JVP leader Amarasinghe slips out fearing poll loss

The leader of the Marxist Peoples Liberation Front (JVP) Somawansa Amarasinghe was among the first to leave the country as politicians, businessmen and their families feared defeat for the parties they supported at yesterday's general elections.

The 58 year old Amarasinghe, who had slipped out of the country during the height of the 1989 JVP led bloody insurgency in the country, and lived in self-exile in England and has since returned to Sri Lanka late last month to take part in the JVP's pro- government campaign.

He had been provided with a special passport delivered to him by diplomatic bag in London so that he could return to the country and address JVP meetings. His first public appearance however was a public relations disaster for the new leaders of the revolutionary party.

While these new leaders strained to convince the public that they had turned a new leaf and were treading the democratic path, Amarasinghe till recently a relatively unknown but now the only surviving member of the JVP politburo that launched armed revolt twice in 1971 and 1987-89, advocated party cadres arming themselves again.

He beat a hasty retreat, taking a non-stop flight on Sri Lankan Airlines early this morning to London indicating that his party felt they would not be in a position to help the ruling Peoples Alliance (PA) to form the next government.

The JVP which had been in the opposition helped prop up the PA coalition in October briefly with 10 crucial seats, and is expected to again offer whatever number of seats they win today to help the PA return to office.

Opposition United National Party (UNP) politicians have said that they would call for the arrest of Amarasinghe on 'mass murder' charges as well as slipping out of the country illegally.

A confident government meanwhile depatched state media television crews to the country's only international airport to film opposition politicians who were due to leave fearing they would lose. They were to be on round-the-clock duty.

One of those the government expects to exit is former PA minister S. B. Dissanayake who has, since defecting to the opposition, been the harshest critic of President Chandrika.

On Tuesday night a pro-opposition private television channel during a chat show on the media said that he was at his controversial home in his constituency in the central highlands and not in Maldives as speculated.

Dissanayake has confounded the public by continuing to defiantly remain in the state bungalow he occupied as a cabinet minister despite his verbal onslaughts on the republic's president, and moves to arrest him.

It is usual practise for big financiers of politicians, who have a stake in public contracts to also leave the country on the eve of elections and return only when they feel the heat is over.