Wimal’s NFF party restates: Parliament must be bombed
In the storm that broke following Wimal’s outburst of bombing Parliament if it did not abide by his wishes, one man from his own party, its national organiser no less, was brave enough to stand up to his leader’s rant and declare that ‘ the statement made by his leader Wimal, did not reflect the opinion of the party, the party had not taken nor authorised Wimal’s statement and that it was Wimal’s alone. And that he had checked with the party’s General Secretary who had confirmed it.
National Organizer of the National Freedom Front (NFF), Piyasiri Wijenaike on Tuesday, denounced the comments made by his own Party leader Wimal Weerawansa MP that a bomb attack should off the table and rolled close to the table where National Security Advisor Lalith Athulathmudalie and Matara District Minister Keerthi Abeywickrama were seated. The grenades exploded in front of them. Mr. Abeywickrama was killed whilst Mr. Athulathmudalie suffered serious injuries, notably to his spleen. The president and prime minister escaped unhurt.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, in the halcyon days of the corrupt Rajapaksa regime, bombing Parliament would have been the last thing on Wimal’s fertile mind. Then Parliament had given him everything he had ever wanted and much much more that he, in his push cycle days, would ever have dreamt of receiving from it as a member and the rabble rousing darling of the Rajapaksa fraternity.
But alas today, bereft of his political godfather’s grace and favour due to his own decimation in the public eye, Parliament no longer is what it used to be: the cornucopia of his hopes, which gave its best when it smiled most on his rising fortunes. Today, most probably, he sees it as representing the rubble of his own present lot.
In the wake of the uproar that followed his dastardly call to bomb parliament Wimal Weerawansa had the audacity to say, in a voice cut to TV media, that it was a ruse -- sort of a theatrical flourish -- to gain the attention of the public and that the Speaker had taken the bait and fallen into his trap and got his pants in a twist in the process. But it did not serve to quell the storm. As the gravity of what he had said sunk in, so did many come forward to protest against this blatant attack on Lanka’s most secular sovereign shrine.
Perhaps the fall from grace has begun to tell and fast receding hope of ever regaining Raja[aksas’ paradise lost has begun to take its toll. It cannot be easy to be Wimal Weerawansa and expect a night of restful sleep and wake up with a clear comforting conscience in the morn.
This year alone had seen the tumbrels of justice ominously drawing near and nearer to his opulent Hokandara mansion door. For the man who, in July 2010 staged a fast unto death campaign opposite the UN office in Colombo 7, against the decision of the UN to appoint an Advisory Committee to look into Sri Lanka and was miraculously resurrected as a martyr two days after the farcical fast started, when he gratefully sipped the powdered milk of human kindness Mahinda Rajapaksa poured down his parched throat, it must be a terrible time. If 2010 was the beginning of his ascent to the zenith, the year 2015 began his descent to the nadir, where he must now reap the whirlwind, for having sown reckless the wind.
On January 10 this year Weerawansa was remanded on the charge of misusing 37 state vehicles and defrauding the state of Rs. 91.8 million during his tenure as Minister of Housing and Construction. Police investigations revealed that Weerawansa had provided the said vehicles to his sister, brother-in-law, and active supporters of the National Freedom Front and staff members who did not have access to state vehicles. After staging a hunger strike which he instantly gave up after Rajapaksa visited him and a few Buddhist monks urged him not to give up the Holy Ghost so soon, he was set free on bail on April 7th, just in time to celebrate the New Year with milk rice at his palatial home where a young boy had been found dead in mysterious circumstances in an upstairs room in the wee hours of the the parliament approves this Constitution with a two-third majority, then the parliament should be bombed: it should be struck by lightning without rain and should be flattened. There is no need of a parliament, a cabinet or MPs. It must bombed. It must be turned into a museum. That is the stance of our party. ”
Speaker Karu Jayasuriya should take careful note over this growing trend that threatens the very existence of Parliament itself. Nay, he should use the Parliamentary Mace and all the powers at his command to crush in the bud the ultimate contempt that can be made to Parliament: For MPs to will Parliament’s own destruction by bombing it out of extinction.
And also bring it to the notice of the people: That those who have lived by violence will fall by violence and that Parliament is not the place for such vermin to find their burrow.