An Entente Cordiale In Sri Lankan Politics?

By Emil van der Poorten –January 24, 2016

Emil van der Poorten

When one sees what is going on in the matter of endless parades of prominent and not so prominent people to the multiplicity of investigating/inquiring bodies set up by the Maithripala Sirisena/Ranil Wickremesinghe (MR2) government and the total absence of anything resembling prosecutions coming out of these investigations/inquiries, the question that I have posed as the heading of this column seems almost redundant.

I have in the days that the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime (MR1) ruled all of Sri Lanka and, like “Britannia,” the waves around it subsequently, referred to that Maximum Leader’s chosen modus operandi, whenever something contentious arose. He let all of his “spokespersons” and goodness knows he had some to spare in that category, express views that ranged from the proverbial soup to nuts. He then held up the metaphorical whetted finger to the breeze, decided which one suited a dispensation that was distinguished by its total and absolute lack of policy or principle and claimed it as the “official” version.

Sound familiar?

It should, because that is increasingly becoming the rule with the Maithripala/Ranil government (MR2) whose pattern of public pronouncements bears an eerie similarity to what went before. The Avante Garde fiasco in public relations if not in bringing to book those attempting to set up a private army and navy is only one case in point. Here we have a widely bandied-about accusation that probably the most lily-livered of the MR2 gang,Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, the MINISTER OF JUSTICE, no less, has played a very interesting role in the matter of a part of the Rajapaksa Royal Family seeking to set up their own private armed force with both a maritime and land wing and the “investigations” that followed. Political talk is cheap and wild accusations even more modestly priced in this country. However, the matter of setting up private armies a la the George “Dubya” Bush model Black Watch in Iraq, is nothing new. In fact, I wrote at some length some years ago about this whole sinister exercise. That journalistic effort seemed only to raise the threat level against me at the time. However, the shilly-shallying by MR2 in investigating this continuing menace, is beyond explanation. At least those who believed that MR2 would, even in minimalist mode, do “something” to prosecute those responsible have to be bitterly disappointed.                                     Read More