HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON’S
RECORD BREAKING AUTOBIOGRAPHY SAYS SRI
LANKA’S POTENTIAL FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH HAMPERED BY TERRORIST WAR
By Walter Jayawardhana
reporting from Los Angeles
Former first lady of the United States Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
said in her best seller, ‘Living History’, which hit the sale
of one millionth copy last week creating a world record for an autobiography
by a former first lady in the United States that Sri Lanka’s potential
for economic growth has been severely undermined by the LTTE’s
terrorist war.
Inspired by her 1995 visit to South Asia New York’s popular democratic
senator who has authored or coauthored more than 300 acts in the Senate
for her brief period in the US Senate has mentioned Sri Lanka several
times in her book very favorably.
“ The relentless campaign of terror (by the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam) undermined the potential for economic growth and foreign
investment,” she wrote of Sri Lanka. She also drew the attention
of her readers to the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister by
the same terrorist group.
Writing very favorably about Sri Lanka’s high literacy rate of
both men and women Senator Clinton wrote, ”No country in South
Asia has yet achieved all these conditions. Men and women who could
have contributed to their own country’s advancement are instead
contributing to ours. Sri Lanka…, for example where I ended up
my trip had a high rate of literacy for both men and women, but the
country had lived up in terror for years because of a guerilla insurgence
by the Hindu Tamil Tigers against the majority Sinhalese population
and Government. The relentless campaign of terror undermined its potential
for economic growth and foreign investment.”
Widely rumored and viciously attacked by the conservatives of America
that she was having ambitions of becoming the first woman President
of the United States Senator Clinton was probably inspired by the South
Asian women who became Presidents and Prime Ministers probably more
than in anywhere else in the world. In Sri Lanka she was received by
President Chandrika Kumaratunga. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri
Lanka have produced woman Prime Ministers and Presidents before anywhere
else in the world. Our own Mrs. Sirima Bandaranaike was the world’s
first elected leader.
Mrs Clinton wrote in the Living History that the women of Sri Lanka
, India , Pakistan and Bangladesh have reached to the level of Presidents
and Prime Ministers.
Some say the book has laid groundwork for Mrs. Clinton to become the
President of the country. But she has denied having any such ambitions.
Critics say the vicious attacks on her book by the conservatives with
a declining popularity, whose patron saint these days is President Bush
have in fact made the book extremely popular. Mrs. Clinton was paid
2.85 million as an advance by publisher Simon and Schuster. Out of 16
countries where foreign rights have been already sold , in 8 the book
has become the best seller. According to the agreement Mrs. Clinton
would receive eight million dollars altogether from the first US edition.
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