President, Premier, Prabhakran and the People

Without going into flights of theoretical explanations or having to run through intricate analysis, the crisis or is it paralysis? that is facing the nation can be summarized in one sentence: Ranil Wickremesinghe is prepared to share power with Prabhakaran, an unelected and convicted criminal wanted by India and Interpol, and not with the elected President of the nation operating within the democratic norms.

Wickremesinghe is even prepared to hand over, without a contest, the illegal demands of Prabhakaran that violate the constitution and the foundations of the nation but he is not prepared to hand over three portfolios to the President who is legally and constitutionally entitled to administer them under her authority. He is willing to cohabit with the terrorists banned by his own safety net but not with his childhood playmate and a national leader who had won the approval of the people twice.

Clearly, the paralysis prevailing at the two centers of power the premiership and the presidency can be related directly to the ambitions of Wickremesinghe to undermine his rival Kumaratunga. If Wickremesinghe, with his capacity to initiate subterfuges that strike at the heart of the constitution, had reversed his stance wouldn't the nation would be in a happier position? Some may dismiss this as a simplification of a complex crisis.

But, mark you, ultimately politics go into history not through the abstract processes of theories or analyses (though these help to understand the underlying aspects) but through the actors playing the lead role and however circumscribed their powers may be critical initiatives of the leaders, taken at the right time in the right direction, can make all the difference in the events to follow. In short, the complexities of this new phase will disappear overnight if Wickremesinghe drops his rivalry and decides to accept the legal and the constitutional position defined by the Supreme Court. It is as simple as that.

Looking back, it can be seen from all his actions, since he cobbled up a coalition to ride into power (please note, he did not win an outright majority to legitimize his power as the clear cut will of the people expressed unequivocally in the presidential contest), that he has acted as if the presidency is an illegal institution which he can override as an irrelevancy not required for national unity or the peace process.

For instance, he signed a Ceasefire Agreement on February 22, 2002 with his partner, Prabhakaran, on February 22, 2003 without consulting the President. He has not kept her informed of the various developments of a process that is going to determine the shape of the nation in generations to come. As opposed to this, even the constitutionally powerless Queen of England is kept informed of major developments by the prime minister.

Wickremesinghe's rivalry has gone to the extent of even refusing an observer from the presidency to be present at the negotiations. In going down this track he seems to be obsessed with a lust to satisfy Prabhakaran and the international community (read: Norwegians who have been obedient Quislings of Prabhakaran).

As opposed to undermining the democratic and the legal processes he has bent over backwards, going from capital to capital, to legitimize the banned LTTE. In the instance known to Sri Lankans domiciled in Australia, G. L. Peiris, pleaded with foreign Minister Alexander Downer on his last visit to Canberra to lift the ban on the LTTE. Without mincing his words, Downer told Peiris that he should keep his hands off Australian politics and also that he will not lift the ban until the LTTE renounces violence and return to democratic process.

The strategy pursued so far by Wickremesinghe is not only to marginalize the presidency but also to undermine her foreign and domestic policy that weakened Prabhakaran. His deliberate objective has been to derogate the Presidency and commensurately strengthen Prabhakaran. Consider his move to disband the LRRP the deep penetration unit that was most effective military machine capable of hitting the LTTE targets.

According to P.K. Balachandran, the correspondent of the Hindustan Times: The unit had, in fact, been wound up under the Ceasefire Agreement the Wickremesinghe Government had entered into with the LTTE in February 2002, on the insistence of the LTTE. (December 1, 2003).

The operative words are: on the insistence of the LTTE. In other words, these words paint him as an obedient servant of Prabhakaran while trying to lord it over the President. His behaviour would not have been of any concern if it did not threaten the overall national interests. His desire to fulfill the wishes of Prabhakaran and, in the process, demote the President elected by the people wouldn't have mattered one whit if the future of the nation and the security of the people were not in jeopardy.

The nation could have enjoyed the bun fight between the two. But the stakes are higher that two of them put together. A common saying in Africa describes the current crisis aptly: when elephants fight it is the ants that get crushed.

What is equally damaging is that in signing the Ceasefire Agreement and in implementing covertly the unwritten agreements with Prabhakaran, Wickremesinghe has rushed to the rescue of Prabhakaran.

At no time in his career has Prabhakaran gained so much power as under the patronage of Wickremesinghe. The myth of the invincible Prabhakaran had nowhere to go but up and up with Wickremesinghe pulling up his Navy Commander for sinking one of the LTTE ships bringing in the deadly cargo. This must be the first time in the history of any nation that a prime minister pulled up his Navy Commander for defending the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of a nation.

Each time the Sinhala leadership rescues Prabhakaran his reputation as the Clint Eastwood of Jaffna goes up a notch higher. For instance, Prabhakaran claims that he defeated the Indian army the fourth largest in the world. The reality, however, is that Prabhakaran was saved by President Premadasa who not only gave him arms but used maximum diplomatic pressure to get the Indians out in time for Prabhakaran to save his skin.

If not for these two-pronged attack on India by Sri Lanka there is no doubt that Prabhakaran, who was in a very weak position at the time (without even ammunition), would have been forced to surrender or swallow his cyanide pill. Adele Balasingham documents how her husband, negotiating with A. C. S. Hameed, pleaded with him to obtain arms and ammunition from President Premadasa. Without the ammunition and the diplomatic pressure mounted by President Premadasa where would Prabhakaran be today?

Take the case of President Kumaratunga. Without meaning to paint her as a political saint, credit must be given to her for launching an international campaign, with the able assistance of the best Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka, Laskhman Kadirgarma, to ban the LTTE.

Instead of cashing in on those overwhelming pressures that virtually crippled Prabhakaran the UNF frittered it away by legitimizing the inhuman killing machine of the LTTE. Under her regime she fine tuned the deep penetration unit. Its undercover operations confused the LTTE who were suspecting that those hit-and-run manoeuvres were the work of disaffected Tamils. As it gained experience the deep penetration unit was hitting at the heart of the LTTE leadership. It was getting too close to Prabhakaran and his leadership. It was the deadliest weapon against the LTTE ever.

What does Wickremesinghe do? He takes control of it and rescues Prabhakaran by exposing it and then dismantling it. According to Balachandran of Hindustan Times the result is: At least 50 Tamil army informants were hunted down and killed by the LTTE.

Then, as now, it was not Prabhakaran s greatness that won him the day but the weaknesses and lack of foresight of the Sinhala leadership. Wickremesinghe has once again proved that it is the Sinhala leadership that rescued Prabhakaran from his predicaments and made him what he is today. Today Prabhakaran is at the peak of his power and he has to thank only one man for it: Ranil Wickremesinghe.

No other Sinhala leader has gone out on a limb to arm and make the latest Pol Pot of Asia (New York Times) a formidable force like Wickremesinghe.

But his misguided generosity in arming the Prabhakaran has backfired. He was hoping to appease Prabhakaran. Instead Prabhakaran has come down on him like a ton of bricks packed inside his counter-proposals for the Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA). The excessive demands in the ISGA stunned both the international community and the UNF.

Writing to the SUNDAY TIMES, (November 9, 2003) Iqbal Athas, the best informed defence correspondent, pin-pointed the plight of the nation by asking: Could the LTTE have placed those demands before the government on or before February 22, 2002? In making the demands after this date, twenty long months after the ceasefire, are they not doing so from a position of greater strength? How did they acquire this strength to achieve an unassailable bargaining stance?

The answers given by Iqbal Athas will haunt Ranil Wickremesinghe throughout his life and the nation for generations to come. The following three paragraphs will reveal how Ranil Wickremesinghe weakened the security forces to tilt the balance of power in favour of Prabhakaran:

He (Prabhakaran) doubled the military strength of the LTTE. He recruited even child cadres. He smuggled in more state of the art military equipment. He extended the sphere of his military influence even to controlled areas in the North-East. This was through the Police Offices he was allowed to open under the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA). The military balance in the east changed completely.

The UNF leadership which was all out to please the LTTE and not hurt them neglected the armed forces and the police. They became weaker through the same CFA. For example, the number of security installations in the North was halved since they were required to quit from public buildings. They were not re-equipped and even the basic needs like ammunition were not made available.

The guerilla build up began with the ceasefire. They extended to the east their dominance in the Wanni by opening new Police Station, Courts and introducing a new administrative infrastructure, tax collection machinery among other matters.

Does all this reflect the greatness of Prabhakaran or the weakness of Wickremesinghe? February 22, 2002, the day Ceasefire Agreement was signed, marks the rise of Prabhakaran and the decline of Wickremesinghe. Even before he scraped through at the elections Wickremesinghe had made up his mind not to bargain through the normal processes of conflict resolution recorded in other international peace processes.

The process initiated by him is unique in that negotiations with the LTTE turned out to be a one-way process. There was no reciprocal gain from giving. The more he gave the more they demanded which has been the classic pattern of Tamil demands from colonial times.

But why did Wickremesinghe adopt this policy of caving in? What mysterious factors were tying his hand behind his back?

The pre-election secret agreements with the LTTE that were cemented with him having a social breakfast in the Conrad International Hotel in Singapore on June 18, 2000, with Charles Gnanakone, who is in charge of the shipment of weapons which are smuggled into Sri Lanka for the use of LTTE terrorists against Sri Lankan Security Forces (Daily news quoted in the WEEKEND LIBERAL December 21-22, 2002) are yet to be told.

Is there a connection between Charles Gnanakone and Wickremesinghe turning a blind eye to the smuggling of arms? He may be excused (only may be!) for not insisting on laying down of arms as in the case of Ireland, for instance. But to allow the Tigers to bring in arms and weaken his own forces by decommissioning their arms was suicidal to him and to the nation. It was too late when realized his folly. Then he rushed to India to sign a defence agreement.

How this is going to play out is yet to be seen. The stark reality, however, is that Wickremesinghe has not a single bargaining chip in his hands. He has handed them over to Prabhakaran with the compliments of the Norwegians. Where does all this leave the peace process and the nation? He has managed to survive by silencing the guns temporarily. This is being interpreted as peace. But how is he going to ensure that this peace will last without giving into what his co-signatory to the Ceasefire Agreement demands?

He survives only because he has put the nation to sleep by chanting his mantras of peace, safety net, aid, the Indian goni billas waiting to pounce on Prabhakaran. Those who do not believe in the popular mantra of peace chanted by the UNF and its allies have a right to ask: can he win peace by fortifying the war machine of those gearing up to attack the fundamentals and the future of the nation? Rohan Gunaratne gave a down-to-earth answer to this when he was asked: What about this international safety net that is being talked about?

International guarantees are important to reinforce the Sri Lankan peace process. However, in the event of hostilities it is the Sri Lankan troops themselves that will do the fighting and not foreign forces.

Therefore the government of Sri Lanka should entertain no illusions, but train the security forces to take on the LTTE should hostilities resume. (Bandula Jayasekera The Island, December 1, 2003)

The UNF strategy is on the assumption that the LTTE will not go to war. But Prabhakaran is on record saying that they will have to go to war if their rights are not given.

He has never resiled from that hard line position and to confirm it he has repeated it in his 50th birthday speech. What more guarantees of a war does anyone need? They say they will not provoke a war.

But past experiences and the present rearming point to a future that they do not need much of an excuse to unilaterally withdraw and declare war.

So readers enjoy the peace as long as it lasts. But don t bet on it because peace is short, as proved by Prabhakaran from time to time, and his wars are always long.

(http://www.priu.gov.lk/news_update/features/20031222president_pm_prabhakaran.htm)