Friday 23 January 2015

Open letter to the President Maitripala Sirisena,

Your Excellency the President,

My felicitations for your election as the President of Sri Lanka,

Some voted for you and some against you.  That is understandable as it is how democracy works.  Therefore when you became the President some people were happy, while those whose candidate  lost at the election were  sad and dejected.  Now that you have won the elections and sworn in as the  President of Sri Lanka you should be generous and graceful in victory, and request your entourage to be like wise.

You cannot denounce  or allow your  partners in victory to stamp their feet on the lost  candidate and invent accusations  with a view to make him unpopular, because it would any way be a vein exercise as a little more than 49  percent of the whole voting population, and 53 percent of the Sinhala Buddhists voted for him. 

However much your partners in government are raking up all dirt to find out whether  they can bring up some thing to nail the  former President Mahinda Rajapakse  they will find nothing against him or against his family members.  The people of this country who voted for the former President Mahinda Rajapakse  cannot be deceived to believe  by  false allegations without  any substantial proof  against him, that he was  corrupt and robbed the country.

Mahinda Rajapakse or his brothers did not come to rob and accumulate ill earned wealth to lead a comfortable life.  As you know very well Your Excellency  Mahinda Rajapakse had a clear objective when he contested the Presidential election  in 2005.  You know without  my having to remind you the state in which this country was in 2005. Mahinda Rajapakse had two main objectives when he was elected President in 2005. 

One was to defeat the terrorists and eliminate them. The second was to give back to Sri Lanka and its people the development of the infrastructure-roads bridges, railway, irrigation system, and provide financial and  social progress they had been deprived for 30 long years. He mad it his principle objective to develop the North where the people “ he thought” suffered most from terrorism.

In the latter Your Excellency, the former President Mahinda Rajapakse made a mistake , because the Tamils in the North got the best they could from him, and voted against him.  The Sinhala in the South would have voted for him any way, but he could have taken half the funds spent for the development of the Tamils in the north to spend it in the south,because the Sinhala people also suffered from terrorism.  But the former President Mahinda Rajapakse treated all people without a difference, but it would have been natural if he expected the Tamils  to show their gratitude by voting for him.

Your Excellency, it has been reported that  you have since your swearing in as the President of Sri Lanka made three good speech.  They are perhaps of general interest. But the time has come for you to make more frequent speeches and on policy matters  and the comportment of your Ministers to remind them of their moral duty to be kind and generous to the vanquished-Maitri Palanaya demands just that.

You have to tell the people Your Excellency, why this  intolerable witch hunt to inculpate the President and his family for crimes they have not committed. The Police  Force is sent to investigate their homes and homes of their friends and neighbours immediately complaints are made on flimsiest matters.

All your Ministers  are out  raking  so much of dirt in search of evidence against the Rajapakses some people say sarcastically you have not appointed Ministers to your cabinet but sanitary inspectors.

Your Excellency,  the Ranil Wickramasinghe , Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Champika Ranawake the most important people  in your government today want  to remove your executive powers.  But Your  Excellency you are today already without any power despite  being an Executive President.   It is  Ranil Wickramasinghe, as the Prime Minster  who decides for you .  He wants the 13th  Amendment implemented. 

Is it not wrong to do so and allow the Tamils eventually  create a separate Tamil Eelam State in the north, which Prabhakaran the terrorist wanted ? 

Ranil Wickramasinghe could be a dangerous Prime Minister to work with .  You remember what happened when he became the  Prime Minister under President Chandrika Kumaratunga ?  He signed the  CFA with Prabhakaran  and it took  a President like Mahinda Rajapakse to rectify that great error.  This time he is trying to do the same thing and it appears that you cannot have your say on the matter.

You are hedged in  between  Anura Kumara Dissanayake with the powers of the National Executive Committee, then  with Champika Ranawake of the JHU, Ranil Wickramasinghe  your Prime Minister and Mangala Samara Samaraweera who is building an unholy alliance with India and trying to sell off the Sovereignty of Sri Lanka inviting the UN and an International  Commission to inquire into what happened during the last phase of the war against terrorists. They all stand tall over you and plan and arrange things  without even consulting you from what we see from far.

Worse things are on the pipe line Your Excellency, and one begins to wonder whether it is wise for you to divest  yourself of your Executive Powers.

Your Excellency, Our Constitution is the supreme law of the land .   “The Constitution sets out a regular procedure for enacting Constitutional amendments, and that procedure gives citizens an opportunity, albeit a brief and limited one, to challenge proposed amendments before the Supreme Court.  Citizens have this same right with respect to any proposed new law. ”

Your Prime Minister Your Excellency is proposing to bring Amendments to the Constitution  within the 100 days of your interim government under the Urgent Bill provision.  It is wrong to bring any amendment to the Constitution  without a  serious debate.  No amendments should be made  to the Constitution  in a “hurry” resorting to the Urgent Bill Provision.
 “The “Urgent Bills” provision allows the president and the Cabinet to bypass the normal procedure for enacting new laws, which means citizens do not have a chance to challenge the proposed law, at the Bill stage, even to the limited extent they are normally allowed.  All that is needed to pass an “urgent Bill” is an endorsement by the Cabinet that the Bill in question is “urgent in the national interest,” and a two-thirds majority in Parliament on the day the vote is taken on the Bill. 
With regular legislation (i.e. proposed laws other than Constitutional amendments) the law in question, even if it is passed as an “Urgent Bill” it can be repealed later with just a simple majority in Parliament.  So, for instance, if a law passed as an “Urgent Bill” becomes obnoxious to the people later on, it can be repealed by a simple majority in Parliament, and that’s the end of the matter.
With a Constitutional amendment, if it becomes obnoxious later on, a simple majority in Parliament cannot repeal it.  One has to obtain a two-thirds majority, which is obviously much more difficult.
So, in essence, what using the “Urgent Bill” provision to enact Constitutional Amendments does is, it deprives the citizen of even the limited chance he or she has to challenge the proposed amendment before it becomes law, and makes it more or less impossible to repeal the new amendment were it to become obnoxious later on.  It is a thoroughly dangerous invention, to say the least. “ (Dharshan Weerasekara -
Your Excellency there are many things taking place  in your Interim Government which you should personally look into, as otherwise Your Ministers including the Prime Minister Your Excellency  have their own Agendas some times distantly controlled by foreign governments.  Therefore it is time that you come out of your silence and make your self heard, and stop any action which is not in the larger interest of the country and the people.

Your Excellency we are still not ready to implement the whole of the 13Amendment ,nor are we still ready to reduce the Armed Forces in the North.   The TNA should not be allowed to make North an entirely Tamil region without allowing Sinhala people to settle down  where ever it pleases them,  as it is happening in the South with the Tamils.

Thank you, Your Excellency,


Charles.S.Perera





No comments: