{"id":127030,"date":"2014-06-29T00:01:22","date_gmt":"2014-06-28T18:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=127030"},"modified":"2014-07-05T22:00:25","modified_gmt":"2014-07-05T16:30:25","slug":"ranils-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/ranils-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"Ranil\u2019s Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Malinda Seneviratne<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Malinda<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

Humility is probably the most powerful propaganda tool around.\u00a0 It is also the least used, especially by politicians.\u00a0 This is why Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe<\/span><\/a> should be applauded for acknowledging that his party erred in July 1983<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 He said that the then UNP government did not take adequate action to prevent the riots.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wickremesinghe referred to this as he urged the Government to make sure that matters be resolved before they get out of hand; the \u2018matter\u2019 being that of Buddhist-Muslim tensions in the aftermath of riots in Aluthgama<\/span><\/a> and Beruwala.\u00a0 Implied here is the notion that contrary to wild extrapolations, what happened last week was nothing like \u2018July 1983\u2019 but that this country might very well see a repeat of \u2018July 83\u2019 if issues are not addressed adequately and conclusively.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s another issue.\u00a0 What\u2019s interesting here is Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s humility.\u00a0 He was not only a cabinet minister at the time but as the nephew of the President widely viewed as heir apparent.\u00a0 He lived through it all, silently.\u00a0 But as they say, \u2018better late than never\u2019, after all it\u2019s a lot more than other leaders have done, both in the UNP and in other parties.\u00a0 The JVP, for example, still indulge in \u2018mumblement\u2019 when it comes to 1988-89 without clearly saying \u2018yes, we killed some 3000 \u201cinformants\u201d, close to 2000 \u201cGovernment supporters\u201d, almost 500 public servants, fifty principals of schools, one professor and one vice chancellor, over 500 members of the security forces and police, close to 100 home guards and 24 bikkhus<\/i>\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"Ranil<\/a>The same goes for the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).\u00a0 D.B.S. Jeyaraj has for example called out the TNA for duplicity, loud in calling for investigations into alleged crimes by all parties (knowing the LTTE is no more and therefore the exercise is futile and even impossible and knowing that only the Sri Lankan armed forces are being targeted) but remaining silent about TNA\u2019s complicity in LTTE crimes.\u00a0 Jeyaraj elaborates thus: \u2018The TNA never appealed to the LTTE to release the Tamil civilians under its control even during the height of the war, is yet to condemn the conscription of children and will not celebrate the lives of political colleagues brutally murdered by the Tigers.\u00a0 Among other things, one might add.<\/p>\n

The crimes of omission and commission of the SLFP and its later avatars, the PA and UPFA, and its allies (JVP, Karuna-Faction) and the many, many, many acts of thuggery including murder perpetrated by top ranked politicians of that party are well documented. \u00a0They might pale of course when compared to the \u2018adventures\u2019 of the JVP and UNP, but that\u2019s no excuse.<\/p>\n

The JVP will do (or will not do) this or that and that\u2019s their business. The same goes for the TNA.\u00a0 The same goes for the UPFA.\u00a0 Ranil Wickremesinghe has come clean on the crimes of his party and in this he\u2019s scored to the detriment of his detractors in the aforementioned parties and indeed those inside the UNP.\u00a0 There\u2019s a hitch though.\u00a0 It is not the case that the only blemish of UNP rule between 1977 and 1994 was \u2018July 1983\u2019.\u00a0 For each individual assassinated by the JVP the UNP regime oversaw the murder of at least 10.\u00a0 Wickremesinghe has opened a door.\u00a0 He must now walk through it all for selective humility is not humility but calculated political deceit.<\/p>\n

No politician in this country, apart from perhaps Champika Ranawaka and Sarath Amunugama, is more qualified than Ranil Wickremesinghe to review those UNP years (1977-1994).\u00a0 Wickremesinghe was in the middle of it all.\u00a0 He has the intellect.\u00a0 He has the analytical skills.\u00a0 He has shown that he has the humility and therefore it is legitimate to hope that he has what it takes to enumerate and discuss dispassionately that era.\u00a0 He can begin with the 1978 Constitution (which he has described as a document that has outlived usefulness), take us through the July 1980 strike, the \u2018Accelerated Mahaweli Development Programme\u2019, the \u2018Green-Black July\u2019 of 1983, the White Paper on Education, the Indo-Lanka Accord, the IPKF years, the bheeshanaya<\/i> and his ascent to the post of party leader subsequent to multiple assassinations.<\/p>\n

He will no doubt inform, illuminate and teach thereby all politicians in his party and elsewhere the difference between politician and statesman.\u00a0 He has nothing to lose and everything to gain.\u00a0 More importantly he would be setting an example, a standard that others would be judged against.\u00a0 He will be rewarded too, by an electorate that has demonstrated time and again an amazing capacity to forgive and forget and to show particular affection to those who are humble.\u00a0 The UNP will benefit, naturally.\u00a0 The UPFA will be stumped because as incumbent the party would have to acknowledge ongoing errors (mild word, that) unlike Ranil, whose disclosures could be easily dumped into the account of JR Jayewardene and Ranasinghe Premadasa.<\/p>\n

*Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of \u2018The Nation\u2019\u00a0and his articles can be found at\u00a0www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":105560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nRanil\u2019s Moment - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/ranils-moment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ranil\u2019s Moment - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/ranils-moment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-06-28T18:31:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-07-05T16:30:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Malinda-Seneviratne-150x150.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"130\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"135\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/ranils-moment\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/ranils-moment\/\",\"name\":\"Ranil\u2019s Moment - 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