Nation’s stability again in peril!

As the cat jumps out of the bag:

Special correspondent

As the cat jumps out of the bag By Special Correspondent Sri Lanka has spent almost 30 out of 60 years of her independence in a turmoil that brought horrendous sufferings to her people. The country has failed to achieve the development that has been achieved by some of her fellow nations in the region. Interestingly, Sri Lanka never had dictators, communist regimes, or rulers belonging to religious or racial extremist groups in her history. Yet, we have failed to achieve stability to bolster sustainable development. The reasons for our inability to do so, if looked at closely were partly internal and partly external.

Our political leaders and of course the people who elected them had made serious mistakes that were ultimately detrimental to the country. Also, there is ample evidence how external interlopers have capitalized on our mistakes to keep us under their jackboots. The recently ended terrorist war is the best example.

The focus of this article is not to dig the past and conduct a post-mortem. It is to understand what is happening around us now, comparing to what had happened in the past. Now, the war has been won against terrorism, and we are located in a region where the economy is rapidly growing.

The opportunity is certainly there for us to achieve prosperity in the near future. What can deny us of that achievement is the instability of our nation.

Rise of the “care-taken” candidate For the first time in our country’s history a military leader is seeking power in the nation. Ex-military men coming into politics through democratic means is not a strange phenomenon. Yet, the majority of them have come to politics after getting sufficient experience through actively participating in party politics. Such leaders never sold their military careers but had the political vision to win elections.

There is of course, another type of military leader, who comes into politics by undemocratic means. They sell no political vision but grab power by treason and end up as dictators. We have more than enough examples for such unfortunate countries in the modern world. After careful thought, one can see that retired General Sarath Fonseka falls into the category of those who run military juntas rather than an ex- serviceman coming into mainstream politics. The best way to understand this, is to compare Fonseka with Dwight Eisenhower, an ex army general who became President in the United States.

More careful thought to the comparison given above helps us to perceive the situation that Fonseka has to face in case he becomes the president. How is going to manage the conflicting interest of the parties backing him? How is he going to establish law and order if he loses the support of Parliament? With the kind of motives that brought him to politics, can he be expected to strip off the powers of the Executive Presidency and hand over the country to Ranil Wickremesinghe? Total anarchy at the next budget will be the sure result if he was really elected President. Thus, the very idea of Fonseka becoming the President means losing the nation’s stability.

Political bankruptcy

When we look at the political parties lined up behind Fonseka, there is only one resemblance among them. That is, they all were dead against the war on terror successfully accomplished by President Rajapaksa. If we look at their behaviour in the past in brief:

* UNP- is party that failed to control Black July and breathed life into the LTTE. It was during their regime that LTTE rose itself from an armed mob into an international terrorists outfit. During the CBK regime the UNP never supported the armed forces, instead linked itself with the NGOs and other international conspirators that helped the LTTE. In 2002, when LTTE was almost on its last legs, UNP signed a peace accord with it and saved the outfit. Until the last moment of the war UNP tried to convince the people that it is unwinnable, acted in complicity with terrorist propaganda and tried to bring international pressure on the government, tried to destroy the economic stability with various conspiracies.

* JVP- is the party that destroyed two generations of youth and denied the country’s opportunity to be developed. In the 80s the party organized a bloody insurgency in the South when the armed forces were fighting terrorism in the North. It murdered members of the armed forces and destroyed the stability of the country. Thus, the JVP was instrumental in dragging the war another two decades. In 2005, the party backed Mahinda Rajapaksa but soon opposed the government when it started fighting the war against LTTE. During the whole span of war under the Rajapaksa regime it tried to destroy the nation’s stability with a series of unsuccessful strikes, and protests.

* TNA- is not a political party but a group comprising terrorist agents sent to parliament by the terrorist outfit itself. The party actively participated in promoting the LTTE and its terrorist activities. The country’s victory over terrorism is therefore a defeat for the TNA. Its political ideology is based on tribalism and still poses a serious threat to the nation’s stability.

*SLMC- is a party that has not delivered any good to the community it claims to represent. Its current leaders are trying to gain advantage by promoting racial politics but have not received enough support from the public. The current leader of the party teamed up with the UNP and the lot and did everything possible to stop the war effort The above are just the key parties worth mentioning in the Fonseka side. The results of the series of elections held during the last three years show the political bankruptcy suffered by them. It can be reasonably assumed that the reason for their unpopularity was their expressed opposition to the government’s war effort against terror. In other words, their constant effort to damage nation’s stability has ruined their vote base.

Hence, it is natural for these political forces that acted against the nation’s stability throughout their existence, to select Fonseka to back in this election. Their strategy can be defined with the local proverbial expression “cutting the pork on the pig itself” as they are trying to exploit a defected war hero to avenge the President. Luckily, their vicious agenda is no longer a secret.

The Cat out of the Bag Finally, retired General Fonseka has managed to come up with his manifesto or policy for the election. Although some see a resemblance with “Podi Ekage Liyuma” (a letter written by a child) in Fonseka’s ten point policy, the message it gives is extremely dangerous with regarding what is happening around us today.

In his “policy”, Fonseka is loudly silent on the territorial integrity of the country. He does not give any clue about how he is going to address the problems of the Tamil speaking people. Also, there is no timeline relating to his promise of abolishing the Executive Presidency. It would be interesting to know why, for a man who makes bovine promises such as 10,000 rupees pay hikes, free land for everyone, corruption free country within 72 hours; etc could not tell anything about the serious issues directly relating to country’s stability.

However, one of the very first things that Fonseka did after coming into politics was the implication of the Defence Secretary and the soldiers in war crimes charges, long being speculated by his new allies. He made a statement to Sri Lanka ‘s number one scandal mongering newspaper that Defence Secretary and Brigadier Shavendra Silva had ordered to kill surrendering LTTE terrorists.

Though Fonseka denied having made such a statement to the newspaper, the newspaper’s editor stood by her story. Ironically, Fonseka is now going to sue the government media for making false charges against him but not against the newspaper that really exposed his betrayal that he publicly denied.

However, the pact between Fonseka and the Newspaper was later given away by the newspaper editor in her article “Her Story” published on the same newspaper. There she had exposed her intention of bringing discredit to the Sri Lanka armed forces, and allowing her paymasters in the West to exert pressure on the government that did not heed to their orders. Also, her subtle desire to receive a violent response from the government to her so called “explosive” news to gain propaganda mileage was also evident. The most interesting part is her expressed disappointment over the government response.

According to her, the newspaper company had strengthened its security and was eagerly waiting for a violent response, but was utterly disappointed over the lost opportunity. The absence of such a response, according to her view, is the learning capability of the Rajapaksa government. However, it might be also possible that the person who was behind such responses in the past is now on their side or they themselves have staged managed those events without being overly confident about government’s foolhardiness.

Despite Fonseka’s betrayal becoming counterproductive to his election campaign, the forces backing him are trying to get the best advantage from it. The UN response, resurrection of the Channel 4 canard, and renewal of war crimes charges were the targeted outcomes of their sordid project.

Now, more evidence of the hidden agenda behind Fonseka gambit is surfacing. The so-called war hero who claims sole credit for the war victory has apparently signed a pact with the proxy LTTE group TNA. According to TNA leader, R. Sambandan, Fonseka has agreed to re-merge the North and Eastern +Provinces, remove High Security Zones and also to offer self-determination powers. The hired LTTE mouthpiece Wickramabahu Karunarathne recently confirmed Fonseka’s acceptance of a separate Tamil homeland. Moreover, SLMC leader Rauff Hakim recently stated that Fonseka would only be an interim solution “current state of affairs”. According to the Daily Mirror (Jan 9) he stated that TNA had laid the foundation to take over administration of the “their motherland and they should grasp the opportunity with both hands”. The decision is yours One need not wear politically coloured glasses to comprehend the situation described above. We can see the critical juncture where our country has come today. The logic is clear.

There exists a group of political forces that do not desire to see Sri Lanka as stable nation; they have defected a weak individual from the opposing side to act as a pawn for them, and what is happening around us suggests that their desire to damage nation’s stability has not changed at all.

Therefore, the situation requires a well calculated decision from the public. It is for us to decide whether to make the same mistake made by us in the past or not. Irrespective of our ethnicity or religion the decision is equally important for all of us. Chauvinistic forces that unleashed Black July did no good to our country, nor did the Tribalism coined by LTTE and TNA. Religious fundamentalism will only make our country another Afghanistan or a Pakistan. Those are the forces that can destroy a nation’s stability. Also, the parties who back such forces directly or indirectly are much more dangerous than the forces themselves.

Aren’t we living in a much better, safer and stable country that we lived three years before? Are we going to risk our future with a set of people that had done no good for the country? That Stability is essential for prosperity, and that the hard earned stability of the nation is again at risk, is my message.

 Sarath Fonseka

*Fonseka comes into politics months after winning the war in which he too played a key role

*Fonseka has gained no political experience or any experience in governing civilian organizations

*Fonseka has no political party , no political vision, simply tries to capitalize on his popularity as a war hero , rather than a politician with a serious political ideology

*Fonseka comes into politics as a result of an estrangement with his Commander-in-Chief. His main ambition is to take revenge from the President and his family

*Fonseka is backed by an assortment of political parties with extremely conflicting political interests

*Fonseka is an ordinary army officer educated up to ordinary level and with a dubious character.

 Dwight Eisenhower

*Eisenhower came into politics 8 years after the World War II in which he too played a key role

*Eisenhower was the president of the Columbia University and thereafter appointed the Supreme Commander of the NATO

*Eisenhower was the candidate of the Republican Party, one of the two main political parties of the US. He represented the political vision of the party and did not try to market his battlefield achievements to gain popularity

*Eisenhower never challenged his commander in chief. He came into politics with a serious political vision for the country but not to take revenge from anybody

*Eisenhower followed the political path of Republican party

*Eisenhower was an intellectual with clean character in the army.

*UNP- is a party that failed to control Black July and breathed life into the LTTE

*JVP- is the party that destroyed two generations of youth and denied the country’s opportunity to be developed

*TNA- is not a political party but a group comprising terrorist agents sent to Parliament by the terrorist outfit itself

*SLMC- is a party that has not delivered any goods to the community it claims to represent