{"id":57820,"date":"2016-08-19T22:04:29","date_gmt":"2016-08-20T04:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=57820"},"modified":"2016-08-19T15:01:37","modified_gmt":"2016-08-19T22:01:37","slug":"eraj-and-yahapalana-mirage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/08\/19\/eraj-and-yahapalana-mirage\/","title":{"rendered":"Eraj and yahapalana mirage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editorial\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

August 19, 2016, 7:53 pm<\/span><\/p>\n

Sri Lankans fall for catchy slogans and attractive election promises hook, line and sinker and vote for crafty politicians who get and forget. The late J. R. Jayewardene promised to bring about a righteous society or dharmista samajayak, in 1977 and obtained a steamroller majority, which he abused in every conceivable manner. His dictatorial rule plunged the country into bloodbaths and institutionalised political violence. Corruption and election malpractice became rampant.<\/p>\n

JRJ\u2019s successor, Ranasinghe Premadasa, pledged to rid the country of poverty, but it looked as if his government were, instead, intent on eliminating the poor youth, who died violent deaths in their thousands at the hands of the perpetrators of state terrorism during the second JVP uprising. More than one half of people of Colombo still live in slums and shanties! Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, came to power, promising to eliminate dooshanaya and bheeshanaya (corruption and state terrorism). The pledge was reneged on and the two evils flourished under her watch.<\/p>\n

Mahinda Rajapaksa promised the masses a bright future of suba anagathayak. He, to his credit, eliminated terrorism, but his second term turned out to be a disaster. It was characterised by corruption, nepotism, abuse of power, violent suppression of political dissent and near lawlessness. Maithripala Sirisena vowed to make a difference and usher in yahapalanaya or good governance.<\/p>\n

What we are witnessing is the very antithesis of good governance, to say the least. The present dispensation consists mostly of those who were notorious for their undemocratic acts under the JRJ and Premadasa governments, and the undesirables who were prominent members of the Rajapaksa administration.<\/p>\n

As if the number of unsavoury elements already within its ranks were not enough, the so-called unity government keeps causing more and more disgraced Rajapaksa loyalists to switch their allegiance to it.<\/p>\n

In a turn of events replete with irony ex- Hambantota Mayor Eraj Fernando has been appointed the SLFP organiser for Beliatta, which is former President Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s stronghold. Fernando earned notoriety in 2014 by brandishing a small firearm and chasing a group of UNP MPs visiting the Hambantota Harbour and the Mattala Airport. The MPs were roughed up, but they managed to escape. The then President Rajapaksa had the chutzpah to claim that Fernando had been holding a toy pistol! He took the people for suckers and defended the likes of Fernando and Mervyn Silva to the hilt. They enjoyed legal immunity to all intents and purposes and carried out attacks on their rivals at will.<\/p>\n

Today, Fernando, Silva and many others of their ilk are members of the yahapalana camp! These turncoats, with government leaders on their side, no longer have to fear the outcome of the court cases against them. An intrepid foreigner who had a row with Silva\u2019s son in Colombo and let the latter taste a knuckle sandwich, in the heyday of the Rajapaksa rule, has reportedly indicated his willingness to come here and seek justice. Let him be thanked for the superb punch, but it will be an utter waste of time, energy and money for him to come all the way here. The present administration is dependent on Silva to ridicule the Joint Opposition and, therefore, he and his son are still above the law.<\/p>\n

Rajapaksa surrounded himself with many rogues, who brought about his downfall. With many of them within its ranks the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration needs no enemies. Yahapalanaya has become a mirage.<\/p>\n

Checking MR\u2019s bags<\/h2>\n

Some NGO activists have demanded that former President Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s bags be thoroughly checked when he goes overseas. One cannot but agree with them. Bags of all passengers including Rajapaksa, President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe must be checked.<\/p>\n

However, the question is where these NGO members were when LTTE terrorists were given VVIP treatment at the BIA, which they had attacked, and whisked past the Customs without any checks in the name of a ceasefire agreement under the UNP-led UNF government (2001-2004). The terrorist leaders returned with huge bags, which were airlifted by the Sri Lanka Air Force to the Vanni together with them sans any checks. We reported that the airport chief at that time had even hosted a BBQ dinner for the senior LTTE leaders at his official residence.<\/p>\n

Will the NGO activists concerned explain why they refrained from calling for checks on the terrorist leaders\u2019 bags?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editorial\u00a0Courtesy The Island August 19, 2016, 7:53 pm Sri Lankans fall for catchy slogans and attractive election promises hook, line and sinker and vote for crafty politicians who get and forget. The late J. R. Jayewardene promised to bring about a righteous society or dharmista samajayak, in 1977 and obtained a steamroller majority, which he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-106"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57820","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=57820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}