They forget what they did to us

• In the matter of forgetfulness, especially of their blemished past and of their failures, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna seems to be attempting to outsmart President Jayewardene. They too have forgotten that they have been running the country for the past three years and are clueless as to how the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa supported by them collapsed

Former President J.R.Jayewardene was once, in around 1988, taking questions from an audience at the Sri Lanka Law College during a meeting where he delivered a lecture on something about democracy. The writer was covering the event for the now defunct Tamil daily, the “Dinapathi.” An elderly Tamil person stood and attempted to point out the contradiction between the theme of the lecture Jayewardene delivered and the practical side of it during his tenure as President.   

He said “I am a victim of your government’s actions. My house was torched under the nose of your security forces during the racist attacks against Tamils in 1983 and we, having lost everything had to stay in a refugee camp for weeks.” The audience burst out laughing with the answer the President whom many people call an old fox gave. “In 1983..? Was I in power? Wasn’t it Mrs. Bandaranaike?” Jayewardene asked.   

He has forgotten whether he was in office in 1983, a year that changed the entire course of the Sri Lankan history for the next three decades. Communal attacks flared across the country in that year and it paved the way for India to directly meddle in Sri Lanka’s affairs during Jayewardene’s tenure and thereafter. But the President who was in office in that year was not sure whether he ran the show. No, in fact he did not forget, but a shrewd man he was, he very cleverly dodged the question, even shifting the serious mood of the occasion.   

This kind of forgetfulness seems to be common to and contagious among almost all politicians. In a recent case in point, President Ranil Wickremesinghe during the budget debate in last November promised to resolve the ethnic problem before the 75th Independence Day that fell on February 4 this year. And he convened an “All-Party discussion on December 13 to give practical effect to his promise. However, by early January everything fizzled out with Tamil political Parties that insisted on the implementation of the 13th amendment to the Constitution prior to a final solution openly expressing their disappointment over the progress of the promise.   

Then the President presented a more practical agenda to resolve the issue, saying during the national Thai Pongal celebration held in Jaffna on January 15 that the 13th Amendment would be implemented fully during the course of next two years. However, as if he had forgotten these recent developments involving himself, the President again moved the winning post closer. He in a speech via zoom technology during this year’s May Day rally of his party, the United National Party (UNP) at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium said that an agreement would be reached on the resolution of the ethnic issue by the end of this year. Good intention, but unfounded deadlines.   

In the matter of forgetfulness, especially of their blemished past and of their failures, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna seems to be attempting to outsmart President Jayewardene. They too have forgotten that they have been running the country for the past three years and are clueless as to how the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa supported by them collapsed. Now they are attempting to hide their failures and corrupt rule behind various conspiracy theories.   

As we mentioned in our last week’s column, Namal Rajapaksa, the former minister and son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa first said at a recent event that the collapse of the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government was engineered as part of a conspiracy hatched since the defeat of the LTTE. In other words, he wants to convince the people who thronged the streets last year in their thousands chanting slogans like “Gota go home” that they did not have any reason for them to agitate so but they have been wittingly or unwittingly carried away by a plan engineered by the LTTE. Going by the theory, one has to conclude that now that the protests have ceased, the separatist forces seems to be content with the administration of President Ranil Wickremesinghe whom the SLPP voted into power.   

Later, during the SLPP May Day rally in Campbell Park in Colombo several MPs of the party such as Mahindananada Aluthgamage and Johnston Fernando backed Namal’s conspiracy theory claiming that the conspirators would be exposed in the future. Besides, Namal in a subsequent Facebook live discussion had stated that every single person involved in the Aragalaya was a pawn of a third party conspiracy and people would understand it later. Here, he did not refer to the LTTE. The memory loss is such that he seems to have forgotten that he has thus far been maintaining that “We don’t have any issue with the Aragalaya, but we have an issue with the Aragalayites (protestors).”   

Sri Lanka is still struggling to tackle the effects of the unprecedented economic crisis that engulfed the country last year. Referring to the blunders that aggravated the situation, Foreign Affairs Minister Ali Sabry in a Parliamentary speech in December said the decision by the government to cremate the bodies of Muslims who died of COVID 19 “lost us the support of several Middle East countries including the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) which consist of over 50 member countries.” He said the entire Cabinet was against the decision, but the committee of medical experts that handled the matter misled the government, while accusing a particular professor specifically.   
Again, Health Minister Keheliya Ranbukwella also echoed his stance days ago, while specifically accusing the female professor when he was replying to a question raised by Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) leader Rauff Hakeem. Their statements too sound a conspiracy theory, despite them having not put it in that way. These statements too point to the strange forgetfulness that the politicians suffering from. To say that the entire Cabinet was against forced cremation is far from the truth. Many Cabinet ministers including the then Health Minister, Pavithra Wanniarachchi defended it saying the World Health Organisation (WHO) is not always correct.

Wanniarachchi argued that health related decisions cannot be taken based on religious sentiments. Mahindananda Aluthgamage in a televised discussion vehemently opposed the demand for burial of cadavers of COVID 19 patients.   

These conspiracy theories cannot be thrust down the people’s throat, as farmers who were mainly instrumental to install the current SLPP government know why they took to streets last year while others still vividly remember how the days-long and miles-long queues and a thirteen-hour-long power cut pushed them to tell the leaders to go home.   

These theories are counterproductive in the light of the crisis having not been resolved. World Bank Country Director for Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Maldives, Faris Hadad Zervos while explaining the current respite during a recent interview with the Daily Mirror said “In the absence of large debt service payments, the authorities have been able to manage the outflows (mainly the import bill) with inflows such exports, tourism and remittances since the second half of 2022, leading to a balance of payment surpluses.” And he adds “In addition, the lack of demand for imports from the real sectors and increasing expectations of approval of the IMF programme contributed to a rise in foreign exchange liquidity, including through the unwinding of speculative Dollar holdings.”   

That means the current respite is nothing but the effects of the contraction of the economy and the default of foreign debts. Vindicating this point, the institutions under the Maga Neguma project were dissolved days ago for want of funds and thus Minister Bandula Gunawardene said that the State no longer can afford to maintain the country’s roads. The government reminded this week that the next round of electricity tariff hike that was announced last December is to take place in July while the people have not come to terms with the first round of it.   

Genuine expression of regret over the sufferings of the people coupled with a clear roadmap for the recovery of the economy would be more helpful to the SLPP than resorting to concocted conspiracy theories.