Interview

"Chandrika is planning to go for an election"

Q: How did you feel the day the verdict was to be delivered in your case?

A: It was all of a sudden that we heard that the judgement was to be delivered the next day. That itself was very unusual. Not even the lawyers had been properly informed. Around that time, the matter had been discussed with the Chief Justice. The Chief Justice had said he was a Buddhist, as was I and suggested that the matter be resolved without creating too much of a problem for me. My lawyer Chandana also knew about it. But these people don't want to say these things in open court because they are all professional lawyers.

I never planned to apologise. I knew this was going to be a long drawn out case. Even some witnesses who were going to testify against me told me that they would not give evidence. Under the circumstances, I did not think I would have to apologise.

But the situation changed because of a person who associated the Chief Justice closely. He consistently involved himself in the case, trying to intercede. But even then I had my doubts. My suspicions got worse after a speech I made at the party convention.

Q: What speech was that?

A: At the party convention, I spoke of the allegations against Ranil Wickremesinghe. I said that he did not smile or wear shawls to get votes. I said that he never carried flower baskets on his head or feign interest in his party supporters to get more votes. I said that he had the characteristics of a humble and honest leader. I said that this man had a vision for the country and a plan to get us there. There was a huge response to my speech.

I heard later that Chandrika had got the tape of this speech down to President's House and watched it. I also heard that she had been most upset about the contents of my speech. I thought the two issues might be related.

Either way, no one in the world has received a sentence like this. I thought that at most I would be reprimanded sternly and asked to make a public apology. Or at the last moment I thought I would be given a suspended sentence. That was what I was thinking when I left home on the morning of the verdict.

Q: How was it that you came to use the word 'balu' in your speech at the harvest festival in Habaraduwa in November 2003?

A: That day, all I expressed was the party's decision and the party's views. The only difference was that I used the word 'balu' in the way that we talk in rural areas.

Take Victor Ivan's book Nonimi Aragalaya for instance. About 500 times over, in so many pages, the book highlights the way in which this Chief Justice has insulted and humiliated the Supreme Court and the legal profession. With the Chief Justice right next to her, the President said that the judicial system was corrupt. But there has been no problem whatsoever.

A few weeks before the judgement on my case was delivered, retiring Supreme Court Judge C. V. Wigneswaran said some things on his last day on the bench. He said afterwards to The Sunday Leader that a lawyer can look at the constitution of a bench and figure out what the verdict will be. So what is it really that the judge was saying? It is Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva who decides on the benches. Basically, what the retired judge was saying was that the judgements of the Supreme Court were biased and corrupt.

But it was my speech that was telecast over 40 times on Rupavahini. They played it over and over again. I thought that at most I would be asked to apologise or be given a warning or a suspended sentence.

Q: So how did you feel the second you heard the sentence of two years rigorous imprisonment? Did you freeze?

A: As the judgement was being read out I began to understand that an attempt was being made to fence me in. I thought then that I would definitely get a suspended sentence. A little while after I thought that it would be a prison sentence upto the point when the activities of the court was over. There have been sentences like that given in India and England. I never thought I would get two years rigorous imprisonment.

My circumstances changed unbelievably the moment the sentence was read out. As soon as I heard I decided to harden my heart. Then I bowed to the Supreme Court bench and asked them to take me away. But nobody was willing to do it. They stood around as if in shock. When I stepped forward they took me into that room.

I spoke to Tamara and told her not to be afraid. I said that I had no problem at all and I asked her not to cry and not to falter. Then I also spoke to my mother. I told her I was just a short distance away in Welikada and asked her not to worry about anything.

Q: Did you speak to your children?

A: No I didn't. Neither of them were in Sri Lanka at the time. They took me to the ground floor. Even then, they couldn't handcuff me and they kept the handcuffs with them. Nobody was willing to handcuff me. People were shouting and greeting me outside. The crowds were pushing and prodding. It was a very difficult time.

By this time I had totally steeled my mind against this judgement. I thought to myself 'I am going in. I will face whatever I have to. I will be with the people, I will not go to hospital.' Even as I kept thinking these things, I became more and more determined.

When I went to Welikada and had to put on the jumper also no one was willing to dress me in it. I wore the jumper myself and went over to the prisons superintendent. Even at this time they were all ready to put me in the prison hospital. But I told them that I wanted to go to jail.

Q: How did you feel when the prison bus turned into Welikada?

A: I didn't feel it that much because I was quite determined to face this by then. I remember the huge crowds. I greeted them. As soon as I went inside, I asked for a bench and a table to write on.

Q: How is your book progressing? If you can't reveal details, at least tell us the basic contents.

A: My idea was to write a well researched book. I have already done a lot of reading and inquiries I needed to do. I have sent certain people lists of questions and sought their answers in writing, which I have received. To be honest, I am not writing about Chandrika alone. This is going to be an expose of the Bandaranaikes' entire political history. Even though S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike brought in swabasha in 1956 and implemented the Sinhala-only policy, the Bandaranaikes are actually a Tamil family. They did various things and changed their name. These people know that. But Madam's family was not so.

Ever since the Bandaranaikes started politics, it has been one big political fraud. Then it was Chandrika. If you just list the lies she has told the world - even about herself. Her educational qualifications are totally untrue.

I remember that the first time The Sunday Leader Editor, Lasantha Wickrematunge exposed the truth about her qualifications, she called me and cried. "Don't cry Madam, we will meet in the evening and talk about this. We will tell the truth on Rupavahini and destroy Lasantha," I told her to comfort her at that point. I was the first person she called that day. When I went in the evening, I found that she didn't even have an Advanced Level certificate. Apparently she has a diploma in agriculture from Aquinas College. But she hadn't even gone for five classes for that course. No Sorbonne, no nothing.

I have highlighted these lies, her power lust, shamelessness and corruption in my book. And another thing - this book will be written in refined language. There will be no vernacular terms like 'balu' and 'kupadi.' When it is complete, it will be a researched book.

Q: Will you make any references in the book to the President's perpetual tardiness?

A: Madam Chandrika is someone who kept three SAARC leaders waiting for her for 27 minutes during the Presidency. If it was me, I would hang myself in shame.

Even after the tsunami, she kept former US Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton in her waiting room for 45 minutes. It was the Opposition Leader and the Prime Minister who kept them company while they waited.

But wouldn't these dignitaries contemplate about the nature of our Head of State? Isn't this type of delay absurd, especially when you think that she was keeping the father of the current US President waiting? Isn't it shameful? Isn't it ill breeding? That's what I am asking.

The lies Chandrika has told her mother. Her siblings. Her friends and acquaintances. The way she has plotted to destroy.

No one was willing to discuss taking her into the SLFP. It was only myself, my wife Tamara, Sirimavo Madam and Chandrika who were present at the crucial discussion. I will be including all this in my book.

Q: How long will you take to finish the book?

A: I will take about five months.

Q: How do the other prisoners react to you?

A: When I go into my prison ward, some of the inmates greet me calling me Mandela. They can't even say the name properly. But they say it anyway. There are ex-soldiers and policemen in my ward. Some of them are public servants. They set up a place for me to sleep, washed it and laid out a mat and even made me a pillow to lay my head on. They even fixed a light above my sleeping place.

They get me the water to bathe and even for the toilet. When I go to work at the printing press in the morning, the prisoners on either side of me abuse Chandrika and her family in bad language.

Q: What kind of things do your fellow prisoners discuss with you?

A: I sent Irudina a letter about what we talk about even before this. The people in here praise late Presidents J. R. Jayewardene and Ranasinghe Premadasa because many people were freed from prison during their tenures.

After I entered prison, I read several books about prison life. I even got several books down from outside. According to these books about five or six years after a person enters prison, he must be absorbed into a rehabilitation programme. Otherwise, a prisoner after five or six years gets mentally and physically weak and vulnerable to various types of exploitation.

But there are people here who have been inside for 20 or 30 years. Some of them have been released on public pardons. Others have been released on Vesak poya, Haji, Thaipongal or Christmas day for good behaviour. But during Madam Chandrika's period, these things have not happened. Now those who get released are those who have not paid fines for illegal sale of alcohol or moonshine.

Of the 486 who were released on Independence Day this year, 122 were drug or alcohol addicts. One of the prisoners had been brought to jail 22 times. 322 of the 486 had been to jail at least twice. Many of them are rented prisoners. They are people who are serving the sentence on behalf of someone else.

The best example is the prisoner who was sent here about two weeks before Independence Day for not having paid the fine for a drug or kasippu case. The fine amounted to about Rs. 200,000. Even he was released on February 4. I think it was a well planned case. He was in prison only for two weeks.

On the other hand, there are those who have been in here for 10 or 15 years who concern themselves with the sanitation and water facilities to the prison, the religious activities and try to lead exemplary lives. They have actually changed. They can be released after studying their cases carefully. The most interesting thing is that not one of these prisoners who have been inside for 10 or 15 years belong to underworld gangs. That is very unusual.

Deniyaya Lal looks after my ward. He has been in prison for about 20 years now. He was an army officer who had been sentenced to prison for having shot his father over a property issue. He was sentenced to death but it was later commuted to life imprisonment. But this sentence hasn't been altered to 20 years since then. This used to happen the proper way during JR's and Premadasa's time. During Chandrika's tenure, this has stopped. Lal went home recently on home leave. He came back and said he can hardly recognise Galle and Matara. He saw his birthplace after 20 years. As the situation is now, if life imprisonment sentences were altered to 20 years, 157 prisoners would be freed.

Q: So are you saying that our prison system needs to be studied carefully, socially and scientifically?

A: I think it has to be studied in depth. That's not all. Most of these prisoners are not close to the jailors. They are closer to the foremen. The foremen are in the kitchens, laundries and workshops. But the foremen can never become jailors. They can be used so well in counselling and rehabilitation programmes for prisoners. They have enough experience with inmates to become prisons commissioners.

Q: You were once agriculture minister. But with your experience now, you can be involved in a big way in the reformation of the prison system, can't you?

A: To be very honest, I have actually thought about that. This does not mean that I want to be justice minister when our government comes into power. That is not my subject. But I hope to set up a parliamentary committee via the justice minister and try and be chairman of that committee and organise a complete rehabilitation programme.

There are 4,000 inmates here when there should only be 1,500. Not even 500 of them have proper work to do. About 400 of us go to the press every morning. There isn't even enough work for five people. Being idle is not good for these people.

I go to the press to work or I write. Or I read. I try to be as active as possible.

But some of these people sit in one place and mope. I go up to them and tell them not to think about things so much. Let's do something, I say. Otherwise I get them involved in some religious activity.

What I think is that new technology should be brought into the prison and inmates should be given modern vocational training. Other than keeping them behind bars here, these prisoners get no rehabilitation at all.

Q: How do the prisoners refer to you? Do they call you sir?

A: Nobody calls me that. Most of them say 'amathithuma.' Very few of them call me 'sir.' Many of the elderly prisoners love to talk to me. One of them is called Nilaweli Danny. Danny has killed because he is a chandiya. He writes beautiful poems. He has changed a lot. In the past he had hit someone inside the prison and got his sentence extended. But he is different now. None of them belong to underworld gangs. The underworld members are all in remand. When an underworld leader enters prison, about 10 underworld prisoners surround him to provide him with security. Even if he goes to the toilet, they guard him. I don't want to mention names but even now there are underworld kingpins inside getting this treatment.

In any case before an underworld leader enters prison, several of his gang members get involved in a case regarding the non payment of fines and things and they get into the prison in order to set things up for the leader. Not one of the people who are really being punished in here belong to the underworld.

The other problem is drugs. Since the officers here are very strict the problem is under some kind of control. Most things including drugs, moonshine, arrack and even whiskey and brandy are available.

Some inmates scream at night because of being unable to take drugs. None of them are in my ward. But what I think is that there is no point in keeping drug addicts inside this. They need to be given medical treatment and properly rehabilitated. Most of them inside are serious addicts.

Q: Did you hope to be released this February 4?

A: Absolutely not. The President had said as much to several chief priests. But I know the President very well, so I did not expect it at all.

Q: What did you feel when you saw the politicians and huge crowds marching from Hanguranketha to Colombo demanding your freedom?

A: I don't think anyone has done as much injustice to the UNP supporters as I did during my years in the PA. That is the truth. The presidential election in 1999 was held only because I insisted. The President wanted to hold the election in 2000. If she had contested in 2000 she would never have been re-elected. Ranil Wickremesinghe would have been President. That is why I insisted on the election being held in 1999. My Samurdhi programme played a vital role in ensuring that she won the election. Even last time, the Samurdhi people were very much involved in the alliance victory.

Because of all these things, the UNPers were very angry with me. But they forgot all that and got on to the streets that day. The only reason for that is because no matter what wrongs I did to the party while in the PA, they know that I joined the UNP for valid and honest reasons. They understood that very well.

And of course the UNP is a very liberal party. That is why they were able to forget everything and love me for my talent and commitment. That is why they got on to the street for me. No other party would have done that. Because of the tsunami I know that the wave of support for me receded a little bit. But there was a huge crowd staging a satyagraha for my release the other day in Kandy.

Q: You crossed over and today you're in prison. Do you regret your decision?

A: Not at all. I honestly crossed over because of Chandrika's problems and her behaviour. Until I crossed over, there were no charges of corruption against me. But instead there were several other MPs and ministers who had been called rogues. There wasn't even an allegation regarding a tender against me. I was up-country development and parliamentary affairs minister. I was also deputy finance minister. I was re-elected general secretary of the SLFP. That is because Chandrika knew well that I had never stolen money or committed a fraud. So she tried till the last minute to keep me in the party.

Just before I left the party, Berty Premalal Dissanayake and Douglas Devananda came up to me and took me to Chandrika.

I remember that during that meeting, Chandrika cried. But it was too late by then. I had already made the decision that I was going to leave her.

So my decision is a principled one. I remember I attended a youth conference in Solomon Islands about one year before I crossed over. Since many of the communities in these islands are tribal, the auditor general, chief justice and other senior state officials happen to be expatriate Sri Lankans. We were given accommodation in two star hotels.

I took a group of talented young officers with me and we spent a week talking about the problems in the country. We took a white board and illustrated the way Chandrika was messing things up, how she was greedy for money and the way she insults officers. We even talked of the economy and the war. Prof. Sunil Jayantha Navaratne, Prof. Rathnayake, my wife Tamara, Kumari Navaratne and several others with in-depth knowledge about these subjects held extensive discussions. At the end of the discussions, we came to one conclusion. That nothing could be done with Chandrika at the helm. Then we tried to discuss how we could reform Chandrika. But the unanimous conclusion of that discussion was that she could not be reformed.

So I decided to quit after weighing the options carefully. It was not one I made based on personal problems. So there is no need for Madam Chandrika to be angry with me over my crossing over.

Q: But if you had been in the PA, you may have been the next presidential candidate. You may even have been a threat to Premier Mahinda Rajapakse - is that not so?

A: To be honest, Chandrika never planned to let Mahinda run. Even when she was choosing the general secretary of the party she picked me. Mahinda chose Maithripala Sirisena. But I won. The second time I won uncontested. The entire party began to have the opinion that I was talented and I could work. Even Chandrika finally had to accept this.

I remember when I was going to quit the SLFP, the unions, community associations, student associations and pradeshiya sabha members begged me not to go. But I am a man who likes to be happy where I am. I would rather be a happy farmer than an unhappy minister or even president. Happiness is very important to me.

Q: So you have no regrets at all?

A: Not at all. When I was working with Chandrika I underwent immense pain of mind. She never does anything to time. She lies so much, messes things up - the pressure was terrible. I told the Anura Dissanayakes when they were planning to form the alliance what kind of problems they would have to face if they joined hands with Chandrika. All of that turned out to be absolutely right. I am much amused by the current state of affairs.

Q: Do you still see the humorous side when you think about the prophesies you made as the alliance was forged?

A: Of course, since they all turned out to be right. Many of those prophesies were publicised in the media. But there was one thing I didn't say. That was the fact that we were going to lose. But I told our leader that. He didn't believe me at the time. He told me not to say that. So I refrained from making that prophesy.

The people in our party refused to believe that the alliance with the JVP would be formed. But I insisted that it would. I remember how I argued with Rajitha Senaratne about that. I told him that all the reasons given for why the alliance would not come into being were inconsequential. Based on a singular purpose, I said that the alliance would be forged - it would be forged with the sole purpose of winning. Similarly, I will make a prophesy today. No matter how much bickering takes place, that alliance will not be broken. If it collapses, both parties lose power. Even the JVP will suffer immeasurably from that.

Q: What do you think will happen then?

A: I think that Madam Chandrika is planning to go for an election. That is why she is fearlessly attacking the JVP. I believe that today, the JVP cannot face an election on its own. She will attack the JVP now and go ahead with the peace process and the interim authority and privatisation, but around election time, they will come to an agreement again. So she will definitely go for an election this year.

Q: Will it be a referendum or a presidential poll?

A: It will definitely be a presidential poll. No way will it be a referendum or a parliamentary election.

(To be continued next week)