5th Column

My dear Madush,

I didn’t think I would ever be writing to you but I thought I must since you are the most talked about person these days. Newspapers, television talk shows and even speeches in Parliament discuss your activities every day. With such publicity, one would have thought you were a presidential candidate!

It is alleged, Madush, that you are the mastermind behind much of the illegal drug trade in Paradise. If that is true, you must face the consequences because you would then be responsible for ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Paradise – and that is certainly not something to be proud of.

Still, I have to admire you for some of your abilities. They say you directed many criminal activities in Paradise – drug trafficking, hits on rival underworld gang members, money laundering, financing politicians – while you were still thousands of miles away in Dubai, and we were none the wiser.

In contrast, our politicians live right here in Paradise and they can’t organise the buses and trains to run on time, our airline cannot make a profit, we are not sure that our milk powder is free of poisons and they can’t even get the lift in Parliament to work properly. You are miles ahead of them.

Why, even our top man doesn’t know what is constitutional and what is not. He is indecisive, so much so, that we were in limbo for 51 days, not knowing who the second-in-command was.

You seem to be so important these days that we can divide our politicians into two groups. One group is accusing their rivals, saying they associated with you and profited from dealing with you. They are trying to find old pictures of their rivals keeping company with you or your associates.

The other group is trying to convince us that they do not know you and have nothing to do with you. They are having special media conferences and making statements in Parliament to say that whatever links they had with you was purely co-incidental and only because you hailed from the same village.

Why, there is this chap who was a minister in Mahinda maama’s Cabinet. It is alleged that the lavish wedding he hosted for his son was financed by you – in return for spiriting you away in his car to the airport.

Considering the accusations that are being thrown around, you must be feeling quite confident, though you are confined to a prison cell in Dubai. Even if a fraction of those accusations is true, Madush, you would be having enough ammunition to bring down a government or a political party.

We recall how Mahinda maama told his MPs that they shouldn’t try to cross-over or betray him because he had ‘files’ on all of them. Still, he couldn’t prevent Aiyo Sirisena from crossing over. Judging from the reactions to your arrest, it looks as if you have more ‘files’ than Mahinda maama!

You would have closely followed what happened in Paradise late last year when Aiyo Sirisena tried to sack the Green Man and install Mahinda maama as his Prime Minister, so Aiyo Sirisena could get into Mahinda maama’s good books and run for President again. It is a pity you weren’t here then, Madush.

That plan didn’t succeed because Mahinda maama couldn’t get the magic number of 113 MPs to support him. SB, the man given the job of roping in Green MPs, couldn’t deliver the goods, and the plan fell apart. Had you been asked to do that, I am sure you would have done better, though you were in Dubai. Besides, “Rangey, oya enney nedda” is not the type of language you would use to talk to potential defectors!

Madush, it is a pity that your talents are wasted on a business that brings misery to others, but it is a blessing in disguise that you were nabbed in Dubai and not in Paradise. If you were detained here, all you had to do was to speak of a plot to kill you-know-who, and you would have been a hero by now!

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS: Aiyo Sirisena has a bee in his bonnet about wanting to make history as the person who executed a few drug dealers. However, you need not worry about that, Madush. By the time authorities in Dubai finish with you and send you over here for authorities here to deal with you, he will be long gone!