By A.A.M.Nizam  – MATARA

(A former Vice President of the Matara Electorate Central Committee of the SLFP)

 It was utterly hilarious to find that the infantile and myopic Foreign Minister Mr. Mangala Samaraweera who betrayed the country by blindly co-sponsoring the US resolution on Sri Lanka at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) which was totally against the sovereign rights of this country saying that the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa who is a veteran politician and one of the most experienced political leaders in Sri Lanka is politically bankrupt and should take tuition from him if he wants to know how to topple governments in this country. He has also stated that the former President lacks political vision and stability and it is for this reason that he is smashing coconuts at various places.

It is a well known fact that Mr. Samaraweera, after the demise of his father, was sent to London by his mother Mrs. Khema Samaraweera who was employed as a Secretary at the Lake House for studies and we do not know who sponsored his studies in that country.  At that time, after several years, the former Chairman of the Fisheries Corporation and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party organizer for the Devinuwara electorate Mr. Dickson Silva perhaps on the advice of his mother took Mr. Samaraweera to Mr. Anura Bandaranaike and made him a member of the SLFP at the SLFP branch in London.

Upon his return to Sri Lanka in the late 1980s Mr. Anura Bandaranaike had taken him to the former Prime Minister Madam Sirimavo Bandranaike and recommended her to make him as the SLFP organizer for the Matara electorate.  With the endorsement of Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa as well, who was considered at that time by Madam Sirimavo Bandranaike as the SLFP leader of the South he was appointed as a co-organizer of the Matara electorate since Mr. Wijesiri Pindoris was already functioning as the Matara electorate organizer and he had established more than 100 SLFP branches throughout the electorate amidst various forms of threats from the JVP and even at the risk of his personal life.

Mr. Samaraweera entered politics in a pauper status without sufficient funds to conduct his political activities and the SLFP stalwarts in the Matara electorate including the writer made fund collections to strengthen his campaign activities.  Surprisingly he has now become the wealthiest politician in the Matara district throwing away millions of rupees in each election but yet cannot become number one due to cultural factors.  People claim that his residence at Panadura facing the Bolgoda Lake is a palatial mansion similar to Dissanayake maligawa in Hanguranketa which he used to criticize much.  No one knows how he got this much of money but there are speculation that he was in money laundering for Prabhakaran who is said to be distantly related to him through his father’s sister’s marriage to the well known swimmer Anandan.

Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa performing his responsibility as the area leader and partly responsible for sponsoring Mr. Samaraweera took all the measures to consolidate Mr. Samaraweera’s hold in the electorate with the fullest assistance of other SLFP leaders of the Matara district such as Messrs. Mahinda Wijesekera, H.A.Sirisena and Ariya Bulegoda.  It was a well known anecdote at that time that Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike had told some of her confidantes that Anura bought a male prostitute to her for appointing as an electorate organizer for Matara and she had reluctantly appointed the said person as she was pressurized.

During this period Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa frequently visited Mr. Samaraweera’s house in Walpola, Matara and at that time when the local government elections were due SLFP supporters in the Matara Urban Council area suggested various names for candidacy and it was in consultation with Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa that the nominees were selected and one of them was Mr. Samaraweera’s mother Mrs. Khema Samaraweera who became only second in the preference votes list and lost the chance of becoming the chair person of the Matara Urban Council.

When the parliamentary elections became due in the 1989 and Mr. Samaraweera was appointed the SLFP candidate for the Matara electorate under the blessings of the former President Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa as well. Matara district was the highly caste conscious district in the South and accordingly Mr. Samaraweera belonged to the third ranking caste in the electoral district having a great disadvantage being a new comer to the politics and with a very narrow possibility of winning the electorate if he could not win over a sizeable bloc of votes from the majority Goigama caste.

Highly conscious of this factor, and having a vast experience about Southern politics, Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa neglecting his own personal electioneering in the neighbouring Hambantota district visited Mr. Samaraweera’s house in Walpola almost on a daily basis and took Mr. Samaraweera to meet prominent personalities in the Matara district as he was greatly admired by people in the Matara district being born and bred in Palatuwa in the Matara district and his mother being a highly respected lady from Palatuwa.

If it was not for this dedicated assistance provided by Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, Mr. Samaraweera would not have seen the corridors of the Parliament and he would have been a political non-entity and would have ended in his old profession of being a male Model.  Sometimes he may be serving now as a Model in ODEL or some other apparel outfit such as Brandix.  What Mr. Samaraweera should do is to worship Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa on a daily basis by lighting a lamp or joss sticks in front of Mr. Rajapaksa’s photograph for making him a politician instead of being ungrateful and criticizing him.

Before concluding this article and to affirm the point I raised about Mr. Samaraweera’s links with the terrorists there were many reports recently that Mr. Samaraweera was very keen in getting the LTTE convicts released naming them as political prisoners” and referring to them in the identical phraseology being used for them by the tiger terrorist promoter MP M.A.Sumanthiran.

A news report published by Sinhalanet.net” revealed details of an alleged understanding” involving Mr. Mangala Samaraweera and Mr.MA Sumanthiran which was arrived at in Singapore in the year 2013 and which formulated a conceptual framework on abolishing the executive presidency based on ten basic principles described as the Singapore Principles”. The Report said that the current presidential adviser Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne, Colombo University Law professor V.T. Thamilmaran and unnamed representatives of the LTTE Tamil terrorist front organization Global Tamil Forum (GTF) also participated in the conclave.

The conference had been organized by LTTE front organization in South Africa and funded by two European countries..

Quoting an unnamed participant in the meeting the report said that Mangala Samaraweera came as a ‘beggar’ urging Tamils support for regime change and abolition of the executive presidency and in return he promised to give all demands by pro-LTTE TNA such as relase all LTTE terrorist from the prisons, change the Govener of the Northern Provice, remove Army from Jaffna, full implementation of 13A  and final a Federal Ealm State in the two North and East  provinces of Sri Lanka.

The report also listed the ten points agreed between the TNA and GTF by Foreign Minister, Mangala Samaraweera: