Some Remarkable Events And Premadasa’s Victory

By Rajan Hoole -January 31, 2014

Rajan Hoole

The Year 1988: The Red Moon Over Sri Lanka And The Dawn Of New Wisdom – Part 7

On 21st October, the SLFP decided to call off two meetings in the Badulla District after the JVP’s military wing, the DJV, called upon the people not to attend the SLFP’s propaganda meetings. It accused the SLFP of a secret deal with India where it agreed to abide by the Accord and keep Indian troops. The meeting in Badulla town was subsequently held where Anura Bandaranaike accused the UNP and SLMP (USA) of sending them threatening notes in the name of the JVP, and warned these parties. He was confident that the JVP was on his side. But the JVP did not deny responsibility for the leaflet.

A few days before mid-November the SLFP was sent a letter bearing a DJV letterhead informing it that it had been proscribed. In the final week of the presidential election campaign there was a widespread report that the JVP’s ban on the SLFP had been lifted.

This found Ranjan Wijeratne in a most unlikely role of JVP spokesman. At a press conference on 14th December, he vehemently denied the report that the JVP had lifted its proscription of the SLFP, saying that “mischievous attempts were being made to mislead the unsuspecting voter”. He said that the SLFP was planning to distribute a letter purported to be issued by the Patriotic People’s Army (DJV) stating that the JVP had lifted the ban on the SLFP. He called the letter “a false document and a desperate election stunt by the SLFP which knows it is losing the presidential election”.

A commentary in the Indian Journal, the Economic and Political Weekly (18.2.89), observed: “It would seem that he (Ranjan Wijeratne) was concerned that potential pro-SLFP voters, frightened by the ban, would now feel free to go and vote for the SLFP. This clearly shows how the UNP found that subversive threats and violence could serve their [UNP’s] own ends. It also fortifies the idea that some part of the violence and disruption was created by the UNP to prevent a high poll … We are led to an overwhelming conclusion that Premadasa in his own way had been as clever and masterly and as secretive a strategist as Jayewardene was supposed to be.”

The LTTE too in its own way helped Premadasa, but only to suit its own ends. In the interior areas of Batticaloa for example where the LTTE moved, the UNP was allowed to campaign, but not the SLFP.

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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