisy is absolutely irritating.

In the name of the war-weary people who have been deceived, misled and exploited purely for his gain may I say without pulling any punches: Instead of this empty yaketty-yakking, Mr. Wickremesinghe, why don't you just do what you say has to be done because you know that you alone can never achieve what you say has to be achieved.

And if you can't work together - working together is "the collective responsibility", you say - just leave politics to those can work together.

You can't even work with your own party men. How can you work with others? You have done enough damage to this nation. If you leave politics now people will remember that as your lasting contribution to this nation.