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Hate Mongers, and a Joker
By Charles.S.Perera
Sri Lanka is not short of hate mongers. There are those from the Sri Lanka Tamil diaspora, who have made hate mongering an art. But then there are the local hate mongers who have even organised themselves in style. One of them is Mangala Samaraweera , who makes "some thing" of any thing to do his hate mongering in fashion. He has set up a special platform with a sign board on the background which reads " Defence Watch". From there he gives his press interviews. The platform is available to other hate mongers of the same ilk.
In the latest press conference Mangala Samaraweera speaks of back street politics of the government, which is apparently a means not to take care of the military challenges in the battle field. Then he speaks of the people in the south donating soap and tooth paste to the army , which he says is the duty of the government which has a defence budget of 177 billion for such expenditure. He then complains of the neglect of providing necessary gear to the army officials to face the onslaught, thus disabling thousands of young men. He showed photos to support his statement. He has turned out to be a defender of the army, leaving aside its Commander and the Defence Secretary.
All that talk about the neglect of soldiers is like the bubbles coming out of a bottle of soda tilted into a glass before the real stuff gets poured in. The real matter he wants to broach before the press is about what the government should not do, such as buying air condition Benz cars to the army commander, who he had said in a previous press conference is not good even to command the Salvation Army. Then of course he mentions the foreign tours to Rome and Turkey at a cost of 1.5 million Dollars as another wastage.
The most important declaration is yet to come. Mangala Samaraweera , the "wise man" he pretends to be , points out to Indian Ministers and other Official who resigned after Mumbai mayhem, and says loud and clear that in Sri Lanka if there is any dignity left the Defence Secretary,and the Army Commander should resign for creating an impasse in war. This man Mangala Samaraweera is either a "fool" or suffering from dementia.
Next hate monger is Tissa Attanayake, the UNP General Secretary. He also climbs on to the same platform of " Defence Watch ", for the press conference. He replaces the term "back street politics" to "hobby horse" of the government which apparently is the "war", which had given rise to lot of malpractices. One malpractice is " Api Wenuwen Api" which was set up by the government to provide free shelter to military families, which he criticises for its lack of transparency.
Tissa Attanayake points out to a serious question of credibility of this project, in which the government has sold the houses at Rs.800, 000 to each family on a loan scheme of highly corrupt nature. He does not elaborate, but jumps on to another matter of grant of a compensation of Rs.100,000 to military families, at a rate fixed in 1977/78, which has not been increased in line with the high cost of living today.
The other accusation seems to be more serious, which is that when a soldier dies the government merely says he is missing in action to avoid payment of the compensation. Worst still; according to him is the serious social question caused by keeping 2500 deserters in the Welikada Jail.
Are our people really gullible to this type of stories concocted by failed politicians holding onto any straw before they sink into their own filth they emit from all cracks and crevices of their hate bloated bodies ? These failed politicians who come to defend the army now, are the same people who some time back belittled the Sri Lanka Government forces. When the Government Forces captured Toppiagala , they said Toppiagala is just jungle land. And when it was reported. that the Government Forces captured a towns in terrorist controlled areas, the UNP said the terrorist had deserted the towns before the arrival of the Government Forces. These failed politicians do all they can to mislead the people and discredit the Government which is trying to put the country back into shape after thirty years of damage to it, and the suffering to the people caused by the terrorists.
Mano Ganeshan is the next hate monger in line. He is the more vociferous, no doubt he won the American Medal for Human Rights, or for rabble rousing .
He is an angry hatemonger. He expected UNP to abstain from voting for the Defence budget, specially after Ranga Bandara ( another hate monger) declared 12,000 deaths in the army during this regime. He, Ganeshan shows himself clever at analysing the situation. He says the UNP strategy is two fold, oppose the government on all issues, but support the war effort. Ganeshan breaks the UNP strategy into to clear poles. One is opposing "all other issues", and the other , "supporting the war". This, Ganeshan says, comes from the reality of the fact that the government has failed in all other issues, which all the people know. The other reality is the war, which even the government itself knows, is its only avenue of survival. How clever ? He is like one of these "mahadenamuttas" we have heard of when we were children. Ganeshan says that, if you oppose only "all other failures and issues" of the government, it does not weaken the government. Therefore, to support the war effort, is effectively to strengthen the government. He says that a campaign on "other failures and issues" would be effective, to discredit the government only if it is coupled with a campaign against the war effort as well. (Does it mean that even if the war effort is effective, it should be spoken of as a failure , merely to make the campaign against "other failures and issues" seem real ?) Mano Ganeshan explains that the "biggest" danger in the UNP's support of the war effort, is the danger of all Sinhala people deciding to support the government. He sees the logic of it this way, that is if UNP which is opposed to the government, and wants to topple it , begins to approve the government's war effort, why should the people agree to topple the government, and hand it over to the opposition. Therefore, unless the UNP and the other political parties on its side, challenge the war effort of the government nothing will change, and the government will continue to sit pretty where it is. Therefore, Ganeshn suggests, that the UNP, and the other Political Parties opposing the government, should use the strategy of "Challenging the War effort" how ever hard it is to do so, because, this government is not only ruthless, and a tyranny, but also, shameless. This Government, Mano Ganeshan says, stole the JVP War Flag, "which is magic for impunity, looting and hooting " and kicked out the JVP, which is now left without any credit for the war flag, the slogans and the campaigns which have been impounded by the government. And, to add to its misfortune, the JVP is now divided because of the government. To cut a long harangue short, Ganeshan adds that the UNP which was against war, and gave peace to people, and invented the 13th amendment at a great cost, is now left without any credibility to carry on a campaign against the government. The UNP , in supporting the government's war efforts, gives a life line to the government, and the people will think that it is foolish to vote UNP back into power. There are of course other hate mongers from the JVP such as Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Lal Kantha, Wijitha Herath , but the three quoted above are the " crème de la crème" of hate mongers. The Joker "A man for all seasons" is Ranil Wickramasinghe. The joker can be substituted to any thing any time, a tooter of horns, pot breaker or a hate monger of the worst category, and more dangerous than the others. The latest statement by Ranil Wickramasinghe, against the Minister of Environment is a poisonous bomb. He does not seem to have been in complete control of his mental faculties , when he made that statement. Or he deliberately said that to create tension between the Government and the Muslim Community, he stands to loose nothing from it, knowing well that he is already a looser on all counts. Perhaps Ranil Wickramasinghe regrets the coming to an end of terrorism by Prabhakaran and wants to invite a more dangerous terrorism of the Al-Qaida type. He is a dangerous man, and the intelligent UNP sympathisers should demand this man's resignation from the Office of the President of the Good Old UNP. Ranil Wickramasinghe in making such a statement has made it clear that he is not suitable to represent the people of any electorate in the Parliament, least of all to be the President or even a Prime Minister. He is a Christian, trying to make the people believe he is a Buddhist. He does not understand why the Buddhist Girls' Schools do not accept religious distinctions to separate the students according to a communities, class, or religion. This sense of being alike as human beings, without exaggerating our differences, has to be taught from childhood. The Minister of Environment is intelligent and what ever action he has taken so far is to instil in the minds of all communities, the necessity to respect each one's cultural difference. Wickramasinghe should be ashamed of himself for broaching a subject that could cause dissension among communities. He is a man who does things and makes statements without considering their effect on different sections of the people. He will never make a good President of Sri Lanka. It appears that Ranil Wickramasinghe had made a proposal to amend the Constitution to allow the rules governing the grant of GSP+ to be included into it. A Constitution of a Sovereign State is not amended to accommodate rules relating to conventions and treaties, which are instruments ratified in the Legislative body of the country. As the Leader of the opposition Ranil Wickramasinghe should know that basic fact about conventions and treaties. This sadly is the man who leads the UNP, trying all dirty tricks he can think of to discredit the President Mahinda Rajapakse, and "topple" the government, so that he can become the Prime Minister of a UNP government. What a sad day it would be to Sri Lanka if he would ever come to power again ? He is a Christian, and knows nothing or very little about Buddhism, but does not stop misquoting Dhamma. Once he wanted to build the biggest Dagaba , without knowing we already have one. He had said that he would give gold chains to young girls, and watches to young men as an election promise. The membership of the UNP should open their eyes, and force the party to oust him from the leadership of the UNP. The people begin to question how UNP could change Sri Lanka to make
it a progressive country, if it cannot reform its own party by throwing
out a Leader who discredits the party and brought sixteen election defeats.
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