‘Wijeyadasa must come clean on friendship with arms dealer’
Public still await answer from ex Justice Minister to questions Sunday Punch raised nearly two years ago after LA holiday photos were revealed
The following is a Sunday Punch flashback to December 13th 2015:
“This morning the Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe must ask himself a few simple questions:
Has he as a member of parliament availed himself of any generous hospitality in the past extended to him and his family by the controversial Avant Garde chairman, the arms dealer Senadhipathi whom he has been defending so vigorously in public in recent times as being innocent and devoid of any wrong doing?
And whether, even if he, Wijeyadasa, has not accepted the benefit of any sponsored stay in the United States or elsewhere, his past actions now revealed have irrevocably created in the public mind the indelible impression that he appears to have been influenced and his judgment coloured even by a shade as a result? And whether, even if he is innocent of all the innuendos leveled against him, his close friendship with the controversial Avant Garde boss – now photographically established beyond reasonable doubt -has made his position as the nation’s Minister of Justice no longer tenable?
With Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka presenting photographic evidence showing Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe living it up in Los Angeles, with former Avant Guard boss arms dealer Nissanka Senadhipathi and his family, the public demand his answer forthwith.
Not that anyone is accusing Wijeyadasa of any wrong doing. Not that anyone is claiming that the holiday was paid for by Senadhipathi. Maybe it was Wijeyadasa who hosted the Avant Guard chairman, his wife and baby to travel around in stretch limos in California nine years ago when Wijeyadasa was a national list member of parliament and a Minister of State in Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government or paid the 75 dollar tickets to enter Disney Land and see Mickey Mouse goofing around. That is not the issue.
What is important is whether his past close family ties – so close as to enjoy family holidays together in affluent Californian climes – with the arms dealer he is now defending as Justice Minister of the government, has deprived him the ability to claim that high degree of objectivity his exalted office inexorably demands?
While Wijeyadasa has spiritedly defended the roles of all those involved in the Avant Garde affair including its Chairman Nissanka Senadhipathi both in Parliament and elsewhere and even taken the credit for preventing the arrest of Gotabaya Rajapaksa way, whether with eyes squinted or straight, that it was done solely to ordain himself in the halls of Lanka’s patriots, even though, apart from words, no deeds ever had come forth to grant him a place in that that special niche.
Here was a direct full frontal assault – the full Monty – upon the hallowed doctrine of collective cabinet responsibility. And whereas there were lingering doubts over where his true loyalties lay – whether he had one foot in the Maithri – UNP camp and whether he had the other limb, hands and political tail deeply embedded in the Rajapaksa camp – the UNP pack smelt blood and swooped in for the kill.
August 17th was the day the legal luminary Wijeyadasa met his waterloo. Where a man, a president’s counsel given to prolix, a man who had argued his cases before the Supreme Court was rendered speechless before a UNP tribe who persevered to nail him by pursuing a line of attack that concentrated on his transgression of the hallowed doctrine of collective responsibility as a cabinet minister.
They knew that the alleged role he was generally considered to have played in delaying criminal action being brought against the Rajapaksa’s was almost impossible to prove. But when it came to crisscrossing the lines of the duties he bore, to cherish and uphold the principle of collective responsibility, the proof was etched in black and white, embossed in printer’s ink.
And when he was asked whether he had indeed made the statement he had made in his interview with the said newspaper, he denied it. But had no answer to give and was rendered speechless when a UNP backbencher Ashu Marasinghe asked him then why he had published in full the entire interview in his own Facebook.
With the UNP members unanimously demanding his resignation or his removal, the UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe during the ongoing Avant Garde investigations, he has also made no mention of his personal link to Senadhipathi and his family.
But as these photographs clearly show, his relationship with the arms dealer extends far beyond a passing acquaintanceship. As these posed photos for candid camera reveal, it is one that appears to be firmly embedded in a close-knit friendship encompassing the wives and children of both men.
When former Law and Order Minister Tilak Marapana rose to speak in the Avant Garde debate in parliament on 4th November he was frank enough to admit at the outset of his speech defending Senadhipathi, that the arms dealer was his client. Shouldn’t Wijeyadasa now confess that Senadhipathi is his friend?
In the light of Sarath Fonseka’s photographic expose shouldn’t Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe ask himself the final question: Whether his silence on his friendship with Senadhipathi while defending in Parliament the latter’s controversial Avant Garde role as being above board has compromised his own position as the Minister of Justice and is tantamount to conduct unbecoming?”
Dr. Wijeyadasa, the public is still waiting for your answer? granted him grace by appointing a special committee to probe the matter and to grant Wijeyadasa time until this Monday to make a statement in his own defense to which Wijeyadasa, it was reported, agreed. But when the deadline passed on Monday and the UNP Parliamentary body rose in one voice and asked their leader whether the minister - not a born and bred UNP supporter but rather a SLFP discard who had crossed the bridge, perhaps on a Trojan horse - had not ventured to give any explanation as to his audacious behaviour. Instead he had been telling journalists, after meeting the Mahanayakes of both Malwatte and Asgiriya Chapters, he had no intention to resign. He had then played his patriotic anthem "All what I have to say is that I cannot agree with the selling of national assets whether it is done under the name of selling or leasing. Ninety nine year lease period means four generations."
With answer coming there none, UNP MPs demanded of their leader that the man be stripped of his ministerial portfolios even if it meant shooting an own goal.
During the two day weekend reprieve granted, Wijeyadasa did not remain idle but embarked on a tour doing the temple circuit. He placed his case in the lap of the Buddha Sasana of which he was minister. And was soon tied up with the white thread of their blessings and had them all – even the distant Mahanayake of the Nagadeepa Viharaya in Jaffna Ven. Daimailagaswewa Ariyakitti Thera chanting the same pirith as the other Mahanayakes had done - demanding the government to protect Wijeyadasa for the ‘yeoman service’ he had done to Buddhism and the country. Unfortunately neither the Ven. Ariyakitti nor the other monks present at the Justice Ministry could give even one example of this so called ‘ yeoman service’ to Buddhism the reborn Dutugamunu had ever done. Pity none revealed the details of