{"id":86267,"date":"2019-03-10T16:02:57","date_gmt":"2019-03-10T23:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=86267"},"modified":"2019-03-10T16:02:57","modified_gmt":"2019-03-10T23:02:57","slug":"in-search-of-treacherous-vibhishana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/03\/10\/in-search-of-treacherous-vibhishana\/","title":{"rendered":"IN SEARCH OF TREACHEROUS VIBHISHANA"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Udaya P Gammanpila\u00a0Courtesy Ceylon Today<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
\n

The glorious King Ravana ruled Sri Lanka 4,500 years ago. \u00a0He was known as \u2018Dasabala\u2019 because of his expert knowledge in ten different subjects. Somebody may allege that Ravana\u2019s achievements have been exaggerated by historians. Surprisingly, King Ravana\u2019s abilities and achievements have been elaborated not by his followers but by his rival Indians. \u00a0Ramayanaya of Valmiki is the most well-known epic of Ravana.<\/p>\n

According to the Ramayanaya, Ravana had a fleet of planes and a seven-story palace. \u00a0Ravana\u2019s civilization and knowledge system was destroyed by Indian invaders because of the betrayal by his younger brother, Vibishana.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rama was in fear of waging war against the battle-hardened illustrious King Ravana. But he had no choice. His wife was in Ravana\u2019s captivity in retaliation of cutting the nose of Princess Suprnika, the only sister of Ravana, by Rama\u2019s brother Lakshman. \u00a0Although Rama was duty bound to rescue his wife, Ravana and his warrior brother Kumbakarna\u2019s military skills had instilled fear in Rama\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n

Betrayal<\/strong><\/p>\n

While Rama had launched a rescue operation risking his life, he unexpectedly had a great fortune. \u00a0Vibishana, the youngest brother of Ravana, joined him with the war secrets of Ravana. \u00a0Hence, Rama was able to conquer Sri Lanka after killing both Ravana and Kumbakarna. \u00a0In appreciation of Vibishana\u2019s contribution for the victory, Rama appointed him as the puppet king of Lanka. \u00a0Invaders were able to conquer the motherland because of the betrayal committed by the youngest brother of King Ravana.<\/p>\n

History repeats itself. Vibishana was reborn as Princess Kuveni to betray the motherland. \u00a0She was a niece of King Mahakalasena who ruled Sri Lanka 2,600 years ago. King Sinhabahu deported his son Prince Vijaya and his gang in a ship. \u00a0The ship accidently reached the shores of Mannar. \u00a0The gang first met Princess Kuveni and she fell in love with Prince Vijaya at first sight. Because of her blind love for the prince, she agreed to kill her own relations and crown Prince Vijaya as the king of Lanka.<\/p>\n

She chose the deep night of a royal wedding celebration to launch the conspiracy. The entire royal family and the top brass of the kingdom were in deep sleep as a result of liquor and prolonged dancing. \u00a0Princess Kuveni brought Vijaya and the gang into the palace secretly. They easily assassinated the royal family who were sleepy and drunk. \u00a0Vijaya was then crowned as king of Lanka!<\/p>\n

Killed<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vibishana was rewarded with the crown for his great betrayal. \u00a0Princess Kuveni was not fortunate enough to receive such appreciation. \u00a0Instead, King Vijaya banished Kuveni and her children after marrying an Indian princess. When she went back to her clan, furious relations of Kuveni killed her. \u00a0Betrayal of the motherland because of personal interests did not cease after the death of Kuveni. \u00a0It has been repeated throughout history.<\/p>\n

We are now in the era of neocolonialism. We are governed by a puppet government controlled by imperialists and separatists. \u00a0Despite many attempts, the Government managed to give over to foreign hands only the Hambantota Port.<\/p>\n

However, the Government has already finalised agreements to give over to foreign hands the Oil Tank Farm in Trincomalee, sea ports in Galle, Trincomalee and Kankesanturai along with the airports at Mattala, Batticaloa and Palali. Additionally, all tolled expressways and the Norochcholai Power Plant are earmarked to be sold to foreigners.<\/p>\n

The separatist federal constitution has already been tabled in the Constitutional Assembly. The next step is to table it in Parliament after publishing it in the Gazette. \u00a0Instruments required for hunting war heroes such as Office of Missing Persons Act are now in place. The Reparation Office has been established to pay compensation to terrorists. \u00a0The Government has commenced to withdraw Army camps from strategic locations. \u00a0Terrorist-friendly Anti-terrorism Bill has been brought to replace the Prevention of Terrorist Act.<\/p>\n

Defeating UNP crucial<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this backdrop, defeating the UNP at the forthcoming presidential election is crucial in deciding the motherland\u2019s destiny. \u00a0Hence, first of all, we should ensure holding of the presidential election by defeating the 20th Amendment to the Constitution (20A) which has been brought to abolish the executive presidency. \u00a0If the 20A is enacted, people would lose the only election which cannot be postponed quoting delimitation of electorates as the excuse.<\/p>\n

That is because there is no need of delimitation for the presidential election as the entire country is considered as one electorate. Secondly, we should field the most attractive candidate for the presidential election.
\nGotabaya Rajapaksa has emerged as the most attractive candidate across political parties. Both nationalist and leftist political parties have endorsed him although the SLPP is yet to do so.<\/p>\n

It may be pertinent to mention here that the UNP is the ultimate beneficiary of promoting alternative candidates for the candidacy of the JO.<\/p>\n

Thirdly, the broadest possible alliance should be formed to secure Gota\u2019s victory. \u00a0The SLPP obtained only 42% at the last LA election. Hence, it needs additional 8% to pass the 50 per cent threshold. We should seek the support of other parties for this purpose.<\/p>\n

We faced the presidential election in 2010 within nine months of the military victory over the LTTE. \u00a0Hence, Mahinda\u2019s popularity was at its peak. \u00a0Nevertheless, we broad-based our alliance by inviting insignificant parties such as parties known as husband-wife party and father-daughters party. \u00a0As a result, we were able to record an excellent victory.
\nWe faced the presidential election in 2015 when Mahinda\u2019s popularity had hit rock bottom.<\/p>\n

However, Maithripala Sirisena was harassed compelling him to be the UNP candidate. \u00a0I personally knew the circumstances which compelled the JHU to leave the UPFA. \u00a0As the end result, reputed Mahinda was comfortably defeated by his own party secretary.<\/p>\n

If we are genuinely interested in winning the forthcoming presidential election, we should adopt the strategy of 2010. \u00a0If our ulterior motive is to defeat our own candidate, we should then adopt the strategy of 2015.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Udaya P Gammanpila\u00a0Courtesy Ceylon Today The glorious King Ravana ruled Sri Lanka 4,500 years ago. \u00a0He was known as \u2018Dasabala\u2019 because of his expert knowledge in ten different subjects. Somebody may allege that Ravana\u2019s achievements have been exaggerated by historians. Surprisingly, King Ravana\u2019s abilities and achievements have been elaborated not by his followers but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86267","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=86267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}