RULING UNP REACTS TO THE JVP-SLFP POLITICAL ALLIANCE WITH ORGANIZED VIOLENCE KILLING 3 AND HURLING SERIOUS ACCUSATIONS
By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles
January 25, 12.30 AM: Flabbergasted by the sudden success of the formation of the alliance between Sri Lanka’s second and third largest political parties, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) the ruling United National Party (UNP) reacted with violence so far resulting in three deaths and maiming many others and hurling serious allegations against the new alliance.
According to Police reports, the murders and mayhem occurred when mostly the JVP members were decorating and taking part in public festivities celebrating the event. Among the dead were Nimal Gunasiri and Lal Pinto, two activists of the JVP. The third person who died of the assaults by the UNP was not available at the time of this writing. Police said 21 others had been admitted to hospitals allover the country.
Although no evidence whatsoever has been so far produced, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe hurled serious accusations of having some secret deals behind the published pact between the two parties leaving the public to wonder whether the alleged “secret deals” were real or imaginary.
Immediately reacting to the allegations former Speaker Anura Bandaranaike of the SLFP said there was absolutely no truth whatsoever in the allegation that there were secret deals behind the pact that was made public soon after the two secretaries of the parties signed it. He said the secret pact was behind the proscribed LTTE then and the Prime Minister while there was no necessity for such a secret pact between two legal parties which were already in the democratic mainstream.
The JVP directly accused the ruling UNP of organizing mobs of goons all over the country sometimes led by well known UNP politicians. The murders and mayhem took place in the form of organized attacks by the UNP at Puttlam, Nikaweratiya, Mathugama, Embilipitiya, Anamaduwa, Kegalle, Teldeniya, Balapitiya, Horowpathana, Mawathagama, Devinuwara, the JVP said.
The following UNP politicians, Gamini Wadigamangawa, Chairman of the Anamaduwa Pradeshiya Sabha, Palitha Thevarapperuma , Chairman of the Mathugama Pradeshiya Sabha, Asoka Wickremesinghe, Chairman of the Kataragama Pradeshiya Sabha, have been accused of directly leading marauding goons on celebrating party activists. The JVP appealed to the President to bring the lawbreakers before the law and said they could understand the desperation of Ranil Wickremesinghe and his party since by the new union they lost all chances of coming back to power
SLFP spokesman Mangala Samaraweera said it is nothing new for UNP leaders who operated the torture chambers of Batalanda where thousands were killed to engage in such murders. He said an innocent woman celebrating at Kadugannawa was so provoked by a threatening UNP politician she started assaulting him with a broom chasing after him.
The Prime Minister’s accusation , that there were secret deals behind the published pact between the two parties was made during the Prime Minister’s address to the Government Parliamentary Group meeting January 22 in the parliamentary complex
But reacting to the Prime Minister’s statement , Anura Bandaranaike said during his time in the Prime Ministers party, the UNP there were many who told him not to criticize the Tamil Tigers on their platforms. Those MP’s had become Ministers now, he said. At that time Ranil Wickremesinghe was the Leader of the Opposition. Not only then but even today, the PM never uttered a single word against the Tigers, Bandaranaike said. He said all those happened because he was having many secret deals with the LTTE. Anura Bandaranaike said before talking about the imaginary secret deals of other parties he should stop having secret deals with a party that rejected the constitution of Sri Lanka and waging war against the state. Signing a pact with a legal political party that had given up arms was one thing. But having secret deals with the worlds most ferocious terrorists was quite another, Bandaranaike concluded.
