Batalaanda Skeletons, Victims’ Sorrows and NPP’s Tasks

Few foresaw skeletons of Batalaanda come crashing down in a London television interview. There have been plenty of speculations about the intended purposes and commentaries on the unintended outcomes of Ranil Wickremesinghe’s Al Jazeera interview.

- By RAJAN PHILLIPS

The more prurient takes on the interview have been about the public dressing down by the former president by the pugnacious interviewer, Mehdi Hasan. Only one person seems convinced that Mr. Wickremesinghe had the better of the exchanges. That person is Ranil Wickremesinghe himself. That is also because he listens only to himself, and he keeps himself surrounded by sycophants who only kowtow and serve. But there is more to the outcome of the interview than the ignominy that befell Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Political commentaries have alluded to hidden hands and agendas apparently looking to reset the allegations of war crimes and human rights violations so as to engage the new NPP government in ways that would differentiate it from its predecessors and facilitate a more positive and conclusive government response than there has been so far. Between the ‘end of the war’ in 2009, and the election of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and the NPP government in 20--, there have been four presidents – Mahinda Rajapaksa, Maithripala Sirisena, Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe – and as many governments. Of the four, Ranil Wickremesinghe is the least associated with the final stages of the war and its ending. In fact, he was most associated with a failed, even flawed peace process that ultimately ensured the resumption of the war with vengeance on both sides. RW was also the most receptive to war crimes allegations without proffering that external oversight would not be a violation of Sri Lankan’s Constitution.