Letters
View(s):The fall of a president through greed and the rise of a humane leader
The demise of the Executive Presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa was due to excessive greed and thirst for power. When he won the Presidential Election in 2010, the electorate gave him the required majority to amend the constitution; the only amendment he made was to extend his term of office for an indefinite period.
Before he made his decision to hold a presidential election for a third term he was advised by Minister Rajitha Senaratna not to go for the third term but to complete the second term and exit gracefully, so that the world would have recognised him as a great president who brought peace to our land defeating terrorists. There was the opportunity of nominating him for the Nobel Prize for Peace. But he didn’t heed this advice.
He used the government machinery, most of all TV and radio channels for his campaign and used SLBC Chairman Hudson Samarasingha and Minister Wimal Weerawansa to attack the common presidential candidate in an uncivilised manner, using foul language bringing political culture to the lowest level.
Politics is a noble art. “The highest of all arts is the art of government” said Plato in his Republic.
Certain professors and so-called intellectuals like Nalin De Silva and Dayan Jayathilaka thought that Maithripala Sirisena lacked leadership qualities and would be no match for Mahinda Rajapaksa. But the very fact that Mr. Sirisena decided to quit his ministry and contest the almighty Mahinda Rajapaksa was itself a gigantic act of bravery and leadership.
So much false propaganda was broadcast through state media and radio channels 24 hours a day that the country would be unstable, divided and all the progress and development would come to a standstill if there was a change. Of course the politically mature electorate realised the truth of these irresponsible statements and gave the appropriate reply.
The first seed for a change and abolition of presidential system was publicly planted by Ven. Maduluwawe Sobitha Thera who was criticised by Mr. Rajapaksa’s aides. As a nation we are grateful to the Venerable Thera for his courage and wisdom.
Sri Lanka is a fortunate land and we now have a humane and understanding President who will continue to solve most of the urgent problems of the masses and punish the ministers and public officials who have plundered and squandered the wealth of the nation.
Ananda Weerakoon
Kolonnawa
Purple power
We queue in the sun with our polling cards
listen for our names to be called,
hold out our left hands and observe
as the smallest fingernail is painted purple
in indelible ink, a mark of distrust.
Such few cars are on the roads,
we hear Chipmunks squabble, the hiss of Jungle crows.
Furtively we listen, phones pressed to our ears,
Our eyes narrow, widen,
there could be fireworks tonight.
We watch the results play on television,
toying with our emotions,
we sleep in snatches as Crickets strike the minutes,
we pray at odd hours as the waning moon drags by.
The sun has risen when it dawns,
breaks the new name on our lips,
And as the Magpie robin sings, we hear
of how a coup was stalled by those who dared,
of how our gate to freedom was oiled open
by those who planned the coalition,
confounding our fears of the past ten years,
heralding the miracle.
We had expected the worst.
Instigated race riots, curfew, the usual denials,
our lives snuffed out, just like our votes.
How we were glad of those,
how we turned out in masses
dressed in sarees and shalwars
frocks, skirts and blouses,
we heard the Koha and the Gecko
cutoff in their crescendos,
and how we moved purposely
armed with purple fingernails,
and with the clout of the President
marked another name.
-Fahima Sahabdeen
How low can one go?
In the past it was a common phenomena to see responsible state officers paying ‘pooja’ before politicians both high and low. If the government officers function in an efficient, courteous and impartial manner, it is quite unnecessary to behave in such a spineless fashion. When the state officers bend so low the politicians take an upperhand and tend to act in a contemptuous way towards the public.
On TV I recently saw highly placed state officers receiving their letters of appointment from the President bending at a 900 angle where a respectful bow would have been sufficient. Some officers act in this manner to cover their ineptitude and corruption, or to curry favour with politicians.
Also I wish to request that the practice of getting down hundreds of government officers to Colombo (Temple Trees) at a great cost merely to receive letters of appointments be stopped. Please send them by registered post as was the practice years ago.
L.G. Abeysinghe
Gampaha
All in the dark
While travelling to Piliyandala, a few days ago at night I noticed that work on widening the road was ongoing without proper lighting or protection to the workers. They were depending on the lights from passing vehicles. This situation is dangerous to the workers, motorists, and pedestrians. In addition, the quality of work would naturally suffer.
The foreign contractors, if they resorted to this type of haphazard work in their country would have been in jail for negligence and causing harm to people. The Road Development Authority (RDA), may have definitely included in the contract with the contractor, that adequate safety precautions and visible sign posting, should be a pre-requisite. If so, why is the RDA allowing this type of work to continue? Where is the supervision by the RDA and the consultants?
Concerned citizen
We can’t stagnate
in the past
I am concerned that the Presidential Advisers named by President Sirisena are past their shelf life, and may not be able to bring new thinking and strategies.
A break from the past is sorely needed at this time.
Sam Pillai
Toronto, Canada
Ways to ease traffic congestion in Welikada/Rajagiriya area
Commuters and vehicle-users are aware of the huge traffic congestion in the Welikada/Rajagiriya area especially in the morning and evening time.
The following are observed as the reasons:
-The vehicles come towards Nawala Road and try to cross the Sri Jayawardenepura Mawatha opposite the Welikada Police station and reach the Borella-Rajagiriya Road
- The vehicles come towards the Borella-Rajagiriya Road and try to cross the Sri Jayawardenepura Mawatha to reach Nawala Road
- The vehicles come towards Sarana Road from Borella-Rajagiriya Road and try to turn right to the Sri Jayawardenepura Mawatha
- I suggest the following to minimise the congestion especially in the morning between 06.30 a.m. and 09.30 a.m. and evenings between 4.30 p.m. and 7.30 p.m.
The following roads should be made one way:
- Sri Jayawardenepura Mawatha between Rajagiriya filling station junction and Sarana Road junction
- Borella-Rajagiriya Road between Sarana Road and Rajagiriya Filling Station Junction
- Sarana Road towards Sri Jayawardenepura Mawatha to Borella Rajagiriya Road
- Nawala Road to Sri Jayawardenepura Mawatha and Sri Jayawardenepura Mawatha to Nawala Road triangular [Children’s Park]
- All the vehicles including buses coming towards Nawala Road should turn to the left. Any vehicle needing to reach the Borella-Rajagiriya Road, should turn right to Sarana Road
- All the vehicles going towards Battaramulla via Sri Jayawardenepura Mawatha should turn left from Sarana Road and reach the Borella-Rajagiriya Road
- All the vehicles that need to travel from Borella to Nawala should turn right from the Rajagiriya filling station and turn left before the Rajagiriya children’s park
- Vehicles coming from Sarana Road should not be permitted to cross Sri Jayawardenepura Mawatha. They should turn left from Sri Jayawardenepura Mawatha and turn right from the Ayurvedha Junction
In the recent past most of the Colombo City roads have been converted successfully to one-way roads. The same scenario can be applied to the Welikada/Rajagiriya area – it will be helpful to all commuters and vehicle-users as well as to the economy.
S. Nanayakkara
Via email
Hope Maithri Palanaya will insist on metered three wheelers
Fuel prices have been brought down by the Maithri Palanaya – Compassionate Governance headed by President Maithripala Sirisena.
The previous president was voted out of office and power. It was the popular will and I consider it unnecessary to comment on it. I would only add that none of the pre-2006 pensioners who were very badly let down with broken promises regarding pension anomalies inclusive of the provisions in the famous Mahinda Chintanaya voted for him. I am one of those affected and I am eternally grateful to the editor of the Sunday Times newspaper for publishing my many letters. Please permit me to make reference to my own impassioned plea to the then President in the Sunday Times of October 28, 2012, under the heading “Please make fare meters mandatory in trishaws”.
I would like to quote it verbatim. In the last paragraph I wrote “Metered three wheelers are a blessing. Yet we don’t have them in Matara. Why? This humble missive serves as an impassioned plea to the President to make fare meters mandatory in trishaws statutorily by the amendment of the relevant act may be the Motor Traffic Act or whatever is applicable.”
Unfortunately it was a cry in the wilderness. When I wrote it I was a ‘sickly septuagenarian”. Today I am a doddering octogenarian in a comparatively worse condition. Naturally my wife and I depend on trishaws for our visits to channelling centres to consult various physicians.
I am quite certain that the compassionate governance a.k.a Maithree Palanaya will certainly impose a decrease in fares of the trishaws and prevail upon the Commissioner of Motor Traffic to make the installation of fare meters mandatory thereby preventing the crude and rude trishaw owners/drivers fleecing the poor masses.
Nanda Nanayakkara
Matara
Tracing our footprints stamped at Stable Hill
The article on the Diyatalawa Army Camp on December 14, in the Sunday Times “Plus” was very exciting and encouraging. It took me way back to my transformation from Civvy Street to a serviceman, 45 years ago at Stable Hill.
On November 17, 1969, sixty young men just out of school including the writer boarded two special carriages of Uda Rata Menike night mail train. Each one of us was carrying a large white sack, (Ali Kakula in Air Force colloquial jargon) resembling an elephant leg. Singing and dancing throughout the night, our batch reached the Diyatalawa Railway Station by 6 a.m. the following day.
A pretty view of the surrounding hills dressed in the morning mist greeted us — Fox Hill rising in the distance, the C.C.C. emblem, roofs of zinc painted green all around.
The pleasure of admiring the scenic beauty disappeared as a khaki clad group of tough-looking men appeared from nowhere. Black bands and batons in their hands made us freeze.
They shepherded us into two trucks that took off at a lighting speed to Fox Hill, the one and only Ground Combat and Recruit Training Centre of the Royal Ceylon Air Force at that time.
Out of the thousands of past and present Air Force members, men and women who have been trained at Diyatalawa are more fortunate than the others trained elsewhere as the conditions and the mountainous terrain in and around Stable Hill created a location ideal for training.
They may be having tons of nostalgic and unforgettable memories while they were tenderfoots in the Air Force, that could be useful for the proposed publication.
I wish the three veterans led by Air Vice Marshal Brendan Sosa all the strength, courage and determination in completing the uphill task of writing the book about the Diyatalawa Air Force Training Centre.
Rohan Wijekoon
Former Base Warrant Officer
Sri Lanka Air Force Base,
Katunayake