Basil Rajapaksa - pic: businesstoday.lk

I look around the cramped office as I settle down in a chair. The modest office hardly looks like the nerve centre from where many things in this country are made to happen. Every important or intractable issue in the country, whether it be running election campaigns, finalizing nominations lists within the governing party, negotiating with the many coalition partners within the UPFA, wooing politicians away from the opposition, talking to the Indian government, making representations to the UN, deciding on infrastructure projects for the war ravaged north, etc etc, passes through this office.

Yet, over the past four years, there was little or no real publicity for anything that Basil Rajapakse did. He had no press secretary to whisper in our ears, "Boss met so and so last week and said this and so and so said that…" There was only a bare mention of meetings held or visits overseas in news broadcasts. Beyond that, there were no details of what actually happened. In the halcyon days of UNP rule, President Premadasa’s motto was "Never do anything without the public getting to know about it." His rivals Gamini Dissanayake and Lalith Athulathmudali followed much the same policy and anything they did, whether it was making decisions on national security, building a dam or negotiating with the Indian government, was always done in the glare of publicity. But Basil was a figure who operated mostly in the shadows.

The contrast couldn’t be sharper than when one compares Basil with Sarath Fonseka. When SF was army commander, he had his own coterie of journalists. Any journalist who wished to be in his good books could highlight only what happened on land. The air and sea were out of bounds. Even on land, SF had to be the central figure. One officer who proudly wrote in a Ceylon Light Infantry anniversary publication that it was Maj Gen Nanda Mallawaarachchi who had led and won the Mavilaaru operation, was booted out of office. Victor Ivan pointed out in the Ravaya that Keith Noyhar the defence correspondent of The Nation was not beaten within an inch of his life because he was in league with the LTTE, but because he got his defense stories from the sea side. And journalist Namal Perera also got his teeth knocked out because he acted as the conduit between the sea going types and Noyhar. On one occasion, as the members of the security council waited for the arrival of the president, Sarath Fonseka had said to no one in particular "Patthara karayonta kanna bonna paga deela thamai ova liyawaganne." Wasantha Karannagoda sitting on the opposite side of the table had wanted to know "Kauda yako paga dunne?" Nothing further had happened, due to the timely arrival of the president.

The then army commander had one eye on the defence columns while the other eye was on the war. What we see in hindsight is that SF had been planning his entry into politics for years. Here was a military officer seeking publicity or a monopoly of the credit the way a politician would. BR, in contrast, operated largely in obscurity as a civil or military officer of the state would. No political column reported any discussion he had with visiting dignitaries, or the sensitive negotiations he routinely carried out with the partners as well as the enemies of the regime. People saw him on TV only at opening ceremonies. Everything else he did was largely unknown. So naturally, my first question to BR was: Why did you think of contesting elections, and coming into the public domain, without remaining on the national list?

"After the presidential election" says BR, "The president realized that he had got the highest number of votes and the biggest majority from the Gampaha district. In 2005 too the people of Gampaha gave him an overwhelming mandate. Assigning me to this district was his way of saying thank you. Furthermore, the Gampaha district lost many of its leaders in quick succession. We lost Anura Bandaranaike, Sripathy Sooriyarachchi (who played a major role at the presidential elections of 2005), senior SLFP leader Reggie Ranatunga and the leader of the House Jeyaraj Fernandopulle. Since that time, SLFP politicians from parliamentary to PS level as well as the venerable maha sangha had been asking for a national level leadership for Gampaha, as they have always had. It was with this in view that I was assigned to contest the parliamentary election from the Gampaha district".

That brought me to the inevitable question. Why maintain a low profile for the past four years if he was going to contest an election? In the old days, Lalith Athulathmudali used to have reporters who sent in stories to the newspapers from his residence. Every political column got inside information and exclusives about who did what. How is it that BR never sought to get his doings into the political columns?

"I was brought in to undertake certain tasks on behalf of the president" says BR. "I did not do those tasks in my personal capacity. It was always under the guidance and the leadership of the president. Therefore, the publicity as well as the credit should be his. Another reason was that a good part of the work assigned to me had a humanitarian character such as rehabilitating war ravaged areas. It would hardly be appropriate to seek political mileage or publicity from that kind of work. There was also the added factor that some of the tasks I undertook, could not have been carried out under the glare of public attention. The continuous dialogue we maintained with India was one such area…"

Sri Lanka today basks in the afterglow of having defeated terrorism. But none of this would have been possible without the cooperation of India. As the war in Sri Lanka progressed into the latter half of 2008, India sounded exactly the same as the west, emphasizing that there could be no military solution to the LTTE problem and that negotiations were the only way. As the military operations progressed, Tamil Nadu erupted in protests and Chief Minister Mutuvel Karunanidhi himself went on hunger strike. For all the world, it did appear that October 2008 was going to be another July 1987, where India would step in to stop the war. As the crisis reached a flashpoint, Basil Rajapakse was sent to India to talk to the Indian central government. After his visit, India took a 180 degree turn in its policy towards the Sri Lankan war, and adopted the stance that enabled Sri Lanka to finish off the LTTE. Details of this hectic diplomacy never found its way into the political columns. So I ask BR, what really happened in India in October 2008 that made India change her stance so radically?

"My first mission to India, explains BR, was in 2006 when the war recommenced with the Mavilaaru incident and Muttur was recaptured". The Muslim residents of Muttur refused to go back so long as the LTTE positions in Sampur remained intact. The LTTE had long range weapons in Sampur. Mavilaaru and the adjoining areas were not designated as an LTTE area in the ceasefire agreement. But Sampur was. If we went into Sampur we knew that there would be protests from the west and we also knew that pressure would have been brought on India. So the president asked me to go to India and explain things. I discussed matters with the Navy commander, and the commander of the Mavilaaru operation Maj Gen Nanda Mallawarachchi. I visited the area and got all details about LTTE shelling from Sampur and went to India. I explained to India why it was necessary to go into Sampur. This was the beginning of the government’s dismantling of the LTTE’s quasi-state".

"Thereafter, I maintained this relationship with India throughout and kept them informed of what was happening as and when the need arose. When it came to 2008, the period you refer to, the Indian government was not stable. It was a coalition government and there were protests in Tamil Nadu with chief minister M.Karunanidhi - an indispensable partner of the Indian government - on hunger strike over the Sri Lankan issue. Around this time the Indian High Commissioner in Colombo, Alok Prasad, went to see the president and told him that the situation in Sri Lanka had created a crisis situation for the Indian government as well, and he specifically asked for me to be sent to India. The president told me to go to India at once. I did not know what to expect at the other end. But I collected all the necessary details from the defence, foreign and even the fisheries ministry where there were issues of Indian fishermen straying into Sri Lankan waters and vice versa. I even met senior judges of the supreme court to discuss legal terminology in case we have to enter into an agreement".

"I traveled to India in the night and met the Indian foreign minister in the morning. Immediately after our meeting, the foreign minister left for Tamil Nadu to talk to Karunanidhi while I prepared the Sri Lanka-India joint statement with the foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon and the defence advisor M.K.Narayanan. When the Indian FM got off the plane in Chennai, we managed to fax a copy of the draft joint statement to him. He showed the joint statement to Karunandhi and got his assent for it. In the meantime, Prabhakaran had issued a statement describing Karunanidhi as "The saviour of the Tamils". We managed to prevent that from getting out for fear that it would make Karunanidhi change his mind. I too was surprised at the manner in which everything fell into place within about 24 hours.

``Chief Minister Karunanidhi called off his hunger strike, and the tensions that had been building up against Sri Lanka dissipated. Our forces were able to continue with military operations. From that time onwards, we did not allow things to slide backwards, and the secretary to the president Lalith Weeratunga, myself and defense secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse maintained constant contact with Alok Prasad, Shivsankar Menon and Narayananan on the Indian side. The former Indian high commissioner Alok Prasad played a key role in all this. I think both parties realized that we were faced with the same problems and were up against the same adversaries - especially overseas adversaries. I think there was the realization that if we don’t stick together, they will destroy both our countries".

He speaks animatedly about India. Like his presidential sibling, BR too has a close relationship with the Indian authorities which began before 2005, when Mahinda Rajapakse was Prime Minister. Maintaining this relationship through the stresses and strains generated by the war, was obviously one of the highlights of his career. Throughout the war, BR was sent on trouble shooting missions overseas. In March 2009, as the war drew to a close, BR led the government team that visited the IMF headquarters in Washington DC, to persuade them to grant a stand by facility to Sri Lanka to tide over the difficulties arising from the global economic meltdown of 2008/09. Soon after the war, he also had to visit the UN and work with the then Permanent Representative H.M.G.S. Palihakkara to defuse a situation that arose with the threat of Sri Lanka being taken up for discussion by the UN security council.

Speaking of the manner in which he was able to work around problems coming from certain quarters overseas, BR says: "After the east was captured, and the LTTE confined to the north, some countries said that the government was bent on following a military course of action and that if they give aid to rehabilitate the east, they will be encouraging a military solution and that therefore, no aid should be given. But I approached Japan for this purpose and found them to be quite responsive. Once aid started coming in from Japan, things gradually changed. When it came to the north and east, the president had a four D concept – demilitarization, democratization, development and devolution. The first phase was handled by the defense secretary. I was in charge of the second and third phases. Democratisation has been proceeding apace in the east, and is now being introduced to the north as well. In those areas, even village level voluntary organizations had been destroyed and representative institutions had to be built from scratch".

" The aim was to bring the north and east on par with the other seven provinces. The basic infrastructure in those areas had been destroyed, roads were in a state of disrepair, there was no electricity, agricultural land had been abandoned. Our aim through Negenahira Navodaya and Uthuru Wasanthaya was to restore some of these basic facilities. Once these two provinces had been brought to the level of the other provinces with regard to these basic facilities, they would be able to move forward with the rest of the country in accordance with the Mahinda Chintana vision for the future. Today, if you visit the east, you will see that it’s on par with, or even better than certain other parts of the country. Very soon, the north will also be like that."

Even though the prosecution of the war would not have been possible without him, BR’s sibling Gotabhaya Rajapakse too never sought to hog the limelight or monopolize the defence columns and he did not have a coterie of loyal journalists. It was thus made possible for a subordinate officer to lay claim to all the credit for ending the war. The end result of that was that he and many others, barely escaped with their lives in the presidential election drama. As Gota himself had shouted at the now blacklisted Kariyapperuma brothers of Telecommunications Regulatory Commission fame at Temple Trees the day after the election (they had come to congratulate the president) the issue was not a case of winning or losing but living or getting killed!

The Kariyapperumas were alleged to have consorted with the enemy while enjoying all the perks of office conferred by the government. The government obviously has a marketing problem. In the days of the UNP regime, nobody could have even thought of stealing the credit for defence matters from Lalith Athulathmudali or Ranjan Wijeratne or for development work from Gamini Dissanayake or R.Premadasa. So I ask Basil Rajapakse, is he really satisfied that the development thrust launched by the government has been adequately marketed among the public in the way that the UNP government of 1977 marketed their development projects?

"We put out a good product. Marketing it is a different task…"

His voice trails off, seemingly not very convinced about the answer himself. After holding forth for a while about marketing, BR finally admits that they have not really been marketing their development projects. The development thrust over the past four years is much bigger than the development thrust of 1977. Yet the present government has not been rubbing awareness of it into the public the way the UNP government of 1977 did. The UNP government talked so much about development that at the presidential election of 1982, opposition politicians referred to Jayewardene as "Sanwardene".

"But" says BR optimistically, "Those who see what we have done will tell others and it goes by word of mouth. It’s more satisfying when people realize things that way. I have never taken journalists on tours of the north and east. But journalists have gone on their own initiative and written about the changes there. I get much greater satisfaction in seeing such reports. Even though we have not made a deliberate and concerted effort to market what we have done, I believe that the people are aware."

I remain unconvinced. There was of course some truth in BR’s point because surveys carried out during the presidential elections did show that a very significant majority believed that the infrastructure of the country was being developed under the present regime. However the missing ingredient is perhaps a sense of awe, the feeling that no other government could even think of such feats – a feeling abundantly instilled in the people by the UNP govt. of 1977. Despite such shortcomings, in an unplanned kind of way, BR’s name has become associated with development as he has been seen more at opening ceremonies than anywhere else. There is the feeling that the people of the Gampaha district have only to cast their votes and prepare their wish lists, and it’ll all be granted. But what can you do in a district that is already developed to a large extent?

"Gampaha is to some extent a developed district" agrees BR "But there are areas that are not developed. During the first two years, I want to concentrate on getting all the basics into place, the road networks, from national to local government level, electricity and irrigation, water supply projects and the like. The next phase will be improving the schools in the district so that nobody from the district will have to come to Colombo for a quality education, and expanding tertiary level educational opportunities within the district. Another area that will get priority is the development of the hospitals in the district. The reduction of crime, and the protection of the environment will be my other priorities. The overall aim will be to make Gampaha the most preferred district in the country".

Usually, it’s the opposing side or the challenger who sets the tone of an election. One thing that we find at this election is that the main issue of the presidential election held barely six weeks ago – corruption – does not seem to find any mention at all now. If the final outlay of the Kerawalapitiya power plant had been inflated to twice the actual cost, the opposition should be screaming about it at this election as well. And if the Rajapakse’s had bought the Tangalla Bay Hotel and Basil Rajapakse was living in a newly constructed mansion at Balapokuna Road in Kirullapone, then they should be shouting from the rooftops about this too. But all we hear is about the cost of sugar, maalu paan and kelawallo. I ask BR about his alleged property buying spree.

"When people began to say that I owned such and such hotel, and such and such property, I didn’t know what hotel or property they were referring to. Many people wanted me to come forward and explain things. But I didn’t know where to even start. I went to a certain leading Buddhist monk and sought his advice on what I should do. He suggested that I should keep quiet, meditate and wait for the truth to prevail. I am very pleased at the trust reposed in us by the people and our intention is not to betray this trust in any way. I was very hurt about these allegations at that time".

"My father had been in the state council and parliament and he had lost much as a result of politics. There are those of many talents in our family - in defence, in engineering, law and so on. But one area that we have never had any talent is in business. Nobody in our extended family has run even a tea boutique. Our family name does not figure in the Company Registrar’s list. So in such a situation, when we hear stories about us having bought hotels and the like, we certainly were very upset. It was very hurtful to find out who had been spreading these stories. Some of these individuals were those who had obtained various favours from this government. There was an instance when one businessman who had built himself a large house came to me and said: They say that my house is yours, and have even put pictures of it on the internet!"

A look of mild amazement crosses his face as he talks about the ill-gotten gains issue. Indeed, while most politicians have allegations of taking commissions, no politician has ever been accused of owning houses actually belonging to well known people or owning businesses conspicuously owned and operated by yet more well known people. One of the reasons why we don’t hear much about Rajapakse corruption at this election is probably because Basil Rajapakse was one of only three candidates to declare his assets in terms of the Declaration of Assets and Liabilities Laws of 1975 and 1988. Perhaps this could be considered an innovation arising from this otherwise excruciatingly boring election – using the assets declaration as a weapon to beat off enemies. ~ courtesy: Sunday Island ~