give facts, not ghost stories - EDITORIAL

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has told the media that officially it was still undecided as to which candidate to support at the January 8 presidential election. However, Tissa Attanayake, the former UNP general secretary who crossed over to the Government on December 8, nomination day, has claimed that the opposition coalition has several individual secret pacts with various political parties including the TNA.

He did not emphasise the fact that there was a secret pact between the Opposition and the political parties in the South such as the JHU though he referred to “various other political parties”. His intention was to claim that there was one with the TNA. Are the people who listen to his claim also really concerned about the Opposition’s purported secret agreement with the TNA and not with others. It is interesting to note that people do not see in the same light the purported secret agreement between the Opposition and the TNA and the real time secret arrangement between Maithripala Sirisena and the Opposition or the one between Tissa Attanayake and the ruling UPFA.

Needless to say that the TNA once accepted the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamil people and justified willingly or under duress all that the terrorist outfit did. However, that does not mean the TNA is still a political outcast while KP, the LTTE’s main weapons procurer, who for 30 years kept the LTTE well armed to kill and maim tens of thousands of people and took over the leadership of the terrorist outfit after Prabhakaran’s death, is enjoying all the luxuries without having to face any legal action.

If Attanayake produced evidence to prove the existence of such a secret pact between the Opposition and the TNA or if he could prove that such a pact had clauses inimical to the interests of the country or the people, then there is no doubt, the whole country should defeat that conspiracy. But to relate ghost stories about a political party just because it represents a certain community is not fair.

In Sri Lankan politics ghost stories have a significant place with one or the other political parties identifying some ghost being with its opponents. In recent history the ghost happened to be the LTTE or the TNA and invariably, especially during election times, had been identified with the UNP by the UPFA and allied parties.The famous claim about the so-called “Ali-kotigivisuma” was the best case in point. It was also said that Mahinda Rajapaksa had a secret pact with the Prabhakaran to get the Tamils who were supportive of Ranil Wickremesinghe to boycott the 2005 presidential election. However, never in history has the accuser been successful in proving his point or at least been able to produce evidence to that effect.

The flawed 2002 ceasefire agreement cannot be cited by the UPFA as a proof of conspiracy since it was a virtual carbon copy of the agreement signed by the SLFP leadership of Chandrika Kumaratunge and the LTTE in 1994.The latter contained almost all major clauses of the former, including the acceptance of “LTTE controlled areas.”

The issue here to be concerned about is the intention of the claim on secret pacts with Tamil parties and the final outcome of the election. It is well known that the intention has been to subtly instill fear or suspicion in the minds of the Sinhalese voters with this ghost story to distance them from the Opposition.

Also it is vividly clear that the ghost story teller slyly incites racism or attempts to get electoral advantage of it that has been inherent in the minds of the people, at the forthcoming presidential election. The final outcome is nothing other than further dividing the communities on ethnic lines and that would
definitely go against the much-talked-about reconciliation.