How the joint mechanism will help in rebuilding - Part 5

President Kumaratunga being interviewed by senior journalist Janadasa Peiris

(Continued from Saturday)

Q. At the Peace Advisory Committee Meeting Your Excellency made a very pertinent statement before the religious leaders that what is more important is not the post of a Minister or the post of Presidency but a solution to the national problem. In other words, if a solution is sought in this manner, it may pose a threat to the sustenance of the Freedom Alliance Government. How do your Excellency propose to find a reconcilable solution under these two conditions?

A. This has become a problem only to one of the constituent parties of the Freedom Alliance Government. There is no dispute from all the others. They say that they are in need of peace more than I do. What I actually meant was that I never said that the Government did not have a level on this talk, as the two papers of the Wickremesinghe family made it out. In that case I ought to be an irresponsible fool. If it not for our Government, peace would not have reached the present condition at any rate. What I meant was that certain elements, it may be within our own alliance, or may be in the UNP or among Muslim parties, who are opposed to peace. Peace is a possibility. Practically possible. Those who oppose on potty matters do so to fatten their own share of votes thinking that they can become strong by shouting.

It was in that context that I said that we should forget our scope of power and status and act with the national interest at heart. As a matter of fact, if peace is going to dawn, losing my presidency is immaterial to me. I can go home very happily. I am occupying this position not to fill my pockets. Nor because of greed for power. I am here to do some good for the country. I consider this to be the greatest good I can do for my country. With the cooperation of everybody,if this task could be accomplished under my leadership there will hardly be anything left to be done by anybody else with difficulty. My endeavour is to accomplish the task that was fraught so hard over such a long time. This was what I intended to convey that day.

Q. What is clear from the media behaviour of Ranil Wickremesinghe is that he is intent upon coming in to power when your Government falls as a result of your endeavour to implement this programme. Do you expect to afford an opportunity for the UNP to come into power?

A. I am not prepared to do that. Those who are opposing us may be willing to do that. There may be even within the Government those who are prepared to do that. As for me, I am not prepared to do that at all. Is it not my own self who brought those people in to power. I have placed my neck on the guillotine. When the Ranil Wickremesinghe Government was attempting to use Presidential powers to ruin the country, they pleaded with me relentlessly to hold the General Election without delay. The JVP was under pressure and under threats. I exercised my powers and brought about this situation. If there are attempts now to break this, let those who make such attempts undertake the responsibility for it. I am not prepared to undertake any part of it.

Q. Looking back on history, all successive Governments since 1958 have made sincere attempts to solve the national problem. For example, Your Excellency's father, the late Prime Minister Bandaranaike signed Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact. A Language Pact was signed at the same time. On that occasion, the then UNP Leader J. R. Jayewardene organized a walk to Kandy, in protest. The final outcome was the assassination of Prime Minister Bandaranaike. Soon thereafter the 1958 communal riots broke out. Later in 1966, when the Tamil Language Special Provisions Bill formulated jointly by Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake and Chelvanayagam was brought in, the SLFP and some of the leftist parties turned communal-minded and obstructed by launching demonstrations. As far as the Black July of 1983 and the Indo-Lanka Pact of 1987 were concerned, Your Excellency and the late Vijaya Kumaratunga supported the Indo-Lanka Pact and the Provincial Council Act, because of your dedication towards peace. You did so in spite of the late J. R. Jayewardene's dictatorial attitude like Idi Amin. Your Excellency supported those moves in spite of the fact that the doors of Royal College were shut to your son.

There is a long history on subsequent developments on this line. The 2000 Draft Constitution was presented in Parliament by Your Excellency after lengthy discussions with the UNF over a period of 4 months but they obstructed its passage. Presently on this subject of the proposed Tsunami Relief Council, we are puzzled as to whether the fate of Your Excellency's late father in 1958 is going to be repeated. On that occasion the late Prime Minister had to tear away the Pact. It is an acknowledged fact that we are yet paying for that past sin. I wish to know from Your Excellency whether the Tsunami Relief Council so far described by you is going to suffer a similar fate of retreat or whether Your Excellency will take it forward to the last, treating it as the best opportunity to achieve peace?

A. It is a good question. If I were to answer in short, yes. I regret to say, that my father was assassinated by an extremist force which included some of our Buddhist Monks. But they were extremists.

But they are only an insignificant segment of our population. They may have been little more than the present number but not the majority. UNP and JVP joined hands to kill Vijaya.On that occasion too it was the extremists who came together to solve the problem of the Tamil people. Similarly I am not sure whether the extremists will get together to kill me saying I am trying to solve the Tamil people's problem. Once LTTE extremists attempted to kill me, but I escaped. Now some times extremists may make an attempt on my life. If my father was killed, if Vijaya, my husband was killed, I have no reason to believe that I would be spared. I came into politics not through ignorance of these possibilities. It is said that I should learn lessons from their lives.

I have learned the science of politics very deeply.The degree that I hold is for political science. I learnt economics for my doctorate. Before I could complete my doctorate, I had to take to politics. Therefore always I am reading politics. I always discuss politics not with every Dick, Tom and Harry but with intellectuals conversant with the subject. There is one lesson I have learnt. I do not like to listen to a few in history who shouted extreme. That is why I always say that in this country, democracy is 51 per cent. Not the 100 per cent. We must agree to the will of 51 per cent.

A recent survey revealed the willingness of 80 per cent. What more talks then? When the UNP and JVP jointly contested me I scored 63 per cent. On that occasion 51 per cent cast their votes. On the second occasion I scored 57 per cent. All surveys confirmed this position. But at the last minute, Mr. Prabhakaran's boys mounted on cycles threatened people through microphones to vote for Ranil and told them that those who vote for me will be killed. Under those circumstances, I am confident of at least 60 per cent votes. Some of those who opposed us on that occasion are with us today. They are in our Government. That is not a victory for me alone. It is because of the goodness of party policy. The problem before us today is not that. We have to think in the interest of the country.

I am not gaining an iota of benefit out of this. In 1993-94 election, in the face of an anticipated reduced majority, I did something that nobody would have dared to do in the history of this country. I did that because I believed in my conscience. After a long study of this problem I am confident that there is no solution to this problem other than a political solution entailing devolution of power. That is why I am staking my neck over the last nearly 15 years. I am not going to be frightened by paper tearing and shouting. According to history that I have learnt, if a majority of people in my country agree I will do that. How I am going to do it will be made known later.