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Sri
Lanka President-PM Tussle Assumes Crisis Proportions
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President
Chandrika Bandranaike Kumaratunga
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By
Danish A Khan, Special to IslamOnline
NEW
DELHI, July 25 (IslamOnline) - Sri Lanka President Chandrika
Bandranaike Kumaratunga’s threat to sack the cabinet portends that a
new chaotic dimension to the island nation’s troubled history would
be added shortly. The tussle between Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe and President Kumaratunga has reached a crisis-high and
shows no sign of abating in the foreseeable future.
In
an unprecedented outburst, President Kumaratunga of the Peoples’
Alliance (PA), said that she has “the power to dismiss the entire
cabinet” and that she “would not hesitate to utilize it whenever
need be,” reported the Sri Lankan daily newspaper, the Daily
News,
Tuesday, July 23.
Reports
said that the President had got enraged over a comment made by
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Ravi Karunanayake of the
opposition United Nationalist Party (UNP). The Minister had accused
during the July 17 Cabinet meeting that “the President has brought
bombs to kill the Prime Minister, the Council of Ministers and
herself.”
Karunanayake’s
allegation spurred the president to write a letter to the prime
minister and demand his resignation.
“There
has been no incident in the world where a Head of State has attacked
his or her own cabinet with bombs. I do not need to destroy anyone
with bombs. I have been described as a suicide bomber. A responsible
person will not utter such things,” Kumaratunga wrote.
“The
accusation is so serious and Mr Karunanayake’s behaviour is
completely unacceptable that I cannot have him as a member in my
Cabinet anymore,” the president reportedly told the prime minister.
The
President’s letter to the Prime Minister came a day before the
latter left for a five-day visit to the United States.
Prime
Minister Wickremesinghe has since categorically rejected the
President’s demand and clarified that the appointment or removal of
a Minister is the sole prerogative of the Prime Minister.
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| Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe
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Pointing
out that it was the Prime Minister who decides the Cabinet and not the
President, Wickremesinghe, in support of his contention cited Article
44 (1) of the Constitution, which says, “the President in
consultation with the Prime Minister appoints the Cabinet.”
Stoutly
defending Karunanayake, the Prime Minister said that he had never made
such an allegation but merely referred to her spy hand-bag which
contained sophisticated video and recording devices.
The
minister alleged that the intelligence agencies had imported a
surveillance kit having the requisite features, and wanted to know how
the device was being used at present.
According
to reports, the piece of surveillance equipment, purchased from a
British firm, inside a lady’s hand-bag contained a color video
camera, twin stereo microphones, remote wireless key-fob activation,
Sony DCR-PC9 digital camcorder, incorporating super night-shot low
light capability.
This
is not the only accusation against the President ever since Ranil
Wickremesinghe became the Prime Minister on December 5, 2001. On an
earlier occasion, the President’s office has been accused of massive corruption involving the purchase of
multi-million dollar high-security custom-built armored and luxury
vehicles.
The
differences had been such sharp that early this month Wickremesinghe
government hinted that it was contemplating to move an impeachment
motion against the President and the Chief Justice.
An
important reason behind the current tussle between the two leaders has
been that Wickremesinghe had wanted to strip President Kumaratunga of
all the ministries she holds, including defense and finance.
Kumaratunga
was elected in December 1999 and would continue to be in office till
2005. Her arch rival, Ranil Wickremesinghe, was elected in December
2001.
Both
the President and the Prime Minister do not see each other eye-to-eye
on many core issues confronting the country. Wickremesinghe won the
elections on a peace plank when he promised the electorate to start
peace talks with the LTTE immediately after winning the elections.
Kumaratunga, on the other hand, rooted for a military solution because
in her opinion peace talks with the Tamil Tigers was a betrayal of the
homeland.
Sri
Lanka has been fighting a protracted war against the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Elam (LTTE) for over two decades. LTTE is advocating for a
separate, sovereign Tamil nation to be carved out of the north-east
provinces of the island nation.
After
a massacre of hundreds of minority ethnic Hindu Tamils at the hands of
the predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese in 1983, the LTTE initiated an
armed struggle for an independent Tamil homeland Tamil Eelam. Civil
war has since erupted in the country and has so far claimed more than
60,000 human lives. Besides, over a million people found themselves
displaced. The infrastructure has been largely destroyed and the
economy is in dire straits.
The
tussle between the President and Prime Minister of the country at this
juncture can only spell disaster for the island nation.
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