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TIME talks to Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe |
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By Alex Perry Colombo |
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Posted Monday, March 22, 2004; 21:00 HKT
Ranil Wickremesinghe was elected Prime Minister of Sri Lanka in December 2001. Within weeks he agreed on a ceasefire with the Tamil Tigers and went on to hold six rounds of peace talks. These were suspended a year ago, but looked likely to restart last November when President Chandrika Kumaratunga suddenly seized government. He met TIME's Alex Perry at his Temple Trees office in Colombo.
TIME: What will this election decide?
Wickremesinghe: It will decide the future of Sri Lanka. In 2001, we got a mandate to end the war, a 20-year war which brought utter destruction, and to revive the economy, which had collapsed. And we have done this in two years. On the peace process, this election will decide whether we will have successful negotiations or the whole thing will collapse. But the economy is also tied to the peace process, and this election will decide which way that will go too.
TIME: What about your personal feud with the President?
Wickremesinghe: I have no opponent [in the April 2 elections] and she is not running. It's not a question of defeating the President or electing Ranil Wickremesinghe. It's a question of where our future lies. The people have seen her perform and my view is that they will not entrust her with the responsibility of government. A strong mandate will take us forward and as long as she respects the will of the people, I do not see any further problems.
TIME: How would you describe the standoff between you and the President?
Wickremesinghe: This is a constitutional crisis. The people gave us a mandate, but the President for her own reasons decided not to respect that, to ignore the views of the majority of parliament and to take over. Many people think that was wrong.
TIME: Was there no way to cut a deal and form a government together?
Wickremesinghe: This is not the manner in which a government of cohabitation has to function. I did not expect us to [achieve a deal] in two or three weeks' time—our parties have been rivals since 1952. But the President decided to call an election because the JVP [Janatha Vimukthi Party] and the SLFP [Kumaratunga's Sri Lanka Freedom Party] formed an anti-UNP [Wickremesinghe's United National Party] coalition: their main objective is to defeat us and not to think about what happens to the country, so you cannot be surprised at their actions.
TIME: Some people accuse the President of acting in a regal manner.
Wickremesinghe: These are the comments that people make. I have known her personally for a long time, since we were small, and the President has said before that politics and power in Sri Lanka are a Bandaranaike family preserve. She has not convinced the country of the need to act. It was a pure power move. If we had gone ahead with peace talks and development, her party would have lost its chances of winning the next election.
TIME: Could you have done more to involve her in the peace process?
Wickremesinghe: It's only when you have a deal that you can bring the others in. I told the L.T.T.E. [Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam] that [Kumaratunga's party] would be brought in. But it would have been easier if I had had their support: if they're raising the slogan that Ranil and the UNP are selling out the country, how do they get out of that and join me?
TIME: Do you think they are some benefits from this crisis, in that extremist parties are being drawn into the democratic process?
Wickremesinghe: What has happened is that President Kumaratunga moved away from the center ground and made an alliance with the JVP. The JVP's strategy is to restore Sri Lanka to the days before the Portuguese arrived in 1505. And they're trying to get the SLFP to endorse their policies. Is that a good thing? But I am happy that we can have an election again in a peaceful environment after such a long time. I would have preferred it later, but I'm happy at that.
TIME: Why are Sri Lankan politics so violent?
Wickremesinghe: From the 1970s, politics in Sri Lanka marginalized civil society. Politics is quite rough and leaders have to be ruthless, have to act. But it does not mean we have to be violent and in the last two years we began to revive [civil society]. We had a good system and we destroyed it, and it's not going to come back overnight.
TIME: What do you see in the future?
Wickremesinghe: The anti-UNP alliance put us a long way back in our development. The country became a hostage to them and to the Bandaranaike family. Otherwise by now we would have been one of the most developed countries in Asia. This election is a chance to break out of that.
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