National Freedom Front Leader MP Wimal Weerawansa, with media in tow, has gone on an inspection tour of the Wilpattu forest reserve over the weekend to assess the destruction wrought, purportedly by Rishard Bathiudeen. In the process he also took a broad swipe at the President for the latter's decision to outlaw carpentry workshops in an apparent move to prevent forest destruction while at the same time permitting the likes of Bathiudeen to clear jungle land to settle displaced persons.
Weerawansa's concern for environmental protection is most gratifying, indeed, except that this pilgrimage to Wilpattu ought to have been made when the Rajapaksas were in the saddle, when it all began. Being a close confidante of Mahinda Rajapaksa, Weerawansa, no doubt, would have had the ready ear of the former President, to put a halt to the whole affair. The matter could have been made all that easier since Bathiudeen, at the time, was a Cabinet colleague of Weerawansa and the whole affair amicably brought to an end without much ado.
But, instead, all concerned chose to remain mum while the so called re-settlements in Wilpattu kept on multiplying under the very nose of Rajapaksa. It is no secret that Basil Rajapaksa gave carte blanche to Bathiudeen to do as he pleases, with nary a word of protest from Weerawansa or the Ven. Athureliye Rathana Thera who, too, made a similar pilgrimage recently to Wilpattu. Not to be outdone, a television channel supportive of the Rajapaksas, too, has commenced a tree planting campaign in Wilpattu to offset the loss of forest cover, while all the while remaining mum when the destruction was continuing apace during the stewardship of their political masters.
Well, the reasons are all too obvious. Rishard Bathiudeen was a holy cow at the time whose votes in Parliament together with that of the SLMC helped MR bulldoze through the 18th Amendment in Parliament to make him President for life. Hence, a Nelsonian eye was turned to all the doings of Bathiudeen in Wilpattu where the small matter of denuding forests hardly mattered.
Where were the Buddhist Monks who are today accusing the Government of giving in to the likes of Bathiudeen, in lieu of the Muslim vote? Wasn't this Muslim vote coveted by Mahinda Rajapaksa at the time? Not only that, would Wimal Weerawansa and the Ven. Athureliye Rathana Thera have made the pilgrimage to Wilpattu had Bathiudeen and his Sri Lanka Makkal Congress gifted their Parliamentary votes to make Mahinda Rajapaksa Prime Minister following the October 26 constitutional coup? Bathiudeen is on record claiming they were being assiduously wooed by S. B. Dissanayake to throw in their lot with the JO in return for a huge bounty. But they opted out because the move was undemocratic.
The likes of Weerawansa and the Ven. Athureliye Rathana Thera stand exposed for trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public. In their haste to nail Bathiudeen for the Easter Sunday attacks they have certainly scored an own goal. This is like the Rajapaksa Government inviting Chinese investors and then accusing the Yahapalanaya Government of selling the country to the Chinese.
It is time the Government started exposing the doublespeak of JO spokesmen and set the record straight. If not their statements and accusations will go by default. The Government is also signally remiss in informing the public of its positive deeds, through its propaganda organs, leaving only the negatives to be highlighted by the pro-Rajapaksa private media.
It failed to highlight the drastic reduction in the prices of drugs and even the increase in the monthly allowance of Public Servants by Rs.2,500. There was a big song and dance made by JO personages about the steep price of coconuts sometime ago which was also instrumental in the Government receiving a drubbing at the Local Government elections. Today the price of a coconut has fallen even below the original price that prevailed before the rise, but this has hardly received any publicity. True, the Easter Sunday bombings have pushed all things into the periphery. However it is time the Government got its act together, especially at a time elections are on the horizon.
Vedda Chief's lament
Adiwasi Chieftain Uruwarige Wannilaththo, according to an English daily, had likened the country's politicians to a group of pre-school children and politics in general to a nauseating cesspit. There had been calls for him to come forward as a candidate for the next Presidential election, but he did not want to be involved in cesspit politics, witnessing the behaviour of politicians, especially after the Easter Sunday incidents, he said.
Coming from the chief of the country's indigenous people, this certainly is something. It shows that the behaviour of our politicians has shocked even these hardened men of the jungle. Or is that the Vedda chief has considered the language regularly used in Parliament such as gona, haraka, to be an insult to these animals with which they cohabit in their daily life and is venting out his anger?
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