Comments on: A tale of two Presidents, six years after the war https://groundviews.org/2015/05/21/a-tale-of-two-presidents-six-years-after-the-war/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-tale-of-two-presidents-six-years-after-the-war Journalism for Citizens Sat, 23 May 2015 00:19:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.1 By: Kailas Pillai https://groundviews.org/2015/05/21/a-tale-of-two-presidents-six-years-after-the-war/#comment-59953 Sat, 23 May 2015 00:19:00 +0000 http://groundviews.org/?p=17643#comment-59953 The immediate former President Mahinda Rajapaksa was confident that the ethnic divide (aka terrorism threat) will enable him to sail smoothly. He thought that Lankans will overlook the rampant corruption, nepotism and the culture of impunity. This was not to be.
Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena is the first Lankan Leader who did not exploit the ethnic divide. Earnest hope is that this divisive issue will remain in the background.

]]> By: Dev https://groundviews.org/2015/05/21/a-tale-of-two-presidents-six-years-after-the-war/#comment-59951 Fri, 22 May 2015 12:03:00 +0000 http://groundviews.org/?p=17643#comment-59951 In reply to Ruki.

Thank you, Ruki. This point was beautifully highlighted by Colombo Telegraph as well.

The “remembrance day” proclamation was done earlier to grab the international media attention (of change) then it seemed to have been business as usual.

The author seems to be in a mighty rush to paint a rosy picture of the new government at every turn (not surprising I suppose).

]]> By: srivanamoth https://groundviews.org/2015/05/21/a-tale-of-two-presidents-six-years-after-the-war/#comment-59947 Thu, 21 May 2015 18:20:00 +0000 http://groundviews.org/?p=17643#comment-59947 The two paradoxes define “the devil” and “the deep blue sea” worlds of post independent SL. Not much to talk about anyway. What will be, will be que Sri Lanka?

]]> By: Ruki https://groundviews.org/2015/05/21/a-tale-of-two-presidents-six-years-after-the-war/#comment-59946 Thu, 21 May 2015 15:50:00 +0000 http://groundviews.org/?p=17643#comment-59946 President Sirisen’s end of war commemoration was focused on “Ranaviru” (War Heroes) and totally military oriented, nothing to do with remembrance of civilians killed. What was on show was military might. Nothing different in substance from President Rajapakse’s commemorations. Although there was clearly less fanfare and focus on the President himself this time around. Even the President’s website, the Defense Ministry website (the President is the Minister) and official government news portal uses this terminology of “war Heroes”. The Defense Ministry refers to ‘Ranaviru Commemorative Parade”. I find it extremely misleading to call it “Remembrance”. By contrast, events in North and East by Tamils to commemorate end of war was to remember civilians killed. It is possible some Tamils were also remembering their kith and kin who were in LTTE, but there was no explicit LTTE commemorations to the best of my knowledge. The new government also tried to restrict, intimidate these peaceful remembrances by Tamil civilians, mostly led by Christian clergy and elected Tamil politicians. But these were less aggressive than previous years. See http://groundviews.org/2015/05/20/tamils-in-north-east-sri-lanka-remember-those-killed-despite-intimidation-and-surveillance/. So to me, the two tales are, one, a present and a former Sinhalese President focused on military and “War Heroes” commemoration (with variances in tone and approach) and two, in North Remembrances of Tamil civilians killed

]]> By: Jayalath https://groundviews.org/2015/05/21/a-tale-of-two-presidents-six-years-after-the-war/#comment-59945 Thu, 21 May 2015 14:31:00 +0000 http://groundviews.org/?p=17643#comment-59945 We have been seeing what can be done by these two presidents . To my personal perspective that President Rajapaksa is 1000 times better than Sirisena .because we can see today the mess that Sirisena created so far in Sri Lanka which has caused to standstill our country for years to come and the harm of it is much more detrimental than having arbitrary behaviour of Rajapaksa’s time .
However ,Some people can punch in air to celebrate the victory of Sirisena but people who planed the conspiracy would know what a load of rubbish that they dropped from their mouths to robust the conspiracy . I wouldn’t say all the blames and charges are baseless but most of them are as much petty allegations .,which are clearly seeing today . So, I hope the people would give a good reply to those who conspired in upcoming election

]]> By: Alvar https://groundviews.org/2015/05/21/a-tale-of-two-presidents-six-years-after-the-war/#comment-59941 Thu, 21 May 2015 02:15:00 +0000 http://groundviews.org/?p=17643#comment-59941 The writer is an intellectual who understands the sensitivities and ground views. We want more and more journalist of this nature to educate the citizens of Sri Lanka for logical, rational, ethical & morale thoughts in selecting the leader for a united country. Under Sirisena’s leadership the country and people will enjoy freedom, breath democracy and achieve prosperity. International community will recognize Sri Lanka(ns) as a civilized people with democratic norms and human rights values. More tourists and more investment will flow into the country that will result in more employment and more prosperity to the people. Sirisena’s foreign policy is already attracting foreign investors. We are fortunate now to have a forward thinking leader who will untie the country for a prosperous Sri Lanka. We will treat each other as friends and neighbors within Sri Lanka and invent an enemy elsewhere for petty politics. We need one leader to win the war and another leader to win the peace. War was won in 2009 but the peace is yet to be won!

]]> By: Park https://groundviews.org/2015/05/21/a-tale-of-two-presidents-six-years-after-the-war/#comment-59940 Thu, 21 May 2015 01:59:00 +0000 http://groundviews.org/?p=17643#comment-59940 its time to kick not only Mahinda Rajapakse out of politics, but also all the other SLFP and UPFA MPs’ who support Rajapakse. Long live Maithripala Sirisena. Down with the THIEVES.

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