{"id":61842,"date":"2016-12-27T11:59:15","date_gmt":"2016-12-27T18:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=61842"},"modified":"2016-12-27T11:59:15","modified_gmt":"2016-12-27T18:59:15","slug":"open-letter-to-hon-maithripala-sirisena-president-of-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/12\/27\/open-letter-to-hon-maithripala-sirisena-president-of-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"OPEN LETTER to Hon. Maithripala Sirisena, President of Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

Asoka Weerasinghe Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . K1J 6G1 . Canada<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

27 December, 2016<\/p>\n

OPEN LETTER to Hon. Maithripala Sirisena, President of Sri Lanka
\nPresidential Secretariat
\nGalle Face
\nColombo 1
\nSri Lanka<\/p>\n

&<\/p>\n

Hon. Ranil Wickremesinghe, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.
\nPrime Minister\u2019s Office
\nColombo 1,
\nSri Lanka<\/p>\n

cc; His Eminence Archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith<\/p>\n

Honourable Gentlemen:<\/p>\n

I have just read an Associated Press news item titled \u2018Sri Lanka claims world\u2019s tallest artificial Christmas tree at 73 meters\u2019<\/em> <\/strong>and the photo label under the image of the Christmas Tree read \u2018The tree cost<\/em> $US80,000.\u2019\u2019<\/em>\u00a0 <\/strong>(my comment = Rs,12,480,000, and there will be an additional cost for lighting and maintaining the tree until it is dismantled, I believe on January 7, 2017).<\/p>\n

The tree\u2019s steel-and-wire frame is covered with plastic net decorated with more than a million natural pine cones painted red, gold, green and silver, 600,000 LED bulbs and topped by a 6-meter-tall shining star,\u201d<\/em><\/strong> the news item continued.<\/p>\n

The project showed the enthusiasm among the designer and the production team and their leader, their Yahapalanaya Minister \u00a0of Ports and Shipping, Arjuna Ranatunga and the pride of \u00a0possibly having their names in the Guinness Book of World Records<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 This paled into insignificance the impression you all projected to the Sri Lankans and the world that this was an exercise to promote religious harmony.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0 That was a hard sell to swallow and a far fetched reason, to me which was hogs-wash.\u00a0 I told you so before, and I am telling you now.<\/p>\n

You all said that you spent this fortune of over 12 million rupees through the generosity of sponsors to help the cash-strapped Sri Lanka, \u00a0to promote Religious harmony\u201d<\/strong> in the island where persons of different faiths are inter-marrying and living happily ever after.\u00a0 In the island, after the tsunami on December 26th<\/sup> 2004, Buddhist monks volunteered to clean the grounds of mosques and helping the Muslims to build their places of worship.\u00a0 In the island where people of different faiths trek to worship Lord Katharagama and climb Adam\u2019s Peak \u00a0with palms together in reverence to what they believe in, and \u00a0in an island where \u00a0strangers \u00a0of different faiths share their packets of rice and curry during their pilgrimages.<\/p>\n

Honourable Gentlemen, I am not blind to the aberrations of such honest spiritual harmony by some religious extremists who refuse to accept commonsense religious protocols, like one doesn\u2019t walk in to another person\u2019s religious land with flats of bricks carried on their heads \u00a0and \u00a0buckets filled with mortar and start building their \u00a0religious precincts.\u00a0 That is when disharmony among people of different religious faiths crop up.\u00a0 And when intruders knowingly ask for trouble, they will be dished \u00a0out trouble in buckets full.\u00a0 That is how the cookie crumbles gentleman, and you two have lived long enough to understand our religious culture and we are no saints.<\/p>\n

What I have difficulty to reconcile with this foolish expenditure of \u00a0over 12 million rupees to inject harmony into these religious extremists by building a Christmas Tree that you all want it to be inscribed in the Guinness Book of World of Records<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 That\u2019s foolish, gentlemen, it is asinine, when those monies could have \u00a0been spent on the poor. \u00a0The gamme<\/em><\/strong> duppath minissu<\/em><\/strong> who do not have a voice, who do not drive in BMWs, who do not have enough money to rush their sick child in a Tuk-tuk to the nearest medical clinic, nor have enough money to spend on a contractor to drill a well to find clean water to drink.\u00a0 Think about it, \u00a0Honourable President and Honourable Prime Minister, aren\u2019t you ashamed of yourselves, that your Yahapalanaya Government has been cruel to a point, insensitive to a point and being cursed by the poor, and I don\u2019t blame them.\u00a0 And now I understand when I asked 24 Gamme Minissu<\/em><\/strong> in February this year,\u00a0 \u2018Kohomadha aluth arnduwa<\/em><\/strong>?\u00a0 All 24 responded with a snicker, Oya okkoma hora yakku, Mahaththaya.\u201d<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 You two honourable gentlemen of the Yahapalanaya Government, go figure that one out.\u00a0 That comment to me by the Gamme Minissu<\/em><\/strong> is the holy truth and nothing but the truth.<\/p>\n

Honourable gentlemen, you have lost the feel of the pulse of the Gamme Minissu<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 spending your time trying to figure out strategies to become the darlings of the UN, the West, India and China.<\/p>\n

The Sequel to the Tallest Christmas Tree at Galle Face Green<\/strong><\/p>\n

Honourable President and Honourable Prime Minister, now that you have achieved together with your Ports and Shipping Minister Arjuna Ranathunga, watching the Tallest Christmas Tree in the World \u00a0mushrooming on Galle Face Green at a colossal cost, \u00a0let\u2019s concentrate on a follow up sequel to this Tallest Christmas Tree Act.<\/p>\n

If Christmas was your symbolic theme to bring about happy faces in your 20 million multi-religious peoples lets follow this up with a Sequel 2<\/strong> –\u00a0 ArjunSanta brings clean water to Raja Rata\u2019s parched people.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Yahapalanaya Government has the money, Minister Arjuna Ranatunga has contacts of Sponsors to collect millions of rupees with ease, \u00a0let\u2019s declare March 2017 as ArjunSanta\u2019s\u00a0 Raja Rata Christmas, to help the people of Raja Rata win their \u00a0battle for \u00a0clean \u00a0drinking Water as Water is \u00a0Life.<\/p>\n

The backgrounder for ArjunSanta\u2019s Raja Rata \u00a0March 2017 Christmas<\/strong> is this \u2013<\/p>\n

In December 2016, almost a year ago, a news report read \u2013<\/p>\n

As drought conditions become increasingly severe, the people of the Raja Rata region are engaging in a battle to find water…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

People walking to the main road in search of water is a common sight in villages like Kohomba Damana and Maha Ambagaswewa in Medirigiriya, Polonnaruwa,<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

All that is left in some villages in this region which is famed for its mighty reservoirs, is muddy water.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A News 1st<\/sup> team in the area met a mother, who has been tasked with removing soil from the well which her husband digs every evening when he returns from work as a hired labourer.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Throughout the day, she suppresses her own thirst as she searches for even a drop of water to give her children<\/em><\/strong>………….(and the \u00a0heart-breaking story goes on.)<\/p>\n

Mr. President and Mr. Prime Minister, for God\u2019s sake don\u2019t you two tell me that you have insensitive hearts that refuse to bleed \u00a0for these people, and that your tear ducts are dried up to shed \u00a0even a tear or two for these suffering people at Raja Rata. Come on… please be human for once!\u00a0 Give them a life…give them a break!<\/p>\n

Sequel 2 of the Tallest Christmas Tree Proposal<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my proposal for your Sequel 2, pick it up and run with it.<\/p>\n

Have two large sleighs built and fill them with a million bottles of clean drinking water.\u00a0 Dress Minister Arjuna Ranatunga\u00a0 as \u00a0ArjunSanta,<\/em><\/strong> and get the ten Port Truck drivers whose dream was to build the tallest Christmas Tree pull the sleighs with their trucks with their Minister ArujunSanta, <\/em><\/strong>along the Raja Rata Roads distributing the million bottles of\u00a0 clean drinking water to people who are parched and sick without clean drinking water.\u00a0 I will provide the drivers with reindeer horned -skullcaps to wear to pretend to be reindeer.\u00a0 And if one of the truck drivers want to be the red-nosed reindeer, I will supply him with a circus clown\u2019s rubber red nose.<\/p>\n

And use this event to announce the Yahapalanaya Good Governance\u2019 promise that you will provide 1000 rain water-harvesting tanks by the end of 2017. Failing, give them the OK by saying if we don\u2019t provide you with these tanks, then you have every right to remove us from office with your democratic vote, which is your democratic right.\u00a0 Provide them with that green-light.\u00a0 And that is democracy at work.<\/p>\n

The Tamil Nadu government is taking care of their flesh and blood by providing the Tamils in Northern Sri Lanka \u00a0with 3000 rain water-harvesting tanks to sustain their lives.\u00a0\u00a0 If they can look after their Dravidian kith and kin, how come you cannot look after your own flesh and blood in Raja Rrata.\u00a0 Come on gentlemen, let\u2019s be human.<\/p>\n

Do it Mr. President, do it Mr. Prime Minister.\u00a0 It is your call now. \u00a0Provide these poor people clean drinking water.\u00a0 Give them a life….as they deserve the right to live with dignity as every Parliamentary MP who with their new monthly perk of Rs.100,000, will find it easy to float their tired bodies in baths of fresh drinking water and gulp a mouth full when they want to.<\/p>\n

Oops! Mr. Prime Minister, I do recall reading, you saying, The monthly payment of Rs.100,000 to be given to each MP is not a take-home allowance but one which will be used to help the people on their constituencies.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Perfect…..and I love it.\u00a0\u00a0 Well………..! Now let us see you as Prime Minister act like the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka ordering the MPs of Raja Rata to spend that allowance to provide his\/her constituents with Rain water-harvesting tanks, when they start receiving this allowance.\u00a0 Let them know that one rain water-harvesting tank for a family of five would only cost 75,000 rupees.<\/p>\n

I hope you will consider my proposal of the Tallest Christmas Tree\u2019s Sequel 2 to provide clean drinking water to the people of Raja Rata. After all….they were the ones who voted you all in to govern Sri Lanka.\u00a0 Didn\u2019t they! \u00a0And they could easily vote you out not to govern them, the next time around.\u00a0 And that is how the democratic cookie crumbles.<\/p>\n

I wish you Two a Happy New Year that will provide you wisdom to govern Sri Lanka and not sell parcels of its prime real estate to one ethnic group in particular, as Sri Lanka is not your parent\u2019s property, as every square-inch\u00a0 of land even parts that are covered with water belongs to the 20 million peoples of all ethnic groups. And that includes the north and east of the island.\u00a0 Perhaps you will let the man in the North with a blood red third eye between his eyebrows \u00a0as that is how it has been…it is…and that is how it will ever be. And ask him to behave himself and not create problems for you two.<\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n

Asoka Weerasinghe (Mr.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Asoka Weerasinghe Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . K1J 6G1 . Canada 27 December, 2016 OPEN LETTER to Hon. Maithripala Sirisena, President of Sri Lanka Presidential Secretariat Galle Face Colombo 1 Sri Lanka & Hon. Ranil Wickremesinghe, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. Prime Minister\u2019s Office Colombo 1, Sri Lanka cc; His Eminence Archbishop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asoka-weerasinghe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61842","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=61842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}