The Curse of Ranil, and a General’s great fall

Whatever Ranil touches ends up in disaster. His becoming Prime Minister of the UNF Government during the Presidency of Chandrika Kumaratunga resulted in the drawing up of a CFA by the Norwegians, the signing of which by Ranil and Prabhakaran resulted in a disaster which required a man like Mahinda Rajapakse to put it right. The CFA strengthened the terrorists and nearly paved the way for the terrorists to set up a separate Tamil Eelam State in the North East.

UNP led by Ranil did not win any elections since 2005. Nevertheless Ranil has a one track mind . He wants to be the President of Sri Lanka hook or by crook and leaves no stone unturned to make his dream come true. But all attempts to realise that dream seem to end in disaster.

He wanted a war hero to give credence to his political attempts to get closer to being the President of Sri Lanka. He got the late General Janaka Perera join the UNP, hoping that the reflected glory of a war hero besides him as the leader of the UNP, would enable him to win elections for UNP.

It was not difficult to rope in the Late Janaka Perera as he already belonged to a family who had been supporting the UNP for generqtions. But unfortunately it resulted in disaster to General Janaka Perera, and his dear wife, among others. If the Late Janaka Perera had joined the SLFP, or if he had kept away from politics, he would still be living with us. Late General did not know of the curse of Ranil.

The latest gimmic Ranil has concocted is to form a political alliance in line with the UPFA. But he cannot muster many political parties to his side, therefore he is forced to make do with those nonentities orphaned without a proper political base, who had clung on to him as the last « straw » to remain afloat in the flood waters of the political stream. The three of these guys, the so called political leaders have no great number of followers and their political credence is much to be desired.

One of them is Mangala Samaraweera, a political party by himself, another Rauf Hakeem, a most undependable politician of our epoch, he is one day here and next day else where. It is however crditable Ranil had been able to keep him by his side for so long. He had hopes of a terrorist « victory» in the North having signed a MoU with Prabhakaran, which would have paved the way he thought to lead the Muslims in a « Tamil Homeland » under Prabhakaran.

The last is a goon, Mano Ganeshan, who had been wooing th terrorists for quite a long time and seems to have hung on to Ranil, as he has no where else to turn after the « tragic» end of his terrorist sponsers. This concoction is supposed to be the United National Front of the accuursed Ranil to oust Mahinda Rajapaksa from the Presidential chair.

In Ranil’s childish mind this would be the « gundu» that would finally settle matters with the President Mahinda Rajapakse, and allow him at last to feel the comfort of the Presidential chair.. He hopes to have the support of a failed Sinhala terrorists of another sort Lal Kantha, and his JVP cohorts whose only trump card now is a part of the government and the public work force who blindly follow these « culprits » hoping for personal benfits from a salary increase, what ever happens to the country. They are modern Neros, playing their violins when « Rome » is burning.

These unthinking workers who merely follow any « pied piper » if the tune he plays pleases them, do not realise that the increase of salaries is not the panacea to end the high cost of living. They should understand despite the harrang that they are fed with by Lal Kantha and the crowd, that increase of salaries would be the commensement of a spiral of price hikes that would leave them back where they started.

The demand of salary increases is therefore not the solution to the problem of the workers. They should instead demand the government to bring down the prices of consumer commodities, which would allow them to cope with the rising cost of living with their earnings, thus stopping a spiralling price increases.

Ranil cannot either help the workers nor the people of this country with his brand of politics. People have seen his perfomances before and know that he is a mere pawn in the hands of the foreign powers, and would be utilised by them to serve their « anti developing countries agenda». Ranil is not a man of the people, he is apart and away from the common man. He is what the UNPers had always been, a reactionry, unpatriotic man depending on the West, seeking his own salvation..

UNP was never a progressive political party. It was not the UNP that faught for Independence. UNP came into being after Independence. It was composed of the upper class imitation English Wallahs who took to politics for their personal prestige. They believed in the existence of a rich upperclass, with the the people down the lower rungs depending on that rich and the influential « nobility ». It was, and is the party of the « haves », for the « have nots » .

UNP still remains in that past, and now the UN P is out dated and out moded . UNP never consisted of real patriots, and they are even today as much the imitations of the « Black English » as they were at the beginning. They cannot think of a Sri Lanka without the Western Powers offering « bread crumbs » for an euphoric development programmes according to their dictates.

Ranil will never get over the age old ways of the UNP. It would therefore be a disaster to help this accursed man to come back to power. And there is little chance that it will ever happen even with his ridiculous United National Front.

Ranil « brays » about the Chief of Defence Staff Sarath Fonseka being their common Candidate against the President Mahinda Rajapakse at the next Presidential elections. It is not likely to happen, and even if it does people have not forgotten the disaster that took place with the Late General Janaka Perera joining Ranil to give UNP a break, and we hope and pray such an eventuality will not befall on the Chief of Defence Staff Sarath Fonseka if he were to follow suit.

Sarath Fonseka is a real patriot far from what Ranil and UNP stand for. Sarath Fonseka cannot mingle with people like Mangala Samaraweera, Rauf Hakeem and Mano Ganeshan let alone Ranil. If by some misfortune Sarath Fonseka were to fall into the trap, and join the cursed Ranil and his gang, one would rightly presume that he is like a man who ha come out of the Maggona Mental Hospital.

The whole commotion of Sarath Fonseka being the Common Candidate of the UNF, seems to be a fib in the retarded mind of the cursed Ranil, to give himself a bit of publicity which he never had, ever since Mahainda Rajapakse was elected the President of Sri Lanka .

Despite all the agitation the curse with which Ranil is forced to live is far too great to change the situation for a man like Sarath Fonseka to be hailed by Ranil now. Ranil called him then by all names and said that Sarath Fonseka is not suitable even to lead the Salvation Army.

Having eliminated the terrorist which every body thought was an empty dream, Sarath Fonseka cannot stoop so low now to come to politics from UNP or from an alliance led by UNP with Ranil as its accursed leader.

But from the latest news in circulation, it appears that the unthinkable has happened, and the cursed Ranil has it seems got the Chief of Defence Staff fall a prey to his eternal curse. Only glory Sarath Fonseka who became a national hero and a treasured figure in the minds of the people, brings with him to what ever political party he may join is the prestige of leading the Armed Forces for a victory over a « damned » terrorism that sapped the best of men and material of the country for almost thirty long years.

That alone is not sufficient to deviate the voting public to swing over toSarath Fonseka from a more prestigious and a beloved President. It was the President Mahinda Rajapakse whose determination, and the ability to hold his head high in the troubled waters in which the Interfnational Community kept on poking him with long poles, yet not giving into them or the local forces alone, that enabled the Armed Forces of the Government to carry out undetered , the Military operations that ended the terrorism at Nandikulam on the 18 May,2009.

Though Sarath Fonseka is well known to the people as the great Commander of the Armed Forces, they are also aware that he will not fit in as a politician. Politics is, by and large different from waging a war. If Sarath Fonseka does not understand that simple logic, he is putting himself in the fray without reflection, perhaps at the behest of some « unknown » forces unfriendly towards Sri Lanka.

The known devil is better than the one unknown. Therefore, whatever differences Sarath Fonseka has with the President Mahinda Rajapakse, it is better he remains with him , rather than take the risk of joining his worst critics to play their game.

Sarath Fonseka’s sudden decision , even to join the devil himself, to become the President, having been the Commander, may be to fulfil his personal ambition, unless he blindly become the « cat’s paw » of another’s ambition to oust the President Mahinda Rajapakse from power, or he is perhaps acting under duress. Nevertheless, it is sad that Sarath Fonseka who had been raised to the Himalayan heights of popularity , losing all the laurals he had so far gained, falls to the ridicule.

It is best that CDF Sarath Fonseka gives a second thought , before he ventures further in to the shifting sands of politics.