Ranil , GL and a boomerang called ‘No-Confidence’

 (by Malinda Seneviratne)

G.L. Peiris is a politician.  He’s also a professor of law.  He ought to know constitutions.  He ought to be able to study and assess the costs and benefits of legislation, proposed and enacted.  We can’t be faulted for thinking that he’s studied constitutions and constitutional history and as such is able to make intelligent comments by comparing and contrasting constitutions across time and space.  His track record in these matters is hardly the stuff to vow anyone. 

G.L. Peiris was a minister is the cabinet of Chandrika Kumaratunga when her government put together the notorious and short-lived ‘political package’ not too long after coming to power in 1994.  It is unlikely that he was not consulted.  It is also unlikely that his opinion was not solicited when her government came up with a draft constitution in the year 2000 whereby the President tried to sell the country the dummy of abrogating the executive presidency so that an Eelam try could be scored (under the goal posts, virtually). 

G.L. Peiris is a Thomian. Given popular perception and constitutional frills one might say that he’s a Royalist.  He’s a loyalist, this much is certain.  He backed Chandrika to the hilt, never missing an opportunity to praise his leader and qualifying every other sentence with salaams.  In 2001, he switched loyalties, joined the UNP and replaced ‘Her Excellency the President’ with ‘the Honourable Prime Minister’ in his numerous arguments in policy-defense.  He was a key figure in the post-CFA machinations of the Wickremesinghe regime, an apologist and in many ways complicit in the many crimes against the nation perpetrated by his ‘honourable’ leader.  He crossed party lines after Mahinda Rajapaksa won the Presidency in 2005, possibly because he knew that there was no future for him with Wickremesinghe and the UNP.  He backed Rajapaksa to the hilt and continues to do so.  It is unlikely that he had no knowledge of the 18th Amendment before it was tabled in Parliament.  He defends its constitutionality but avoids studiously any question regarding its impact on democracy.  There is a lot of shy-making on his part in these things.  That’s because he’s more politician than academic.

With respect to a couple of things, I believe that G.L. Peiris has gravitated to the correct political position; first in terms of how to deal with the LTTE, Eelamists and Eelamism and second when it comes to issues of sovereignty with respect to the various sand-in-the-wheels sour-grape needling and arm-twisting of certain rogue states in Europe and North America.  People might say that he was a failure because Sri Lanka lost the GSP Plus concessions, but apart from the fact that GL was being GL (toeing the leader’s line), there is some virtue in taking a principled stand in the name of national dignity.  We lost GSP Plus but the many-times-predicted ‘economic crisis’ is yet to hit Sri Lanka. 

 One can fault him for a not very complimentary political career that is marked more by a ‘vaasi peththata hoyya’ or ‘wela yana peththata messa’ (essentially ‘opportunist’ with of course a pragmatist’s justification) logic than any kind of ideological or political consistency. This doesn’t make him the villain of the piece in a parliament where this is the most frequently used tool for advancing political career. The point is, regardless of these flaws, he is certainly not a Rohitha Bogollagama. Neither is he a Mangala Samaraweera.  Time will tell if he is a Lakshman Kadirgamar of course, but for now, there’s little cause for complaint. 

Now Ranil Wickremesinghe has tabled a No-Confidence Motion against G.L. Peiris.  This is laughable in the first instance because if there’s anyone in whom vast numbers of people lack confidence it has to be Wickremesinghe, who is bringing to bear all powers he has written for himself in the party constitution to bear to hold on to his post. 

Wickremesinghe faults GL for ‘having failed to secure the support of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) against the Ban Ki-moon panel’.  Well, it is not as thought he, Wickremesinghe, and his party, the UNP, have done anything since 1977 to make NAM love Sri Lanka.  As Dayan Jayatillake points out in an analysis of this no-confidence motion in the Daily Mirror (‘Gunning for GL’), it is strange that the UNP did not indict the failure to mobilize the NAM when Sri Lanka lost the vote held in New York for re-election to the Human Rights Council.  He points out correctly that processes were already underway to make it impossible for GL to do anything about NAM support with respect to the UN panel.

Wickremesinghe faults Peiris for overstaying (two days) in China.  The Minister has explained the reasons for the alleged ‘overstay’ and we need not go into all that again. Suffice to say that Wickremesinghe knows a lot about ‘overstaying’.

Wickremesinghe doesn’t seem to understand the role of the Minister of External Affairs.  If it is all about designing foreign policy in ways that secure advantages to the nation and cushion impact of forces a country does not have control over, then our foreign policy was never as scandalously slavish to foreign interests as it was under his tenure.  Indeed, the man spared no pains to cripple the Government’s efforts to vanquish the LTTE, joining hands with the worst anti-Sri Lankan elements in the international community to vilify the security forces and the chosen politico-military strategy (which proved effective in the end). 

The Report of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (December 7, 2009) for example, clearly states that Ranil Wickremesinghe had lobbied Washington to apply pressure on the Government.  A two-day ‘overstay’, even if proven, would seem rather mild, compared with Ranil Wickremesinghe’s various moves against the country’s sovereignty.

The No-Confidence Motion has opened the door for a full scale consideration of Wickremesinghe’s villainy and perhaps this is why Peiris has called for an early debate.  A lot will come out, especially Wickremesinghe’s ‘doings’ (naturally in the invited comforts provided by states and individuals siding with the LTTE) over the past 5 years.  Peiris was a Minister, a spokesperson and a representative at talks and is certainly not blameless, but Wickremesinghe was architect.  He designed. Peiris was a brick-layer in comparison. 

All of Wickremesinghe’s crimes against the people of Sri Lanka by omission and commission will out.  A man who is not sure he has the numbers to retain his post as ‘Opposition Leader’ is hardly in a position to bring a no-confidence motion against anyone (except himself), so GL probably knows he has nothing to worry about.  Wickremesinghe on the other hand, seems to be intent on self-destructing.  I am waiting to be entertained.