Lessons never learnt by politicians

S L Gunasekera addressing the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’ LLRC was blunt enough to identify ‘myopic politics’ of the two main parties as the cause of the conflict this country endured for 34 long years. Judging by what is happening now as in London recently where the Opposition tried to score political mileage at the expense of the country, one may wonder whether our politicians will ever learn their lessons.

Wickremabahu Karunaratne has always been the odd man out with no local political backing. But when politicians like Jayalath Jayawardane and Karu Jayasuriya representing a responsible political party instigates or justifies the LTTE shenanigans in London they should know that they have lot to answer back home.

The irony is that these politicians could share the same platform with the LTTE to call for investigations against human rights violations in Sri Lanka as if they have forgotten that the UNP is in its present leaderless state purely because its leaders like R Premadasa, Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissnayake were all assassinated by the LTTE.

Karu J and Jayalath J should tap their conscience and ask themselves whether Premadasa, Lalith and Gamini did not have human rights to be just murdered on public roads.

Political leaders

During the conflict, quite a number of political leaders of all parties were mercilessly killed. In every one of these instances, unless the LTTE factor is brazenly present, an attempt was made by the democratic Opposition to lay the blame for the killing on the Government in power. Evidently, the Opposition sought to gain political mileage, ironically, against their own convictions to the contrary.

LTTE supporters

General Denzil Kobbekaduwa was a very popular officer who resolutely fought the LTTE. When he and nine other senior Army officers were killed at Arali Point during Eelam War II in 1992, President Premadasa’s arch political rivals, having sensed the national sentiments carried out an international campaign to embarrass the President attributing the deaths to ‘Premadasa mafia’.

Finally experts from London put speculation to rest by confirming that the vehicle was caught in an LTTE claymore at Arali. Gamini Dissanayake, despite his ‘decent’ reputation, tried to make the political maximum out of his partner, Lalith Athulathmudali’s death accusing President Premadasa and thereby exonerating the LTTE, only to meet the same fate in the hands of the LTTE a few months later.

President Premadasa’s political opponents readily threw all the LTTE crimes at him alleging him of ‘dictatorial ambitions’ but finally when President Premadasa himself was killed they ran short of explanations as to why Premadasa should commit suicide for his own ‘dictatorial ambitions’.

Again in 1994 when the Opposition candidate was killed by the LTTE with overbearing evidence, Ms Kumaranatunge made public statements insinuating that the leadership tussle within the UNP may have been responsible for Gamini Dissanayake’s assassination.

The UNP’s behaviour after the killing of war hero General Janaka Parera in 2008 is another case in point where the Opposition deliberately tried to hide the LTTE behind a cloud of public emotions. All these incidents finally gave political mileage to LTTE supporters who have been spreading falsehoods against Sri Lanka and its leaders.

In order to buttress its propaganda, all what the LTTE had to do was to quote Opposition politicians attributing all that killings to the Sri Lankan Government in power.

Thus at every one of these instances our politicians camouflaged the reality of the serial killer running amok because they had their eyes fixed on political power. Their greed for power has been such that they were blind to the danger lurking in the form of death thus playing politics even with their own lives.

Human rights violations

Now what do Jayalath J and Karu J expect by instigating a chorus of human rights violations against the Government of Sri Lanka? Do they want to frame charges against those boys who fought without food and sleep putting their lives on line to liberate the country from the scourge of terror? While Karu and Jayalath may have been hobnobbing with the suave members of the society during the past 34 years justifying LTTE crimes, it is the vernacular educated godayas who fought the LTTE in the front line to bring peace to this country.

International propaganda network

If this campaign of Karu and Jayalath against the Sri Lankan Forces ever succeeds, our brave sons of soil who fought the LTTE in the thick jungles and lagoons will be punished for getting rid of a mass murderer and the worst human rights violator this country ever knew.

That would be an open invitation for the trained LTTE cadres to regroup against the Government as there will be no Security Forces personnel to dare fight them with any morale in the future.

These politicians forget that our forces were fighting the most ruthless and organized terror outfit in the world who were backed up by an equally organized international propaganda network that exploited human rights laws and civilized norms for their own advantage.

I believe that the majority among UNP supporters still cherish democratic values and righteousness. Hence if the party desires to regain the credibility it lost by supporting the LTTE during the past years it should now initiate disciplinary action against Karu and Jayalath for alleged complicity with the LTTE supporters abroad. If not, since the majority in this country eschew the LTTE, the UNP will get more and more marginalized in the eyes of the average voter.

The public have learnt the lessons that the politicians pretended to be blind of in their quest for power. After all S L Gunasekara has been dead right. [email protected]