Palitha Senanayake

The position Sri Lanka confronts today as a nation clearly is a case of electing political apologist of terrorism to power before the nation could recover completely from 30 years of terrorism. Ranil Wickremesinghe, like his current political mentor Chandrika Kumaranatunge, were such avowed supporters of the theory of ‘appeasing terrorist to win them over’ to a point where they ridiculed even the attempts of the country’s armed forces to overcome terrorism. An a result they were both responsible, during their tenures, in lengthening the period Sri Lanka would suffer under terrorism. The one hope that many shared when electing Ranil to power in 2015(to a minority Parliament) is that, ‘now that the terrorism is out of the way, bring us economic salvation and the rule of law’. But Ranil Wickremesinghe has not only failed to delivered but has proved that a leader who has no vision on national security does not deserve to be in power.

The attitude of both these leaders, Ranil and Chandrika, has been, when cautioned on threats to national security, is to counter charge the very messenger of being ‘an Extremist’            (Jathiwadi)’. To prove this point we have to reminiscent how Ranil reacted at instances which implied some form a threat to the country’s national security during the last 4 years. In all those instances, if the warning came from the opposition he would labelled the one who brought it to ntice as an extremist thinker by labelling a ‘Jathiwadi mentor’ taking the moral highgroungd of a man above petty tribalism.On the other hand if the perceived threats emenated from within his own officers his attitude had been to dismiss the same as being too overzealous. In conducting the affairs of the current regime, Ranil indulgd in a lot of wishful thinking by publicly declaring that , ‘This country will never face the type of war we had for thirty years’ without admitting that his pursuit of peace during that 30 year conflict was not just a complete failure but an antithesis in obtaining peace. Therefore, Ranil’s excuse that the intelligent information on the pending attack was not presented to him peronally was mainly due to his own negative attitude towards such information and his ire towards those who present such information. 

The national security of a small nation like Sri Lanka, in the context of international politics and big power rivalry to dominate world and its economy, depend very much on  that ntions ability to stay clear of big power shenanigans maintaining its own interest at heart.  Global  imperialism works in so many ways  and so many guises. It needs a lot of rationality in your thinking to realize that global imperialism has evolved today to psychological subjugation replacing armed subjugation. World nations, especially the big powers, only have interests and hardly any principles. But Ranil, with his compacent servility to internationalism will always chose to dismiss anything national as ‘misplaced bigotry’.

Modern civilization, with all its personal rights and values, have not not been succesfu in making the man give up his innate need to dominate his kind. Religious domination is  more deadlier than political domination because religions promise dividends for devotion and commitment only in the after life. As a result some religions have become ‘death cults’for its followers because they believe that any means, including indiscriminate violence, could be justified  to achieve their after life goals. In such a context it is naïve to believe that the interests of different religious and tribal groups present in Sri Lanka, with their international agenda’s, ceases at the point of national interest.

In the democratic setup  politicians are ‘vote greedy’ and Ranil Wickremesinghe is a spychphant who believes in the votes of the minoritie to a point of neglecting the interest of the majority. Former Chairman of the UNP Mr. Panditharatne resigned from his post in 1999 citing the current leadership’s minority inclination as the reason for UNP’s failure to win the Presidential elections in 1999.  The preeption of the UNP leadership has not not changed since then and in such a context it is difficult to expect Ranil to keep the minorities in their places and then to lose their votes. Especially with the target of achieving his life long  ambition to be the President of Sri Lanka at the forthcoming election in 2020.

The Catholic and Christian vote base in Sri Lanka has traditionally been the pocket borough of the UNP. They probably considered the less suave SLFP to be too nationalistic.  The lesson now however, is that a leader who is more internationalised to a point iof disregarding the national interest can not be expeted to protect a minority when he is unable to protect the nation as a whole. Thus with Ranil Wickremesinghe at the top, the future for a vulnerable nation like Sri Lanka, with apologist of extremism bound to reign supreme, appears bleak.