By : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA

It is imperative that a country should have an unwavering, unshakable, and firm determined and dedicated leader with a firm backbone if that country is to progress. Unfortunately in the recent past, we have had three Presidents and a Prime Minister who have shamelessly and cowardly genuflected in front of foreign powers and our sworn enemies. For instance

• J.R, Jayawardene who after adopting the 1978 constitution that became popular as the Bahbootha Vyawasthawa”, the Bizarre Constitution bloated saying that he is so powerful and he cannot only change a man into a woman and a woman into a man shamelessly and unblushingly bowed down before the hegemonic Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and agreed to conditions imposed by him including to force upon us the white elephant provincial council system utterly unsuitable for a small country like Sri Lanka, station Indian troops on our soil, and allow the country to be ruled under the dictates of Indian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka J.N.Dixit, who behaved like an uncrowned viceroy ;

• R.Premadasa without any guts and willpower allowed him to be fondled by a tiger terrorist sympathizer and their behind the scene architect Paskeralingam and under his command brought the terrorists to Colombo for homey moon talks, ordered the IPKF out as it was decimating the LTTE, ordered over 600 odd Police officers serving in the East and belong to all ranks to surrender to LTTE as a result of which they got killed summarily, supply a massive stockpile of arms and ammunition and money to LTTE which were only used only to kill and maim our gallant soldiers, facilitated the assassination of Lt. General Denzil Kobbejaduwa who had a splendid record of operations against the LTTE terrorists.  Along with him Brigadier Wijaya Wimalaratne and several illustrious high ranking officers also got killed, and nourished hardcore LTTE cadres to use his residence in Colombo as a haven for them and ultimately got dumped by a LTTE suicide bomber known as Babu whom he has fed and trusted as a confidante.;

• Mrs. Chandrika was responsible for making the country suffer the biggest debacle due to her arrogant and astigmatic rule.  The losses perpetrated by the LTTE during her rule were immense and e included entrapping over 40, soldiers of ours in Jaffna and compelling the country to seek Indian assistance to save them from their siege and bring them back to Sri Lanka, loss of the Elephant Pass camp, which was Sri Lanka’s largest camp in the North, and in this attack, the LTTE killed over 1,500 of our soldiers who were in that camp and confiscated all military hardware in that camp including artillery, multi-barrel guns, and heavy arms, loss of the: Pooneryn camp, sinking of several high-speed naval vessels with large numbers of navy personnel, shooting gown of several military aircraft that were flying out from Palaly airbase with armed soldiers and destruction of several passenger aircraft at the Katunayake Airport and many fighter planes and jets at the Katunayake Airport Hanger.  This old hag, in obliging to LTTE demands was also was responsible for needlessly facilitating Norway to interfere in Sri Lanka under the guise of a peacebuilder.

In addition to the above referenced military debacles, she had a craziness and a passion to please the Tamil community at the expense of other communities.  She seemed to be very fond of megalomaniac Prabhakaran and offered him to rule the North without any form of elections for a period of 10 years.  She could not get Prabhakaran agreed to this offer as he was only interested in carving out a separate exclusive Tamil State called Tamil Eelam comprising 1/3 of Sri Lanka’s and 2/3^rd of maritime territory. Then she commissioned another Terrorist ally, Dr. Neelan Thiruchelvam to formulate a new constitution called The Package” to grant regional autonomy to provinces with much emphasis on North and East.  This proposal received strong opposition and condemnation from people belonging to all walks of life and Mt. Mahinda Rajapaksa held a long meeting with her and forced her to abandon that proposal.

When the Tsunami struck the country lots of funds were received and a mechanism named Post Tsunami Operations Mechanism (PTOM) was drawn up and she insisted and was adamant that PTOM activities in the North and East should exclusively be handled by the LTTE.  Along with her sycophant quisling Mangala Samaraweera she also launched another program called Sudu Nelum (white Lotus) program with the support of Norway saying that its objective was to rebuild North and East. 

Economically her rule was the worst Sri Lanka ever had and the growth dwindled to a minus growth rate for the first time in the country, which forced several key Ministers of her government to quit and join the opposition.

Sometime last year she made a statement saying that in the parliament there are 225 MPs and the majority of them are Sinhalese.  She said that during her tenure as President she couldn’t do much for the Tamils and hence in the future she would spend much time serving the Tamils.

• Then we come to the period of Prime MinisterRanil Wickremasinghe which ran parallel to Chandrika’s 2^nd term of presidency.  This period was completely a period of genuflecting to the dictates of the tiger terrorists.  Sajith Premadasa despite the fact that his father was killed by the LTTE fully associated with Ranil Wickremasinghe in all measures he took to please the tiger terrorists. 

• Ranil started his innings with blindly signing the ignominious ceasefire agreement (CFA) drafted by Norway under which the terrorists were made de facto rulers of the North and East.   At the, megalomaniac terrorist leader’s post-CFA news conference for foreign journalists Balasingham told the media men that Prabhakaran is both the President and the Prime Minister of the North and East and Ranil Wickremasinghe is only the Prime Minister for the rest of Sri            Lanka.  Both timid Chandrika and Ranil remained silent over this remark.  Under the CFA our soldiers were locked up in barracks and the terrorists were permitted to move freely carrying their arms. Our Air Force pilots and crew were forced to taxi terrorist leaders from North to East and vice versa, Under the CFA a monitoring mission was established manned by Scandinavians and there had been over 3,000 ceasefire violations by the terrorists but all these violations went uninvestigated and unpunished.  During this period the government allowed the terrorists to bring in several container loads of material and these containers were allowed to be taken to the North unchecked.  It is suspected that these containers contained dismantled light aircraft, artilleries, and sophisticated electronic modern communication and surveillance equipment, etc. 

During this government, a conference named Sri Lanka Aid Conference was held in the Japanese capital Tokyo attended by several foreign countries and in which a program titled ISGA” (Internal Self Government Authority) was presented by the LTTE and Ranil accepted this proposal in return for U.S$ 4.5 Million promised by the so-called donor nations.  This same proposal in toto was included in the 13 point formula by the TNA and other Tamil parties during November presidential campaign for which imbecile Sajith Premadasa wholeheartedly agreed and it was reflected in gratitude in the Tamil voted polled for him in the North and East.  

It was under such a background the 5^th President iron-willed Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa came to power on 18th November 2005 promising to take concerted action to end the terrorist aggression early and establish an honorable peace in the country. The terrorists misjudged his determination and dedication and attempted to continue with their old games.  They made unsuccessful attempts to kill Army Commander Sarath Fonseka and the President’s brother the Defence Secretary Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa but managed to assassinate Sri Lanka’s internationally reputed former Foreign Minister Mr. Lakshman Kadiragamar.  The determined government increased the troop strengths and liberated the Eastern province.  When it was done Ranil Wickremasinghe and his cohorts undermined the achievement made by our troops  and the liberation of the main terrorist camp Topppigala in the East was ridiculed by Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe saying that Toppigala was an insignificant jungle. 

Then the war moved to the Northern theatre and when our troops were advancing shattering terrorist posts again the UNP ridiculed the war and whilethat party’s vice President Ravi Karunanayake asserted that the troops are only going to Pa,amkada claiming that they are going to Alimankade (Elephant Pass) and going to Medawachchi claiming going yo Kilinochjchi, the notorious quisling and terrorist sympathizer and currently Sajith Premadasa’s senior advisor Mangala Samaraweera said that Sarath Fonseka was not fit to command our army but fit only to lead the Salvation Army and our troops will learn unforgettable lessons if they attempt to enter Kilinochchi.

It was under these circumstances our divisional commanders under the direction of the Commander in Chief the President and the guidance of the Defense Secretary our divisional commanders led our dedicated and determined troops to capture all forward line terrorist posts and drove the megalomaniac Prabhakaran and other terrorist leaders together with their remain9ing terrorist troops to Nabndekadal for the final encounter When this operation was going on the American Ambassador in Colombo Robert Blake wanted the President to halt the war and allow them to evacuate terrorist leaders through Mullaitivu to an undisclosed western destination which the iron-willed President rejected outright.  At the same time, the British Foreign Secretary David Milliband and the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner arrived in Sri Lanka to urge the President to halt the war.  The President at this time was in Embilipitiya and maintaining his illustrious status he did not proceed to Colombo to meet them and wanted them to come to Embilipitiya if they want to discuss anything with him.  Accordingly, they came to Embilipitiya and urged him to halt the war and allow them to evacuate the terrorist leaders.  This demand was also totally rejected making Sri Lankans feel proud of having a defiant President who dared to stand firm boldly rejecting the demands made by the world’s three most powerful nations.