‘Sirisena-JVP secret pact to be revealed’

Visa granted, Gunaratnam to arrive here

By Saman Indrajith-December 31, 2014

The government has granted leader of the JVP splinter group, Frontline Socialist Party, Kumar Gunaratnam alias Kumar Mahattaya, a visa to come here from Australia. He is scheduled to address the final FSP rally where he is expected to reveal a secret deal between the JVP and opposition’s common presidential candidate Maithripala Sirisena, party sources said yesterday.

FSP Propaganda Secretary Pubudu Jagoda said Gunaratnam, who now goes as Noel Mudalige had been informed by the Department of Immigration and Emigration that his visa had been granted.

Gunaratnam would book air tickets yesterday itself and the date of his arrival here would be announced shortly, Jagoda said.

FSP Central Committee member and Galle District MP Attorney at Law Ajith Kumara last week paid the Rs. 39,130 fine on behalf of Gunaratnam to the Department of Immigration and Emigration for violating visa conditions on an earlier occasion.

Gunaratnam was deported from the country two and a half years ago after being fined for overstaying his visa. He submitted an on-line visa application from Sydney on Dec. 16.

FSP politburo member Chameera Koswatte said that their leader’s wife and son had already arrived in the country. They were staying in an undisclosed location for security reasons, he said.Wife of Gunaratnam, Champa Somaratne, a doctor serving in Australia, and son Manula Amandana Somaratne arrived in the country from Australia via Singapore on Singapore Airline flight SQ 468 at 00.51 hours on Dec 26 and are now residing at Champa’s sister’s house in Piliyandala.

Koswatte said that Gunaratnam is scheduled to address FSP’s final rally in support of common left front’s candidate Duminda Nagamuwa at 6.00 pm at Kadawatha. "Our leader would expose many wrongdoings of our erstwhile comrades who betrayed the revolution and the party’s rank and file before petty bourgeoisie politicians. He would also expose the secret deal between the JVP and Sirisena camp," he said.

Asked whether Gunaratnam would be able to do politics using a tourist visa, FSP Propaganda Secretary Jagoda said that many of their political enemies would raise the same question, but Gunaratnam was born in Sri Lanka and he had a birth right to do politics. "But we are consulting legal experts to get to know the exact provisions applicable with regard to that right," Jagoda said.

Gunaratnam using an Australian passport (N 1016123) bearing the name, Noel Mudalige, arrived in Sri Lanka on Sept. 4, 2011 and engaged in clandestine JVP operations until the party faced a split paving the way for the creation of FSP.

He claimed he had been abducted by a group who came in a white van from a house at No: 291, Gemunu Mawatha, Kiribathgoda on April 06, 2012 and dumped near the Colombo Crime Division head office at Dematagoda in the early hours of April 09, 2012. The Australian High Commission intervened to secure his release. The then Australian High Commissioner, Robyn Mudie, met top defence authorities after Gunaratnam’s wife Champa had requested the Australian government to intervene on behalf of her husband. The following day, he was deported to Australia, where Gunaratnam alleged that he had been abducted, interrogated and tortured by men attached to the state intelligence agencies.