The Year 1988: The Presidential Election Campaign
By Rajan Hoole -January 15, 2014
Rajan Hoole
The Year 1988: The Red Moon Over Sri Lanka And The Dawn Of New Wisdom – Part 5
With Premadasa as presidential candidate and the party machine firmly under Ranjan Wijeratne, the UNP campaign got under way in earnest. The fortunes of party members too came to depend on the services they rendered Premadasa. In September the UNP’s position seemed weak. On looking back, the UNP’s was a well-co-ordinated campaign throwing in everything it had, both fair and foul. Chandraprema cites an incident just after the murdered Liyannarachchi’s funeral in early September where Anura Bandaranaike and Halim Ishak, both leading SLFPers, were boastfully confident that the JVP would support them. As surprising and absurd as such wishful thinking appears in retrospect, similar hopes are entertained with regard to the LTTE today by influential lobbies not confined to the Tamils.
Any force which totally devalues mercy, compassion and the sanctity of life, and has built up a record of killing anyone who is merely a hindrance to its quest for total power or is ready to voice a frank opinion, cannot ever countenance even a symbolic power sharing arrangement. It was utterly irresponsible for the SLFP to have entertained the illusion of riding to power in coalition with the JVP, which was regularly killing political opponents and rivals. Of course, there were leading UNPers trying to use the JVP. But they were doing it deviously from a position of strength with the State apparatus behind them. The SLFP had nothing except the illusions of its leaders. It cost the grass-roots SLFPers dearly.
On 30th September 1988, the Press reported Anura Bandaranaike’s announcement that Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike would be the common candidate of an 8 party front – the Democratic Party Alliance – including the JVP. There was of course a general mood of wanting a change of government. But whether the JVP was a credit or a liability to anyone who associated with it remains an open question. In the second week of October the JVP issued threatening letters forcing people to walk out of their work-places and demonstrate for parliamentary, rather than presidential, elections under a caretaker government. But the SLFP with other alliance parties failed to condemn these and issued statements exonerating the JVP. The ordinary voter must have been puzzled.
The Shantha Bandara affair was one example of the influence of the JVP’s perceived anti-Indian bona-fides among the elite. Bandara was a senior JVPer captured in Tangalle. Ravi Jayewardene with help from Herman Gunaratne talked to him about the threat posed by India and how as a divided Sinhalese nation fighting each other, they stand to become slaves of India. He proposed that they get-together and form a common front to fight Indian domination. In this connection, Ravi Jayewardene had a word of admiration for the LTTE’s apparently fervent anti-Indianism, forgetting that the LTTE once boasted itself the chief agent for India’s domination of Sri Lanka. He persuaded his father to release Bandara about the same time that the UNP nominated Premadasa (16th September), with a view to opening a dialogue. Bandara finally wrote to Gunaratne on 19th November repeating the JVP’s standard demands – release all political detainees, presidential and parliamentary elections under a caretaker government etc. Ravi Jayewardene wrote him a pained reply. Bandara was caught and summarily killed in early 1990.
To be continued..
*From Rajan Hoole‘s “Sri Lanka: Arrogance of Power - Myth, Decadence and Murder”. Thanks to Rajan for giving us permission to republish. To read earlier parts click here
