Case of the missing monks By Frederica Jansz  The saga of the missing monks proved to be the final catalyst which decided the future of D.E.W. Gunasekera - the nominee for the pivotal post of speaker by the new government

- while Sri Lanka's 13th parliament marking its maiden appearance last Thursday was thrown into chaos and confusion.

As political parties connived and jostled to elect a speaker of their choice, the atmosphere reached fever pitch, and into this fractured political sphere the newly elected nine Buddhist monks were catapulted feet first into the fray.

Pulled hither and thither, the monks - yet in a stage of political infancy - were gasping for air at the end of the first vote in parliament last Thursday, which resulted in a tie for the post of the alliance nominee for Speaker, D.E.W. Gunasekera and the opposition nominee, W.J.M. Lokubandara.

Having entered Sri Lanka's political sphere in the run up to the April 2 general election, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) had hardly made its cradle call before the party became the deciding factor for both main political parties, the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and the United National Front (UNF).

And this powerful bargaining tool was not lost on the Buddhist monks. Basking in the afterglow of an impressive electoral performance, the monks however never in their wildest dreams envisaged the depths to which their more seasoned political counterparts would stoop for political gain.

That they were soon to be tools in the hands of political pirates caught the dhamma preaching prelates flat-footed and wet behind the ears.

Easy prey

The monks were easy prey for the staging of a fake abduction of two out of the nine elected monks, in order to swing votes in favour of the alliance candidate D.E.W. Gunasekera.

Being the youngest political party in parliament did not deter two of the nine monks to start running before they could crawl. Striking a division within the infant party even before the monks could enter the House with dignity, two of the priests threw their lot in with the Freedom Alliance, casting the JHU into furious turmoil.

The sudden disappearance of Ven. Aparekke Pannananda elected from the Gampaha District and Ven. Kathaluwe Rathanaseeha from Colombo threw the Buddhist monks head first into stormy waters. When the two monks went missing, the JHU having done its own detective work arrived at some conclusions and accused the alliance of having had a hand in the staged abductions.

Ven. Aparekke Pannananda had already publicly criticised the JHU charging his religious allies with bribery and corruption. He has maintained that the JHU monks have accepted black money to finance their pre-election campaign and voiced more support for the UPFA than for the JHU during his campaign.

His comments were not lost on the JHU and Party Secretary, Tilak Karunaratne, who charge-sheeted the monk calling for an official explanation. 

But hardly had Karunaratne set the wheels of discipline into motion before Ven. Pannananda was already swinging a deal hatched in haste and secrecy that would shake to the core the infant JHU.

Ven. Pannananda had an ally as well. Colombo District JHU MP, Ven. Kathaluwe Rathanaseeha, also engaged in the dissent and joined Pannananda in his mini rebellion.

Their actions of course leaked to the other monks in the JHU and when President Chandrika Kumaratunga paid a swift visit to the monks last Tuesday in a desperate bid to lobby their support for D.E.W. Gunasekera for the post of speaker, the monks accused the alliance of hiding the monks.

Appeal

Accompanied by her Adviser, Kusumsiri Balapatabendi and D.E.W. Gunasekera, Kumaratunga appealed to the monks to support Gunasekera's candidature for speaker. "I need him in the chair. If not, I will not get the aid I require and they will successfully impeach me," she told the priests.

The monks however were angry and upset over the mysterious disappearance of the two other elected priests and told the President, "How can we support you when your party has been responsible for hiding the two missing monks?" to which the President replied earnestly, "Deiyanne, I don't know anything about this. I suspected Anura but when I asked him he said he had nothing to do with it. Arun thamai meka karala thiyenne" she said referring to the JVP.

The President meanwhile tried to make a deal with the prelates. She told them the alliance was willing to forego the seat of speaker to a monk chosen by the JHU. Kumaratunga's cunning offer swayed the politically naive priests for a while, who momentarily at least appeared to consider the carrot dangled by the President.

Meanwhile, for some reason the name of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister, Jeyaraj Fernando-pulle was being bandied about as being a possible suspect in having masterminded the fake abduction of the missing monks.

Fernandopulle accused

The rebel monks were well and truly on the run when Ven. Uduwe Dhammaloka Thero telephoned Jeyaraj Fernandopulle and said, "We have some information that you are hiding these two monks. Is it true?" to which an indignant and agitated Fernandopulle had responded saying, "Definitely not. I don't know anything - I have never even met these two priests. Though Ven. Pannananda is from Gampaha I have never even seen what he looks like. I am the MP for Katana and my area is at least 25 kilometers away from Gampaha. There is no way I am involved."

Recounting his conversation with the monk to The Sunday Leader, Fernandopulle said, "Ven. Dhammaloka Thero is a dear friend of mine and I would never do anything to cause disrepute to the JHU." He added that Ven. Dhammaloka Thero had called him back an hour later that day and said, "I am sorry, it was a mistake.  We now have information that you are not involved in this."

Fernandopulle however was extremely upset and until he was certain he was not on the list of suspects of the JHU kept telephoning the monks on the hour, pleading his innocence.

Even though the mystery of the two missing monks remained unresolved, this did not deter either the UPFA or the UNF and they both stepped up their campaigns to lobby support from the remaining seven elected monks.

Following Kumaratunga's Tuesday visit to the Asapuwa at Sulaiman Terrace at Jawatte Road, which houses the monks, Minister Douglas Devananda followed suit that same day.

Being politely hosted by the prelates, Devananda told them that if they voted for the opposition candidate, W.J.M. Lokubandara, they would in effect be supporting the LTTE and their choice of candidate.

No sooner had Devananda departed having delivered his words of wisdom that the monks discussed amongst themselves Devananda's arrogance, asserting he had the gall to caution the monks against the LTTE after having terrorised the north for eons.

Visitors galore

Obviously, Kumaratunga did not have much faith in Devananda's missive to the monks and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse also followed suit, as the Asapuwa became the most sought after address in the books of the two main political parties.

With less than 24 hours to go before voting was to take place on Thursday at around 8 p.m. on Wednesday, April 21, the Premier made a house call on the monks and reiterated the President's plea, seeking the support of the JHU for the parliamentary election of the new speaker.

Rajapakse reiterated the deal made by Kumaratunga to the monks where she had offered the post of speaker to a parliamentary member of the JHU. The offer however was conditional based on a pledge the monks would have to support a UPFA candidate as deputy speaker and another as deputy chairman of committees in the House.

The discussion with Rajapakse was cordial and the monks remained non- committal, appearing undecided on the matter.

Rajapakse had not yet departed before the monks had another after-dusk caller. This time it was the former Premier, Ranil Wickremesinghe. Accompanied by the UNF Deputy Leader, Karu Jayasuriya and the UNF candidate for speaker, W.J.M. Lokubandara, Wickremesinghe was immediately informed of Kumaratunga's offer to the prelates.

Decisive point

Wickremesinghe told the JHU that irrespective of whether the monks decided to contest the post, the UNF would still field its selected candidate, W.J.M. Lokubandara.

This appeared to be the decisive point as far as the monks were concerned and the seven elected Buddhist prelates opted to abstain from voting the next day.

Wickremesinghe meantime had also met with members of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) who had decided to vote for Lokubandara.

The Tamil MPs with 22 seats in parliament were also lobbied by the UPFA. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse and Finance Minister, Dr. Sarath Amunugama met with Parliamentary Group Leader, TNA, R. Sambandan and appealed for the support of the TNA to support D.E.W. Gunasekara's candidature as speaker of the House.

Hardly one to mince his words, Sambandan told Amunugama the TNA could not be expected to lend support to the alliance given that the President had appointed EPDP Leader, Douglas Devananda as Minister of Agricultural Marketing Development, Hindu Affairs and Tamil Language Schools and Vocational Training to the north.

A visibly angry Sambandan sternly told Amunugama that Devananda's appointment was a blatant rejection of the recent mandate given by the Tamils in the north and east and a clear violation of democratic principles.

To this charge Amunugama responded claiming that Kumaratunga had not yet gazetted Devananda's ministries and his appointment was still at large due to the virulent opposition publicly stated by the TNA.

TNA MP Gajan Ponnambalam later said, "This was not correct. The President had indeed gazetted Devananda's ministries."

Ponnambalam reiterated, "We essentially decided we will vote for W.J.M. Lokubandara purely as a protest vote against the actions of the new government and the President."

Trying hard to convince the TNA otherwise, Amunugama had also told Sambandan that the President had already spoken with the Norwegians in an attempt to kick-start stalled negotiations with the LTTE.  The truth of this statement could not be verified.

At a meeting between all TNA MPs and LTTE Leader, Velupillai Pirapaharan in the Wanni, the matter came up for debate and the Tiger chief had maintained that he did not want to force a decision on the TNA as he did not want to give the impression to the international community that he was reacting in any manner that would shut the doors to future negotiations with the new government.

When the TNA did decide however they immediately informed the Tiger chief asserting their support for Lokubandara would be purely to mark their protest and displeasure of Kumaratunga's recent actions. A moot point, Pirapaharan had agreed with.

High drama meanwhile also ensued within the camps of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress. On the day of the election, SLMC Leader, Rauf Hakeem informed Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe that he had information some of his members had been approached by the alliance with offers of Rs. 5 million each to vote for the sandhanaya candidate.

All SLMC members however before the vote pledged to support opposition candidate, W.J.M. Lokubandara.

Missing monks appear

As April 22 drew to a close, the UPFA read the writing on the wall and realised their chances of an alliance member being voted in as speaker were slim. Thereby came into play the role of the two missing monks who had by this time pledged to vote in favour of the alliance.

And when the other seven prelates of the JHU entered parliament for their inaugural sitting on Thursday they were treated not only to a historic spectacle of parliamentary behaviour - one that will certainly stay firmly imbedded in their minds - but also to the appearance of the two missing monks who defiantly voted with the government.

This was despite all nine Buddhist monks having being previously informed in writing that the JHU would collectively abstain from voting on the election of the speaker.

The results of round one of the election revealed a tie of 108 votes for each candidate with one rejected ballot.

As chaos broke out with files being thrown at the seven monks who had abstained from voting and name-calling became the order of the day, the monks still harbouring the belief that their presence in the House could only instill calm were seen desperately attempting to calm their wild and raucous counterparts. Their attempts were in vain and the bewildered monks were forced to concede defeat, their dreams of a dharmarajya momentarily laid to rest.

Finally when it was announced that a second vote would be called, the seven prelates disowning the two rebel monks desperately summoned help and the more politically mature JHU Secretary, Tilak Karunaratne was contacted. He immediately dispatched post-haste to parliament his trusted lieutenants, Udaya Gammanpila and Champika Ranawaka.

Balance

Arriving at the House, the two conferred with the seven monks and it was decided they would give two of their votes to the UNF in order to balance the two rebel votes given to the alliance by the two dissenting priests. This way, they figured the JHU would not be the deciding factor in the election of the speaker but merely provide a balance.

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse meanwhile also got to work and invited Gammanpila and Ranawaka to tea in his chambers. While the trio were conferring, the President telephoned Rajapakse and insisted she knew nothing of the Alliance having staged the disappearance of the rebel monks.

Rajapakse told Kumaratunga that Ranawaka and Gammanpila were in his room and she asked to speak to them. Ranawaka refused to talk to her but Gammanpila accepted the phone.

Kumaratunga theatrically exclaimed to Gammanpila, "I swear upon my two children I know nothing of the PA having had a hand in staging the disappearance of these two monks. I am sure this has been done by the JVP."

Gammanpila responded asserting, "Madam the JVP is also part of the UPFA. If you are blaming them then you must hold the entire alliance responsible."

Kumaratunga continued to hotly deny any knowledge of the faked abductions, pleading with Gammanpila to convince the other seven prelates to vote for D.E.W. Gunasekara.

Too late

But the President's call came too late. In the face of the appearance of the two missing monks and their blatant defiance of the JHU by voting in favour of the alliance had decided the fate of the election for speaker as far as the monks were concerned.

Before her telephone call, Ven Uduwe Dhammaloka Thero had been approached by Dr. Sarath Amunugama in the House who allegedly told the priest that if they voted in round two for the alliance candidate, the sandhanaya would ensure the resignation of the two rebel monks.

This by itself was an admission of the role played by the alliance with the two rebel prelates and served as the final nail in the ballot, tipping the scales in favour of opposition candidate, Lokubandara.

When round three was polled, two monks from the JHU voted in favour of Lokubandara and this swung the election in favour of the opposition candidate.  The result effectively destroys Kumaratunga's forced attempt at appointing a constituent assembly to alter the constitution and thereby abolish the executive presidency.

The Speaker would have to chair the constituent assembly and the UNF, JHU, SLMC and TNA have already said they will not support such a move.

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