A PERSPECTIVE - PRASAD GUNEWARDENE:

The Fox, Sour Grapes and the JVP

Reading an observation made by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), unsuccessful Chief Minister candidate Wasantha Samarasinghe in a weekend newspaper last Sunday brought to mind the hilarious story of the Fox and the Sour Grapes taught in the Kindergarten. Samarasinghe stated- "We don't accept the result as a defeat and is only a temporary setback".

It was nothing but fun to read such an observation on a Sunday morning after breakfast. The JVP's unsuccessful chief ministerial candidate seems to be lost in understanding what is victory and defeat. In the correct sense, the election result was an utter defeat for a party like the JVP which always boasted about their roots in the villages.

Samarasinghe describes the 'utter defeat' as a temporary setback but fails to analyse where it went wrong. He, without evidence, claimed that the result was not the real mandate of the public. Samarasinghe appears to be blind of the statements made by Election Monitors that the voter turn out was good and the elections were free and fair by all standards.

Samarasinghe had failed to realise that he too entered Parliament thanks to an alliance with the SLFP during the Chandrika Kumaratunga administration in 2004. The JVP alliance with the SLFP helped them to bring in 39 Members to Parliament at the cost of the SLFP vote base.

But, the JVP which lacks education on election results tried to display that the SLFP won because of them.The voters of North Central and Sabaragamuwa Provinces proved to them that without the SLFP they could only be a very distant in third in the political scene of this country. The JVP throughout its journey from the late 1980's have failed to understand the meaning of the word 'gratitude'.

Near ashes

The JVP is a party that is always shy to accept the truth and the reality. Having being driven to near ashes at the NCP and Sabaragamuwa Provincial Poll, Samarasinghe has the audacity to tell in public that the JVP voter base was not shaken.

If it was never shaken, why did the JVP perform in such a dismal manner before the eyes of the public? Adding insult to injury, Samarasinghe shamelessly claims that there is no split in the JVP. He says that some who failed to answer charge sheets have only left the party, which act, according to Samarasinghe is not a split in the JVP.

Whom is Samarasinghe trying to fool is the question. Certainly, he could not fool the voters of North Central. That was why the voters over there brought the JVP to a very distant third in the polls race.

We do not wish to get involved in the internal squabbles of a party like the JVP which has now forgotten the 'equality concept' of its founder leader Rohana Wijeweera. The late JVP leader Wijeweera fought for equality among all sections of the society and was never racist.

He was a man who saw the four walls of the Jaffna Prison in the 1970s during the 1971 insurgency. We do not know how many of JVP's so called leaders of today have seen Jaffna or lived there apart from having experienced the 'comfort' within the four walls of the Jaffna Prison as their founder leader Wijeweera did.

Inception

However, the JVP from its' inception have known the difference between sweet and sour to their advantage. The Norwegians were

a bitter pill to the JVP with regard to the ethnic problem.When the JVP assumed ministerial office under Kumaratunga Government, JVP's Vijitha Herath as Cultural Minister had close ties with the Norwegians and even accepted donations from the Royal Norwegian Government.

In the late 1980s, JVP was a bitter critic of the presence of the Indian Army under the Indo-Lanka Accord. The JVP was instrumental in forcing President Ranasinghe Premadasa to send the Indian troops back.

Having succeeded in that attempt, the JVP began an insurrection against the Government of President Premadasa. The JVP which labelled the Indian Army as a 'Monkey Army' called upon the people to boycott all imported Indian products which included medicine. Indian manufactured medicine is low in cost when compared to same brands brought from the West. The JVP also banned the public from reading Lake House newspapers.

Immediately after Rohana Wijeweera was captured and killed during the Premadasa administration, as a Parliament Lobby Correspondent of 'The Island', I sought permission from the late Deputy Defence Minister, Gen. Ranjan Wijeratne to take a delegation of journalists covering Parliament to view the Ulapane, Gampola residence of Wijeweera, the location Wijeweera was captured while living under the false name of Nimal Attanayake.

Gen. Wijeratne agreed to the request and directed the Army to escort our delegation from Peradeniya to the St.Mary's Estate, Ulapane, Gampola where Wijeweera had lived in the Superintendent's bungalow having purchased that estate. Incidentally, in the early 1960s, this bungalow was occupied by Gen. Wijeratne who was the Planter of St.Mary's Estate.

Under the escort of Lt.Col.Narangoda, if I may recall correctly, we reached Wijeweera's residence on a Saturday morning. We were permitted to view the entire house. This is what we observed- Wijeweera checked his own blood pressure using medical equipment. A partly consumed Chivas Regal whisky bottle lay on the dining table. Indian manufactured drugs used by Wijeweera were on

top of a cupboard in his bed room, a feeding bottle, could have been of his youngest child of six children, with milk dried up idled on a baby's pillow in a room.

Lake House

The Lake House weekly publication 'Silumina' and the 'Dinamina', and 'Daily News' were the only newspapers in the newspaper stand. In the kitchen, a half scraped coconut lay on the table with the scraped remnants remaining on a plate. In a bed room, a huge travelling bag lay open with childrens' clothes, some clothes fallen on the ground. A 14 Sri wagon model car was parked under the porch, near the main entrance to the house".

These are some of my recollections and Mrs.Chitrangani Wijeweera who yet resides at the Welisara Naval Camp may well remember the items mentioned above.

The journalists delegation comprised seniors, Rodney Martinez (now defunct Sun Group, present Senior Associate Editor Daily News) Sumanapala Amarasekere, late Tissa Jayawardene and Ajith Jayasinghe (SLBC), Daya Lankapura (Divaina), M. N. Ameen (Thinakaran), late Rohan Perera (Daily News), Bennet Rupasinghe (now defunct Aththa), Bandula Abeyratne (Dinamina), Mahinda Abeysundera (Janadina) and Chandani Wickremesinghe now Mrs. Kirinde after marriage from the Sun Group.

Double standards

The point that is being driven, is to prove the double standards of the JVP in its history. It was Wijeweera, Upatissa Gamanayake and Saman Piyasiri Fernando alias 'Keerthi Wijayabahu' who warned the public to boycott Indian manufactured products and Lake House publications.

Those who violated such orders were issued with death threats. Despite threatening the public to boycott such items, who did use them? Was it not the same JVP leader who lived under a false name of Nimal Attanayake? Down the line to the present JVP, the party has been using a double tongue on many issues.

White Tiger

The JVP was a bitter critic of Norway and branded Norway as a 'White Tiger'. Did not Vijitha Herath as a Minister accept donations from Norway for a library project? Was it not the same JVP that urged President Chandrika Kumaratunga to sever all ties with Norway?

Now let us come to the last Presidential election. Who did embarrass the Sri Lanka Army and try to cause damage to the campaign of SLFP presidential candidate Mahinda Rajapaksa? Was it not the incumbent JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe? It was Amarasinghe who used candidate Mahinda Rajapaksa's campaign platform to embarrass Rajapaksa, insult the Sri Lanka Army and frighten people stating that once Rajapaksa won, he (Amarasinghe) would demand the dissolution of the Sri Lanka Army which could not fight the LTTE in a victorious manner.

Mahinda Rajapaksa was embarrassed by that statement. Using his skills, presidential candidate Rajapaksa allayed fears of such a move if he won and told the people that the Sri Lanka Army was a respected professional Army that could face all odds. When the gallant troops liberated East under the leadership of the Commander-in-Chief, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the first person from the JVP to commend the Sri Lanka Army was none other than Somawansa Amarasinghe of the JVP.

Amarasinghe even stepped out of usual boundaries to commend the Sri Lanka from every platform he embarked upon, be it political or otherwise. The question is whether a literate people of a dignified society could place their trust in a party with double standards like the JVP.

The people who studied the opportunistic pattern of the JVP taught them a bitter lesson at the recently concluded provincial election by reducing them to near ashes. The JVP must thank the architect of the present Proportional Representation system, late President JR Jayewardene for helping them to creep into the Councils even with a meagre three members. If not, the JVP would have been completely wiped out from the political scene in the two provinces.

The JVP was a bitter critic of the Provincial Councils introduced by the JR Jayewardene Government. Initially, it described the system as a cancer leading to corruption. After sometime, the JVP decided to contest the provincial elections stating that the decision to enter PCs was to ensure there was no corruption in such bodies with their participation.

Corruption

Be that as it may, how many JVP councillors were alleged of corruption in those Councils? Did the JVP representation in the PCs help wipe out corruption or did it add more misery to increase corruption is an issue for the people to decide. The JVP is certainly at crossroads at this juncture.

All its strategies have miserably failed in the eyes of the public. The fate that befell their recent general strike have now pushed them back. The threat of an islandwide general strike is now the latest joke of the JVP.

The voting pattern at the recent provincial elections even proved that the youth have distanced themselves from the JVP. There are no youth to carry tills on the road to collect funds for the party from the people.

Even if they do, with the help of some die hard supporters, will the public fund them is a question!

Distant dream

The dream of being the third force in the country's political scene today looks a distant dream for the JVP. Vasantha Samarasinghe, the badly defeated JVP chief ministerial candidate speaks of changing strategies to suit changing times.One such strategy was to go to court to stop the PC poll. In that too, the JVP failed.

What was that strategy? Because the JVP was aware of a humiliating defeat, it wanted to deprive the people of their franchise. How long can the JVP live on such unsuccessful strategies is the question.

The results of the North Central and Sabaragamuwa Provincial elections proved beyond reasonable doubt that the JVP has now gone back to days of crawling and yawning. Comrade Somawansa Amarasinghe would soon realise that a helping hand is better than a walking stick that may make him fall into a deeper crater.

The only other option available for the Comrade is to return to the salubrious environs that gave him comfort for many years, located by the river called the Thames. Because the literacy rate in Sri Lanka is very high now and, her people cannot be fooled all the while and all the time.