The public has a right to know – Probe all the secret deals with the Tigers

Leader of the UNP reformist group and Minister Karu Jayasuriya has made a startling allegation in Parliament: There is an LTTE-backed conspiracy to buy over the ruling party parliamentarians by bribing them with Rs. 110 million each so as to bring down the government.

The LTTE is hell bent on effecting a regime change. Hoist with his own petard as regards the polls boycott of 2005, which backfired, Prabhakaran is obviously in a mighty hurry to topple the government and create a situation similar to that between 2001 and 2004, when President Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe were at each other’s throat. The Tigers are dying for a breather and a regime change will pave the way for a truce.

However, that the LTTE is desperate for dislodging the government is not sufficient proof of a conspiracy to bribe the government MPs. Jayasuriya must furnish evidence to substantiate his serious allegation.

Of late, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, too, has been complaining of a plot to oust his government. He is blaming both the Opposition and the LTTE for that ‘sinister move’. If so, the question is what action he has taken to bring the conspirators to the book. JVP Leader Somawansa Amarasinghe has rightly called upon the President to stop talking about the so-called conspiracy and to act fast to nab the culprits.

Prabhakaran has claimed he knows next to nothing about politics. We disputed his claim in a previous comment and pointed out that he was streets ahead of all the southern politicians put together. He has manipulated governments not only here but abroad as well. He has got a group of British lawmakers to bat for him, despite a ban on the LTTE in that country. He seems to be in a position to influence even the US Congress.

India may be a nuclear power but Prabhakran is keeping India under his thumb with the help of his Tamil Nadu friends. Indian political leaders may antagonise the Sri Lankan government but not the LTTE. Yesterday we reported how he had cornered the Howard government down under. He has the Norwegian government eating out of his hand. Is there any other politician capable of such feats? It could be seen that Prabhakaran is adept at making adroit political moves. However, this is the first time he is said to have offered money to the southern politicians. According to Jayasuriya, he is now acting like a typical mudalali throwing as he does money around to have government politicians in his pocket.

The UNP has been calling for a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to probe a bribe that President Rajapaksa is alleged to have given the LTTE to instigate the 2005 polls boycott. We have argued that if the government has nothing to hide, it must grant the UNP’s demand and say: "Come and see!" Similarly, the allegation Mr. Jayasuriya has made is so serious as to warrant the appointment of a PSC.

The late President Ranasinghe Premadasa started the practice of bribing the LTTE. He gave the outfit money, arms, ammunition and shelter at a time when the IPKF was all out to decimate it. He may have expected Prabhakaran to take the money and behave. But immediately after the Indians left, he took on President Premadasa and later assassinated him.

Thereafter, President Chandrika Kumaratunga tried to bribe Prabhakaran. She offered him the entire North without elections for a period of ten years. He had no need for the North without the East. He turned down the offer. Was it only the North that he was promised? For a government capable of offering a part of the country on a platter to an organisation waging a separatist war, offering anything else should be child’s play.

The UNF government plunged feet first into a truce with the LTTE in 2002. What really prompted the UNF to do so? Was it a genuine desire on its part to put an end to the war through negotiations or was there something more to that decision? And didn’t the duty waivers granted to the LTTE from 2001 to 2004 amount to bribery? The UNP has made an issue of a JHU MP monk’s duty free Benz. But, how much was denied to the state coffers because of the duty free goods that the LTTE was allowed to import, including communication equipment weighing six tons, under the UNP-led UNF government?

Then came the allegation that President Rajapaksa had won in 2005 by bribing the LTTE to stage a polls boycott in some parts of the North and the East. The government has denied it but the UNP won’t take that denial for an answer. It insists on a probe. The Opposition has a right to make such a demand and the government is duty bound to clear its name.

The public has a right to know what really has happened. Did the President bribe the LTTE and is the Opposition trying to dislodge the government with the help of LTTE funds? Let a PSC be appointed to probe all the secret deals that the political leaders, both past and present, are alleged to have done with the LTTE.