Oh! M'y God !! What has Yahapalanaya done to Sri Lanka.

What has become of Sri Lanka we had  the day before 8^th January,2015 ? What has the change to Yahapalanaya  meant to my poor Lanka?

The people have gained nothing since the change over from the Government of President Mahinda Rajapakse  to the government of President Maithripala Sirisena  pretentiously called  Yahapalanaya, but the Parliamentarians have got much. Most of them are plush , taken more weight, and ply in expensive limousines. They talk a lot but work a little , and pretends to be doing a lot.

The Yahapalanaya that came with a streamlined 100 day programme has ended up with no programme.  The stalwarts of the Yahapalanaya were Ranil Wickramasinghe and his UNP buddies. They thought that once they are in power the West will land here bringing  with them the much wanted US dollars, British sterling pounds and German marks and they can turn their back to China which would be an added incentive for the West to dump their monies the more here to invest in every industry under the sun.

Ranil Wickramasinghe  told China that Sri Lanka can do without them. Ranil Wickramasinghe and his predominantly UNP Government  told China that they  do not want China to go ahead with the  Colombo Port City, as it has been planned badly.

They put in place a master planner Champika Ranawaka to  re build the Colombo City with a larger land area. Ravi Karunanayake an experienced money handler who occupied the  money deposited with him by Raja Rajaratnam imprisoned in USA, was made the Minister of Finance. He thought he was turning out the best budget Sri Lanka ever had. But it soon fizzled out to be a “no-budget” being passed, re cast and re-passed  in Parliament several times and still with lot of un patched  “holes”. But yet the West named him the best Finance Minister in Asia.

Ranil Wickramasinghe appointed his prized genius Mangala Samaraweera as the Foreign Minister  to rope in the West to make Sri Lanka a “Singapore”, as  he had already recruited a Singapore Banking genius to come with his magic wand to make the Sri Lanka Central Bank “ lay golden eggs”.

Mangala Samaraweera the “prodigy” trusted to make miracles was to use his charm to win over the West at the snap of a finger.

Mangala Samaraweera went to Geneva without hesitation and sponsored  along with America the worst resolution USA had brought against Sri Lanka to take the Sri Lanka Armed Forces to a tribunal charged for war crimes, which had been long delayed due to lack of enthusiasm of the Previous Mahinda Rajapakse Government to allow  USA to pass such a resolution. Yahapalanaya sponsored that resolution hoping that the West in recognition would send hordes of investors to Sri Lanka to invest in development projects.

Having not received any encouraging signals from the West for the development of Sri Lanka other than lot of applause for following democracy to the letter and taking care of the interests of the minority Tamils, the Yahapalanaya Leadership thought that they may probe the possibility of turning to  Japan as an alternative investor for the development of Sri Lanka. But Japan  after giving Ranil Wickramasinghe an honorary degree, seems to have gone silent on investing on any development project of value  in Sri Lanka.

Now Yahapalanaya is like the cat that evacuated his bowels  on the rock. It has no idea as to what it should do next,  to make good the change it  promised to the people after defeating the  previous government of President Mahinda Rajapakse.

The Yahapalanaya then did what  some dogs do. A dog tries to bark away a bigger dog, and when the bigger dog shows his teeth and the claws  the aggressive small dog runs away, and later, on second thought, hides its tail between its legs  and crawls back to the stronger dog that chased him away.

Yahapalanaya that belittled and insulted China, stopping it from continuing with the Port City project for which the President of China Xi Jinping himself came to Sri Lanka to  lay the foundation stone, is now going back to China seeking their help. Yahapalanaya has at last realised that it  is only China that still helps the  developing countries  and not the rich Western friends of whom the Yahapalanaya spoke so highly and depended on making the people of Sri Lanka understand that they made  a better choice in  replacing the previous regime of Mahinda Rajapakse.

It is time that the Yahapalanaya  now learns from its mistakes and understand that President Mahinda Rajapakse was after all  a good man who did not take revenge by taking up the Batalanda file to punish Ranil Wickramasinghe or the Waters Edge Land  Transaction to embarrass and bring disrepute to Chandrika Kumaratunga.

Now these Yahapalana “Cats “ having done  what they should not have done on the rock  are glum faced without a clue as to what to do next. Not having received the expected response from the Western investors, or those from Japan, Ranil Wickramasinghe has turned in a big way to India.

But India is not ready to  aid Sri Lanka for its Buddhist or Ashokan connection, but the Indian Prime Minster knowing the failure of the Yahapalanaya of Sri Lanka to have attracted investors from the West, from Japan and from China knows that it has no alternative  now but to accept what ever is offered by India.  India however knows that what little they would give they will take back with  multiple interest for the benefit of India.

They invited the Prime Minister Modi of India to inaugurate the UN Wesak Day in Sri Lanka. But Modi made it an occasion to lecture on importance of India for Sri Lanka’s security, and that the population of Sri Lanka is an indivisible part of the 1.25 billion Indians in the neighbourhood.

It is not a good prospect as Sri Lanka cannot depend on India for security, as we saw it when Sri Lanka was engaged in  military operations to eliminate terrorism. India was not very dependable then as the  80 million Tamils at India’s southern tip dictated  Indian Central Government’s stand on the question of terrorism in Sri Lanka. Therefore can we again trust India for Sri Lanka’s security ?

India has a pressing unemployment problem.  Hence India is all out to sign the ETCA as it would be a solution  for its unemployment problem. India would like to annex the North of Sri Lanka and send  excessive Tamil population to North, and for that a Hanuman bridge and a railway to Trincomalee, would provide a passage for illegal immigrants coming  from India.

Yahapalanay Government is being fooled by every one- the West wanted a regime change in Sri Lanka and now that it has happened the West will pay only lip service without binding them selves  for any sort of long term  engagement to develop Sri Lanka. India needs Sri Lanka to solve at least some of  its unsolved social  problems of its 1.25 billion population.

Modi had said  that India  would  build houses for the State Tamils and the Tamils of the North. That would give  Sri Lanka a  greater headache with the Tamils building a  greater  allegiance to India above that of Sri Lanka. That would be a wastage of all those concessions made to Tamils for reconciliation.

In addition to those political problems created by India, Yahaplanaya  is on the verge of the sale of Trincomalee oil Tanks, and  the Eastern Terminal of the Colombo Port to India . In the south Yahapalanaya is making arrangements to lease  for twice 90 years, the Magampura Port and 20 thousand acres of land to China.

Yahapalanaya cannot fool the Chinese as by stopping the work of the Colombo Port City , Chinese Companies must have lost considerable amount of money, in stopping work and allowing the machines to rust  and unworkable, and re starting work after a long loss of time. The Yahapalanaya Government had been acting foolishly without any planning from the day one of the election of  Maithriplala Sirisena on the 8^th January, 2015.

The foolish euphoria after the election victory blinded  the yayapalanaya leaders from acting wisely with a planned programme of development. Only thing they thought of doing was a negative programme of  revenge and hatred  to punish the Rajapaksas and all those connected with the previous government. This was not a wise thing to have been undertaken , and the result is an utter political failure.

The end result  is  today Sri Lanka is like a rudderless boat  in a vast rough sea with signs of an on coming storm.