{"id":52465,"date":"2016-02-29T18:50:48","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T00:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=52465"},"modified":"2016-02-29T06:59:25","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T13:59:25","slug":"do-not-play-politics-with-our-ranaviru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/02\/29\/do-not-play-politics-with-our-ranaviru\/","title":{"rendered":"Do not play politics with Our Ranaviru"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong>Shenali D Waduge<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>It was no easy task to end 30 years of terrorism by a terrorist outfit created by India which happily became a surrogate-proxy to the West\u2019s geopolitical plan and an entity of convenience for the livelihoods of many from politician to local\/foreign players. Those that said the war was unwinnable and promoted ceasefires and peace talks are now enjoying the dividends of peace that they failed to secure with their ideologies. Those that laughed and scoffed at the military victories now control governance. Is it then a surprise at the manner how the men that won the war are now being humiliated by sudden transfers of spite and vengeance? Should those that saved the nation not have a voice to decide the fate of our country? Is it not because of them that we even have a country and a peaceful environment without bombs, suicide bombings and assassinations? Was it not our soldiers who delivered this peace?<\/p>\n<p><strong>When a war veteran who was one of the key commanders to give us that peace speaks his mind, should that be taken as an offence and have him punished as if he was a Montessori child speaking out of turn against the teacher?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sundaytimes.lk\/160228\/editorial\/capitulating-to-india-on-fishing-issue-184744.html\">http:\/\/www.sundaytimes.lk\/160228\/editorial\/capitulating-to-india-on-fishing-issue-184744.html<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>How many in Parliament are truly qualified to be parliamentarians to point fingers and find fault with political correctness. <strong>Can those that said lets wine and dine with the tigers be mentally capable of discussing the UNHRC resolution and how the Army felt when the government co-sponsors a UNHRC resolution naming commanders &amp; their units as war criminals?<\/strong> Are these men not human not to feel shock at having served the nation, sacrificing the lives of 30,000 men with a similar number injured for life while some 5000 are still missing and now being sidelined and treated with disdain. Another shocking development is to see growing numbers put into prison while teams are told to search for evidence against them! Is this how a country, that too the only country that can boast of militarily defeating a terrorist movement banned by 32 nations should treat our war heroes? If so, we are a shameful and shameless nation. We have been turned into a nation that shows no gratitude to our war heroes.<\/p>\n<p>Did this government not come into power claiming to uphold good governance at all levels, transparency, end cronyism &amp; nepotism, stop corruption, interference in the running of the judiciary, police and bring law &amp; order. Have these promises been delivered to the people?<\/p>\n<p>Is good governance equated to mean put up and shut up and anyone who dares question are slapped with transfers for \u2018insubordination\u2019? Is this the liberal laissey-faire system that we the people have to now get used to? Voices of dissent emerge when something is wrong or perceived as being wrong is taking place. It takes a real gentlemen to have the ability to answer with tact. Those that don\u2019t only end up displaying their own discomfort in being put on the spot having no means to answer and their only response ends up by punishing the person asking the questions.<\/p>\n<p>We have noticed that even the Prime Minister has lost his cool and is playing diversionary politics just to keep certain sectors fixated to his tantrums and everyone opposing him and his government are declared traitors. A statement like this from the former President would have resulted in statements and pandemonium from UN, UNSG, UNHRC head to foreign envoys and their governments. Now none of them will even utter a word against their poodles now in power. What a sham of a democracy taking place.<\/p>\n<p>The sudden agreements taking place leave the public clueless. We have yet to see the original draft of the 2002 CFA which was another paper humiliating our soldiers. The new venture comes in a service agreement with India likely to lead to detrimental repercussions for the country and our children in particular. Just imagine a flood of Indians coming to live and work in Sri Lanka have we not learnt lessons from the lakhs the British brought from Tamil Nadu and left behind for us to give citizenship to!<\/p>\n<p>Since we seem to be copying everything the West does\u2026Is the new government following the US method in its treatment of war veterans?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>200,000 Military Veterans Sleeping On The Streets Of America (Los Angeles Times)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>A war veteran has to wait 7 months to be given an appointment at a Veteran Administration facility<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Investigation by ABC news found that a typical VA facility\n<ul>\n<li>Bathrooms filthy with what appeared to be human excrement<\/li>\n<li>Dirty linens from some patients mixed in with clean supplies<\/li>\n<li>Examining tables that had dried blood and medications still on them<\/li>\n<li>Equipment used to sterilize surgical instruments that had broken down<\/li>\n<li>Some patients were forced to beg for food and water<\/li>\n<li>Veterans that were\u00a0neglected so badly that they developed horrific bedsores and dangerous infections<\/li>\n<li>This is the kind of thing you would expect in a third world country, not the United States of America.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Department of Homeland Security has labelled military veterans as potential terrorists.<\/li>\n<li>Now we are actually starting to see military veterans rounded up and shipped off to mental institutions for evaluation\u201d if they express views that the government does not like.<\/li>\n<li>Brandon Raub is a 26-year-old military veteran who was forcibly detained by the local police, the FBI and the Secret Service on August 16th.\u00a0 He was shipped off to a psychiatric facility because of song lyrics and political views that he had posted on his Facebook page.<\/li>\n<li>Once a military vet is determined to be mentally ill\u201d, he or she can be rounded up by the authorities at any time.<\/li>\n<li>And tons of vets are being labelled as mentally ill these days.\u00a0 In fact, one study discovered that approximately one-third of all military veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq were officially determined to be mentally ill.<\/li>\n<li>It is very dangerous to be a military veteran these days.<\/li>\n<li>It has become abundantly clear that the federal government is not on the side of veterans.<\/li>\n<li>The federal government wants lots of warm bodies to throw into battle, but when those bodies get broken the government is not there to pick up the pieces.<\/li>\n<li>How we treat our veterans is a national disgrace.<\/li>\n<li>Wake up America. (<a href=\"http:\/\/endoftheamericandream.com\/archives\/why-does-the-u-s-government-treat-military-veterans-like-human-garbage\">http:\/\/endoftheamericandream.com\/archives\/why-does-the-u-s-government-treat-military-veterans-like-human-garbage<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And America\u2019s war veterans emerge from bogus military interventions that young men and women are being sent to without any of these nations even antagonizing or threatening the US.<\/p>\n<p>Our scenario is incomparable. Our ranaviruwos were defending our nation against separatism. Our men were not been sent to take over other nations so that big businesses and profiteers could tap into the natural resources of these nations.<\/p>\n<p>Such behaviour takes us back to times when a handful of our own chose to become proud servants of invaders and fought against the men defending the nation by becoming lascoreens and sepoys. These lackeys have now been reborn it appears manifesting the same traits of those sepoys collaborating with the foreign enemies. Funnily enough those that some refer to as \u2018heroes\u2019 descends from the very lackeys that betrayed the nation and the monarch and were vested with titles, lands, jobs and education enabling them to become the elite of post-independence society. The two forces (The Maha Sangha and Our Soldiers) that stood up to and against the nation and the people are today being hounded and locked up in prison and legislation being introduced to gag them from speaking on behalf of the nation. We are slowly moving ourselves from upholding any form of democracy and degenerating into a virtual vassal state prostituting our independence to satisfy the imperial neo-colonial agenda of those propping up those now in power.<\/p>\n<p>Democracy in future will be like in the US \u2013 anyone with money can only contest and everyone with money will put forward a proxy to emerge as their chosen victor with handouts given to the electorates buying over the voters in a legalized voting rigged system where the next leader is already decided but a sham show is dramatized via media owned by those that control the nation just to show the people that it is they who are electing their leaders!<\/p>\n<p>Yet, there are still people who feel for the nation, who know who the enemies are and those who still honor and feel gratitude to our war heroes and not the terrorists who strove to separate the nation.<\/p>\n<p>We can only say \u2018hands off our ranaviruvos\u2019 \u2013 let the place reserved for them not be hijacked or usurped. Their place in history for the fait they accomplished can never be taken away from our minds or hearts and certainly not from the history books by foreign payrolled people.<\/p>\n<p>Those that played no role in defending the nation have no right to ridicule those that did.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Shenali D Waduge<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shenali D Waduge \u00a0It was no easy task to end 30 years of terrorism by a terrorist outfit created by India which happily became a surrogate-proxy to the West\u2019s geopolitical plan and an entity of convenience for the livelihoods of many from politician to local\/foreign players. Those that said the war was unwinnable and promoted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shenali-waduge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52465","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=52465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}