The current revelation of a pact signed secretly with the TNA giving assurance to remove military bases, reduce military personnel in the North as well as remove non-Tamil settlements deserves the attention of the voters. There is also the assurance to carry out a war crimes inquiry which as an election manifesto does not convey much faith in our forces. Ideally what should be said is that our forces did not commit any war crimes and those that accuse so must produce the evidence first, and the reality is that for 5 years apart from accusations and editing film clippings nothing to substantiate war crimes as being produced as evidence.
The exposure of the secret pact comes in the wake of numerous other pacts signed without the contents being disclosed to the public. We have had the Indo-Lanka Accord signed in 1987 under emergency with Ministers having to hand over signed resignation letters. Then came the 2001 Cease Fire Agreement that placed LTTE and a sovereign government as equals and legally demarcated territory as ‘LTTE-controlled’. The period saw LTTE putting up its own courts, own police, own civil administration and openly amass weapons through Sri Lanka’s customs! The next set of secret pacts came in the form of the ISGA and PTOMs – these agreements were signed by Ranil and Chandrika Kumaratunga now the shadow-leaders behind the common candidate. Should the voters not have a right to question what their actual plans are? Are these concerns not more important than simply wanting change? What assurance can they give when the corruptions under UNF and CBK rule are nothing they can debate in public? The public is well aware that ALL POLITICIANS ARE CORRUPT. However, what is more important is the stability of the country. As citizens and stakeholders of the nation do we not have a duty and right to wonder if the country is likely to fall to peril because of the same people that betrayed the nation not too long ago? To reverse the damage they did thousands of soldiers had to lay down their lives.
The first to betray the nation was Don Juan Dharmapala ready to function as a puppet of the Portuguese – incidentally Ranil wanted to celebrated the arrival of the Portuguese forgetting the thousands of natives the Portuguese brutally murdered and converted. In fact the common candidate as General Secretary of the SLFP refered to Ranil as a traitor coming from the lineage of the Dharmapala clan though now the common candidate promises to hand over to Ranil the leadership mantle after 100 days. The betrayal of the nation began on 2nd March 1815 with the signing of the Udarata Givisuma and ever since numerous other pacts necessitate the nation to remain on the alert against traitors.
The Colombo coterie eternally complaining may like to respond to what their contribution was to ending terrorism when they join the UN bandwagon not wanting the people to remember the war victory. They do not want the people to recall the war victory simply because they played no role in it.
Terrorism has to remain on our minds primarily because the deals being struck is with the same political party that was created by the LTTE, the same party that is linked with the Diaspora organizations that the GOSL has banned, the same party that even the EU Elections Monitor Cushanan claimed was the mouthpiece of the LTTE and the nation seriously questions why the GOSL does not take legal action against this party without allowing it to do the damage it is doing using its political privileges?
