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Udaya Gammanpila says his duty is to ensure Govt. honours election manifesto
Co-Cabinet Spokesman and Minister of Energy Udaya Gammanpila[/caption]
You came into politics representing the Sinhala Buddhist masses. Do you believe you still have these voters’ support?
Whenever there has been a difference of opinion between the Government and the Sinhala Buddhist masses, I have stood by the Sinhala masses and not with the Government despite the fact that I’m a Cabinet Minister. I have found that the people who have voted for me do appreciate my position in several issues in the recent past.
Have you moved away from your positioning as an ultra-Sinhala Buddhist politician?
I am Buddhist and I never tried to suppress that for any political or martyrial game. There may be disadvantages. My religion helped me to accept alternative views and other groups. Some people alleged me as racist, but people from other religions came to rescue me during certain incidents. I have been in the past and present with people from other religions.
How do you represent Sinhala Buddhists within the Government?
As a Minister I represent every citizen of this country. My services are rendered to every single citizen. Whenever Sinhalese people have grievances which are exclusive to them and aspirations which are exclusive to them, then as a people’s representative I’m bound to raise my voice on their behalf and I have been doing it since my entry into politics.
The Government has faced growing opposition from Buddhist monks over various issues recently. How do you analyse this trend?
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa received the largest mandate in Sri Lankan political history having 6.9 million votes. Similarly, the Government received the biggest mandate in history. When we came to power the expectations of the people were high so the present Government is under tremendous pressure to meet these expectations. However, we have to admit that the pandemic has become the biggest barrier to our forward march.
However, our government took certain decisions against the wishes of the very same people who voted for this government. That’s why it’s frustrating. Secondly, despite the fact that I’m the Co-Cabinet spokesman of the Government I must admit that there is a communication gap. The Government is very late to communicate and justify what it is doing. As a result, misconceptions are built up and established by the opposition and other opposing forces. These, once established, are difficult to eliminate. That's why we are under attack by our own forces.
How do you view your responsibilities as the Co-Cabinet Spokesman?
It’s a challenging task. It's not a job that I asked for. The President wanted me to be the Spokesman of the Government. You have to deliver unpleasant massages and sometimes we have to defend the Government. Sometimes, we fight inside the Government but we are not supposed to divulge our personal stance in public because I have to express the Government’s official view. As a fighter and a maverick, I have been greatly restricted because of my role as the cabinet co-spokesman. I don’t know why the president decided to appoint me. I don’t know whether he wanted to contain me. Either way, I enjoy the role.
Are you happy or unhappy about your position and role in the Government?
Every man should face the “Ata Lo Dahama” (8 Worldly Conditions). We don’t exclusively experience happiness or unhappiness. There are things that we can be both satisfied and worried about. That is life.
What are your thoughts on the attacks being launched against Minister Wimal Weerawansa by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP)?
If there was no Wimal Weerawasa there would have been no President Gotabaya Rajapaksa or Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. People who know the recent history in Sri Lanka know this fact. Unfortunately, newcomers to the politics after 2015 do not know the recent political history of Sri Lanka. They make blunders but we should tolerate and understand them because they are new.
Do you have the freedom to carry out your duties in the Government?
I know that several Ministers have complained in public they are not in a position to function as Ministers independently because of interference by third parties. I do admit that they have such problems. But I must say that, so far, nobody has attempted to interfere with my work and everybody knows that I will not tolerate interference either. Even the President and Prime Minister never dictated in respect of the affairs of the Ministry.
Would you be able to survive if you were to leave the Government?
That depends. When President Mahinda Rajapaksa was defeated by people in 2015, political analysts in Sri Lanka as well as overseas predicted that the Rajapaksa era was over. But through determination we changed that prediction. We made that prediction untrue. So the future will decide that.
There were allegations from the opposition and political analysts that the government came into power on a campaign of racism to win Sinhala Buddhist votes. Would you agree and has the Government abandoned that line of politics now?
We have never been racists. We never entertained extremism. But we expect everybody in the world to accept and respect our heritage. Our civilisation is around 35,000 years old. In Sri Lanka, the majority are Buddhists. We are the only nation in the world to have a written history for an unbroken period of 2,600 years. We are unique and that should be respected. We have never tried to deny any rights as Buddhists and we are bound to respect alternative viewpoints and coexist with other religions and ethnicities. That has been taught to us and been our practice. I think not only us; every single living being has a duty to protect this unique culture and heritage for the benefit of mankind.
The PCoI report on Easter attacks recommended banning Bodu Bala Sena and initiating criminal charges against its General Secretary Ven. Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero. What are your thoughts?
I must mention that the Government has no association with this report. It was appointed by the previous Government, the same people who are now criticising the report. We are not responsible for the contents of this report. However, this recommendation is similar to “shooting the messenger”. Gnanasara Thero was the first one to warn about rising Muslim extremism in Sri Lanka. He began this in 2011. In 2016, he warned about terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists. Rather than punishing Gnanasara Thero and BBS we should make him an advisor to the Sri Lankan intelligence service.
What are your future plans in politics?
We pioneered the ‘Bring back Mahinda’ campaign for which I gave the name ‘Winds of Mahinda’. We pioneered the campaign to bring back Gotabaya Rajapaksa. I had to make a personal effort to convince him to come into politics. People trusted us and voted again for the very same Mahinda who was rejected by the very same people in 2015. Gotabaya Rajapaksa was never tested in politics although he was known to be an able administrator and a brave military officer. People trusted us and elected both of them as the President and the Prime Minister. We have a duty to ensure that they perform to the expectations of the people. That is why we fight both inside and outside the government to ensure that they implement what they promised. You may recall that certain segments of the government attempted to sell the East Container Terminal of Colombo Port to an Indian company against the presidential election manifesto. Page 58 of the election manifesto clearly mentions in black and white that it would exclusively be developed by the Ports Authority. So we had to fight our own government on behalf of the people to ensure that the people’s mandate would be implemented. I think my duty for the next four years is to ensure that the government would follow the path they have envisioned in the election manifesto.
Your former colleague in the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) Patali Champika Ranawaka quit the party saying he wants to build a new political and social force. What are your thoughts on this?
Soon after my departure from the JHU, one journalist raised a question, “What is the difference between JHU and Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU)?” My answer was JHU is the past of the Sinhala Nationalist Movement and PHU is its future. Champika may have laughed at my statement back then, but he himself proved it was correct by dissolving the JHU and leaving Sinhala nationalist politics. The PHU has now become the sole voice of the silent majority of this nation.
Champika is a good analyst of the past but he is very poor in forecasting the future. In 2014, there was a huge debate in JHU as to whom the JHU should support. Champika‘s choice was Maithripala Sirisena. Then I analysed and showed the party that although Maithripala Sirisena is the candidate the true power of the government would be with Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is anti-nationalist and pro-West. We would bring Ranil’s policies in by electing Maithripala Sirisena. Champika didn’t agree with that. That’s why I left the JHU and I explained this in detail at a media briefing held on 11 December 2014. When you look back Maithripala himself regretted supporting the UNP to come to power. My prediction has always come true against Champika’s. My recent prediction about his new political movement titled the ‘43 Brigade' has also come true. I feel sorry for him. He did a great service for the Sinhala Nationalist Movement. Now he belongs in the past.
Finally, what is your vision for Sri Lanka?
Sri Lanka is burdened with a huge foreign debt at the moment. Our debt to GDP ratio is more than 100%. It means our entire government debt has exceeded the GDP of Sri Lanka. This is a huge challenge for any government. When we have a pandemic-devastated economy, this challenge grows. In this backdrop there is only one solution for our salvation and that is taking out our hydrocarbon resources which has never been touched so far. We have petroleum deposits owned by Sri Lanka for the last six years. But nobody has extracted these. We are confident that Sri Lanka will join oil and gas producing nations in the future. But we have to attract investors. We can reshape Sri Lanka’s position from a poor country to one of the prosperous countries in the world.