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The Storm's eye by Prof.Rajiva Wijesinghe

The commemoration last Sunday of President Premadasa's birthday saw the launch of Sirisena Cooray's biography of his friend and mentor. I was honoured to be invited, mainly because every day that passes convinces me that Premadasa was by far the most visionary leader this country has had, or is likely to have, in my lifetime. But in addition I believe that Sirisena Cooray was his most devoted follower, and that the country would do well at this time to take heed of his commitment and capacity.

I know that is not a fashionable view. There was a time when it was claimed in the drawing rooms of Colombo that Ranil had cleaned up the UNP, on the grounds that he had got rid of Cooray from the party. Given that it was in fact the obious Wijetunge who had effectively got rid of Cooray, and also that several monsters still remained, I would have found this comment funny were it not also so sad. For it sprang in essence from the mindset that believed the Premadasa leadership sullied the social superiority of the UNP.

To me on the contrary it was Premadasa, despite his faults and the extraordinary difficulties he inherited, who restored something of the moral high ground to the UNP. And my belief that Cooray was closest to him in this respect is based on three very solid factors. Or, rather, two solid factors and the views of my mother whose judgment of people was generally very sound, if not always for the right or readily communicable reasons.

Having dealt with Cooray when he was Mayor of Colombo, she described him as a thorough gentleman. And while this may have been influenced by the fact that he was willing to help the Girl Guides, it was not an accolade she bestowed on others who were similarly indulgent.

The second reason has to do with Premadasa's funeral. A foreign diplomat who watched the proceedings told me that he felt there was an air of vulgar celebration about the event that belied its sadness. This may have had much to do with Wijetunge's self satisfied address, that was I believe only broadcast since he did not bother to attend the funeral. But even apart from that there was little sign of public grief.

The exception was Cooray. As I was leaving, amongst the last because there had been what seemed an unholy stampede, I saw this figure I did not readily recognize at the time, sitting alone with tears pouring down his cheeks. I was moved more than I had been by all the speeches, and I began to understand then the bond that had existed between the two men.

And then there was his singlehanded attempt to rescue the UNP from the disaster into which Wijetunge was dragging it. That loony would, during the second Southern Provincial Council election, rush from his helicopter into a bulletproof glass cage, while being hailed as the second Dutugemunu for his verbal assaults against minorities. After the election, in the face of a triumphant Chandrika, secure of victory after her dynamic hosting of the business community on Golden Pond, Cooray was the only man who dared to bring up the question of Wijetunge's leadership.

It was done through an article written by Chanaka Amaratunga, which analysed the causes of the UNP's defeat, and put them squarely at Wijetunge's door. This was published in the Sunday Observer and, though the points made there now seem irrefutable, it led to Wijetunge dismissing the then Lake House Chairman, Sunil Rodrigo, who was deemed to be Cooray's particular friend.

Then Wijetunge asked Cooray to resign. Cooray said he would think about it. Chanaka later told me that he had assumed Cooray would be ringing around asking for support, but he found him doing nothing of the sort. His point, very simply, was that he had not brought the matter up for his own sake. He was doing it for the party, and also for Ranil, he added, for those were the days in which Gamini Dissanayake was brilliantly making use of Wijetunge's weaknesses to orchestrate his own return to the UNP leadership. If no one else cared enough to support him, he had no inclination to stay.

And so Cooray was got rid of. He was not appointed to Parliament after the General Election of 1994, and went off to look at wild animals in various parts of the world. Why he was not later wooed back into the party, at a time when his backroom organizational skills were badly needed, is something I still do not understand - and the more so now, when the need to run a government efficiently has followed the need to win an election.

In that respect his track record as Mayor and Minister is much better than that of the dozens who now hold ministerial office. It can only be vulgar prejudice that prevents him being used, in a context in which able administrators are so singularly lacking. But while the energies of the Premadasa period are the more essential now, we have to remember what vulgar prejudice did to Premadasa. So it is not surprising that the country will continue to suffer, with propriety triumphing over talent as so often in the past.

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