Lest We Forget
Posted on December 21st, 2014
N.A.de S.Amaratunga
It is said that Sri Lankans forget quickly and easily and even LTTE terrorist Prabhakaran had said that this is true and had bragged that he made use of this weakness. By the time the presidential election is held in 2015 we would have forgotten some of the most crucial events that took place in the recent past that changed the history of this country. There is no doubt that the country was in danger of being torn apart and thrown into a permanent state of turmoil and unrest. This was due to the terrorist war started by the Tamil separatists who were backed to the hilt by the Western powers who had their own imperialist agenda. The West had successfully engineered the division and disintegration of several nations; Yugoslavia and Sudan are two good examples. The whole of Middle East is engulfed in flames of terror with no end in sight due to the same imperialist agenda of the West. It is the same agenda that allowed the LTTE to extort money, run vast businesses and amass funds that could bring ship loads of weapons capable of blowing this country into smithereens. It is the same agenda that attempted to stop the war when it was about to annihilate the LTTE. It is the same agenda that drives the UNHRC in Geneva which is gunning for our political and military leaders who indefatigably fought the LTTE to a finish. It is the same agenda that is attempting to engineer a regime change at the upcoming presidential election.
The naïve and those who are part of that agenda may ask why the West should have designs on Sri Lanka. They may say we do not have oil which is the reason why the West is involved in the Middle East. The West has a design for the whole world and would like to control its economy and exploit it to their advantage. This is why they colonized most of it in the past and now uses other means to take control of countries which are rich in natural resources like the Middle East and countries which are of geo-political and strategic value like Sri Lanka. Unless they adopt this policy they cannot sustain their economy and living standards. Now they have a strong competitor in China who has the capacity to vie for the natural resources of the world. Now it is imperative for the West to stop the burgeoning Chinese advance if they are to remain the dominant global power. Sri Lanka in this regard, being the southernmost country in the Indian Ocean, is strategically important for the West and therefore they would like to thwart the Chinese involvement in Sri Lanka. They would like to have a puppet government or at least a pliable one in Sri Lanka which will do its bidding and move away from Chinese influence. The present leader does not fit the bill as they know by experience that he cannot be pressurized and that he is popular and has a strong character. They know he leads a party that has a large national oriented vote base. They would like to punish him and show others what happens to those who disobey them. Hence they have made allegations of human right violations against them in the UNHRC in Geneva.
All of the above facts are of vital importance and must be taken into consideration when we vote at the presidential election. The peace and harmony, sovereignty and independence, not to mention the economic growth and prosperity would be in jeopardy if the voter makes the wrong choice. This country has gone through two major catastrophes; one was the foreign occupation that made the country a subject nation and ruined our independent economic and cultural growth, and the other was the thirty year war waged by the LTTE that almost tore our country apart and opened the door for foreign intervention which would have been a worse calamity than anything experienced in the past. It was the courageous, astute and strong political leadership that did not capitulate to pressure exerted by both local and foreign forces that resulted in the military victory and saved the country from subjugation. Though the LTTE has been militarily defeated their rump is still very much active and seems to be ever ready to be the tool of the West in their attempt to intervene in Sri Lanka via the UN. The TNA which did not mind being the LTTE proxy during the war appears to be the local agent for the LTTE rump and its master. Therefore the TNA would want their electorate to support the candidate who is most likely to listen to the LTTE rump and their masters. The political fallout could be that they will ask for a separate state or something close to it and the foreign forces would make the government give it. And there are in the opposition as it is constituted now individuals who are capable of such treachery. They are the people under whose command the military losses were huge though they claim 75% victory. They offered the North to Prabhakaran on a platter. They signed a peace agreement which identified boundaries which the LTTE could control as the boundaries of their land. They joined in a prayer campaign conducted in the North very recently to demand the removal of army camps from the North. The Common Candidate does not appear to have the intellect and the strength of character necessary to withstand the tremendous pressure that would be brought upon his head by these individuals and the Western forces and no doubt he would buckle under. The voter has a very big responsibility to decide wisely because the very existence of our country could be in jeopardy if the wrong decision is made.
December 21st, 2014 at 1:45 pm
The war was won by the POLITICAL leadership of JR, RP, DBW, CBK and MR.
One cannot take credit for it all.
IF ONLY MR (2005-2009) won the war, what was COL GOTABHAYA RAJAPAKSHA (UNTIL 1991), HASALAKA GAMINI (1991), FAZLEY LAPHIR (1996), DENZIL KOBBEKADUWA (1992), JANAKA PERERA (WORKED UNTIL 2001), etc. did before?
They too contributed? Right?
Who was the president then? JR, RP, CBK.
December 21st, 2014 at 4:44 pm
LORENZO !!
JR NEVER WON THE WAR. He was shivering in his boots, putting his signature to the disastrous 13th. Not Credit. DEBIT
RP NEVER WON THE WAR. He helped to escalate it by giving Ordnance to the LTTE. He is the one who gave orders to my Late class-mate Earnest Perera IGP, to ask 600 Policemen to surrender, and who were burnt alive by the Tamil Terrorists. Ernie went into hiding inside his house, repenting for obeying Premadasas Murderous order. Ernie was a beautiful personality, yet he had to obey the President. He left this planet with great sorrow.
DBW never ever concurred, helping the megalomaniac regime. He told the Tri-Forces to do what they have to do.
CBK Everybody knew what that woman did, even call that bugger, Mr. She ATE 75% of the country. Was compensated for winning the War in 1999 December, with a grenade splinter in the eye. This space is not enough to reflect her atrocities, and her diabolical agenda to sell the Country to the Tamil Terrorist.
MR It was MR and GRs Leadership that gave the Ranaviruvos the moral encouragement to annihilate the terrorists regime. Nothing further to be said.
The list of NAMES who contributed is an insult to the thousands who gave their life and limb for their motherland.
Lorenzo you are my friend, but Iam worried about your mental condition. Cannot be age.EH ?
December 21st, 2014 at 4:48 pm
Lorenzo, they all tried but could not win. Only MR could completely wiped out the world’s most ruthless terrorist outfit within a short period of about three years.
Remember the famous Anandhapuram battle. Almost all LTTE frontline military leaders amounting to around 45 of them including mighty Deepan bit the dust in that historical battle thanks to the briliant military strategy of then Major General Shavendra De Silva.
During whose Presidency the most notorious military debacles of the EElam war occured?
Poonarin debackle – Premadasa,
Mulativu debacle – Chandrika
Elephantpass – Chandrika, and
Jayasikuru- Chandrika
December 21st, 2014 at 4:56 pm
SW and Samanthi,
Is it the last man who runs a relay 4 X 400 wins the race?
NO!
He may cross the finish line amidst cheer but it is the hard work of everyone that goes into the victory.
No patriot will underestimate the sacrifices of the top warriors I listed. ALL their heroics came BEFORE MR’s time. We won the war thanks to their sacrifices too.
SF still has scars from a LTTE attack.
CBK lost one eye from a LTTE attack.
My3 escaped 2 targeted LTTE attacks.
December 21st, 2014 at 5:05 pm
……And thanks to the great fortune of the entire nation, GR escaped a suicide attack at Piththala junction!
December 21st, 2014 at 5:09 pm
Yes. And SF (then army commander) and My3 (then acting defence minister) too.
Thank god.
December 21st, 2014 at 5:10 pm
Continuing from Samathi’s statement.
And , more importantly, out of 4 people mentioned by Lorenzo and Samathi only My3 is not suspected of conspiring to kill someone else.
December 21st, 2014 at 5:13 pm
On the orders of Premadasa, then govt military top brass delivered three truck loads of T56 machine guns to tigers at Nedhunkerni junglers. Thanks to Babu, Premadhasa kicked the bucket at a May day rally.
December 21st, 2014 at 5:20 pm
Indrajith,
RP did a lot of bad things but also did good things to defeat the LTTE eventually.
Babu was from the LTTE and it was the LTTE that killed him!! LTTE won’t kill anyone unless he is a threat to them.
December 21st, 2014 at 6:12 pm
Lorenzo, RP didn’t do any good things to defeat LieTTE. He used tigers to fight against IPKF.
After the IPKF departure, RP’s policy was to liberate the East and let Prabakan rule the North entirely in order to solve his problem. So, he entrusted Major General Lucky Alagama to free the East from the tiger menace but Let Praba to virtually rule the entire North without any problem. There were no major operations in the North during RP’s time. Pottu Amma sent his mole Babu to finish off Premadhasa as he did not fulfill all his demands. The rest is the history!
December 21st, 2014 at 6:22 pm
The war was won by the POLITICAL leadership of JR, RP, DBW, CBK and MR. One cannot take credit for it all.
Lorenzo again you are wrong. Until Mahinda Rajapakse took the helm of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, all those previously held this position did not fight to win. For them the war was un-winnable and their best efforts were directed towards coexistence with Fat Prabha by giving into what they thought was palatable to him.
Fortunately for Sri Lanka, Prabha was not happy with any half baked solutions – he wanted it all. It was all or nothing. I have said this before and I say this again – it was because of Fat Prabha’s intransigence that Sri Lanka still remains as one country. If only he relented and agreed to limited power – let alone Choura Regina’s offer of 10 year rule, it would have been definitely two countries by now.
For this I always bade him Happy Birthday and many happy returns of the day, on Fat Prabha’s birthday till Mahinda Rajapakse came into power. By then of course he has outlived his usefulness.
The regime change and breaking up of countries have accelerated exponentially since the Arab Springs. We are simply fortunate in Sri Lanka for having stopped the LTTE lock stock and barrel at least within Sri Lanka in 2009. Had the war continued to this day the situation in the country will be a la Libya, a la Iraq and a la Syria.
Now to talk of other worthies who handled the war – the Commander in Chiefs before Mahinda Rajapakse – JR, RP, DBW and CBK continued to worsen the war situation one after the other – it was back to square one or below zero for the Armed Forces every time one of those worthies left their exalted positions – either into dishonorable retirement, in one instance into oblivion and the last one into a Cyclops, a traitor and infamy.
They never advanced the war situation for the successor so that he or she could forge ahead and finish the war. It was left to Mahinda , Gotabhaya and Basil to finish the war comprehensively from a far worse situation than it was ever in the 1980s and 1990s. These worthies all played politics with terrorism and always had an axe to grind with the Sinhalese and mainly Sinhala Buddhists!
This is not to say that Sri Lanka didn’t have good field personnel from time to time – Major General Denzil Kobbekaduwa, Wijaya Wimalaratne, Lucky Wijeratne , Lucky Algama, and Janaka Perera et al comes to mind. None of them had a good Commander in Chief behind them.
Sarath Fonseka , Wasantha Karannagoda and Roshan Gunatilleke ( his father Harry Gunatilleke was the author of un-winnable war mindset) on the other hand had unstinted support and direction of the President Mahinda Rajapakse and Gotabhaya Rajapakse to end the war convincingly and comprehensively.
December 21st, 2014 at 7:06 pm
Ratnapala,
“Until Mahinda Rajapakse took the helm of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, all those previously held this position did not fight to win. For them the war was un-winnable and their best efforts were directed towards coexistence with Fat Prabha by giving into what they thought was palatable to him.”
You are wrong , President was the same, he paid LTTE to stop Tamil votes and kept negotiating with them. These re facts with clear evidence and affidavits filed in the courts .
You are not alone . This is the big illusion most people are in. We all love our country, but either person wins, you will understand how wrong your perception was within ONE year !
In the name of triple gems I hope this will be allowed by our dear moderator who must be a good Buddhist.
December 21st, 2014 at 8:01 pm
UNP’s own internal polling shows MR winning by 58% to 40% for Maithripala. This poll was conducted by an outside polling group and the results posted here: “http://lankacnews.com/sinhala/news/126340/”
The ONLY group Maithripala is carrying with a significant margin are MUSLIMS – 64% – 35%. This is probably because of BBS support of MR. What MR should do is quietly dispatch BBS to the villages to ratchet up the Buddhist vote by a wider margin to offset the Muslim vote, as many grassroots village Buddhists really are concerned with the Islamization of Sri Lanka culture (i.e., they don’t like hearing the Adan noise in the morning from the local Muslim Mosque while they are sleeping, don’t like seeing women fully covered in black in which you can’t see their faces, don’t like being forced to buy Halal food, don’t like Muslims taking over all of the Buddhist businesses, or driving up the cost of real estate with foreign Arab buyers, or exploiting Buddhist women as servants in Muslim countries, etc.).
If Muslims don’t want to vote for the president, then Buddhists need to show them that we will unite behind the president.
Notice the Buddhist vote is the mirror opposite of the Muslim vote – 63% – 36% for MR, but if we ratchet this up to 75%, Maithripala will not be able to make this up with Muslims or any other minority vote.
December 21st, 2014 at 11:25 pm
Lorenzo are you nuts to tell that JR,CHANDRIKA,RANIL won the war for us? They were all bunch of cowards who told that the war will not be won at all. Only MR took that bold decision to wipe out the terrorists without listening to the western big heads. He gave the order to our gallant Forces to go ahead and take them all,Gave the equipments needed and with the blessings of the people of Sri Lanka he managed to win the war of thirty years.
No leader was dare to face the most ruthless terrorist Prabakaran except MR and Gota. They gave our boys the freedom to fight the enemy with a real plan and they succeeded. Citizens gave the full backing to do it. We won and now we have real peace in the country. Our political stooges of the west now is trying to create another mess by joining hands with them to bring death and destruction again back to our beautiful country. MR loves his Motherland same like us Lorenzo.He will never bow down to western pressure.He is the leader we need at this hour not a Hopper Sirisena and a Bandit Queen. They are antique now we need hard working straight forward fearless leader like MR to Govern our country. Lorenzo just be cool and wait till 9th January.You will see the results MR will win by 25 lacks. That’s my prediction.
December 22nd, 2014 at 12:00 am
Gents,
Of course MR (+SF +GR + My3) won the war but that was thanks to the WINS SL forces had over the years since 1983.
When MR took over SL had the best LRRP in the world, MBRL, Jaffna peninsular (very important as 2 of our offensive divisions are stationed there), had Kfir jets, MiG jets, Dovra FACs, Karuna split, etc. And by then the IC had banned the LTTE for killing Kadir.
Over 55,000 Tamils civilians and terrorists had did by then and over 1 million Tamils left the island DILUTING the Tamil manpower forcing them to recruit children. These factors made it possible to win the war.
Now look what has happened to the army commander SF! No credit for him! Look at the families of soldiers. They are poor as ever.
MR cannot take ALL the credit for winning the war.
December 22nd, 2014 at 12:42 am
Lorenzo you are wrong to tell that our soldier heroes were poor as ever.You are also same like the dirty Opposition lairs telling lies about our country. Do you know any other country in the world who take care of the tired, weary,injured soldiers like ours after a war of thirty years? You come and see how the Govt treats the war heroes? See how they take care of the injured soldiers? Ask them what they are getting and how they were treated after the war. They have good place in the Sri Lankan society. We respect them and they are supporting our President 100% to build our shattered nation. We love them and they love the country they were born.
Don’t trust the Opposition.They were a bunch of lairs and cowards. They cannot bring prosperity to our nation.They were all failed politicians who are supported by evil western powers like America and British. Just open your eyes Lorenzo my brother and support the truth.
December 22nd, 2014 at 3:00 am
2 more govt. MPs cross over to My3.
Govt. got Azwar resign so that Ameer Ali could get a seat. Now Ameer Ali and Trade and Commerce Minister Rishard have crossed over to My3 camp!!
What a disaster. They should have kept Azwar.
Anandasangaree has also pledged support for My3.
December 22nd, 2014 at 9:23 pm
Lorenzo let the scavengers leave the Govt.That is good because they were very unpopular and we wanted them to leave. Rishard is the guy who was creating problems to the Muslims.He had problems with BBS so now he has gone good for all the peace loving people who do not like divisions.
Anandasangaree have two heads so it’s not surprising to me that he join MY3. Let them all go still MR have a good support from Tamils and Muslims from all corners of the island. Do not worry. Take it easy my brother.