DESPITE SUNDAY ISLAND EDITORIAL, THE TWO REBEL MONKS SAY THEY WERE NEVER KIDNAPPED AND ONLY HIDING FROM JHU GOONS
By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles
April 26, 06.00 AM: Allegedly under the direct influence of the United National Party and the owners of the Upali newspapers Ltd. The Sunday Island newspaper charged in an editorial that the two rebel monks of the Jathika Hela Urumaya were abducted by the government party
Despite the editorial, the two rebel parliamentarians , the Most Venerable Aparekke Pannananda, the chief Sangha Nayaka of the Southern Sri Lanka and Venerable Kathaluwe Rathanaseeha in a joint statement said they were abducted by nobody and the newspaper editorials were all fabrications.
If true, the editorial would seriously bring down the credibility of the independent newspaper, The Sunday Island, run under one of the most respected journalists in Sri Lanka, Manik de Silva. Informed sources said, the editorial was inserted on the instructions of the management of the newspaper, as is usual in the practices of Sri Lankan newspapers.
Instigating that the two Buddhist monks were kidnapped the Sunday Island newspaper said, “Older readers familiar with elections of chairmen of local bodies many years ago would remember instances of missing (or abducted) members. The reasons for the disappearances are too well known to merit re-telling. This time round we had two missing bhikkus who turned up at voting time, by all accounts to vote against their party whip. Their colleagues in the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) decided to neutralize those votes with two other bhikkus voting for Lokubandara, a course of action which seemed eminently fair to all those who believe that persons indulging in questionable methods ought not to be permitted to profit from such tactics. No less than the President of the Republic is reported to have assured leaders of the JHU that she knew nothing about how the monks had gone missing and that she would make inquiries. No great investigative skill is needed to figure out what happened as the answer is clearly encrypted in the way those concerned voted.”
The owners of the Sunday Island newspaper are related to UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and from time to time allegedly publish such fabrications in a country that has no ethical standards of publishing news or editorials.
The editorial also, without any factual base, suggested, that the government stole the votes of the two monks by kidnapping them. “But that apart, neutralizing what they regarded to be ‘stolen’ votes from their party would by no stretch of imagination be equated with consorting with the LTTE.” the now disputed editorial said.
The two monks in a joint statement said that nobody kidnapped them or brought force on them and said two of them were having strong differences of opinion with the other Buddhist monk Members of Parliament who joined together with Prabhakaran sponsored Tamil politicians in the parliament.
They also clarified they were hiding from the thuggery unleashed by the Jathika Hela Urumaya and living in other temples outside their own to escape from their wrath.
The statement said , “We were fighting the elections to march towards a Dharma Rajya and our contention was that if we governed the country with Dasa Raja Dharma we could solve many of our problems. Like that day we are still dedicated to the same principles.
“But unfortunately, when we signed our nomination papers the lay leaders of the JHU took our signatures to a blank piece of paper. Since we were not very much used to underhand activities of the lay politicians in Sri Lanka and only leading a life according to dharma, we were at a loss to understand why they were asking for our signatures for blank pieces of paper. Even the members of the Supreme Sangha Council (headed by Ellawala Medhananda) requested us to sign the blank pieces of papers as instructed by the lay leaders. Since we never thought even in our dreams that they would do anything to harm us and instruct otherwise we readily signed to the blank pieces of paper. But after being elected, the leaders of the Hela Urumaya forced us to resign from our seats. We even received telephone calls threatening us our lives and demanding us to resign. Isolated and terrified, we decided to spend our time hiding in temples of Buddhist monks who are our friends. “
“ We have been all through out dedicated to the concept of Dharma Rajya to be inaugurated in this island of ours dedicated to Buddhism. During the election time we promised to the voters that under any kind of circumstances we would not have any kind of relations with the separatist Tamil Tigers. But with such a background, we became amazed to witness the JHU was teaming up with pro-Prabhakaran forces in the parliament to vote for a pro-Prabhakaran candidate who was contesting for the post of the Speaker of the Parliament.
“ With clarity we want to point out that nobody kidnapped us or brought force on us to vote the way we did. The only force that was brought upon us was from the very people who wanted to rob us of the very titles conferred on us by the people. Therefore, we had to hide ourselves from place to place just for protection. We would like to assure to all Buddhists, with love towards Buddhasasna, that we would continue to work against the reactionary United National Party who have been always given sponsorship to invasions of missionaries and separatist racist Tamil Tigers and fulfill our duties according to the declared policies of the Jathika Hela Urumaya.”
