Pressure mounts on PM

again, for the wrong reasons. He was a member of President Mahinda Rajapaksa's official entourage during his visits to Jordan, Palestine and Israel. Video footage and photographs showed him with President Mahinda Rajapaksa and other members of his delegation shaking hands with foreign leaders.

UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake told the Sunday Times, "John Amaratunga sought permission from our leader Ranil Wickremesinghe to visit the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem (in Palestine). External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris had also spoken to our leader regarding this invitation. He has said that President Rajapaksa would also be visiting there for a ceremony."

It is not clear whether Amaratunga pressured UPFA leaders and ensured that External Affairs Minister Peiris spoke to Wickremesinghe. If indeed he was interested in going, he could otherwise have paid Rs. 270,000 to Superlink Travels, a firm specialising in pilgrimages to the Holy Land and gone on a sixday tour. This package tour was on offer until recently. Perhaps Amaratunga felt the VVIP company was better and did not involve any cost on his part. The expenses were borne by the State and the host governments concerned.

Attanayake said Amaratunga was "told specifically not to take part in any other official functions other than visiting this place of religious importance. We are aware that television and print media reports have said that he has taken part in other events. There were video footage and photographs," he said. Attanayake said leader Wickremesinghe telephoned Amaratunga when he was abroad after seeing these reports and sought clarification. He had replied that he would hold a news conference upon his return and explain details. Amaratunge told Wickremesinghe that he took part only in social functions and receptions which were attended by President Rajapaksa and did not take part in the official talks he held with the leaders of those countries. He had also dismissed reports of any plans to join the Government. Amaratunga returned with President Rajapaksa's entourage on Friday. " Aanduwa House full. Mama aanduwata yanney nehe (The Government is 'house full.' I am not joining it)," he told the media upon arrival as if to trivialise the whole issue. That remark seemed to boomerang on him. He is not going to join the Government only because it was "house full." Rajapaksa preferred he remain and do their bidding from the Opposition, said a political observer close to Rajapaksa who did not chair the weekly meeting of his ministers on Thursday in view of his predawn arrival. It will take place tomorrow.

UNP leader Wickremesinghe told his party's Working Committee that Amaratunga had asked for his permission to attend a ceremony at the Church of Nativity in Bethelehem. He had said he had been invited by the Government and wanted to take part in it as a Catholic. "I allowed him to travel. Otherwise the Catholic community would accuse me of preventing Amaratunga from travelling overseas for a religious purpose," he said. Ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), Wickremesinghe said, External Affairs Minister Peiris had telephoned him and asked to nominate a person to travel with a ministerial delegation to invite heads of government. He had politely declined the offer. If indeed the UNP leader's decision to allow Amaratunga to "attend a religious event" is deemed correct, the move, without doubt, reflects a serious duplicity in the party. Some receive favoured treatment whilst the others do not. Lesser fortunate UNPers are taken to task, even dismissed from the party, for matters which are trivial. This is particularly in the light of Amaratunga being the Chief Opposition Whip, the person who is tasked to enforce discipline among opposition party MPs in Parliament. One MP who did not wish to be named said, "We still follow two sets of rules. We are disgusted because we cannot explain this kind of thing to our voters. They think we are with the Government."

In October 2010, Amaratunga caused a furore after accepting a UPFA Government invitation to visit New York. President Rajapaksa was going there for the UN General Assembly. It was not a religious visit. This raised a controversy within the UNP. Later, Amaratunga thanked External Affairs Minister Peiris for the invitation in a speech he made in Parliament on October 7, 2010. He said he had asked the Opposition Leader (Wickremesinghe) whether to accept that invitation, but was told to decline it. Hence, he returned the air ticket and obtained a fresh one saying he would pay for it. Though Amaratunga said he would adduce proof to the party that such a payment of some Rs . 350,000 for the ticket would be made, he did not do so, said a high ranking UNP member.

The only difference in the on-going issue is the fact that Amaratunga succeeded in getting a UPFA Minister (EAM Peiris) to lobby his case and made personal appeals to Wickremesinghe. Yet, as General Secretary Attanayake points out, he did not heed the party's call not to take part in other official functions.

A reiteration of his "continued loyalty and commitment" to the party may see the end of the issue, according to him and the party hierarchy. Yet, at the grassroot levels of the party it will remain a sore point. It will only rekindle fears that the party, contrary to all lofty claims, has one foot in the Government and trying to fight it with the other. That, no doubt, translates into minus votes and President Rajapaksa must be laughing all the way to the vote bank.

That such a development comes at a time when their National Leader Wickremesinghe has been gearing the party machinery for a strong political struggle is no doubt worrying the party seniors. At the party's annual convention in December he asked members to roll up their sleeves and prepare to oust the Rajapaksa Government. Instead, Amaratunga has put on his jacket, fastened his seat belt and taken a freebie from the Rajapaksa Government.

It was only last Wednesday Wickremesinghe named a set of members to be responsible for different tasks. Mangala Samaraweera, as Political Campaign Secretary, Wickremesinghe said, would be responsible for the party's political campaigns, mass communications, media and propaganda. Whilst General Secretary Tissa Attanayake would look after administrative and management matters of the party, he said. Leadership Council Chairman Karu Jayasuriya would be responsible for monitoring progress and planning. Three others who have been given new responsibilities, he added, are Rosy Senanayake (in charge of the Lak Vanitha Womens Movement), Harin Fernando (plantation sector) and P. Harrison (the farming sector). Relatively young Kegalle District parliamentarian Kabir Hashim has been picked as the new Chairman of the party succeeding the septuagenarian Gamini Jayawickrema Perera. The new assignments, to some degree, decentralises the role of the party's General Secretary though none of the powers he enjoys in terms of polls and other laws have been removed. He was earlier responsible for political campaigns, planning and monitoring activity among many other tasks. Wickremesinghe told the Sunday Times, "We have to prepare the party machinery for an overall mass agitation."

In accordance with the second resolution adopted at the party's annual convention on December 21 last year, the UNP Working Committee endorsed a proposal to appoint a special committee to build a wider opposition force. It will function under the party national leader Wickremesinghe. This resolution said it was "preparing promotional programmes and recruitment programmes required for a membership drive." The Leadership Council also met on Friday to finalise the list of party organisers countrywide.

If the Premier Jayaratne issue embarrassed the Government and Amaratunga joining President Rajapaksa's entourage embarrassed the UNP, there were other issues too. One emerged when Stephen J. Rapp, the visiting US Ambassador-at-large for War Crimes, and US Ambassador Michele Sison visited the North. On Thursday, the US Embassy tweeted as follows: U.S. Embassy Colombo @USEmbSL St Anthany's Ground - site of Jan 2009 killing of hundreds of families by army shelling #srilanka pic.twitter.com/GgJAqmQrVX The tweet was accompanied by a photograph of the two Ambassadors on the playground of St Anthany near Puttumatalan in the Mullaitivu District. Diplomatic circles in Colombo opined that it was a 'formal signal' that the United States would call for an 'international probe' into alleged war crimes at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The message is coming from the very place where they claim such acts took place, said one diplomatic source adding that it is a "formal claim they have their evidence." That clearly showed that the US stance has hardened like that of Britain and the upcoming resolution would be of a punitive nature unlike the previous condemnatory ones.

However, UPFA leaders were incensed. Just minutes after the tweet was posted, and pro-government protestors demonstrated outside the US Embassy, the Army responded with a strong denial but there was stoic silence from the Ministry of External Affairs -the state organ that has to speak out on matters of foreign policy. Plans by External Affairs Minister, G.L. Peiris who returned with President Rajapaksa after a tour of Jordan, Palestine and Israel to summon Ambassador Sisson to his Ministry in the coming week, has been dropped. The UPFA Government was to convey its displeasure and seek answers to the question on how the US Government had made up its mind that the Army killed those in the grounds in question even before an "international probe" which the US claims it wants to conduct through the UNHRC, has got under way.

Both Rapp and Sison visited the Uthayan newspaper in Jaffna. They were the third to do so after British Prime Minister, David Cameron and Damien Murphy a staffer in the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Rapp asked reporters what they thought of the situation now. He told them that the US would introduce a third resolution calling for an "international inquiry into war crimes" but added "that it would be a difficult task." He was perhaps alluding to the need to obtain support of member countries of the UN Human Rights Council. On Tuesday, Rapp met a delegation of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in Colombo where he also declared that a new resolution with elements calling for an "international probe" would be introduced. The report received wide coverage on BBC, foreign media outlets and websites on Tuesday itself.

The two Ambassadors also met the Bishop of Jaffna, the Rt. Rev. Thomas Savundranayagam and Bishop of Mannar the Rt. Rev. Rayappu Joseph. The meeting took place at the Bishop's House in Jaffna. Bishop Jospeh handed over a set of documents to the duo on alleged war crimes. The US duo also separately met Ananthi Sasitharan, wife of LTTE's Trincomalee Political Wing leader Elilan who she claims was arrested by security forces and went missing thereafter at the conclusion of the 'war' with the LTTE in 2009.

On Friday, Ambassadors Rapp and Sison met Justice Minister Rauff Hakeem, External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris and Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa. An official of the Office to Monitor/Combat Trafficking of Persons in the Department of State in Washington DC is also in Colombo now. The visit of

Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Desai Biswal will now not take place tomorrow as previously expected by government officials and new dates are yet to be determined.

There was a mix up in these columns last week. It was reported that Western Provincial Council Minister Udaya Gammanpila challenged Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena for a public debate on the latter's announcement that the Grade V scholarships would be abolished. What happened was that Gammanpila telephoned Gunawardena, his one-time lecturer in economics, to say that his party the JHU would oppose his move. Gunawardena ended up inviting Gammanpila for a debate (sangvaadaya). It took place on a private television channel on Tuesday night. Gammanpila was a student at Ginigathhena Primary School and was a beneficiary of the Grade 5 scholarship. He gained entry to D.S. Senanayake Vidyalaya in Colombo and later won a scholarship to enter Monash University in Melbourne from the Australian Government. There he learnt computer science and became an Assistant Lecturer in four years.

This week's developments clearly show that the UPFA Government would have its hands full coping with a hardened US-sponsored resolution and issues at home including Southern and Western Provincial Council polls. It is not easy for the UNP either. It is continuing to face an identity crisis with its top members having a field day flirting with the UPFA Government whilst its national leader Wickremesinghe wants the party cadres to take to the streets. At least on that front, there are no woes for the UPFA.