{"id":225044,"date":"2022-01-19T14:27:28","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T08:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=225044"},"modified":"2022-01-28T14:51:00","modified_gmt":"2022-01-28T09:21:00","slug":"handunneththi-degenerates-into-chronic-amnesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/handunneththi-degenerates-into-chronic-amnesia\/","title":{"rendered":"Handunneththi Degenerates Into Chronic Amnesia"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kumar David<\/a> –<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Prof. Kumar David<\/p><\/div>\n

Sunil Handunneththi, former MP and JVP<\/a><\/span> Politburo member, has been held in high esteem my many people including yours faithfully for the sterling work he did as COPE Chairman and because he is reputed to be a person of high personal integrity. Handunneththi<\/a><\/span> values the long historical relationship between India and Lanka (see also# below) but an interview he gave Sirimantha Ratnasekera, Sunday Island<\/em> of 16 Jan, casts a pall over his political credibility. The topic was the (Sri Lankan) government\u2019s alleged plan to allow \u201cIndia to capture the Trinco oil tank farm and to take forward its (India\u2019s) expansionist intentions\u201d. I do not know whether India, China, Timbuctoo, domestic capitalists or the man on the Moon is best suited to restore the Trinco oil facilities because I have not studied the matter. So, I will let that comment pass. It is what he said next that has provoked my ire and betrays Handunneththi\u2019s pathological relapse into political amnesia.\u201cThe government has been compelled to sign this agreement. It is D\u00e9j\u00e0 vu of the Indo-Lanka agreement which was pushed down the throat of Lanka on July 29, 1987. India got the JR Jayewardene government to sign the agreement by coercion. They dropped \u2018parippu\u2019 here, violating our air space. They sent an army of 150,000 while Sri Lanka\u2019s army had only 72,000 cadre strength. This time they have used economic means for coercion\u201d.<\/p>\n

It seems Handunneththi prefers not to mention the other half of this story. The shameful outburst of Sinhala extremism fomented by the JVP against the Indo-Lanka Accord, murder of Vijaya Kumaratunga, the NSSP\u2019s Chandrawimala and others, bombs thrown at numerous NSSP meetings and rallies by other groups supporting the Accord, and the anti-Tamil racism it instigated in the country. This indeed was the forerunner to the JVP\u2019s suicidal lunacy in 1989.<\/p>\n

It has appeared for a while, I have been following Anura Kumara\u2019s statements, that the JVP was reassessing its reactionary positions on the national question. It appeared that it was close to saying sorry to the Tamil people for associating with state forces that brutalised and murdered Tamil civilians during the civil war. The same forces pulverised the JVP cadre in 1989-90. The JVP has long suffered from the delusion that if it bums extremism and sucks-up to the military, sadhu-sadu<\/em> that will open the road to power.<\/p>\n

Handunneththi throws into doubt whether the JVP is doing any serious rethinking. Are Anura and Sunil playing at \u2018good-cop bad-cop\u2019? \u2018You fool the minorities and the liberals machang<\/em>; I\u2019ll rebuild our credibility among Sinhala-Buddhist extremist voters\u2019. Or is there a tussle within the leadership about party policy on the national question? Whichever, it is of concern for all who for the last few years hoped that the JVP-NPP was the way out of the filthy sewer that the Sri Lankan political scene had degenerated into.<\/p>\n

# [The deep relationship between India and Sri Lanka may motivate readers to link to an on-line lecture sponsored by the National Trust of Sri Lankan on Thursday 27 January at 6.00 pm by renowned historian Prof. Romila Thapar, Professor of Ancient History at JNU, Delhi. Link to lecture: https:\/\/us02web.zoom.us\/j\/85174934993<\/span><\/a>.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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