Dangerous conspiracy

Extreme Left-Right combination:

Lakshmi de SILVA

There is a very grave situation in the country with the most dangerous conspiracy afoot since independence. It was a Washington consensus nomination putting together the unholy JVP-UNP extreme Left extreme Right combination, Constitutional Affairs and National Integration Minister D.E.W. Gunasekera said yesterday.

Addressing the UPFA press conference at the Mahaweli Centre, Colombo, the Minister said all reactionary national and international forces mysterious and unseen have come together.

They are full of contradiction for a set purpose of defeating President Mahinda Rajapaksa with two slogans. The first was the abolition of executive presidency and the second preservation of democracy, he said.

“What was actually going to happen was an entirely different scenario though it was claimed the Executive Presidency would be abolished in 180 days.

In practical terms it cannot be done like that even if Sarath Fonseka wins the election and a fresh Parliament was elected after that, he said.

Before General Sarath Fonseka handed over his resignation letter to President Rajapaksa he had asked for an increase of the army cadre by 100,000. He had also asked for commanding powers of all three armed forces.

In the event he was elected President he would become the commander in chief of the three armed forces. He would set aside the Parliament and run the country under military rule as his experience for 40 years was as a military officer.

“The JVP will be one of the main factors supporting a military dictatorship. They too cannot win a democratic election so they will become partners in crime of this nefarious military agenda,” he noted.

“The JVP will not create a caretaker government but an undertaker’s government and that was why they had chosen Sarath Fonseka as their candidate.

All progressive governments from 1956 had faced coups. S.W.R.D. Bandaraniake’s government faced a Cabinet strike of right wing ministers.

The 1962 government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike faced a military coup led by Sidney de Zoysa and others. Again in 1964 she faced a coup when the present UNP leader’s father Esmond Wickremesinghe was behind the coup in which Mangala Samaraweera’s father was also a party.

But the present threat was even greater as reactionary forces both at home and abroad were behind the unholy UNP-JVP entente and Sarath Fonseka’s nomination, he also noted.