Monday 27 June 2016

Mahinda Rajapakse is a name that should remain for ever respected, honoured and written in gold in the pages of History..

yo appaduṭṭhassa narassa dussati
Suddhassa posassa ananganassa
Tam eva bālaṃpaccheti pāpaṃ
Sukhumo rajo paṭivātaṃ va khitto

(125 Dhammapada)
Like fine dust thrown against the wind, evil falls back upon that fool who offends an inoffensive, pure, and guiltless man.

If Sri Lanka government seeks the applause of  USA and the west Sri Lanka can be sure to remain undeveloped and dependent on USA and the west. That is what had been the foreign policy of the USA and the West. We saw how USA Ambassador Robert O’Blake, UK and French Foreign Secretaries,  Hillary Clinton reacted to progressive development plans, and Sri Lanka’s economic development under Mahinda Rajapakse.

Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickramasinghe are already caught in the tangled political  net of  USA and  the West, Ravi Karunanayake  the Finance Minister will never be able to produce a people friendly budget to ease the economic burden of the people with a rising high cost of living.  Mangala Samaraweera as much as Ranil Wickramasinghe have been adopted the lapdogs of USA and the West.

USA presented its  resolution against Sri Lanka in Geneva before Sirisena-Ranil government was formed , to make governing difficult for the former President Mahinda Rajapakse.  Every Sri Lankan who suffered under terrorism for 30 odd years knows that the military operations against terrorism were a necessary evil, to bring peace and security to Sri Lank and its people. USA too new that terrorism cannot be handled with velvet gloved hands, and a war against terrorism has to be fought with utmost severity  even  at risk to civilian lives.

USA and its allies used the NATO forces against their terrorists outside their own countries thus without risk to their own people, and caring very little for the loss of civilian lives  in those countries they selected to devastate with bombs and canon fire. Later on they turned  their guns and bombed countries to remove lawful governments, killing thousands of civilians. USA tortured captured civilians both in Abu Grahib prisons  and Guanano Bay Camps.

But why are UN and great Human rights activists Silent?  Why is there no resolution presented at UN Human Rights Council in Geneva against USA and its allies for violation of Human Rights and war crimes ?

No one thought of passing a resolution in the UN Human Rights Council against the USA and its allies  calling for accountability and for war crimes. Therefore the countries which voted the USA ‘s resolution against Sri Lanka for the violation of human rights and war crimes in the elimination of terrorists in Sri Lanka are guilty of the murders and atrocities committed by the Tamil terrorists  against the people of Sri Lanka.

Therefore, Sri Lanka in the elimination of terrorists had not committed any war crime. Any civilian deaths in that necessary war against terrorism, was collateral. However, those unfortunate civilian deaths saved thousands of civilian deaths  if the terrorism was allowed to continue without military intervention. Hence,  no one-USA or the West has the right to come forward now to call for accountability or accuse the Armed Forces of Sri Lanka for war crimes.

We may as well ask the USA and its allies to pass any resolution against Sri Lanka and that Sri Lanka will not accept those resolutions valid as long as USA, which has violated human rights, committed war crimes,  and did not respect the sovereignty of  States like Pakistan to trespass into it by force to murder a residents of that country, is called to account and answer for the  crimes it has committed against nations.

If not Sri Lanka should leave the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, which has  accepted a resolution against Sri Lanka which rightfully eliminated terrorism, by USA which is a country guilty of human right violations and war crimes and therefore USA has no right what so ever to  accuse Sri Lanka for similar crimes, and pass any resolution against it.

It was stupid that Mangala Samaraweera’s over-enthusiasm on being the Foreign Minister of Sirisena-Ranil-Chndrika government that he embraced  the USA anti Sri Lanka resolution as if it was a  God’s  gift. Not stopping at that Ranil Wickramsinghe sponsored the resolution against his own country.

Can we call these men  Ranil Wickramasinghe , Mangala Samaraweera and Maithripala Sirisena-who did not speak out against sponsoring the USA Resolution against Sri Lanka patriot  of Sri Lanka

USA and the West treating this Yahapalanaya Government of Sirisena and Ranil  submissive and acts with an unquestioning obedience has not even withdrawn the anti Sri Lanka resolution which they were using as a  means to change “Rajapakse Regime” of Sri Lanka.

The State Department of USA on the advice of its Assistant Secretary of South Asia Robert Blake who was a friend of Sri Lanka Terrorist Prabhakaran and Tamil Selvam, and  sympathiser of the Sri Lank terrorists, took punitive action against the President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapakse for going ahead with the  military operations to eliminate  terrorism against the advise of the State Department of USA. 

Why should the world accept USA as a global policeman, acting as if it has the right to decide on the internal policies of any Sovereign State in the world? 

USA has never t acted in the interest of any developing country.  USA takes action against countries in its own interest. This can be stopped only by the UNO with a proper leadership- with the Secretary General of UNO being a politically neutral person who cannot be manipulated by USA.  Ban ki Moon  cannot unfortunately be accepted as an independent Secretary General of the UNO . He acts in the interest  of USA and the West.

If  President Mahinda Rajapkse had listened to USA at the the time, and instead of military operations against terrorism had rounds after  rounds of peace negotiations with the terrorists, there would still  be  terrorism in Sri Lanka,  and our people would have continued to be murdered and massacred in thousands. 

If the American State Department would look at this  probability with intelligence they will undoubtedly realise  that the number of deaths of civilians in the actual elimination of terrorists( which it says 40 000, going by the Darusman Report) in May, 2009,would be comparatively insignificant.

The people of Sri Lanka are therefore grateful that the President Mahinda Rajapksa did not listen to the USA  State Department and instead carried on with the military operations until the complete elimination of terrorism.

Hence the former President Mahinda Rajapaks, his government and his  Armed Forces   are guiltless of the accusations made against them by USA in its infamous  resolution  passed  at the UNHRCouncil in Genevca.

America true to its regime change mania in the developing countries, saw a politically strategic danger in the excessive closeness of China with Sri Lanka of Mahinda Rajapakse. America knowing the strategic importance of Sri Lanka to control the south and checkmate any developments that would be a danger to its assumed leadership in the south seas, was planning to take  measures to  change  President Mahinda Rajapakse goverment in  Sri Lanka. 

They began by encouraging  their  Local Agents Ranil Wickramasinghe, and Chandrika Kumaratunga to create an uprising  of people against the Government in line with the Arab summer that ousted the Presidents of Egypt and Tunisia. 

Ranil and his UNP tried their best to make issues with the murder of the editor of Sunday leader Lasantha Wickramaratne,  and  using the funeral of a Tamil member of UNP assassinated by the LTTE, and again on army shooting at the manifestation in Rathupusellawa,  and with the shooting of the strikers manifesting in the industrial zone, but none of these attempts of the UNP leader were successful to raise the people  against the President Mahinda Rajapkse.

The President Mahinda Rajapakse is so popular amoung the people that they would not rise  against him and his government. The people were willing to suffer the burden of a rising cost of living rather than change the government of Mahinda Rajapakse for that.

Finally American State Department unable to find a means  to oust the government of Mahinda Rajapakse, arranged for Ranil Wickramasinghe the leader of the UNP a scholarship in the Massachuset University of Technology  to follow a course on “ How to Change Governments.” It was then that the USA State Department, and the  CIA may have worked out a  plan along with Ranil Wickramasinghe . 

The plan was to accuse  the President Mahinda Rajapakse , his family and all those connected to him as having misappropriated State funds for their  personal use. They saw that it will go down well with the people as Sri Lanka was receiving millions of dollars for various projects of development undertaken by President Mahinda Rajapakse’s Government, and one can be made to suspect that there may be some truth  that some of  the money  from the billions the government is receiving may have found their way into the  pockets of those in power.

It was no secret that the Ministers Ravi Karunanayake, and Karu Jayasuriya and others in the UNP Government of Ranil Wickramasinghe of 2002, and even the President Chandrika Kumaratunga are known to have made financial gains when Sri Lanka was  getting comparatively less money from the sale of Sathosa by Ravi Karunanayake, illegl transfer of state land for private Golf Course - Waters Edge by Chandrika , and signing a cotract with Agrekko Ltd for a financial deal without Treasury or cabinet approval by Karu Jayasuriya. 
Even G.G.Ponnambalam was accused of taking commissions on a agriculture Tracks deal.

The people may therefore  begin to doubt, they-USA regime change group , CID and Ranil had argued,  that there may be some truth about the hue and cry raised against Mahanda Rajapakse and the Ministers of his Government to have misappropriated  from the vast sums of money pouring into the country.

That was how the accusations of  bribery and corruption and stealing of  state funds for personal use , having foreign Bank Accounts and money laundering etc.,against the Rajapaksa family       and Directors, of various Companies that thrived under President Rajapakse, came about. 

There may have been some who made money during the Presidency of Mahinda Rajapakse, but certainly not the President Mahinda Rajapakse and his family. Mahinda Rajapakse could not have carried out the Mahinda Chintanaya if he was syphoning off funds for his personal use.

Mahinda Rajapakse would surely not have resorted to misappropriating state funds as he knew that he would be at the centre of an inquiry by any future  government of an opposition party coming into power.  Further more Mahinda Rajapakse would not have stooped to any corrupt activity as he would have liked to have a clean name as an incorrupt and an honest leader, as he was trusted, loved and dear to his people.

However that scandal raised by UNP and the JVP worked to a certain extent to change the attitude of the people against President Mahinda Rajapakse, but a greater number of intelligent people knew that if state funds were misappropriated in large sums the Sri Lanka would not have seen such extensive  development to the country,  which was fighting a costly war against the terrorists, and at the same time developing the country as it had never been developed before.

During the Presidency of Mahinda Rajapakse the whole of Sri Lanka was a “ huge construction sight”. There was work being carried out everywhere, in the south, north, west and east of Sri Lanka. Highways were being built , bridges were being opened, hospitals, school, power houses, harbours, and airports were being built. There was work and development in progress according to the billions of funds pouring in from China, Japan,IMF, etc.

This false accusation of corruption against Mahinda Rajapakse and his family had gone to such an extent that even  some media thought to be respectable try to maintain their respectability by not  completely denying such false rumours of corruption,  but keeping the doubt open sort  of  “in case ?”…….

The Island of 8 June,2016 in its Editorial “Vili Lajja” says:

“The Rajapaksa government was castigated—and rightly so—for wasting public funds to maintain the ostentatious lifestyles of its politicians and their backers. Those at the levers of power changed last year but one sees no difference between the previous regime and its successor anent spending sprees; they are tweedledum and tweedledee in that respect. The government has demonstrated once again that it does not hesitate to act out of expediency rather than principle to safeguard its political interests.”
How can the Island compare this government of Sirisena-Ranil which has done absolutely nothing since 8th January, 2015, but dragged the country backward, compare it to Rajapakse Government, which  contributed positively to Sri Lanka from 2005 to 8 January,2015.
The Island  adds, “  for wasting public funds to maintain the ostentatious lifestyles of its politicians and their backers”
Their lifestyles may have changed but they also helped the country to develop allowing the  people to have a better standard of living. Ostensible life style was also the result of a higher standard of living.
The media cannot deny, that the people lived well under the Presidency of Mahinda Rajapakse. It was a time when the government needed more money to spend both for the war against Tamil terrorists and develop the country. Yet the people were not neglected.  The Private sector too developed allowing their employees to have a better wage. The  government employees were also well paid and the university graduates were provided employment.
It is therefore wrong to try to please the gallery by saying that some of he money may have been siphoned off by the Rajapakse family to live an ostensible life style. It is a lie and scandalising the name that should remain respected, honoured and written in gold , for had it not been for Mahinda Rajapakse, we do not know for how long the people of Sri Lanka would have suffered  under control and fear of terrorism. 
There is no “Yes and But”, because  that is a fact. Those who deserve respected should  be respected, is inculcated into us as Buddhists. 
We cannot expect such refinement from Tamils and Muslims, one worshiping mythical Gods, and the other a God non- existent, who are late comers to Sri Lanka trying to take over the whole place, like the proverbial camel allowed to shove its head into the tent.


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