The Question Of Representation

Long before the 2019 Presidential Election, stalwarts of the United National Party (UNP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and their closet lackeys painted Gotabaya Rajapaksa as a monster. Gotabaya was a Rajapaksa, after all, and Rajapaksas are the villains of the peace, as far as these worthies are concerned. From their point of view, then, it was a valid fear. Except for a few uncomfortable truths which they feign ignorance of, let’s nutshell them.

- Malinda Seneviratne

Apart from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), no political formation has a track record of absolute brutality that can come close to matching the curriculum vitae of the UNP and JVP.

The Mahinda Rajapaksa tenure wasn’t without blemish of course. There are charges of extra-judicial killings in which the military was involved. There was intimidation of journalists. Compare that with the extra-judicial killings of Tamil combatants and civilians during the 80s and 90s (i.e. during the presidencies of J.R. Jayewardene, Ranasinghe Premadasa and Chandrika Kumaranatunga).

There are as yet unresolved cases of abduction and/or murder which turned the likes of Upali Tennekoon, Keith Noyhr, Prageeth Ekneligoda, Lasantha Wickramatunga, and Wasim Thajudeen into pin-up boys for the UNP and JVP come election time, the last of whom was buried, exhumed, buried and resurrected over and over again. Compare that with the as yet unresolved cases of abduction, torture and murder to the tune of 60,000, not counting proxy arrests, illegal detention and other kinds of harassment at the end of the 80s.

Then there’s the issue of media freedom. Again, Mahinda Rajapaksa was branded as THE Villain. Then again, whatever limits were imposed during his presidency (marked more by a switch from censorship to ownership than rules and/ or intimidation) pale to little or nothing when compared with the excesses of the UNP in the 80s on the issue of gagging journalists and media houses. Yes, the time of the aadaraneeya sadaadaraneeya piyaano of the much inflated but eventually made-to-look small puthaano.