New romance with an old enemy

H. L. D. MAHINDAPALA

In an interview aired on Asia-Pacific TV (July 16, 2005) Michael Maher, the Correspondent of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, pitted President Chandrika Kumaratunga against her sister Sunethra Bandaranaike and in the following exchange exposed one of the hidden characteristics of the then President:

Opening shot: Chandrika Kumaratunga, Sri Lanka's president: I'm a workaholic, I like to work. And I'm in this, not to fill my pockets like lots of others, or because the idea of power thrills me - I find it a joke.

Michael Maher: A joke?

President Kumaratunga: Yes. I find power a joke - I laugh or I get very angry with it.

Michael Maher: You're a rare politician then...

President Kumaratunga: I like a simple life. I must be.

Michael Maher: That you don't find power alluring...

President Kumaratunga: I find it a joke.

Michael Maher: ... attractive.

President Kumaratunga: No, no, I don't like it at all. The only thing that attracts me in power is that it gives me the authority and the possibility of doing what I think should be done for this country.

In a separate interview on the same programme, Michael Maher asks Sunethra

Bandaranaike at her residence: Does she (Chandrika) like power?

Sunethra Bandaranaike: Very few people don't. I think she loves it. Absolutely! She thrives on it. Because she told me, and I must say I was a little skeptical, that she hated power.

She probably believes that. Or she probably wants to believe it. But power is a kind of like a petty drug, isn't it? Place power in the hands of anybody, any type of power, and you just watch. No, I think she loves it.

Reputation to lie

This, no doubt, is Sunethra's way of saying that truth and her sister can never sleep on the same bed. And not being in politics she is the most reliable of all the Bandaranaike siblings.

Also, it doesn't need much of an imagination, or sleuthing to find out which of the two sisters is telling the truth. Cee "Be-gul" Kay has established a formidable reputation for saying one thing in the morning and denying it in the evening.

Unlike most other women she is not exercising her prerogative to change her mind as when she pleases but is deliberately veering away from the truth when it is convenient to her to save her skin.

She does it again in her interview with the Editor of the Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickrematunga who had devoted the better part of his "investigative

Reporting" to expose her as a corrupt, lying, incompetent, misguided, law-breaking, duplicitous, unreliable, meddlesome, high-living, wine-bibbing, pretentious quack, claming academic qualifications from Sorbonne which she never had.

Latest somersault

In a complete reversal of his role he is now lending paper towels to dab the eyes of his new suckling crying: "Mumma-no-Pappa-no-Appa-kanda-thuttu-no'! Wickrematunga's revelations in the past are as stunning as his latest somersault to cradle his new cry baby in his arms.

In his earlier reincarnation as the anti-Satellite leader, he had to serialise her misdeeds Sunday after Sunday because he didn't have enough pages in one edition to run it all. His readers were grateful to him for his skills in "investigative reporting."

Now, after all that, he has teamed up with CBK again to scratch each other's back. To the credit of Wickrematunga it must be said that he knows what he is doing: he is lofting questions to her gently for her to bat.

Unfortunately, for him she steps back to swing hoping to score a six but she is caught invariably at silly point - the usual point at which she is always stuck.

CBK is weakest at interviews. If you grill her with some probing, cross questions she will stumble like Humpty Dumpty without any possibility of putting her together again.

Tim Sebastian of BBC had her for breakfast, lunch and dinner when she appeared on his Hard Talk program. On the eve of the election after she sacked Ranil Wickremesinghe (she regrets it now) she fronted up before the Sebastian's cameras.

Her objective was to hammer Ranil at tax payers' expense. I think it was Wickrematunga who put the cost at some hundred thousand sterling pounds (?). Her credibility was in tatters by the time the program ended.

Instead of her hammering Ranil it was Sebastian who hammered her. He just ripped into her, tearing her to ribbons.

Oily tender, loving care

Wickrematunga certainly could have done a better job than Sebastian, but he treats her with some oily TLC (tender, loving care).

Of course, he was egging her on to make use of her to attack President Mahinda Rajapaksa - his latest bete noir. Wickrematunga's plans of making use of his other pet Ranil Wickremesinghe to hammer Rajapaksa went awry with the joint SLFP-UNP MoU. Left high and dry he has now rushed to stoke the most loose cannon in town.

Wickrematunga's new political romance with the Satellite would have had some justification if his political motives were not so transparent. It is pretty obvious that Wickrematunga was trying to make use of CBK as a handle to hit President Rajapaksa.

But the pompous "political analyst", who was repeatedly exposed as a pseudo-intellectual earlier by Wickrematunga (he was right in this) did not see through this. She went on putting her foot in her mouth each time she opened it to please Wickrematunga and, of course, her inflated ego.

Pathetic

It was pathetic to read the script of her interview with Wickrematunga. To begin with it is not in keeping with the dignity of a UN Consultant to attack another head of state in the region.

Even though she has excluded herself from Sri Lanka she is still paid by the Sri Lankan tax payers' funds that partly finance the UN.

Second, she contradicts herself, which is not surprising, knowing that she lacks coherence in her approach to anything, let alone the truth.

Third, she exposes herself as a boastful egotistic, self-serving, pompous preacher who has lost the plot.

Fourth, after reading her latest interview don't expect too much from her forthcoming "political analysis" on Sri Lanka.

Listen, for instance, to what this great political missionary who claims to "have revolutionised many aspects of government and our society for the better" has to say about her mission in life: "I needed a purpose in life and that purpose was definitely not going to be in Sri Lanka but it would be elsewhere." (Please note emphasis).

And again: "I was quite happy in England and I was not going to come back for years and even if I did return I just wanted to do all the things I had planned to do after my retirement." So how does she propose to serve Sri Lanka if her "purpose" is "elsewhere", wherever that may be?

Is this the voice of the daughter of the "Father of 1956" or is this the voice of a jeans-clad, baseball-cap-wearing (back-to-front) shopaholic? Wickrematunga says she has "a passion for shopping", perhaps bargaining in London malls?

Missing humanity

Not once does she mention her passion for Sri Lanka but she claims that "the main reason I came to politics was to re-humanize politics in this country."

Taking her word for it, where was her humanity when her angry ant, S. B. Dissanayake, was persecuting Susanthika Jayasinghe, the only female Olympic medal winner from Sri Lanka? Was her way of "re-humanizing society" by stripping women on the streets of Wyamba?

She also says: "I believe in the great goodness of man." Presumably, this gender neutral "man" includes "woman" as well.

So when she did not lift a finger to restrain S. B. Dissanayake, one of her pet minister's at the time, chasing Susanthika round and round the track did she believe in the "goodness of man" or "the goodness of woman"?

Wickrematunga, quite rightly, went to town with the horror stories of CBK's pint-sized minister chasing tall and athletic Susanthika, hoping that she would tire and fall into his lap. Is this CBK's way of "re-humanizing" society?

Here's another gem from the "fighting spirit" (Wickrematunga) of CBK: "During my term as President if someone from the government did not do what I had said needed to be done, I used to go and do it myself.

That is why I used to work till 11 or 12 in the night and get late because I was doing a thousand things at the same time.

When ministers did not work, I told them once or twice and then could not be bothered wasting my time anymore, so I went ahead and did it. But of course I allowed them to take the credit."

Talents wasted by UN

This confirms that her talents are wasted as UN Consultant on Education. Her real talents are in giving a spin to her sob stories. Kofi Annan would have done well if he had hired her to cover-up his son's deals in food-for-oil exchange.

Her explanation for coming late doesn't jell because those who really work hard never get late. In fact, the whole idea of working hard is not to get late in delivering goods and services.

It is common knowledge that she comes late because she cannot stop talking once she opens her mouth, according to her brother Anura. She has no sense of time management. She has no qualms in keeping people waiting. She even keeps planeloads of people waiting.

Amazingly, she has no problems about arriving in time to catch international airlines outside Sri Lanka. In the next interview promised by Wickrematunga she, hopefully, will have an explanation for arriving in time for all other flights except, of course, you know what!

Her latest interview indicates that she is attempting to stage a come back to get even with the Rajapaksas about whom she is planning to write a book. Her attempt to wash dirty linen in public can hardly be called "fighting spirit".

Manipulated power

Her career is more noted for the way she has expertly manipulated the powers and privileges she acquired as president - and also as the legatee of the Bandaranaike brand name - for her advantage than for solving the great issues facing the nation.

She has had no compunction in trading on the name of her parents even now, at home and abroad, without ever paying due respects to the visionary founder of the party - the founder on whose coffin she climbed to reach heights of power which would have been totally beyond her grasp if she was just another night club chick from Colombo 7 with a passion for shopping.

As for giving credit to her ministers, ask G. L. Peiris, her finance minister. Whenever he went out to read the Budget in parliament she would announce boastfully: "GL reads what I write", humiliating the professor no end.

All said and done, it is difficult to figure out - even at the end of her lengthy charivari after talking at length to her old enemy - whether she is too big for her boots or whether her hat is too small for her swollen head. Perhaps, she's stuffed at both ends.

To be continued