By Kanthar P Balanathan, Melbourne

I and my wife decided to visit SriLanka (SL) after 31+ years as the situation in SL improved tremendously under the leadership of THE STATESMAN HE Mahinda Rajapaksa, the President of SriLanka.

We flew on the 7^th July 2014 to SL, arrived on the 8^th July at Colombo airport. We were astonished to see the airport development which is of western standard. As I walked to the immigration, I stood in the queue, an officer courteously asked me to go to another free counter, which had two passengers. The immigration officer was quite pleasant, and acted in a friendly but official manner, examined my passport, stamped and showed me the way to go. This was after 31+ years I visited Colombo. I observed the people were quite happily moving about. This was not the airport 32 years ago. The government officials on duty acted quite pleasantly like that of a western country. E.g. Australia, UK, NZ. Officials were active and duty conscious; however, were courteous and polite with passengers.

We travelled through the middle of the night around 2:00am to Colombo 5 with no fear. Our stay was in a place in Colombo 5, which is operated by Uniwick Tours and Travels. (Ref: https://www.facebook.com/uniwicktours). The management was quite serious in providing customer satisfaction and had a strong customer focus. They were quite friendly and provided extensive support when and where needed.

I saw the environment while driving, and was astonished with the lighting design in the Colombo-airport express way and surrounding, the infrastructure, buildings, cleanliness etc. The immediate thing that came into my mind; why couldn’t the previous comedian presidents and Prime Ministers develop the country in a similar manner. What prevented them from developing? The answer: Those leaders were not at all interested in SriLanka, but wanted to be friends of US, UK and the western leaders, and have dinner with them. Virtually acted like puppets.

We salute the current president HE MR, who took office as head of state on the 19^th November 2005, with intentions of eradicating terrorism, and principal goal of elevating SriLanka to that of near western standard and quality. I was able to see subsequently HE MR has achieved more than 80% of his goal with the support of his cabinet and party mates, and primarily the Defense Secretary, Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa who is responsible for Urban Development, national security, intelligence and defense. It is not only the physical structure; however, the quality of the culture of the people also has tremendously improved to a high standard.

THE STATESMAN- Current President HE MR

Self-motivated, Vibrant, Defense Secretary – Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa

The main question: why couldn’t ex PMs and Presidents able to develop SL to this standard in the past, however, held onto trivial beliefs and ethnic hatred. The current president HE MR took the job onto his hand with his team and planned eradication of terrorism, work on peace, reconciliation, education, development and did it. It’s something which cannot be achieved over night, but takes time and we have to give HE MR time to complete it. We SriLankan have to salute HE MR for his courage, audacity, and effectiveness. The volume of work done over the past five years (post war) is tremendous, sensational, and out of this world. The talent and superiority of the Statesman HE MR is that the president can articulate his thoughts and put forward in simple language for common mass to understand. While in Jaffna the president communicates in Tamil, and the credibility is that the president is able to speak three languages as the Head of State. The question here is: can Sampanthar, Vigneswaran or any other Tamil politician capable of even to think to talk in three languages. Their petty idea and mind set of Tamil being their language and if they do not speak it they will die out of hunger or decease has inflicted their mind, which is a man-made conception.

Crimes, theft, larceny, illegal activities etc, have been controlled, and all SriLankan must join hands to salute the Defense Secretary in eliminating this treacherous sickness in our society.

Following day we drove to Thimbirigasaya road to buy a phone. Walked into a shop and there we were greeted and the sales person had a strong customer focus and effectively trying to provide customer satisfaction. He was a SriLankan who spoke Sinhalese, Tamil and English and of Sinhala background. Basically doing a psychological profiling, I found out that the sales people had a commercial culture, commercial outlook to that of the western world, with strong customer focus. Coming out of the shop and talking to common people, I found out that the SriLankan had that civilized and commercial culture. When I say Commercial Culture and Commercial outlook”, I mean, the courtesy, civility, pleasantness, mannerism, listening skills, appeal, loveliness and, NOT THAT PROFITABILITY OR UNETHICAL. It has nothing to do with profitability or money making intent.

Colombo and the suburbs have been highly developed, and people were going about with their normal life, with high discipline among citizens, and the most interesting thing I found out was that all vehicle drivers were practicing defense driving”.

Something we must all agree is that modern technology is great and that is the most wanted complex prerequisite for a country to develop. Illiterates, half baked mind set literates may disagree, but it is a fact. Look at the west with a positive outlook.

We went to Jaffna by luxury coach. It was a comfortable journey. The coach was VENKADESWARA TRAVELS”. The VENKADESWARA TRAVELS” operators were quite pleasant and had courtesy and mannerism and was a fantastic journey we had. Cost was Rs1300.00 pp and was worth it. On the way I observed the development of carpet roads, high rise building, and the businesses in plant in the country. Reaching Jaffna and driving through the roads, I observed people were out on the roads for their business with no fear.

I did not see one single military personnel on the roads of Jaffna town that day. People were like ants moving about their activity. Every nook and corner you turn you see three wheelers: Auto”, motor cycle, bicycles, modern cars, trucks etc, however 90% of the people had a mobile phone with them.

A province with persisting presence of LTTE leftovers and sleeping cells, the province needs the company of military personnel to protect citizens, and national security.

On anther day we went to a few suburbs and went to a temple, which had its annual festival. What I am stating here is a true fact; we did not see anyone on the road or other places with fear, panic, fright, or nervous. Every Tamil who walked on the road, drove on the road, or in the temple were happy, pleased and contented. We did not see any army or police personnel in Vaddukkoddai, Siththankeni, and Araly North or in the vicinity. The only signs were people moving about their activities and people going to work in the morning and returning in the evening. My nephew (23yrs) had no fear of going to work on a motor cycle with his expensive mobile phone. Although we did not tour the entire Northern Province, a good sample of the entire population is adequate representative to analyze the situation in the North.

The only disturbing feature we noticed was the noise emanating from the loud speakers in temples as early as 5am playing religious songs during the festive season. The sound intensity was so high (dB). Songs played in Araly North was heard in Vaddukkoddai and Siththankeni. This may be a constraint to schools, offices and other places where people require concentration.

To every Tamil I spoke, they replied that they want peace and a peaceful environment to live happily. No one wants separation, power, but to be within SriLanka.

What we could see is that the Tamil Diaspora dancing to the tunes of the west wants to destabilize and/or change regime because the current regime is governing with intent of developing SL and is not controlled by any foreign power. The current regime is controlled by the people in SL and NOT absorbed into foreign senselessness. Evidence; so many wars conducted by the US and UN in destabilizing countries and killing millions of people, finally achieving zero end result.

The question is; why would NGOs be interested in Tamils of SL when they could do more fruitful work elsewhere in Africa, India, and South America where there presence is needed. Hence the question is; Are these NGOs on the pay list of the ex LTTEs and Tamil Diaspora Organizations?

Are the Tamil Diaspora organizations influencing the Muslim organizations to wage war with GOSL now? An important fact with due respect; during our stay in SL we observed significant number of Burqa-clad persons on the roads, shopping complex, shops etc. I did not see a single Burqa-clad person in SriLanka 33 years ago. What is the main reason for the change in practice and culture now?

GOSL should treat Burqa-clad persons as a threat to NATIONAL SECURITY. Burqa-clad persons may be prone to vitamin D deficiency (Ref: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/Burqa-clad-women-prone-to-vitamin-D-deficiency-Doctors/articleshow/20468505.cms ). Further they may be hindering others on public places due to inadequate clear vision through the Burqa. This is from my experience trying to come out of a lift where a Burqa-clad person almost collided with me.

Finally those of us (Tamil Diaspora) who are on foreign soil blaming SriLanka should go to SL and see for themselves how people are living in a sound environment. Politicians of other nations should not publicize of their visit, but visit without advertisement, and then only they could see the true situation. If publicized, Tamil politicians may prepare story telling to those visitors.

There is no point in lying and double dealing to implicate GOSL in order to satisfy a few western countries. Let us be honest to our conscience. Let us be one and only one; we are all SRILANKAN.