Comments on: Between a Horek and a Mule

By: Moderate srilanken view

Moderate srilanken view — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:51:05 +0000

there are guys here, who seem to be knowing nothing about facts but keep sending their views. That can make others misinformed about the realities in our country.

This I felt after going through what this particular ” Sunil” has drafted here.

By: Moderate srilanken view

Moderate srilanken view — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:48:24 +0000

yes, very correct, in Pakistan you need to pay for your schooling. Our little country affords to allow its citizen free education, free hospital, free school books and many others free. When compared to the levels of other countries, it shouuld be a wonder.. that sl can afford it from that on to give a free education to its 20 mio volk

By: Groundtruth

Groundtruth — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 23:15:43 +0000

Sunil
For your information, free education was introduced in 1948 itself by the famous C.W.W.Kannangara as “the pearl of great price”. Great words too. Sri Lanka became one of the earliest countries in Asia with a high literacy rate of over 85% I think and this opened up the country to higher learning and development as well. From kindergarten to the university free and we all benefited.

The problem is not with free education.It is with freewheeling politics where anything goes. To be an MP it is not neecssary to have even a GCE ‘O’ level. Is that OK in the present day world?

SWRDB introduced the Sinhala Only in 1956. And then Sri Lanka has not been the same.

Agree with the rest of your contribution.

By: Politic Max

Politic Max — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:00:49 +0000

Yes true politic in srilanka is now getting crude, by both parties.
I think Srilankan people are now understand the what’s actually happening and will decide the better candidate at the election date.

By: Sunil

Sunil — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:19:02 +0000

At a time when the main opposition party i.ethe UNP is Bankrupt to the pathetic level of not being able to field a candidate of it’s own for Presidency with its’ impotent leader wearing a multicolured cap like a shool boy from an impoverished suburb in good old Brittain where he probably belongs than Sri Lanka,and the desperate JVp or what’s left of it and other political Monkeys swinging from one side to another with gay abandon,What future does Mother Lanka have .What we are tasting today are the bitter fruits of free education that bandaranaike unleashed on the country simply to win but one election and then be shot dead and many would say a deserving end to his betrayal of his own people.Morality and Human Values in Sri lanka ,Where have they disappered to?Will we ever see them again?It seems it is most unlikely.What a debacle;What a pathetic debacle ? Only Divine intervention can save Sri Lanka..The worst kind are the people of Sri lanka who for some petty personal gain vote for these scum forgetting their duty to their country .The best result would be for the people to threaten to abstain from voting until both candidates make a written declaration to be witnessed by the Sangha nayakes of all the chapters and some other religious dignitaries, to go on the public record as to the assets and liabilities they and members of their immediate and extended families involved owned say seven years ago and what they own now and and the means by which the current assets were acquired and to make a promise to pass a law within 3 months of being elected that every candidate who is in parliament now and others who are aspiring to enter political office be required to make such declarations every year. Ultimately we cant blame the politicians.We are the people who create these pathetic monsters .In an era when leaders came from good schools and decent homes we saw people standing up for principles.Watching the standard of debate that occurs in parliament now and the type of language that is used makes one sick to the point of wanting to throw up.The country must have a third political force built on Human values ,common decency and good manners and adherence to principles and more than anything scrutiny by the press to keep the bastards honest.The war is over there is no further need to muzzle the press under false pretences of national security .A free and independent press would have saved Sri Lanka.Remember Mrs Banda nationalising the press.MR and SF have done their job.Their time is well and truly over.We now need a man or woman of good-will to lead the nation firstly to Morality and inculcation of Human values and then prosperity of the nation based on those values.These may seem like huge day dream in the current mess that we are in but there is no other way for Sri Lanka and Sri lankans to stand up and be counted in the world community as a self respecting nation and peoples.Time is up for a Sri Lankan Ghandi,Obama or Mandela.Any thing less would not suffice. How could we expect our children and grand children to grow up with any sense of dignity and decency watching the current set of politicians.They sem utterly immune to the influence even the crudest form of decency and devoid of anything that could be even vaguely described as good.How could we go on with these scum any more.

By: Groundtruth

Groundtruth — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:11:40 +0000

Good article and well summarised. The opening ‘Horek’ was a bit confusing on reading the headlines but it indeed refers to a ‘corrupt human’ and not an animal when compared to a mule. Or perhaps it is not wrong to allure to a corrupt animal of a human when corruption exceeds all bounds and has spread like a cancer all over. The unaccounted 1.1B $ tsunami aid which has come to light through Transparency International is something really staggering for voters and people affected to think about seriously.

SF is right in stressing corruption but how to stem it is all together is missing. The devil is in tehy deatiail. For starters will he free and enable the Bribery Commissioner to do his duty from being tied to his chair and office as seems to be the case now. If the BC is really to do his job well he should be made directly respsonsible to Parliament, like the Auditor General, totally free of the political chains and masters who control him as at present.

As pointed out all round development in the whole country has been the crying need for decades. Both major cataclysms-the JVP insurrection and the LTTE led Tamil rebellion- both have their fundamental causes in lack of development. So several tens of thousands of people perished or were massacred as the ultimate price.. The politicians found it very convenient to point accusing fingers at how democracy was being undermined and shouted for oustide help to vanquish both and they succeeded. Obviously outsiders have no time to look deeper and so rushing military assisatnce is the least they could do to help. They could not be bothered too much into internal affairs that lie at the root of the problem. In short governance from politics to economics.

No candidate as yet has come up with overall solutions to stem the grinding problems faced by ordinary people despite 60 years of independence. Meanwhile population has nearly trebled. The only Leader who tried to tackle it was the late Premadasa. His motto ‘punchi pawla, honda pawla’ seems to have died since then.

The talent is all there but which one of the Presidential candidates is capable of harnessing them and the resources in a positive direction? Therein lies the problem and the tragedy.

By: Ravi.M

Ravi.M — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 10:52:30 +0000

Shevedra Silva may have hide the fact and SF may have come to know through a third party latter. We want to know whether S/MOD actually issued that instruction

By: REALIST

REALIST — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 10:45:17 +0000

Politics in SL has always been and continue to be a muddle as the Politicians know that the people do not think of long term issues which are necessary for their (peoples’) welfare and the development of the country and vote for this person or that person or this party or another swallowing the instance promises held out during elections. Untill the people start thinking rightly the muddle will conltinue.

By: Vichara

Vichara — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 10:36:53 +0000

Two short comments.
The statement “The Resettling the IDP’s became a priority for this regime only after the presidential election was confirmed.” is not correct.
The IDP resettlement commenced in late May 2009 and the confirmation of the Presidential election was confirmed only in November 2009.

If General Fonseka wins and want to clear the mess , the only way he can do it is by retaining the powers of the Executive President. He should give them up only after clearing the ‘Kunu goda’.

By: Garawi

Garawi — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 10:02:15 +0000

I totally agree with the following statement you wrote!
>>
Listening, reading and drawing inferences from what’s coming out and not coming out of the 2 main camps in the presidential foray; I cannot help but come to the conclusion that the people of SL has the unenviable choice of electing either the biggest swindler in the country’s history or the most decorated military dunderhead in the country.
<<

By: Chinthaka

Chinthaka — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:48:04 +0000

Most hillarious thing in this is the Commander of SLArmy says he got ground info from journalists and he took them seriously. i.e. He gave orders for the war based on news sent by TV people. ?

The problem of this Ret. general is he has no common sense at the moment due to hard work of last few years and had no time to recover and get adjested to the civil life. He is total alien to this life. He still cant measure his words. Most of the outcome is counter productive.

My question is how he will cope with the responsibilities of a President of a country while he is still struggelling to balance his civil life.

By: Lakxa

Lakxa — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:42:31 +0000

“Quote” Mahinda “Quote”
Your right ,but i Don’t care about Anything , first i want to get rid of this & Company
then second step

By: Mahinda

Mahinda — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 06:29:39 +0000

Yes, indeed, SF has to wake up by himself or somebody has to wake him up.

By looking at the current trend of the campaign , it will be a formidable task to defeat incumbent and I think SF already lost the battle. E-media is trying to draw a different conclusion though, but ground reality is far from it.

I can agree that known devil is probably better than unknown one. But in this case lesser known devil could be a choice to consider as well. Time to time we had leaders to serve purpose of the time, similarly MR came, with the total credibility he solve the LTTE issue over night, and of course so many factors helped it ,including SF as the commander and any one can argue that without SF, MR would have solved LTTE issue anyway. So total credit goes to MR for sure.

Now, we all know current political experience will not solve current burning issues and those cannot be solved overnight, requires political will and courage which all are not shown by MR so far during his 40 years of political leadership.

One doesn’t have to be in the helm to solve all those issues, at least to show the courageousness to work out solution. We know what Premadas did under JR. We know what Gamini, Lalith did under JR. MR was no equivalent to them.

Could SF be a solution? Not-known, but at least approach will be different. He will not have Basil , Mr. 2-10%, He will not have Sajin, high flyer of Mihin Air, he will not have SB , personal achievement book reader who want to be the President no matter what and self promoted with dirty mouth and strange hand movements, he will not have Dutugamunu Mervin. So there are something to ponder about.
Will SF be better than MR? Only time will tell ! But by listing to current campaign SF is with too much vengeance against MR clan, which he must stop. He should stick to Buddha principles. “Nahi vererana verani, …” He should talk about the development, eradication of corruption, development of education, solving tamil issues, he should talk about the future, not the past. He should give people some hope. Should not become another regular politician, he should not become another SB or Mevin. We people had enough. We need hope. At least who talk about it. Let’s see if he can do that for next 25 days. Then I will vote, otherwise, known devil is better to me.