Monday, November 21, 2005

Wickramaniac
So, that cattle thief (harak hora) is our PM again. Yes, that's what he's called in Horana, which is his constituency.


The accidental president and the cattle thief (on the right)

By appointing Rathnasiri Wickramanayake as the Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapakse has made a very clear indication as to where he wants to take this country. First, back to war, then with the help of that and with help from his friends, back to the stone age.

For those of you who don't know who the harak hora really is, here's a tiny bit of background.

He's a petty thug from Horana (to the South East of Colombo) who fought his way to the top. He was Prime Minister for a little while at the turn of the century, replacing old lady B. Chadrika replaced her mother with this guy.

For starters, he's the one who tried to bring in the anti-conversion bill last year. He was the Minister of Buddha Sasana who was hand in glove with the right-wing extremist Buddhist groups. So we know that's going to be brought back into the Parliament soon. Halleluja!




Once upon a time he used to be the Minister of Public Administration. Made a royal mess of things back then. Got shifted around. Never stuck with one ministry. Why? Because he was never any good as a minister of anything! And now he's the Prime Minister. Well, at least that'll keep him away from the ministries.

Though the newspapers have all called him a staunch Chandrika loyalist, he's never been too happy being under her thumb. He always felt that he should have been given a more prominent role in the party. But he stuck around, and now Mahinda's given him what he wants. Now he can steal all the cattle in the world!

posted by Morquendi @  5:42 PM   || 12 opinion/s ||
Comments:
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : November 21, 2005 10:52 PM
 
Good move by Mahinda. It will keep the majority Sinhalese happy and he did run on a nationalist line afterall, so not surprising at all. It's good to see anti-Buddhists like Morquendi (and others) squirm at this announcement. Meanwhile, the UNP's campaign to divide people along religious lines has failed if you've read the Island report.
# posted by Blogger N : November 21, 2005 11:17 PM
 
Excuse my ignorance, but how do you define 'nationalist line'?
# posted by Blogger Niroshan : November 21, 2005 11:35 PM
 
A bad move. He should have appointed D.M Jayaratne. This guy Ratnasiri is a good for nothing baboon.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : November 21, 2005 11:36 PM
 
Mahinda received an overwhelming majority of the Sinhalese Buddhist vote. Further analysis goes to show that the large majorities that he received in the deep South was a confirmation of returning as President “a son of the soil”, a man from Ruhuna as a man of their own to be the first President from the South.

In the other districts where the Sinhalese vote was predominant Mahinda received smaller but effective majorities. Another interesting feature of his victory is that he did not rely on the President or her brother Anura, the Prime Minister designate for his success. Throughout his political career Mahinda was patient and cultivated his constituency with great diligence, in spite of the many obstacles placed before him. His resilience and sustainable and endearing personal qualities is a mark of his leadership qualities.

Although the President had rightly claimed as her legacy that she had influenced her party’s direction towards a Federal solution with effective power sharing to the minorities in the Northeast, the Sinhalese Buddhist endorsed the Mahinda Chintanaya, which called for the defence of a unitary state with limited devolution of power. I see this as a fundamental shift in position of the SLFP. Some would argue that Mahinda restored the SLFP to its original paradigm i.e. a Sinhalese majoritarian consciousness as the dominant discourse in the country with tolerance and respect for minorities.

Mahinda’s victory also demonstrated that he did not rely on the support of the minorities whether they are Tamils, Muslims or the Christians to deliver his Presidency. His total reliance on the Sinhalese Buddhist vote provides for a new direction and focus throughout his six-year Presidency. He is the first President to have received over 60% of the Sinhalese Buddhist vote. Through this vote bank he has demonstrated that a Presidency can be won without the support of the minorities.

Further he has demonstrated that his judgment in creating an alliance with the JVP was correct. The JVP’ organizational strengths coupled with the JHUs campaign amongst the Sinhalese Buddhists brought him rich dividends. The JVP demonstrated its organizational skills by the efficient grassroots campaign that it conducted with house to house campaigning and rigorous expansion of its vote bank as a result. The notion that the JHU vote bank would return to the UNP was erroneous.

The vote of the Sinhalese Buddhist population also endorses their serious concerns with regards the direction of the peace process and its uneasiness with regard to the role of the international community, the role of Norway for its alleged partiality and the status of the Ceasefire Agreement.

A formidable advantage that the new President will bring to the table is that he has the full and unequivocal backing of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority for starting talks with the LTTE. It means that he will not have to face opposition from the South for restarting the negotiations but also that he will have the legitimacy to deliver on whatever he can manage to give to the LTTE. From other international experiences, it could be said that those who represent the majority population are better able to negotiate and deliver such as the recent concessions given to the Palestinians by Sharon in Israel. On the other hand the former President in 1994 received 62% of the vote but failed to deliver peace to the country.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : November 22, 2005 12:04 AM
 
http://tamillinks.net/archive/2005/news/dl_mrr_21112005_a.htm
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : November 22, 2005 12:13 AM
 
Lankaupdate, Morquendi has been supporting the UNP for a long time now and is enaroumed of the party that has violated the rights of the Tamil people for a long long time. Thus you must excuse him when he goes on ranting and raving at everyone in sight simply because his sweet darling - the UNP - lost the presidential election. He will scream at Tamils, Buddhists, Muslims, Burghers, Malays, you name it. Because Ranil HAD to win, there could be NO other way.

Unfortunately Ranil fell flat on his face.

And Morquendi is angry.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : November 22, 2005 2:42 AM
 
When did Sri Lanka become only the home of the Sinhala Buddhists? Mahinda screams about a united Sri lanka but his policies if Kesbewa’s rant is anything to go by highlight the Sinhalese Buddhists are shown as just a majority with a minority complex.
Being Sinhalese my self it is sad to see so many people so worried about what the other races are doing with them selves. For god sake man we are all Sri Lankan, who cares if the Christian’s forcefully converting Buddhists? Or the ethnic issue?
For the former IF such ALLEGATIONS were true any Buddhist that chooses material wealth over the philosophy is not a true follower of the faith in the first place. Secondly the only people losing on the deal are the Christians who waste their money ‘converting’ people that are really gold diggers at the end of the day. The only things we do through such bills are segregate people and create openings to oppress minorities further.

As for the ethnic question, its surprising to see how little anyone has learnt in the last 30 yrs of war, just because Mahinda got his presidency banking on the Sinhalese Buddhist vote that is no reason to shit all over the minorities and settle the ethnic issue solely based on the south that supported him. Any idiot with half a brain can see that half (maybe more if they were allowed to vote) voted against any such chauvinistic policy. Already over 65,000 people have died through war, if any one is interested in settling the ethnic problem based on conditions determined solely on the wishes of two radical groups, I hope they are willing to put their lives on the line and join the army. The problem with most people is that they love to live fighting a cause that they don’t think good enough dying for. Stop being cowards and put your money where your mouth is, otherwise just shut up and hand it over to people that really give a damn about being Sri Lankan and not Singhalese.

Anyway I have nothing against the new President and kudos to him he decided to nominate a puppet as a PM, he appears the most harmless out of the rest of his cabinet. Let’s just hope his solution to the ethnic conflict / religious problem is not isolation but rather cooperation and education.
# posted by Blogger sittingnut : November 22, 2005 7:20 PM
 
Mahinda received an overwhelming majority of the Sinhalese Buddhist vote- not so he barely got the upfa's 2004 percentage in the southern province.overall his vote percentage came down in 7 south provinces.
In the other districts where the Sinhalese vote was predominant Mahinda received smaller but effective majorities - not so check to results before copy and paste.
SLFP to its original paradigm i.e. a Sinhalese majoritarian consciousness as the dominant discourse in the country with tolerance and respect for minorities. - same tolerance and respect that drove them to war? :-) some delusions never die it seems.
His total reliance on the Sinhalese Buddhist vote provides for a new direction and focus throughout his six-year Presidency. - dream on. he will do all that cbk did including war and talks (bc he has no other option) but fail.only more quickly .
The JVP’ organizational strengths coupled with the JHUs campaign amongst the Sinhalese Buddhists brought him rich dividends- rather the said alliances caused ltte to desire his win all the more, so they got him elected to play in to their hand. buffalo will dance as the ltte expects.
as i said above vote percentage for buffalo went down.

The notion that the JHU vote bank would return to the UNP was erroneous. - actually the jhu vote split almost in the middle, better than predicted for ranil.
example maharagama poll. div,
in 2004, upfa - 43.92%, jhu - 29.41%, unp - 25.87%
in 2005, mahinda - 59.37% , ranil - 39.91%
as you see unp vote went up by 14.04% while buffalo's went up by 15.45%

mahinda buffalo now heads the most weak government in history of sl with no mandate from anybody due to his own mistakes during the campaign. ltte got what they wanted. we have to await what they intend to do next.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : November 23, 2005 12:35 AM
 
How can you say that Mahinda was elected by the Sinhalese Buddhists? He was selected by the LTTE who made sure Ranil will not get the Tamil votes. The brutes even cut off the hand of the lone voter from Killinochchi. Mahinda is their man for the job of leading the Sinhalese of South for reasons best known to them.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : November 23, 2005 7:20 PM
 
Dear Sri Lankan, it's not my "rant" it was written by none other than Kumar Rupasinghe - an NGO activist (follow the tamillinks.net link to read the entire article). If you have any problems with the article please forward it to him.

I agree religious bill are going to do much except complicate the issue. The whole shabang started with the targeted drive by Christian evangelists to convert Buddhists (and Hindus - see Maheshwaran's comments) to their religion. You need to examine the cause (the campaign of targeted conversion) before you react to the symptom (the religious conversion bills). The government of Sri Lanka under the UNP tried to change the demographics of the east and violence erupted from the Tamil community. Likewise, Christian evangelists are trying to change the religious demographics in Sri Lanka and tension and violence erupted, and bills were brought about. If people just practiced their religion instead of trying to win converts at whatever cost this religious "problem" will just simply disappear. Look around the world and you will see that Christian evangelists create a heck of a lot religious problems. The onus is on the fundamentalist organizations to think about what they're doing in a MULTI-RELIGIOUS country like Sri Lanka.

My issue is not whether a conversion is ethical or unethical but TARGETED CONVERSION EFFORTS themselves. They cannot build social harmony. Look at India it has only led to tension, violence and hatred. Only Christian groups create organizations purely for the sake of converting non-Christians to their religion and pay people to get about doing this "job." In the end in countries like Sri Lanka all they are doing is destroying religious harmony by degrading other religions and competing for followers.
# posted by Blogger sittingnut : November 25, 2005 9:05 PM
 
it's not my "rant" it was written by none other than Kumar Rupasinghe - if you post something under your name without giving credit you have to accept the consequences or be a coward.

the targeted drive by Christian evangelists to convert Buddhists ..and Hindus... - so sinhala buddhists are justified in answering with violence? talk about bankruptcy. luckily most sinhala buddhists do not agree with that, and for all his faults and jhu support for him, nor do the buffalo.

"problem" will just simply disappear- dream on.

ppl are free believe in whatever religion they want. if some insecure ppl who have so lost themselves in a religion (probably misunderstanding it) have a problem with that and use violence, they are the problem.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : January 07, 2006 8:12 AM
 
anyway singhalay modaya kawoom kanda yodayaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ,
jvp and jhu
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