{"id":91272,"date":"2019-07-11T14:18:20","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T21:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=91272"},"modified":"2019-07-11T14:20:07","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T21:20:07","slug":"philip-gunawardene-swrd-wimala-wijewardene-ranil-ruwan-and-lake-house-continued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/07\/11\/philip-gunawardene-swrd-wimala-wijewardene-ranil-ruwan-and-lake-house-continued\/","title":{"rendered":"PHILIP GUNAWARDENE, SWRD, WIMALA WIJEWARDENE, RANIL, RUWAN AND LAKE HOUSE \u2013 continued"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mario Perera, Kadawata<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

I\nrefer to the comment made by Dr. M.D.P.Dissanayake regarding the article\ntitled: PHILIP GUNAWARDENE, SWRD, WIMALA WIJEWARDENE, RANIL, RUWAN AND LAKE\nHOUSE <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr.M.D.P.D.writes:\nMrs B made a tremendous contribution….she had a great minister…who held\nmore than half of ministerial portfolios….<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\n‘tremendous contribution’ was totally negative. She brought the country to\ntotal ruin, impoverishing it beyond measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed\nshe made the entire nation eat ‘ala, batala, magnocca’ statutorily twice a\nweek. There was no food for the people. Restaurants were empty. No milk even\nfor newborn children. The transport system was in tatters keeping commuters\nwaiting in queues for endless hours often under heavy rainfall. So was the\nmedical system. The required medicines were not available. The same situation\nprevailed with regard to schools and universities with no books or reference\nmaterial available. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\nintroduced abhorrent foreign exchange laws putting people in chains, even tying\nthem with chains to their hospital beds for their slightest violation. Going\nabroad was the prerogative of the ultra-rich, like her children. For all\npractical purposes Sri Lanka became an ‘iron curtain’ country, holding in the\npoor, the impoverished, the dissidents, and the politically oppressed. All this\nwas well brought out in the film ‘SAGARAYAK MEDA’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\nand her party became so detestable that at the 1977 election the SLFP won only\n8 seats…so much for Mrs B who the learned Dr. says ‘made a tremendous\ncontribution. Her crash to the ground was so ruthless, that it snuffed out her\npolitical life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes\nDr.D, the SLFP during her tenure as PM had, as you have rightly mentioned, only\ntwo power wielders: Mrs B and her ‘great minister’. Mrs B, as Dr.D\nunintentionally shows, destroyed democracy. It was she who brought ‘family\nrule’ to its apex point in the country’s modern history. She tried to impress\non the world stage, especially as the leader of the non-aligned movement. The\nnon-aligned conference under her leadership was a display of her personal glory\nand power, and was also intended to influence the general elections which were\nround the corner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nthe people, forced to live on empty stomachs with absolutely nothing to hold on\nto, whatever the domain, made her bite the dust. Her ‘great Minister who held\nmore than half the ministerial portfolios’ lost his seat. Newspapers stated\nthat when his defeat was announced, he was so distraught that he left the scene\nleaving his wife behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mrs\nB, for all her ‘tremendous contribution’ never made it to the political stage\nagain. It was a lady tottering with age and morally downcast, on a wheel chair\nand suffering from dementia, that was made Prime Minster by her daughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr.D,\nmentions Catholic action as being responsible for the attempted coup and for\nSWRD’s death. How Catholic were the military men involved in the coup is\nanyone’s guess, but does he not know that the murderers of SWRD were\nBuddharakitha, Somarama and associates? Where does Catholic action come into\nthat picture?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes\nMrs.B, took over the Catholic schools and nationalized every private sector\nventure. Present day developments in the field of education and the service\nsectors do not lead to a glorification of her hasty decisions. She pulled down\neverything at a moment’s notice, more in a display of personal vanity than\npolitical acumen, but nothing of substance arose from that destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mario\nPerera,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kadawata<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mario Perera, Kadawata I refer to the comment made by Dr. M.D.P.Dissanayake regarding the article titled: PHILIP GUNAWARDENE, SWRD, WIMALA WIJEWARDENE, RANIL, RUWAN AND LAKE HOUSE Dr.M.D.P.D.writes: Mrs B made a tremendous contribution….she had a great minister…who held more than half of ministerial portfolios…. That ‘tremendous contribution’ was totally negative. She brought the country to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mario-perera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91272","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=91272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}