Letter on the Canadian Prime Minister and his Liberal Government
Posted on June 14th, 2016
Asoka Weerasinghe Kings Grove Crescent. Gloucester, Ontario, Canada
14 June 2016
Hon. Maithripala Siresena
President
Republic of Sri Lanka
Colombo, Sri Lanka
CC;Hon. Ranil Wickremasinghe
Prime Minister of Sri Lanka
Dear President Sirisena:
ColomboPage of June 8, 2016 told us that Sri Lanka President vows to eradicate LTTE ideology which is still present locally and globally to ensure long term peace in Sri Lanka.”
It continued, He said, since being elected, he had been able to cultivate friendships with all world leaders. He would rely on their assistance to achieve reconciliation.”
While you have every right to Dream On”, Mr. President, I would hate to rain on your parade when you come to deal with Canada and its leader. You obviously didn’t read Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement, Canada’s Prime Minister willing to assist Sri Lanka address serious violations of International law during the war,” and my response to him of May 19, 2016, which could be found, posted in Lankaweb on May 24th, 2016.
If your research staff hadn’t been diligent to pick them up and place them in your daily Briefing File, then let’s forget that lot. But, please ask your son or daughter to find them by Googling Lankaweb, read them and brief you. That certainly will shake you out of your naive Dream On” world. The chances that the Canadian government will help you to eradicate LTTE ideology in Canada, has a Snow ball chance in Hell.
President Sirisena, here is the rub. As you are aware, parliamentarians around the world are all cookie-cutter-produced characters who would do any shenanigan, whether legal constitutionally or illegal to sit their butts on a carved wooden bench in their parliament’s chamber. Sri Lankans have always been good at that, bribing their constituents and promising heaven and earth to seek their votes, or even get the President and the Prime Minister to act as twin Gods to get themselves through the back door of Parliament after having been rejected by the masses by a democratic vote, and still manage to seat themselves in parliament and some even at the Cabinet table. This incident will go down in history as a classic example of how your Yahapalanaya Good Governance worked.
Not only that Mr. President, the perks that come being a parliamentarian has a handsome monetary value to give enough reasons to try any shenanigan to become a member of parliament, whether it is in Sri Lanka or Canada.
For example, Mr. President, your Yahapalanaya Good Governance shocked every ordinary citizen, when you let your caucus members milk the country, not withstanding the rural poor wracking their brains how to put cents from their salli-malla together to buy a coconut to cook a decent meal for their family, and your parliamentarians were going after their perks of getting luxury vehicles worth billions of rupees. This was decadence of the first order, this is sick, Mr. President. While a 6 and an 8 year old brother and sister in a white shirt and blue shorts and a white dress with school ties, started to walk to school and 6 in the morning to get to school by 7:30 in the morning down Kandalama way, and your parliamentarians are after luxury cars to travel in. These two kids needed bicycles and no luxury car riding parliamentarian cared. What’s going on, Mr. President? The airport car driver who drove me home said that he was still missing a couple of thousand rupees to buy his young son the top sprinter at school, a pair of good sprinter’s track shoes which he had promised that he would buy him, and we have parliamentarians grovelling for their luxury cars costing the tax payer billions of rupees. This is the airport car driver working on commissions. That is his Karma and the luck of the draw.
Little wonder why when I asked 23 rural folk across Sri Lanka in February, Kohomada may aluth arnduwa?” Everyone snickered and told, almost in pirith-unison, Oya okkoma hora yakku, Mahaththaya.” That is the pulse of your rural folk, Mr. President in Kosgoda, Galle, Nuwara Eliya, Rattota, Gatambe, Ibbagamuwa, Galewella, Melsiripura Hakgala, Dambulla, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Colombo’s Kanatta grave diggers. And this is the holy truth, and nothing but the truth.
But here’s what was extraordinary about these 23 rural persons. I am not kidding, everyone placed their palms together, stretched their arms to the sky looked up and blessed Ranasinghe Premadasa Mathithuma. Not Mahinda Rajapaksa nor Maithripala Sirisena or Ranil Wickremasinghe. Are you out of touch with these rural people, Mr. President? Go figure that one out!
Mr. President, coming back to your wanting to eradicate LTTE ideology, of wanting their mythical mono-ethnic, racist, Tamil state Eelam, which is still present locally and globally to ensure long term peace, I wonder from where on earth did you get the idea that you can achieve that among the separatist Tamil-Canadians? I told you earlier, Dream On”, Mr. President. Who said they wanted reconciliation sans an Eelam?
Do you honestly believe that your new found friendship with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will help you along for you to achieve your Dream”?
What nonsense! These Canadian political parties, Liberal, Conservative and NDP are as hungry as the My3-Ranil Combo who wanted power, and wanted to get elected by hook or by crook as you lot did.
Are you aware that nine ridings in the Greater Toronto Area depend on the Bloc-Tamil-Canadian votes? I doubt the Canadian politicians have rocks in their heads wanting to let go of these Tamil votes and lose power to govern the country so that you could achieve your dream’. That is not going to happen. But, what might very likely happen is that Canada’s political leaders might tell you:
President Sirisena, why don’t you have a good shot of Mendis Special and a healthy plate of rice with kukul muss curry for lunch, and fly a kite at Galle Face Green, as we are not going to antagonize the Tamil community as they want nothing but their piece of real estate up North and East of your island for their Eelam and we are leaning towards supporting them.”
Mr. President, but here are some brain-teasers for you to give some thought.
- Do you know why the Liberal parliamentarians, Jim Karygiannis, Roy Cullen, Tony Ianno, John McKay Tom Wappel, Byron Wilfert and Joe Volpe followed their two senior Cabinet Ministers Paul Martin (Finance) and Maria Minna (CIDA) to patronize a $60-a-plate fund raising dinner organized by FACT in Toronto on 6 May 2000 for the Tamil Tigers? They were grovelling for the Tamil votes in the Greater Toronto Area. Do you honestly feel that they would give up their political power, lucrative perks and building up their pensions to accommodate your Dream. The chances are zilch!
- Do you know why the Liberal parliamentarian Derek Lee (retired from politics) from the Greater Toronto Area eulogized the Tamil Tiger Anton Balasingham at his funeral service in Toronto? He was grovelling for the Tamil votes for him and his colleagues in the Greater Toronto Area. Do you honestly feel that they would give up their political power, lucrative perks and build up on their pensions, to accommodate your Dream”. The chances are Zip!
- Do you know why Liberal parliamentarians Jim Karygiannis, Maria Minna, Derek Lee, Borys Wrzesnewsky, John Cannis. John McKay, Mark Holland, Yasmin Ratansi and Lui Tenmelkovaski stood outdoors in vigil with 10,000 of their Tamil constituents at the Markham Recreation Ground in Ontario, on that rain-spitting cold shivering day on 6th November 2007, for S.P. Thamil Chelvam who was killed by a bomb dropped by the Air Force on a Killinochchi building where Tamil Chelvam was attending a palaver? And why the Tamil Tiger terrorists, the most ruthless in the world, were christened in public that evening by these Liberal parliamentarians as Doves of Peace”? The Liberals were grovelling for the Tamil votes. Do you honestly feel that they would give up their political power, lucrative perks and building up their pensions being MPs to accommodate your Dream”? The chances are Zero?
- Do you know why the Conservative Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon put out a pathetic Press Release with no congratulatory pat on Sri Lanka’s back when Sri Lanka’s armed forces wiped out the Tamil Tigers, the most ruthless terrorist group in the world, on 18 May 2009, the last one dying on the sandy banks of the Nandikadal lagoon, while all other western countries said Good for you Sri Lanka!” and patted Sri Lanka’s back. The Conservatives knew that they couldn’t handle 20,000 Tamils, men, women and children and their grandparents storming Sussex Drive in protest the following morning under a sky of 20,000 red Tamil Tiger terrorist flags. And along the way lose every single Tamil vote and lose nine ridings in the Greater Toronto Area at the next Federal election. So honestly do you feel that they will give up their Tamil votes, their bread and butter, and their monthly handsome pension cheque to accommodate your Dream”? I say Diddly-squat!
- Do you know why Jack Layton, the NDP leader compared Velupillai Prabakaran to South Africa’s Nelson Mandela in front of 10,000 Tamils celebrating Pongu Thamil at Queen’s Park in Toronto? It was because he wanted to garner every one of the 10,000 separatist Tamil votes in that crowd for the NDP. Surely, Mr. President, you are not that naive are you to believe that the NDP will support your ‘Dream’ of eradicating the LTTE ideology among the separatist Tamil-Canadians do you? The chances are pretty slim, and you are skating on thin ice on that one.
- Do you know why Deepak Obhrai, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs who represented Canada at the Commonwealth Summit Meeting in Colombo took off to the North with a photographer in tow, to record his laying a wreath at Elephant Pass for the Tamil soldiers who died at war and not the Sinhalese soldiers who got killed and when asked not to do it by a Sri Lankan official? (read Deepak Obhrai: His defence in laying a wreath at Elephant Pass by Asoka Weerasinghe posted in Lankaweb, December 7, 2013) Obhrai was brave and acted like a thug. He was the hit man for the Tamil Diaspora doing this thuggish act. When this cunning, disingenuous politician was challenged he said that Elephant Pass was a neutral location to lay the wreath. I had to educate this fool in a letter on December 6, 2013, that there was nothing neutral about Elephant Pass where three historical battles were fought by Tamil Tigers killing hundreds of Sri Lankan, mainly Sinhalese soldiers.
This thuggish act was exposed as a deliberate Tamil vote begging act. He returned to Canada and immediately goes to Toronto to proudly tell the Tamil community what he had done for them to promote their racist separatist cause. So you see Mr. President, you will be treading on some difficult slippery rocky terrain if you think that you can convince Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to help you eradicate the LTTE ideology among the Tamil Diaspora in Canada. And I could go on with many more examples to reason out that your wish is just a ‘Dream’ and will not happen. Prove me wrong, Mr. President, and may be I will start to believe in your Yahapalanaya Good Governance which has eluded me pretty badly.
However, I hope you will read this letter in the spirit of being cautioned by a Sinhalese-Canadian not to get embarrassed personally with your venture in Canada and embarrass your country you represent. You no doubt, are being honest with what you want to achieve, but also being naive at the same time.
This information for my reasoning you will not get from the Canada desk at the Foreign Ministry in Colombo nor will you from the Sri Lanka Mission in Ottawa. That is a realty check for you, Mr. President.
All what I can say to you Mr. President is, I wish you Good Luck in all my heart!”
Sincerely,
Asoka Weerasinghe (Mr.)
(formerly from Colombo 9 and
an old boy of Nalanda College)
June 14th, 2016 at 8:33 pm
Dear Asoka,
I guess you are wasting your valuable time in writing letters in “English” to Sri Lanka president because;
1. The chances are almost nil that he could read and understand your letter
2. His son or daughter are not of the kind who would educate the president of the content of the letter (rather they would dispose it to a bin)
3. The chances are almost zero for the president’s staff to show the letter to the president and translate the content “as they are” in the letter. It is not the political culture in the country today. Instead if you sent a letter praising all the stupid work the current government is doing, it is guaranteed to not only to get to the president, but will be published in newspapers and government websites too (I am delighted to recall the Queen taking gloves off to shake hands with president Sirisena).
The current knowledge of Sri Lankan rulers about the “very complex” geo-political game in the world today, is below the kindergarten level. They live and think in stone-age politics and laugh at the valid suggestions and warnings you and the others make from time to time. What is the point in playing violin for the deaf “elephants” and their co-horts.
Instead, I think you may spend all your valuable time and knowledge in supporting the Canadian Tamil diaspora toward establishing an independent Tamil state inside Canada. On the road trip to that goal is to demand from Canadian government, the “right” for them to get their mainstream education in Tamil language, get all the government publications in Tamil language translation and the right to sing Canadian National Anthem in Tamil language. I am sure they are all some very valid human rights anywhere in the world, especially in those so called civilised and developed western countries where human rights and “equality” is hailed high. I am not sure about you, but I will wholeheartedly support the Canadian Tamil diaspora for such demands.
In my view that is the “need of the hour”.
Also we need to get all our available resources to support a separate independent state for Tamils in Tamil Nadu too. It is Tamils who suffer the iron-fist control of the Indian central government. With over 40 million Tamils in Tamil Nadu, I am sure the step-motherly treatment to the Tamils in India by the Indian central government is unacceptable. Indian national anthem also does not recognise the huge population of Tamils there. I think we need to fight for the Tamil brethren there in India too.
This will surely solve many underlying problems. We sometimes have to not to attack the direct threat, instead we need to work with the “smart” new geo-political game taught to the world by the Americans.
We need to be in the game to win the game !
June 15th, 2016 at 3:54 am
Wetta
You have excellent ideas for you Demila sakodaraya not only in Canada but also who live in TN except real your family members We – Ilankai Thamilar .
Machang thing for us( Demila) do not worry about other country Tamils they know what they need to do to their citizen.
We need to be in the game to win the game !- no more game machang, We both do not want to loose another 33 years & end up in Nanthi Kadal (where We all drop our ass in the sea).
June 15th, 2016 at 4:45 am
Dear Asoka,
I am a big admirer of you, your courage and loyalty to our country your very informative and interesting style of writing. But I some what agree with Wetta that this letter will not reach the president, and even if it does nothing will change. As we know this president says things in Sri Lanka just to fool the masses and different things when he meets the world leaders. He obviously has an inferior complex and that is why he likes to be seen with the powerful world leaders. Also you must remember that he too came to power with the votes of Tamils, Muslims and the Christians and with lots of unachievable promises and lies. Like most of our crooked parliamentarians, he too is having the time of his life travelling over seas as often as he can, grinning from ear to ear, shaking hand with world leaders thinking he too is part of the big league.
June 15th, 2016 at 8:30 am
Trying to educate President Sirisena looks a lost cause. He is merely releasing populist statements to please the Sri Lankan electorate, whereas all the time acting in a manner to protect the current regime of the country, which has provided highly profitable lifestyles for the President’s siblings and children.
He is only dreaming about being the next Nobel Peace Prize winner, which is a political reward awarded by Norway, probably with US approval.
I wont be surprised if the Western leaders and Ranil/Chandrika/Sampanthan troika have given Sirisena such hopes, in order to get him to approve whatever they tell him to.
President Sirisena, once famously stated that he told Ranil Wickremasinghe to ask his appointee Arjun Mahendran as the Governor of Central Bank, to resign, just to give the impression Sirisena is not in favour of Mahendran’s appointment. Having said he wants Mahendran out, it was President Sirisena who protected Mahendran and Ranil by dissolving the parliament on the day the COPE report into the Central Bank Bond Issue scandal was to be tabled in the Parliament.
Similarly Sirisena has postponed by almost an year the elections to Local Government bodies, fearing the ruling party could lose its hold on many of those councils, thus, displaying Yahapalanaya type democracy.
Also, having preached buckets full about ushering in a Yahapalanaya regime, Sirisena has achieved just the opposite, in record time of a few months in power. One of his unforgivable acts violating fundamental democratic principles was to appoint defeated candidates to the parliament, into the positions won by those who were nominated on the election list of the SLFP, such as Tissa Vitarana, Dew Gunsekara, GL Peris etc who could have effectively provided a powerful opposition to balance off the Ranil/Chandrika/Sampanthan troika, who are showing no love for the country.