I won’t let anyone interfere with sovereignty of my country – Gotabaya
Posted on August 11th, 2019
Courtesy Adaderana
Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) Presidential Candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa states that he would not allow anyone to interfere with Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.
He mentioned this at the first-ever SLPP National Convention held at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium which commenced at 3 pm this afternoon (11).
At the convention, former Defense Secretary Gotabaya was named as the SLPP Candidate for the upcoming Presidential Election.
He stated that he is ready to provide leadership to overcome the challenges faced by the people in the country.
He said, I will not let anyone lay a hand on the sovereignty of my country in the future”.
The first task of their government would be to ensure the complete security of the country, stated Rajapaksa.
I will accept responsibility for your safety, and the safety of your children and your loved ones,” Gotabaya said.
Gotabya vowed that, if elected, he would prioritize the national security and the revival of the Sri Lankan economy, which has been hit by a lull in tourism after the attacks.
I pledge to create a safe and secure environment in which all Sri Lankans, irrespective of their race or religion, will be able to live in peace,”
He also said that he will build a country where women can travel anywhere without fear.
Addressing the gathering, Gotabaya Rajapaksa said that the entire election campaign should be carried out with the utmost discipline and that priority should be given to the environment.
August 11th, 2019 at 4:18 pm
This is a very good policy statement. Not accepting so is dishonest.
However, this is Gotabaya’s policy. Policy of the party leader is different. He is another Sirisena as he is not the party leader. The party leader is Basil – a US citizen. This naturally aligns the party with USA as the US oath of alligiance is legally enforceable obliging all US citizens to serve only US interests. Please read it.
So the problem Sri Lanka faced since 2015 will continue and become worse. Gotabaya must be the party leader to avoid this huge problem happening after he becomes president.
During Mahinda’s terms there were very sharp differences between Basil and Gotabaya on all important matters. This will only get worse as one of them becomes the executive president and the other the party leader.
Sorting out this problem is essential before the election.
August 11th, 2019 at 4:57 pm
Let us wait and see for some essential promises to be put forward before jumping to support. We should not TRUST anyone but we should REJECT the very known culprits who destroyed the country.
“I will not let anyone lay a hand on the sovereignty of my country in the future” – a good promise but it is only a personal promise. Who laid had on the sovereignty of our country ?
Persons are not permanent. It is not LAW. Despite supreme law is stating our “sovereignty” how come some politicians are able to lay hand on sovereignty ? If so those holes need to be concreted and closed.
Why there was “Tamil and Arabic” speaking province by the end of 2014 ? Why there was a Muslim colony handed over by the government by clearing the prime forest around the same time. Why a land meant for small city for the public handed over to an obvious Jihadist to convert the place to a Sharia Uni. Those wrong doings shall be acknowledged and corrected.
What is required urgently are,
1. Remove 13A
2. Remove minority LAWs
3. Declare Sri Lanka is a Buddhist State in the constitution.
August 11th, 2019 at 7:01 pm
Basil is the organiser of the SLPP, not the leader. MR is the leader as officially declared yesterday (August 11, 2019). Even before that date, MR was the implicit leader. Basil conceived the idea of forming the new party as a refuge for the betrayed SLFP’ers. How/Whether the SLFP rump under traitor Sirisena will survive as a separate entity is yet to be seen. Prof. GL P is the inaugural chairman of the SLPP, and still remains in that position.
The SLPP Convention at the Sugathadasa stadium was organized by Basil. Anyone with enough common sense could see how well organized it was. Didn’t you observe the novel way the nomination was done? The fact that Mahinda had only to ‘informally formalize’, as it were, the people’s choice is a stroke of genius that Basil had thought up, which is an answer to the frequent charge of ‘family bandyism’ against the Rajapaksas. Mahinda ‘handed his brother to the people’!
Dilrook asserts that Basil’s US citizenship “…………. naturally aligns the party with USA as the US oath of alligiance is legally enforceable obliging all US citizens to serve only US interests…..”. How unfortunate! But, no, it can’t be true. If that is actually the case, GL, MR and GR would have got Basil to renounce his US citizenship first. (But we are sure that Basil is just helping out his brothers and serving his motherland, he is not working for the US. Gotabhaya gave up his American citizenship to qualify for his presidential nomination.)The fact that they haven’t is proof that there is no such danger as Dilrook warns us about.
There may be differences of opinion, in political matters, between Gota and Basil, and between them and Mahinda, but they always manage to arrive at consensual decisions as brothers, and share responsibility; however, they seem to accept Mahinda as the final arbiter. When he goes wrong or is made to appear to go wrong as on October 26, 2018, the brothers didn’t blame him. Mahinda’s campaign manager in 2015 was Basil. Mahinda lost to Sirisena by a small margin of some 400,000 votes. Actually, the defeat was a result of a foreign managed conspiracy, which was clear even at the time it was afoot. But Basil later accepted responsibility for the debacle. He more than compensated for it in February 2018. There were corruption allegations against all the three younger brothers (Chamal is the eldest, and he was not accused of any wrong doing), but nothing has been proved against them. So, Mahinda in his speech said ‘we have been absolved of those charges (‘nirdosha wuna’), and instead, we’ve been recommended (‘nirdesha wela’) by the people. There is no sibling rivalry among them.
Dilrook’s prediction that sharp differences between Gota and Basil that, that he says, were apparent during Mahinda’s previous two terms “…will only get worse as one of them becomes the executive president and the other the party leader” is baseless, as Basil is not the party leader.
August 11th, 2019 at 8:40 pm
I have 100% trust on Gota which I don’t have on MR as a politician.
By seeing the current set of jokers ruling the country, we should thank for this opportunity to place such a smart man in the driving seat.
Gota will put the country first more than anything else. MR will listen to his clever brother. MR is no way match to Gota, may be because of his age now. Gota will not allow MR to do funny things this time such as harbouring thieves and rogues. Those thieves have left him and joined the current government.
If you have listened to his speech last night, it had come from his within. it covered everything needed to be addressed in such an occasion and the beauty is he did not have any written notes to refer to. He is very well prepared to take up the challenge and 100% up to date with all the issues facing Mother Lanka and has a very good view of how to tackle them with an educated approach, thanks to his smart idea of Viyathmaga going for the last four years and the intellectuals behind him.
No one else currently in SL can deliver any better than Gota. No one else is fit for this purpose than him. People have to think about the country first and forget about their hatred towards the name Rajapaksas if we have to save our mother Land from perishing.
Some have a shear jealousy towards Rahapaksa’s thinking that they don’t belong to their class of thinking. This foolish idea has almost destroyed Mother Lanka ever since the Regime change project came to effect in January 2015 and she is just hanging by a thin thread…
Gota is the only solution to all problems faced by Mother Lanka. The people surrounding him are not cunning crooks.
August 11th, 2019 at 9:14 pm
ilrook,
NOTHING is cast in stone, EVERYTHING is POSSIBLE, if we STRIVE TOWARDS it!
Gota will get the ADVICE that he DARE NOT IGNORE from the PATRIOTIC Buddhist Community; we will be there NIGHT & DAY to make certain our PATRIOTIC DEMANDS for PRESERVING the INTEGRITY of our Motherland, and its ESSENTIAL CHARACTER as a Sinhala Buddhist Nation are met!
DON’T BE ETERNALLY PESSIMISTIC, EVERYTHING REASONABLE is POSSIBLE just as the WAR that could not be WON was WON in 3 1/2 years! The DIFFERENCE was WILL & ABILITY … WE HAVE BOTH!
HOPE & WORK for the BEST, but PREPARE for the WORST!
Remember Cato the Elder? WHERE THERE IS INDOMITABLE WILL, THERE WILL ALWAYS BE A WAY!
August 11th, 2019 at 11:38 pm
@Ananda and Vaisrawana
Even if Mahinda (not Basil) is the leader of the SLPP (while he remains a UPFA MP??) is the same. This is the same problem with Sirisena. “Nangi pennala akkawa bandala denawa”.
Gota must be the leader of the party he contests from. Otherwise we will have another Sirisena.
Basil is still a US citizen and USA manipulates US citizens in politically powerful positions around the world using the Oath of Alligiance. A very unfortunate situation Basil is in and lands the SLPP.
Sri Lanka must ban all foreign citizens and NGOs from having anything to do with local politics.
I trust Gotabaya but not Mahinda and Basil who were rejected by the people. If Gota is the president he must make all political decisions. A situation where he focuses on development while Mahinda/Basil look after politics won’t work. Politicians underpin all work in a democracy.
Don’t forget this was exactly what happened from 2005 to 2015. Gota did all good work that mattered to the people while Mahinda and Basil did politics. Disaster!
Sri Lanka’s biggest problem stems from politics. We need Gota to fix it, not continue with it. People demand Gota, not Mahinda or Basil.
August 12th, 2019 at 12:43 am
The Rajapakses are ONE family block.
Remember the time, the very long years when one was the President, another was the Speaker, and the two others held the most vibrant ministeries of that government. And what about the others, the chief ministers, the diplomats, and other high office holders?
This is what the Colombo Telegraph of the 20th March 2013 said under the caption: Infographics: Rajapaksa Family And Nepotism.
“The government of Sri Lanka is dominated by the family of the president, Mahinda Rajapaska. One of his brothers, Gotabaya Rajapaska has developed a reputation as the second most powerful – some would say the most powerful – man in Sri Lanka by abusing his position as Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development. Their other brother Basil is both the Minister for Economic Development and the head of the ‘President’s Task Force’ – an organisation that holds enormous power in the war-ravaged north of the country. Together these three brothers control somewhere between 45% and 70% of Sri Lanka’s budget and manage five of the largest government ministries. A fourth brother is Speaker of the Sri Lankan parliament. In total 29 members of Mahinda Rajapaska’s extended family hold senior positions within the government, civil service, media, or industry”.
Here is a word for Rajapakse acolytes; You want a radical change. It will happen. Unfortunately it will not be with Gota’s eventual style of government, BUT in your eventual way of thinking!! But then it will be too late.
As long as anyone comes to power within this SYSTEM (By SYSTEM I do not mean the Constitution because the System as regards the Constitution is as different as the Baby is to the Womb that bore it) the System will dominate the Constitution. What the System entails is that this country be ruled according to the whims of the MINORITIES. To come to power, to be in power, and to retain hold on that power, every elected President within this System needs the massive support of the minorities i.e. the parties with RELIGIOUS AND RACIAL TAGS whose populations dominate the North, the East and now many parts of the so-called Sinhala majority areas as well. Their breed is rapidly on the rise while the Sinhala are ‘SINKING’ like ‘HELL’. This is what the word SINHALA has now come to mean = sinking like hell.
During the ‘Brothers Rule’ under Mahinda, they did EVERYTHNG to canvas, draw, and hold on to MINORITY support. Nothing in this regard will change under the same ‘Brothers Rule’ under Gota. All other adjuncts to that Brother Power structure will only have to say ‘Ehey Hamuduruwaney’. And so will it be until the next unpropitious Hopper Dinner when someone who will have had more than enough of this nonsense, and his belly full of Biththara Appa’ will jump the Rajapakse Titanic into the waiting unsteady and wobbling raft of the opposition.
To all Gota supporters: you might soon be singing before Gota, as a comely maiden once did before Mahinda…Ayubowewa maha rajanani. The aternative to that song could well be: here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush…in gloomy and doomy Sri Lanka. Yes the band continued to play while the Titanic sank.
Mario Perera, Kadawata
August 12th, 2019 at 3:04 am
Dilrook and Mario are trying hard to DRIVE WEDGES into the Pohottuwa leadership!
At a time when we should be happy that the Patriotic Forces are FORGING AHEAD, they are NITPICKING!
What has happened to them, I wonder!