Road to Nandikadal or Road to grab power

2016-09-14

Last week a function was held at Ananda College, Colombo, to launch the book Road to Nandikadal by Major General Kamal Gunaratne. Neither the President, nor the Prime Minister or any Member of Parliament or Minister of this government had been invited for this function. Only former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa had received invitations.

The Major General presented the book to Mahinda Rajapaksa. During Mahinda's Government, if a Major General invited only the Opposition and presented a book he had written, only to the Leader of the Opposition, the Major General would have been branded a Tiger and the stars of the Major General would have been removed and there was a chance he would even have been deprived of his pension.

What, Mahinda Rajapaksa did to Sarath Fonseka and the Majors General, who supported Fonseka, was the same. A certain group was sent to prison, while another group was sent home on compulsory leave. The main accusation Mahinda and others made against Fonseka was having relations with politicians of the Opposition, while still in the Army official uniform. They said it was a disloyal act and took Fonseka to the Military Court and punished him. The offence that Fonseka had committed was speaking to politicians of the Opposition on the telephone. A large number of Army personnel were imprisoned because they had connections with Fonseka, and were taken to Military Court saying it was an act of treason. However, this government has not made any accusations against Major General Kamal Gunaratne for having connections with Mahinda, Gotabaya and others who are engaged in a conspiracy to topple the present Maithri-Ranil Government.

Major General Kamal Gunaratne is a fearless war hero who rescued the country by putting his life at risk. There is no doubt about that. However, Mahinda and Gotabaya have used Major General Gunaratne not to the Road to Nandikadal but for the Road to Power to ensure that they can come back into power. From the speech of Major General Kamal Gunaratne and the words of the compere, it was apparent that a huge effort had been made by Gotabaya to show that the launch of Major General Kamal Gunaratne's book was an Army rebellion against the Maithri-Ranil Government. Major General Kamal Gunaratne said at the function that even though there were a number of top Army officials who had been invited, who had trained together with him and travelled in the bus with him only one top Army official attended. Also, even though they thought that this function had been organized by the Army, he said they rejected it. The compere of the function said that he thought that the Army Band would be present but the Army had rejected that as well.

If the Major General had invited political leaders without party differences to the function of launching his book, most definitely top Army officials would have participated in it. At the same time if he had not invited any politicians and held the function only with Army leaders they would have participated too. This function could have been organized by the Army too. The Army Band too would most probably have participated. However, from the speech of the Major General itself, it was quite clear of the unwillingness of the Army leaders and Army to join the agenda of Mahinda or Gotabaya in acquiring power again. What Gotabaya and others would have wanted was to get top officials of the Army to participate in this function and to get the Army to organize the book launch and to show the country that the Army is with him and to create a conflict between the Maithri-Ranil Government and the Army, most probably. In his speech the Major General said it was unfortunate that the friendship between Mahinda, Gotabaya, Fonseka had been lost. It was the Rajapaksa family including Mahinda, Gotabaya who broke the friendship between Mahinda, Gotabaya and Fonseka. It was Mahinda and Gotabaya who refused the request by Fonseka to let him remain in the post of Army Commander for a while after winning the war and removed him and tried to appoint him as the Secretary to the Ministry of Sports. It was Mahinda and Gotabaya who requested protection from the Indian Army saying that there was an Army conspiracy, while Fonseka was Army Commander. If the Major General said that losing the friendship between Mahinda, Gotabaya and Fonseka was unfortunate, during the time that Mahinda was President, the Major General would have had to retire without his stars as well.