My Dear Sarath,
I thought I would write to you once again because by now, you must be counting the hours for your release and eagerly waiting to savour the freedom you so longed for. I must congratulate you not only for that but also for not asking for a pardon for nearly two years in the face of severe pressure and a significant risk to your health.
 That shouldn’t surprise us, of course. You were someone who had enough courage to take on the Tigers when everyone else was shaking their heads and saying that it couldn’t be done and then you completed the job too within just a few years.
After freeing this country of terrorism after thirty years, ironically, you couldn’t savour that freedom for long because you decided to take on Mahinda maama and as a result of that, ended up in jail. That was indeed a sad day for our country.
I suppose you would not have suffered through these past two years if you did what previous service commanders had done: accept a quiet retirement and disappear into the diplomatic service as an ambassador somewhere.
They say old soldiers never die, they just fade away. I suppose your “fault” was not agreeing to fade away. But being an officer and a gentleman I suppose you just couldn’t do that, especially when you were being hailed as the “Best Army Commander in the World”!
After your election campaign went horribly wrong, you were accused of many things: defaming others, harbouring deserters, awarding tenders to a company in which your son-in-law was allegedly a director and even plotting a coup to overthrow the government!
And what a shame it was when you were tried not only in civilian courts but also in the military courts by officers who were junior to you and who once shivered in their boots even when your name was mentioned!
Not content with that, they stripped you of your rank and removed your name from all the records of the Army’s history. What they didn’t realise was that despite all that, you would never be forgotten by the grateful men and women of this country.
There was a time-as recently as a couple of weeks ago-when those who tried to imprison you even tried to deprive you of proper treatment for your ailments and you had to go to courts for simple matters like having a fan in your room or getting the treatment that you required.
Now, don’t get me wrong, Sarath, it is not that we oppose you being released but there are several questions that I would like to ask those who made those decisions, because it appears that justice is being dispensed in a very puzzling way in our country.
At the time when you were accused of all the crimes under the sun, we were told that it was not a witch hunt against you and that it was either the civilian courts or the military courts that were dealing with you in what they said was a very proper manner.
Now, when they decide to set you free, all your “crimes” seem to have been forgotten and they are happy to overlook all your alleged misdeeds. So, does that mean that all those millions of rupees that were spent prosecuting you were all in vain?
For you I suppose the more important question is what you want to do next and that is where I would advise you to be very careful. Being the astute military strategist that you are, I hope you won’t make the same mistakes again.
I hope that by now you have realised that those parties which wanted you to run against Mahinda maama two years ago, especially the Greens, did so not because they loved you more but because they knew that they themselves had no chance against Mahinda maama.
I have a feeling that they may try to do that all over again. You may have noticed that one faction of the Greens were very keen to get you out of jail while the other was not. Now, if you are not very careful, they may try to use you once more!
We all saw how this faction used a gullible gentleman a few months ago to run for the party’s leadership. He failed miserably but now will they try to get you to be their next candidate for the leadership saying that you are better than the leader they have at present.
My advice to you is to be your own man and let others fight their own battles. You still command an enormous amount of respect and admiration in this country and what has happened in the past two years has only increased that.
Therefore, if the people of this country want you to play a role in what happens to this country in the future I am sure they will surely endorse your efforts and you could do more for Sri Lanka. And judging by some recent events, maybe we could do with a few people like you!
Yours truly,
Punchi Putha
PS-Another question that bothers me is why, after all these years in custody, you were suddenly set free now. I know that GL is meeting Hillary in Washington at the same time. Now, if they tell us that this is only a coincidence, would you believe that, Sarath?
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