Mahen Siriwardena says… When Sri Lanka’s number one hit man, VP, killed President Premadasa many years ago, there were cheers and crackers bursting. It was also reported that corks popped off vintage champagne bottles in the Colombo Seven.
A new era was supposed to be born on the basis that the powers soon to be would do away with Dhoosanya, Bheeshanaya and usher in an era of peace and prosperity. The only obstacle was GD of the UNP as the presidential candidate. He too was hit by the same hit man who paved the way for CBK to rule supreme.
Dhoosanaya and Bheeshanaya continue to date, even worse than ever before. The queen was disposed and the kings remain. Now the queen laments she is at the receiving end of the Beeshanaya and all must unite to save the motherland. What a laugh!
When Wimal Weerawansa asserts that the JVP was intransigent and did not change with time to consolidate its hold on power with the PA, he may be correct. But some, including Somawansa ,would have also realized that even having joined the MR Govt., they would not be able to dictate terms to MR.
The grip of the UPFA firmly rests with the Rajapaksa brothers and the dissident UNP group rather it would have been with than with an ever-vacillating JVP on major national issues, except for the prosecution of war against the LTTE. The only usefulness of the JVP in the Govt would be their head count in parliament and nothing more.
Perhaps, the wily old guard, Somawansa, mature in age, and has some international exposure and understanding of universal freedom struggles realized this and moved away to be a power to reckon with than a doormat of the MR govt.
The impatience of Weerawansa to savour power and be a mouthpiece for everything and anything culminated in his departure and forming a party of his own. That is his waterloo. The JVP may not have starry-eyed red-shirted youth of yesteryear dominating the villages with abstract theories, but they are well on the way to becoming a genuine nationalist movement in the eyes of the rural folk. They probably know that, and are likely to piggyback ride the UNP, sooner or later, to power again.
The masses are helpless. All the street shouting and protest by the Fourth Estate is in vain only because the rule of the thugs is the rule and not the exception. They roam the streets of Colombo with impunity and the world at large guesses who they are, but helpless to do anything about it.
Even before the nomination lists were accepted, the roads and village kiosks are told to hoist and maintain blue flags with the youth carrying the posters of the chief minister and his colleagues plague every wall and culvert.
No one dares to remove the posters. The thugs are well oiled and fed to ensure that they stay that way.
If the UNP or the JVP imagines that they can grab power in the SabaragamuwaProvince they are in for a big surprise. Con men, the likes of Weerawansa, can only remain until the hit men decide otherwise. Tragically that has been the pattern all this while.
via M@L
