{"id":40794,"date":"2015-01-12T01:22:12","date_gmt":"2015-01-12T07:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=40794"},"modified":"2015-01-12T01:43:32","modified_gmt":"2015-01-12T08:43:32","slug":"in-praise-of-president-mahinda-rajapaksa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/01\/12\/in-praise-of-president-mahinda-rajapaksa\/","title":{"rendered":"IN PRAISE OF PRESIDENT MAHINDA RAJAPAKSA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well wisher,<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

When President Mahinda R lost the election I felt a sense of desolation, which I feel most of Sri Lanka felt. Even the celebration by the Opposition seemed to be half hearted.<\/span><\/p>\n

I feel I was fortunate to witness history being made by President Mahinda R (MR). When we look at our history there are certain figures that stand out and MR is one of them. True leaders have a vision, and an ability to carry out their vision even in the face of impossible odds. They provide leadership to the ordinary people to make them do what seemed impossible<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2005 when he inherited the country from RW and CBK\u2019s years of misrule it was a shattered country lacking direction, demoralized and the people were living in a state of fear and uncertainty. The 30-year war had sapped the country\u2019s energy and resilience. The Norwegians had brain washed the CBK\/RW duo to believe that the LTTE could not be defeated militarily because her nephew and uncle had been unable to defeat the LTTE with the same General Sarath Fonseka and the army that MR inherited.<\/span><\/p>\n

MR and Colonel Gotabaya Rajapaksa took this demoralized army and refurbished it to a point where when LTTE attacked Mavil Aru in August 2006 they were able to defeat them, which was the beginning of the LTTE downfall.<\/span><\/p>\n

The way MR handled the civilians who had been taken hostage by the LTTE and the surrendered LTTE cadres themselves is commendable and has not been done \u00a0anywhere in the world and in history as far as I know. He used the army to rescue the 300,000 innocent Tamil civilians at great cost to the army and then set about building homes and giving them their lives back. Almost all the LTTE cadre who had been brain washed by Prabahakaran were rehabilitated and admitted back to lead useful lives in society. It is a crying shame that in spite of all this work the UN and the Western powers accuses MR of war crimes. The opposition consisting of RW did nothing to help MR during this time and instead went round the world criticizing MR and his Government.<\/span><\/p>\n

MR travelled to many countries in the world and signed bilateral agreements and obtained aid and helps to reconstruct the damaged infrastructure. He leaned on China heavily since the West had alienated MR by their pro-LTTE stance. Furthermore, China provided no strings aid unlike IMF or the World bank, which laid down conditions such as privatization of State Enterprises or devaluing the Rupee. The West supported LTTE and at the last minute tried to save Prabahakaran in the middle of the war and take him out by sea. The army found mini subs which had been built by LTTE obviously with technical help from Norwegians.<\/span><\/p>\n

He undertook development of the roads, railways that had been neglected for years by the previous regime.\u00a0 Sri Lanka has not seen such accelerated development for the previous 30 years. In short time from 2010 to 2015 he was able to create such a change in Sri Lanka that it is short of a miracle. He had the dynamism and the vision to do what was necessary. During the heavy rains we had recently normally Colombo would go under water. The sewers would overflow and people have to wade through the muck. Then the mosquitos come and bring Dengue with it. This time thanks to all the work done by Col. Gotabaya Rajapaksa there were no issues. He had ensured all the drains were clear and they flowed to Beira Lake and the canals, which removed the water as rapidly as it arrived. Col. Rajapaksa also cleaned up the city of Colombo so that it became a shining clean city from the mess it was.<\/span><\/p>\n

For future work MR had incredible visions for the villages such as laboratories for all major areas, computers, removal of line rooms in tea estates and replacing with proper housing, and science and technical education in schools to bring science to the masses. If only he had got the extra time he would have really made Sri Lanka shine. Unfortunately the envy and jealousy of the lesser mortals around him pulled him down and Sri Lanka is the loser. MR will hopefully have a well-deserved rest to recuperate and come back again.<\/span><\/p>\n

I believe the Colombians played a major role in the ousting of MR. They have a separate culture from the ordinary citizens of Sri Lanka. They move in cocktail parties and rub shoulders with NGOs who are paid by their keepers abroad. They live a fantasy life, which tries to imitate the life of the Westerners as seen in movies and magazines since many of them have not lived out in the West. If only they knew the truth, which is that in USA, at least 40 Million live below the poverty line, many are homeless and I have personally seen people eating off garbage cans, which are not seen in Sri Lanka. USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the gun culture causes many innocents to die. For the last 8 years the Republicans have carried out a crusade against President Obama to prevent him from implementing any of his plans. Since a few people who show the news own the media the Corporations show what they want the people to see. In the last election the Republicans won even though they are gutting all programs which are there to help the people. There is no real Democracy in USA. The man appointed to head the Environmental Committee says that there is no global warming and that it is a hoax. Is this the type of country the Colombians truly want for Sri Lanka? However the ordinary Americans are very kind and are true Christians though very ignorant about the issues facing the World and USA.<\/span><\/p>\n

MR really believed that the Tamils of the North and East would vote for him since he had spent nearly 90% of development monies on them. MR had rebuilt the infrastructure, which had been destroyed by LTTE in the North and East. Yet the Tamils voted for Maithri en bloc as per the TNA instructions. Tamils have never shown gratitude to the Sinhalese for all that was done and have only asked for more and more. High time the Sinhala leaders learn this truth<\/strong>. The ones who are celebrating the most are the Tamil Nadu politicians such as Vaiko (Tamil Dalit leader). Ask yourself why he should be bothered about MR\u2019s downfall. Is it not because MR effectively blocked the Tamil Nadu plans to create a Tamil homeland for the Tamil Dalits which would have been a launching platform for separation of Tamil Nadu from India. Now they see the way clear with the combination of RW and CBK who were always sympathetic to the Tamil separatists.<\/span><\/p>\n

I see MR as someone who respects all religions, and loves the people and the country. I have never ever seen any other politician who travels abroad and then takes time to kneel down and worship the motherland as he has done. MR was a victim of the intrigue plotted by RW as outlined by HLD. I sincerely hope that MR and the Rajapaksa brothers will come back to Sri Lanka politics and rebuilt the country one day when our stupid Sinhalese need their help again.<\/span><\/p>\n

I will close with a quote from Mark Antony\u2019s speech at the funeral of Julius Caesar.
\n<\/span>You all did love him once, not without cause:
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/em>What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him? O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well wisher, When President Mahinda R lost the election I felt a sense of desolation, which I feel most of Sri Lanka felt. Even the celebration by the Opposition seemed to be half hearted. I feel I was fortunate to witness history being made by President Mahinda R (MR). When we look at our history […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}