Do you want to go back to the days of ‘this,’ ‘that’ and ‘the other’? That’s fear-mongering UNP/Sajith-style.
Remember Thajudeen? Remember Ekneligoda? Remember Lasantha? Remember Thajudeen? Remember Ekneligoda? Remember Lasantha? Remember Thajudeen? Remember Ekneligoda? Remember Lasantha? Remember Thajudeen? Remember Ekneligoda? Remember Lasantha? Remember Thajudeen? Remember Ekneligoda? Remember Lasantha?
And that’s a campaign? Well, OLD HAT. A badly made old hat, one may add. But wait, that’s not the whole campaign — there’s a truckload of promises too. This, that and the other. Cheap stuff. Hardly convincing. But wait again, that’s not all — there’s the daily dose of sophomorisms (if one may call it that) dished out by the candidate himself. Good entertainment. That’s about it.
That said, we need to talk about ‘terrible days’. They include the following: the Lasantha-Day, the Ekneligoda-Days that have now dragged into years, the Upali Tennekoon Day, the Keith Nohyr Day and the Wasim Thajudeen Day. We also have the days of Sajin Vaas Gunawardena and Mervin Silva. Then there’s the Navy Rugby Team days. Seasons, rather.
Some of them were indeed terrible and it is certainly a scar on the previous regime that the perpetrators were not brought to book. Fingers were pointed in two directions: at Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Sarath Fonseka (regarding Lasantha, Upali and Keith). Fingers were pointed to the Rajapaksa ‘boys’ with respect to Thajudeen. In Ekneligoda’s case, the name circulated back then was Champika Ranawaka. The UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said Fonseka was responsible for Lasantha’s murder. The work of Lasantha, Upali and Keith (all journalists) could have well earned the ire of Fonseka but certainly not Gotabhaya. That’s what the timeline says.
That said, relevant agencies mandated to ensure the safety of the citizenry failed. This has to be acknowledged. Authorities tasked to bring perpetrators to boot failed. Almost five years after the Rajapaksa regime was defeated and thereby removing the ‘political interference factor’ so-called, the perpetrators are still at large. Gotabaya called the investigators to record his statement, but this has not happened. Fonseka is sitting pretty (for now) in the Yahapalana Government. Mervin Silva and Sajin Vaas Gunawardena have been embraced by Sajith Premadasa’s campaign.
So, that’s the length, breadth and depth of ‘terrible’. It came with a determined and successful exercise to rid the country of terrorism, followed by unprecedented development. Sure we have the charges of human rights violations, but that’s just an accusation. The accusers are almost exclusively people who have upset that their outcome preferences have not materialized. The ‘evidence’ submitted so far amount to little more than unsubstantiated claims submitted by politically compromised sources.
Oh! Almost forget! The economy. Mahinda Rajapaksa is accused of leaving behind a massive debt. The economic whiz-kids of the UNP made it worse.
Tragedy, then, can be manufactured. Things can get inflated. We could also stick to the facts.
So let’s talk ‘tragedy’. Take human rights violations. Take the scuttling of democracy. Take the media freedom or rather it being shelved. Take the targeting of a particular community. Take extra-judicial killings in the North and East. Take corruption. The UNP of the JR-Premadasa Era sweep the honors with respect to all these things. Well, the JVP weren’t exactly babes in the woods either. Neither were the LTTE, which outlasted JR, Premadasa and Rohana Wijeweera.
Then we have the Chandrika years. Remember Rohana Kumara? Remember how the efforts against terrorism were sabotaged by the so-called peace brigade of Chandrika, Mangala and their NGO cahoots. Remember Victor Ivan calling Chandrika ‘Chaura Regina’ (The Thieving Queen)? Remember the Wayamba Election? The UNP has forgotten those years. Conveniently. Why? Well, Chandrika joined the anti-Rajapaksa team. That’s why! One forgets the wrongs of those who one once berated for wrongdoing after they join the team. Sarath Fonseka is a classic example of this phenomenon.
Then we have the Yahapalana years. Did I hear someone chuckle? Did I hear someone sigh? Is that someone sobbing I hear? Well, they certainly made a mess of things didn’t they? Nepotism, corruption, grand theft (of the Central Bank, no less!), weak-kneed foreign policy leading to the country’s sovereignty being conceded in Geneva, feeding religious extremism on account of stupid exercises to promote reconciliation and secularism, the list goes on. Add incompetence there. That’s a biggie. Massive biggie. Add constitutional tinkering to serve party interests. Add witch hunting. Add suspicious deaths under police custody. Add the postponement of elections. Add the non-holding of elections. Add ‘democracy as a notion the Yahapalanists don’t know the A, B and C of’!
Sajith Premadasa’s pals did all that, let us not forget. Sajith Premadasa clapped, let us not forget. And he operates as though he has to provide more laughs during the election campaign than his yahapalana team produced in the last five years!
Terrible years. Yes. We’ve seen them. We’ve had good times and bad times. The worst were those under JR, Premadasa, Chandrika and the Yahapalanists (Sirisena and Wickremesinghe with the silent approval of Sajith Premadasa). Yes, Mahinda’s time was not ideal. But his tenure is not a patch on the ones of these others when it comes to ‘terrible’.
Will Gota be different/better? I am not a Sumanadasa. I want these yahapalana morons out. We simply can’t afford the idiocy which, as of now, is being displayed and represented by Sajith Premadasa.
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