The American Rajapaksas Shame Sri Lanka
Posted on July 2nd, 2021
By The Sri Lanka Study Circle
“I, Basil Rohana Rajapaksa, hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform non-combatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”
Thus, pledged Basil Rajapaksa, when he solemnly swore to the Government of the United States, his unwavering and unquestionable loyalty to America.
Basil publicly swore that he has shed all feelings of loyalty towards Sri Lanka he may have harboured and that he abandons Sri Lanka of his own accord without any remorse or regret.
What were the ramifications flowing from Basil’s pledge to the US?
The ramifications to the security of Sri Lanka are many and some are indeed frightening.
Taking a few of the ramifications, one of them is if Sri Lanka and the US are engaged in hostilities; Basil has pledged that he would kill Sri Lankans defending their motherland if the necessity arose and that he would do so without any compunctions whatsoever.
Another ramification flowing from Basil’s pledge is, if America considers it Nationally important to obtain some sensitive information about Sri Lanka, Basil has pledged that he would faithfully engage in espionage activities against Sri Lanka to obtain this sensitive information.
The American- Rajapaksa also pledged that, if it were important for America that Sri Lanka’s economy should fail, that Sri Lanka’s fight against COVID should fail, that Sri Lanka’s educational infra-structure should collapse, he would, with whatever authority he could muster, sabotage and ensure the collapse of the economy, health and educational sectors of the country.
If it is of importance to America that Wimal Weerawansa and/or any other political leader should be taken off the political map, Basil has pledged that he would do so.
If it is of National importance to America that the charismatic and much-loved Mahinda Rajapaksa, along with his progeny, should be sent to political oblivion, Basil has pledged that he would do it without remorse.
Basil had the opportunity to recompense his past folly and revoke his mistakes. But he chose not to. He preferred to continue being loyal to America.
The fact that Basil applied and obtained citizenship in Sri Lanka does in no way diminish, or mitigate to any degree, the solemn pledge he has given to America.
When the COVID pandemic hit the country, Basil was appointed the head of the Presidential Task Force to tackle the problem.
The pandemic got out of hand. Basil failed. Basil fled.
A man who is financially sustained by the people of this country fled to America, without a word. The man was AWOL, absent without official leave.
Many were aghast. Imagine the Commander of the troops, while the battle is yet raging fleeing the battlefield!
Imagine, deserting your soldiers and leaving them in the lurch to die while fighting the battle on their own!
In a military scenario, Basil would have been immediately Court Martialed and would perhaps have had to face a firing squad.
Or, was Basil following orders based on the pledge he had given the Americans? Was he deliberately running down the economy, the health and the educational sectors? Was he at America’s insistence contributing to making Sri Lanka a failed State?
In April 2020, Basil was appointed to head the Presidential Task Force for Economic Revival and Poverty Alleviation.
Today, one year later, the economy is in shambles and the country is virtually bankrupt. The Foreign Exchange Reserves have plummeted from US$ 7.2 million in April 202o to a precarious 4 million USD.
Basil failed, miserably, once again. The captain of the economic ship abandoned the ship and the crew. His proud contribution was to have brought in the controversial Ukrainian tourists into the Country.
Was his abject failure a result of his pledge given to the Americans or is Basil a witless wonder whose alleged access to limitless funds is interpreted in some circles as ‘organisational’ capability?
When Sri Lanka should be taking action against Basil to make him accountable for his gross failures, a handful of profiting acolytes are making sounds to make him a Minister.
Legal pundits say that Basil is not eligible to be an MP not having contested the elections and not having been on the National List.
Let Sri Lanka not make the same mistake as she did with Arjuna Mahendran who worked on the agenda of another country, who considered himself unaccountable for his acts of commission and omission and who uses his foreign nationality to make himself unavailable when required for investigation.
People are clamouring that Basil Rajapaksa be investigated for the many COVID deaths that are taking place daily and to pursue administrative and criminal action, if necessary, for his abject failure in the task he was entrusted with.
The American Rajapaksas have become a blotch on the canvas of the Sri Lankan Rajapaksas.
July 3rd, 2021 at 2:43 am
I am not a supporter of any Rajapaksas. But “The Sri Lanka Study Circle” please name any single country in the world progress during this Convid-19 before epidemic period started in 2019.
July 3rd, 2021 at 7:24 am
That is a pledge that every one that acceots a citicenship in the country he has come to reside. That does not mean one rejects love and affection to the country where one was born. It is like a child being adopted by a woman who becomes the mother by adoption. But the child will always search for the natural mother towards whom there is a strong bondage. Signing the vow of allegiance will makes one a citizen of the adopted country. But one can extend onesr love to ones motherland. Any wong being done by the country of adoption to the motherland could be protested. It is possible to refuse to go to war against ones own motherland by the adopted country. They are called concientious objectors.
The Western countries have that understanding
July 3rd, 2021 at 11:21 am
Thank you Lanka web for this presentation. Once I had met Basil and he seem to be sincere on one subject which I am not willing to write. I worked hard for the SLFP,even given my commercial premises for party’s electioneering but after they won, setting up a power base, ignored our just pledges to the country by making their own party and rest is now history. I am really cutup with them for releasing their buddies from the death row. It seem all the third world countries are going back to the dark history, prior to the colonials. They no more are accountable to us, just like in Burma. People wants another Ehalapola to save them.
July 4th, 2021 at 2:28 am
Hi Nimal, What about President Ford pardoning the former President Nixon for all his crimes? This in case your diminishing mind fail to recollect the past clearly.
July 4th, 2021 at 9:17 am
Ratnapala
Two wrongs will not make it right. I don’t follow any examples from US. President Nixon did not murder. Are you trying to justify murder and wrong doings which are criminal in nature? If someone kills your son or daughter, will you ever forgive the killer?
July 4th, 2021 at 6:05 pm
Yes, President Nixon did not murder. He got his armed forces to commit genocide in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. It was President Nixon who started bombing of Cambodia a country with which it was not at war. All in all Laos remain the most bombed country in the entire Vietnam war.
In an attempt to destroy the Ho Chi Min Trail and protect the central government from total collapse, the nine years of bombing decimated the countryside and killed thousands of villagers. To this day Laos remains the most heavily bombed country in the world relative to its population. From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than two million tons of ordnance on Laos during 580,000 bombing missions—equal to a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24-hours a day, for 9 years – making Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history.
Between 1965 and 1975, the United States and its allies dropped more than 7.5 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia—double the amount dropped on Europe and Asia during World War II. Pound for pound, it remains the largest aerial bombardment in human history.
And then My Lai massacre one of the most reported killings of all time. These are all crimes and not happenstance.
In August 1971, Second Lieutenant William Calley’s (the officer in charge of Charlie Company that carried out the massacre) sentence was reduced by the Convening Authority from life to twenty years. Calley would eventually serve three and one-half years under house arrest at Fort Benning including three months in a disciplinary barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In September 1974, he was paroled by the Secretary of the Army, Howard Callaway.
Selective amnesia is not commendable!
July 5th, 2021 at 2:47 pm
Yes they did murder people in many countries, should have been prosecuted. Yet two wrongs doesn’t make it right and we must make our country proper without giving into criminality, then where will it end, a lawless world? If that’s so they could take our countries and enslave us and who is going to stop that but only the agreed conventions will be our last guardians, so better we not come to that stage. We owe the set standards to the future generations.