Editorial

CBK's Sweet Sorrows

When in November 2003 Chandrika Kumaratunga wrested key ministries from the UNF government and, following her nuptials with the JVP, formed the UPFA and went on to form a minority government in April 2004, we said we would watch her future progress with considerable interest. Ten months have now passed, and it is becoming clearer by the day that the marriage between the SLFP and the JVP is much akin to that between a porcupine and a skunk: it is most unlikely to find consummation and still less likely to be blessed with rosy-cheeked offspring.

The impotence of the two parties has not added, it has multiplied, and we have seen a government that is for all practical purposes an eunuch in the Garden of Eden: no progress, no achievement, no reform, no development. The JVP-SLFP combine has one and only one raison d'etre: staying alive.

For their part, the JVP has become so accustomed to the frills of political office - limousines, foreign travel, convoys of escort vehicles, bowing and scraping officials - that it is finding the process of kicking the habit difficult indeed. With its claims to representing the grassroots, the JVP is more alive to the government's widespread unpopularity than anyone: hence its public bluster about quitting unless vague and meaningless conditions are met. It has no intention of quitting the good life, but the show has to go on, of fooling part of the people all of the time.

Last Thursday, Wimal Weerawansa picked on a statement made by Jayantha Dhanapala about the government's intention to negotiate with the LTTE an interim authority. "We are the government," an irate Weerawansa screamed, "And we have no such intention." Given that Dhanapala is a close confidant of the President, it was clear from his statement that Kumaratunga is far advanced in her thinking on how to concede some measure of autonomy to the north east so as to facilitate the flow of international aid not just there, but more importantly for her, to the south.

With international donors straining on the leash to give, she is hard pressed to allow the flow of aid to move unimpeded. But with Kumaratunga, vindictiveness and incompetence combine to make a brew so tart that it drowns all goodwill.

And as each day passes, she becomes yet more impotent. There is widespread swearing and cursing in the south not just about the government's inability to get the reconstruction process started, but about the government blocking even those independent attempts being made by civil society to return to normalcy. The letter by the President to all government agents published elsewhere in today's issue stands testimony to this fact. With the draconian 100-metre rule being ruthlessly enforced, people are being forcibly prevented from returning to their homes and putting a roof over their heads. Small businesses and hotels in areas like Unawatuna are being prevented from opening.

With much of the populace forcibly being confined to refugee camps, it is at Kumaratunga that people point fingers, for the JVP has made it clear to one and all that they have no part of this aspect of the government's excess. So much so that Kumaratunga has ordered urgent legislation to be passed to prevent people from expressing sentiments of discontent against her government. She is like a cornered cat, her back raised, her tail aloft, hissing desperately to ward off a cussing populace. Dissolution of parliament - the final gambit in her February 2004 power game - has come to haunt her, and how.

With 10 months of apathetic indolence having passed, it was poignant last week when there was hardly any talk of 'celebrating' the anniversary of the government-LTTE ceasefire Ranil Wickremesinghe brokered three years ago. Memories are short in Sri Lanka, and many have forgotten the orgy of bloodthirsty violence that served as a prelude to that milestone in the affairs of this state. The debacles of Mankulam, Kilinochchi, Pooneryn, Mullaitivu and Elephant Pass that saw thousands of soldiers not only slaughtered through government incompetence and negligence, but consigned ignominiously to mass graves.

Then there was the bombing of the Central Bank, the Kolonnawa refinery and the Katunayake (sorry, Bandaranaike) Airport. In fact, for much of her first seven years in office, Kumaratunga was able to keep up a steady record of a debacle a month, with tens of thousands of innocents killed, even while she and her children cowered behind the fortifications of Temple Trees and President's House, and ducked around in billion-rupee fleets of bullet-proof limos.

The past three years have been the most peaceful in two decades, and few stopped to think what might have happened if only they had left Wickremesinghe to finish the job by crafting a lasting peace, rather than consign the task to Mrs. Debacle. And we can all see now what a dog's breakfast she has made of it. The curse of the Bandaranaikes is upon us as in desperation Kumaratunga flails about seeking to ward off astrological predictions that March portends the end of the UPFA government. The JVP's threat to quit next month must have made her sit up with a jolt, though few believe that the JVP will pull the rug from under their own dolce vita unless there is no prospect whatsoever of facing the next election together with the SLFP.

And as if that were not enough for Kumaratunga's woes, the precipitate withdrawal of Arumugam Thondaman and his eight CWC MPs from the government benches must have caused her to tear her hair out. For her administration is now at the mercy of the monks of the Hela Urumaya, each of who has his own agenda: needless to say, the agendas are unequivocally divorced from that of the Buddha dhamma.

It is difficult to empathise with Kumaratunga, for this crisis of governance is entirely self-inflicted. It was her greed for power, and her unshakable resolve to prevent Wickremesinghe from forging a lasting peace and consolidating his political position that led her to this day, and to this crisis. And now the ghost of Banquo has come to haunt her. In his 18 months in office, Wickremesinghe managed to secure a world-record US$ 4.5 billion in development aid for Sri Lanka, aid that was promptly put on ice following Kumaratunga's constitutional coup of November 2003. That prospect is now gone.

For one brief moment, opportunity knocked once more on December 26 last year, when the world rallied round with enormous offers of reconstruction assistance. But Kumaratunga has pasted egg all over that, too, by blocking assistance to the north and east. Not only that, but the assassination of Kausalyan has served to sever any prospect of peace she might have had with the Tigers, as indeed the Norwegians themselves made abundantly clear last week.

The people's ire against the government is in our view every bit justified given that in two months that have passed since the tsunami, not only did the UPFA government manifestly fail to come to the aid of the victims, but indeed did all it could to block civil-society initiatives to provide aid. Kumaratunga herself has attacked the NGO sector, which is at the forefront of relief activities, and gone on to block the release of hundreds of containers with foreign aid in the port of Colombo. Her own task force to save the situation disintegrated with the quitting of her chum Tara de Mel, who was making a pig's breakfast of it anyway. The saviour of the situation now is flavour-of-the-month Tilak Ranaviraja, a scraper and groveller of no mean repute, hardly an example of shining success in the administrative service.

And even as Kumaratunga seeks to powder over the wrinkles and put up a brave front, her sins have caught up with her: comeuppance is staring her in the face. The Sunday Leader has never paid even the scantest attention to the mumbo jumbo of astrology, but we know full well, of course, that Kumaratunga moves hardly a finger without checking on the stars. So she knows that unless she can pull a rabbit out of a hat right quickly, she has but a month left before her deeds hit the fan. Tragically for this wannabe, the only lasting legacy of her decade in office is the peace of February 2002: and that was not of her doing, but her sworn enemy, Ranil Wickremesinghe. Ah, what sweet sorrow that is!