By Charles.S.Perera

It is regrettable to say but the fact which has been made evident is that Maithripala Sirisena has no interest in the welfare of the country or its people. He is determination to out do Mahinda Rajapakse, make Rajapakses labelled thieves and political profiteers and remove the Rajapakse clan from politics. That is his political raison d’etre. The country sees Sirisena  as a mere second in command in the Government, while  Ranil wields  the real power and authority.

Maithripala Sirisena left SLFP without giving any notice to the party, or having resigned before he left it.  That means Maithripala Sirisena  gave up his loyalty to the party  and  refused to stand by its Constitution.  In other words he sacrifice his party for his own personal benefit.

He accepted the Presidency of the SLFP because Mahinda Rajapakse offered it to him, and some self centred individuals like Sarath Amunugama, Rajitha Senaratnen, S.B.Dissanayake, Dilan Perera, Mahinda Samarasinghe etc.,  left the SLFP to support Maithripala Sirisena the new President for self interest, rather than in the interest of the SLFP or to help the country and the people.

Therefore, Maithripala Sirisena has no genuine interest in the SLFP,  and will not want to form a SLFP Government. He wants to help Ranil Wickramasinghe to stay on as Prime Minister until 2020 allowing him to become the next President, so that Mahinda Rajapakse will not be able to come to politics as  President, Prime Minister or lead the SLFP as its President.

If Sirisena wanted to remove the Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, he could have done that after the Bond Scam when Ranil refused to dismiss the services of Arjun Mahendran, and appointed him as his own Consultant. The President Sirisena is not seriously concerned about the inquiry into the Bond Scam. The Commission of investigation of the Bond Scam is an eye wash.

The Cabinet reshuffle was  an utter farce appointing Mangala Samaraweera as the Finance Minister and Ravi Karunanayake as the Foreign Minister with the Lotteries Board under his Ministry was a plan set up by Ranil Wickramasinghe. Ravi Karunanayake probably has state secrets about the Bond Scam which could  undermine the people’s trust of both the President and the Prime Minister.

The Yahapalanaya continues to mismanage the Government, without having learnt any thing from their past  errors and mistakes.

The recent floods and landslides left three hundred innocent lives lost. This is not the first time it happened since 2015. This is not the end there may be more in future, should we let even those disasters pass the same way as the last ? When are we going to learn lessons to correct our errors and face others with confidence  at least to reduce the number of deaths ?

I saw a politician from the government  Mahinda Amaraweera facing a political debate in TV trying  repeatedly to explain  that Sri Lanka being a tropical island surrounded by a sea is naturally prone to such natural disasters, and that the government is helpless. He added that  even the countries more developed than ours too face such disasters.

It is due to this very reason that we are a tropical Island and prone to such disasters that we should be well prepared before they happen,  to face such calamities avoiding danger to the lives of the people.

Can this government of Sirisena –Ranil be exonerated from its culpability of neglect, both in the flood disaster and that of the Meethotamulla garbage dump ? The President was in Australia, the Prime Minister  and the Minister of Disaster Management were outside and did not find it necessary to return immediately to attend to their duty of looking after the people in distress. Since 8^th January,2015 Sri Lanka is falling into decadence and degeneration.

This Sirisena-Ranil Government has not really settled down even after two and a half years to govern the country. The Government is engaged in doing inessentials, without seriously  attending to the matters that concern the welfare of the people and the security of the Country.

Meethotamulla disaster and the present flood disaster have been caused by mismanagement by the government, and its failure to plan ahead to meet unexpected situations that would lead to loss of life and destruction of property.

The Government is still bogged down with its calamitous need to bring the former President, his government and his supporters to court for some thing or another, to satisfy certain sections such as the JVP- JVP which believes that bringing disrepute to  the former President and his supporters would remove him and his supporters from their  popularity amoung the people, which would allow JVP to win back  to themselves the popular  support of those people who held Mahinda Rajapakse in high esteem,  at an election to eventually form a JVP government.

Therefore the JVP is hell bent in forcing  the Yahapalanaya  government to proceed with legal actions against the former President and his supporters on flimsy accusations they have collected and presented to the Bribery Commission and the FCID.

It is time that Sirisena-Ranil Government  stop spending further energy on  discrediting the former President and his supporters,  and begin doing what ever they can to ameliorate the present hopeless situation in which the people find themselves. But all what the Yahapalanaya government is doing is to improve their own living conditions”, with promises of better living conditions to the people in two or three years ” after 2020.

There is bragging and trumpet blowing by the yahapalanaya government while the people are desperate  and  craves  for the end of the yahapalanaya  government. They brag about having set up a unity government of the two main political parties , but every one in the country sees that there is only a UNP  Government and the SLFP is nonexistent.

The President Sirisena who left the SLFP to become the common Presidential Candidate of the Opposition , is more grateful to the UNP and Ranil Wickramasinghe for having made him the President, and he will not hesitate to  betray the SLFP once again to help Ranil Wickramasinghe and the UNP and give into all their  follies”. This reality has not been understood by the SLFP followers of Sirisena.

How else can one explain why the Cabinet reshuffle saw the President appointing  Ravi Karunanayake as the Foreign Minister  and  assign to him the Lotteries Boards ? That was certainly to please Ranil Wickramasinghe,  as Ranil, Ravi and Arjun Mahendran are  the three musketeers of the Yahapalanaya Government  

Ranil will not give up Arjun Mahendran and the President will not disappointment Ranil on that account, we see how the Commission appointed to investigate the Bond Scam  is becoming a farce  its term of office being extended beyond three months as initially proposed.

The people are now fed up with this government’s inability to provide the people with a satisfactory standard of living. Having failed to attend to the welfare of the people, the government forced by the Western countries continues to cater to the demands of the Tamils for a pseudo reconciliation.

The Muslims too want to have their part of the cake, encouraged by the demands of the Tamils which have been exaggerated, and catered to by the yapalanaya government on the pretext of a  pseudo –reconciliation. The Sinhala Buddhists are not racists but they are unable to keep silent when there is  continued aggressive attitude of the Muslims and their renewed deforestation of Wilpattu reservations to set up Muslim settlements.

The Muslims like Rauf Hakeem, Mujubur Rahman, Marikkar, Asad Salli are rabble rousers. Rauf Kakeem’s motives were clear when  a fire  broke up in a tea factory in Nawalapitiya owned by a Muslim man. Rauf Hakeem without having any evidence accused that the fire was caused by Sinhala extremists, when even  the Muslim owner of the factory denounced the Minister’s claim.

There is now a hue and cry raised about hate speeches and  the government  announcing that they will take into custody any one found guilty of hate speeches. If it is so Minister Rauf Hakeem should also be arrested and taken into custody.  Sivajilingam, Wigneswaran should be already under arrest. Why should those laws apply to Venerable Gnanasara thero of BBS and not to others ?

When under the previous government after the elimination of terrorism the Armed Forces were trained in building construction, and town planning to allow the Armed Forces that saved the country from terrorism to be the nation builders, the Government was accused by the UNP saying that the Armed Forces are being used to clean drains.

But now Ravi Karunanayake the Minster of Foreign Affairs says that the tri Forces should be used to remove accumulated waste in the city of Colombo.  This is the man who insulted and ridiculed the Armed forces during military operations saying  that the Army is going to Madavachchi and says it is going to Kilinochchi.

Sri Lanka from North to South and East to West is in utter confusion today. There is caste problem in the north, Tamils in the East do not see eye to eye with the Tamils of the North. There is racism, and resentment of the Sinhala Community. There is enmity between the  Tamils and Muslims too .

Despite all this,  the government which is  unable to settle any problems of the country, or bring unity between the Communities despite a pseudo reconciliation process which only  fortifies the separatist Tamils and weakens the Sinhala Buddhists, is swearing to write a new Constitution. If this is allowed it will be another failure like all their failed plans and the final nail on the coffin of Sri Lanka, which the Yahapalanaya government  is preparing to bury while its sad and weak heart is still beating.

It has been recently reported that the UN had said  that  there are 900,000 people facing food insecurity in Sri Lanka and warning that without help the situation might further deteriorate. But Sri Lanka has no means to purchase rice from outside.

What has become to Sri Lanka that was classed as one of the fastest growing economies, before the fateful election of the January, 2015 ?

Roman Emperor Nero was playing his violin while Rome was burning. Sri Lanka is in political flames today and the President Maithripala Sirisena and his Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe are enjoying their lives to the full making foreign visits shaking gloved and un-gloved hands of foreign dignitaries as if there is no problems in Sri Lanka, and as if  its people are living in peace, security, happiness,  and limitless joy!!!

The UNP is still making a hue and cry that  Sri Lanka has no enemies in the world  and all countries of the world are its friends. But no one has turned up yet to save Sri Lanka from falling into the  abyss of decadence and poverty.  But they the friendly” Nations of the West are waiting  like  the old  Greek widows  covered from  head to foot in black, sitting  around the home where an old  widow is  dying , awaiting her death, to  take away from the home every usable item. That is the sort of friends Sirisena-Ranil Yahapalanaya has made.

The reconciliation efforts of Yahapalanaya has only strengthened the Tamil diaspora which now has found an opening to propose to UN and UNCHR Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein to force the yahapalanaya Government to allow the Sri Lanka Tamil Community to exercise their right of self determination for self rule.

This situation has arisen due to the ceaseless action taken by the Yahapalanaya Government in a vein quest for reconciliation with the Tamils. This is also the result of allowing the Yahapalanaya Government to pass the 19^th Amendment.

To stop this disastrous proposal from being taken up by the UN and the UNCHR Zeid Al Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein,  Sri Lanka should take some radical action immediately.

Sri Lanka should demand why the UN and the UNCHR under Zeid Al Hussein are not taking actions to reprimand  USA and the Western Countries with the NATO Forces for continuing to violate human rights in their incessant bombardments in which hundred and thousands of innocent civilians had perished in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

Sri Lanka should demand why only Sri Lanka which got rid of a ruthless terrorism within its own country is being continuously accused for human rights violations and war crimes, while the UN and Zeid Al Hussain are allowing themselves to be used  by the USA and the West to impose demands on Sri Lanka for reconciliation  with the Tamils without leaving that as an interior issue that has to be settled by the Government of Sri Lanka without Foreign intervention?

Sri Lanka should leave the membership of both the UN and the UNHRCouncil forthwith unless they accept a proposal against USA and its allies for war crimes and violation of human rights.