Meet 'First Brother' Basil

Contested Mulakirigala from SLFP in 1977 and lost

Campaigned for J.R.  against SLFP
in 1982 Referendum

Worked for UNP againts SLFP during
Mulkirigala by-election

Got job from Gamini Dissanayake with
Mahaweli contractor

Left for US soon after Premadasa
impeachment collapsed

Owns a US$ 200k house near Los Angeles

By Gamini Ruan

Basil Rajapakse is undoubtedly President Mahinda Rajapakse's ace in the hole during times of political turmoil.

Whether it was engineering the defection of 18 UNP Members of Parliament, or placating the dozen or so parties in the government's current parliamentary coalition, it is Basil who deserves to take the bow. As a consequence of being his brother's indispensable sidekick, Basil has earned the envy of several SLFP members who have watched him rise to the top of their party's ranks in just under two years.

Now that Basil has been appointed to parliament through the vacancy on the UPFA national list created by the untimely demise of the late Irrigation Minister Anver Ismail, it is in the public interest to review his history in politics, and the daunting question of whether the public perception of the man being a wheeler dealer is in fact true.

As far back as 1972, Basil was the head of the SLFP's Youth Wing during the tenure of Srimavo Bandaranaike's government. Basil contested the 1977 Parliamentary Election on the SLFP Mulkirigala ticket and was defeated in a historic poll swept by J.R. Jayewardene's UNP.

Joins 'old' SLFP (M)

The SLFP was plunged into turmoil, having secured a mere eight seats in parliament, and when the UNP stripped Sirimavo Bandaranaike of her civic rights in 1981, leading to a controversy over who would fill the now vacant SLFP Attanagalla seat, a dispute erupted, leading to a group of SLFP members leaving the party under the leadership of Maithripala Senanayake.

Basil was part of this breakaway group, which included Anura Bandaranaike and the likes of Stanley Tilekeratne and J.R.P. Suriyapperuma. After serving as General Secretary in Maithripala Senanayake's SLFP (M), Basil ultimately ended up campaigning with the UNP in support of the 1982 referendum, which was vehemently detested by both the SLFP and its voter base.

After the referendum the UNP's parliamentary supremacy was secured for a further six years. So Basil found his place within the party ultimately taking UNP membership and famously claiming at a press conference held immediately thereafter that the votes received by Hector Kobbekaduwa in the 1982 presidential election were those received from die-hard SLFP voters as no other political parties supported Kobbekaduwa's candidacy.

Basil's explanation for this at the time was that a party (the SLFP) that 'only believed in restrictions and failed to interact on economic issues with the rest of the world' could 'never rule a nation' nor 'lead a country towards prosperity.' These were the words of President Rajapakse's closest advisor, whose cabinet ministers today freely 'interact' with the rest of the world by branding UN diplomats as terrorists when they hold views that differ with the government's own.

Bullying the SLFP

Basil Rajapakse further humiliated the SLFP at that very same press conference on assuming UNP membership by stating that "the SLFP was following a culture of rationing essentials like sugar and chillies" with the excuse given being that both these items if taken in excess could prove detrimental to the nation's health.

In the aftermath of his slim referendum victory, President J.R. Jayewardene chose to hold parliamentary by-elections in the electorates where he lost at both the presidential election as well as the referendum, ostensibly to give the people of those areas the chance to elect an opposition member to represent them. One of the electorates for which a by-election was held was Mulkirigala in May 1983. The contestants for that seat were Ananda Kularatne from the UNP and Basil's own niece, Nirupama Rajapakse from the SLFP.

Since Basil speaks so fondly of the Rajapakse family's dedication to serving the people of the south, one would expect that he either endorsed his niece's candidacy or at the least avoided involvement in the poll, but instead Basil declared his support for Kularatne, and campaigned vehemently against his niece.

Ultimately Kularatne won the poll, but was disqualified by a judge based on an election petition submitted by Nirupama Rajapakse, which held that an agent of Ananda Kularatne, Basil Rohana Rajapakse, committed the "corrupt practice of making a false statement relating to (Nirupama's) personal character and conduct."

Uncle against niece

What Basil had said, on a platform at a meeting in Middeniya, according to Supreme Court records, is that Nirupama "had shown no love or gratitude to her late father George Rajapakse who earlier represented this electorate and that she was a hypocrite and a fraud to ask the voters to vote for her to show their gratitude to the late George Rajapakse."

Also according to court records, Basil "did not dispute making the impugned statement" or the fact that he was working as an agent of candidate Ananda Kularatne. Instead, Basil and Kularatne appealed to the Supreme Court to dismiss the petition on the grounds that the petition did not say specifically that Basil slandered Nirupama "for the purpose of affecting her return" of votes at the by-election.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court sided with Nirupama, forcing another by-election to be held, which Kularatne managed to contest and win without the aid of Basil's vicious meddling. Unemployed and uneducated, Basil was next given a job by UNP front-liner and Mahaweli Minister Gamini Dissanayake, on a request made by Anura Bandaranaike.

Ditching Gamini

Gamini Dissanayake appointed Basil as the Mahaweli Ministry's liaison officer for Japanese construction company Hazama Toda, for the duration of the irrigation project. Basil continued to work for Dissanayake in various capacities until after the failed impeachment motion against President Premadasa in September, 1991. It was at that time, during Dissanayake's darkest hour, when he faced the full brutal might of the Premadasa administration that Basil abandoned Dissanayake, placing his house in Mirihana, Nugegodaÿon rent and fleeing to the United States.

In the United States Basil is recorded to have moved into a house on Preston Drive, in Fontana, California some time shortly before June 1993. He was also resident at an apartment complex in the West Covina neighbourhood of Los Angeles at various times between August, 1995 and November, 2000. The budget complex is just 20 minutes drive away from the residence of elder brother Gotabaya's house in San Dimas, Los Angeles County, where Basil is recorded to have stayed at times between March, 1997 and November 1998.

Basil returned to Sri Lanka during the late 1990s when his brother Mahinda was Labour Minister, and an opportunity arose for him to earn the pet name of "Mr. 10%," assigned to him by President Chandrika Kumaratunga. When the Salt Corporation was privatised, the Employees Trust Fund (ETF) bought 30% of the corporation's shares.

The 'salty' credit card

As the ETF came under the Labour Ministry, then Labour Minister Mahinda Rajapakse was in a position to appoint his brother Basil as a 'consultant' to the privatised Salt Corporation. Basil was issued a company credit card by the corporation, which he took back to the United States with him and used to freely live off the Salt Corporation. He ran up such astronomical bills on this card that Mahinda Rajapakse had to go to great lengths to bury his brother's scandal at the Ministry after he was informed that the UNP was going to raise the issue in parliament.

Having returned to the US, Basil moved from Gotabaya's house to another nearby property in Covina, Los Angeles, which he used as his address between January 1998 and December 2003. This house, just 10 minutes away from Gotabaya's, is located at 222 West Dexter Street, Los Angeles, California. It has been officially valued at US$ 795,600 and is owned by "Jose Tam" and "T.R.S. Lily." It is not clear whether Basil paid rent for these premises or was simply a guest in what appears to be somewhat of a mansion given the valuation of the premises.

A Rs. 20 million house

Several publicly available records in the possession of The Sunday Leader indicate that Basil is the owner of his first home in California, at Preston Drive, Fontana, and that he was still the owner of the house as recently as July 2007. The full address of Basil's home in California is 15067 Preston Drive, Fontana, San Bernardino County, California and its full US postal (Zip) code is 92336-5524.

No doubt, Basil has in his Assets Declaration form submitted when assuming the post of Senior Presidential Advisor disclosed as is required by law the properties and bank accounts he possesses outside Sri Lanka. Likewise he would undoubtedly do so to parliament once again as required by law now that he is a Member of Parliament.

What the public records in our possession do not show is in what capacity Basil worked in the US or what his income was.

Several telephone numbers are listed for the Rajapakses at his Preston Drive, Fontana address including (909) 966-7653, and (909) 764-1124.   A recent modest assessment valued the house, which is registered in the name of "Rajapakse, Basil" at US$ 206,551.

Given the high profile role played by Basil in the government with all indications being that he would seek to some day succeed Mahinda, the opposition as well as detractors in his own party will put him under the microscope. And given the stringent laws in the US, he will do well to ensure his assets declaration tallies with the disclosures he has made to the authorities in the US. For rest assured, the search is on.