President Rajapaksa:Homage to greatness

By M. B. Mathmaluwe

(June 02, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) After nearly 30 years of a most destructive war, against an elusive and wily Terrorist Organisation which, the international community has not hesitated to name as ‘the world’s most virulent terrorist outfit’, the last gun on the battlefield has fallen silent on every front. The chief architect of the terror and everyone in his cohorts of criminals have been exterminated like the beasts they were.

Today we are rid of a threat which, if it had been allowed to take its course, could very well have destroyed the territorial integrity of our beloved motherland and eventually deprived her of her national identity and, perhaps, even ended up by making her a mere Province of Tamil Nadu! Now it has been averted; this tremendous achievement of saving the country could, in all fairness and honesty, be attributed to the vision, daring and the single-minded determination of one man: President Mahinda Rajapaksa. This writer would take this opportunity to pay a humble tribute to him on behalf of the 20 million of this nation’s people, in deep gratitude.

It behoves us at a moment like this, which rarely arrives in the history of a nation, to take a backward look and assess calmly, the magnitude of this achievement in its correct perspective. As a senior citizen of this blessed country who has been privileged to witness the vagaries of its fortunes for nearly 90 years, it could be stated in all responsibility, judging by the massive mountains of stores and arms that the LTTE had stockpiled, it is no exaggeration to say, if the national armed forces had delayed by a couple of more months the offensive it launched against them their dream of an Eelam of the ‘traditional homelands of the Tamils’ would well have been a reality today! This threat, by its very nature, its magnitude and its novelty, may not be even easily realised by many because the nation has not been faced with such a threat in their living memory.

Today the long dark night of sleepless anxiety is over; the nation has been decisively saved not only from an enemy within, but also from many enemies outside it who were waiting to walk in with their so-called ‘Peacekeeping forces’ and involve the nation in some sort of international imbroglio in the guise of rescuing the civilians when these self-appointed ‘saviours’ had been both deaf and blind for 30 years about the howling atrocities the LTTE armed goons were committing, butchering thousands of civilians, men, women and children, Buddhist monks by the bus-load and unarmed policemen in cold blood. Today at last, the nation can heave a sign of relief and breathe freely as a free people and live with self respect and retain its place as a free nation among her peers.

If one pauses to think of the magnitude of the disaster the nation has just averted, and the possible consequences that could have followed if it had not happened, one would be reaffirmed in a persistent belief among our people, that there are some benign deities presiding over the destinies of this nation and repeatedly saving it in the nick of time from calamities that keep on threatening its very survival, from time to time. Every time that such a threat loomed ahead, these protective deities throw up the man to meet it ——- to ensure its survival and safety. Dark as the period we have just put behind us, there have been, in the history of this country darker times: in the 2nd Cent. BC, when a conqueror from S. India Elara by name, had established his hegemony over the Rajarata Kingdom, for 44 years, and it was looking good for another hundred years, a Dutugemunu was sent from Ruhuna to wage a bloody war and retrieve the position; in the late 1st Cent. BC, when again, a group of S. Indian armed marauders drove out the reigning monarch and held the kingdom for 14 years, a Valagambahu was provided to rescue the nation; in the 10th Cent. AD, when the S. Indian Chola Empire was in her zenith of power, its Kings Rajaraja and his son, Rajendra subjugated this country and held it for 53 years as a mere Province of its Empire, a Vijayabahu emerged from the backwoods of Sabaragamuwa to restore the Kingdom after a bitter war——— and, today, when an enemy who had grown into a behemoth-monster over a 30 year period unleashing unmitigated terror, these same presiding deities have, in their goodness, given us a Rajapaksa to lead the nation to safety and redeem her honour and self-respect which he has now done beyond all expectations. Today, a people who had lived for years in fear and anxiety, feeling relieved at last, have spilled on to the streets with drum and trumpet and are seen singing and dancing, waving the Lion Flag——- the flag that has waved over a hundred battlefields——- Vijithapura, Randenigala, Mulleriyawa, Gannoruwa and now, Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu! All made sacred soil with the blood of those heroes who gave their lives so that we and the future generations may live in safety and honour. This nation knows how to appreciate the greatness of this man Rajapaksa who made it all possible. His name will grow into fame and endure for ever in the annals of this country.

The reader may now spare a moment to be told how an adventurer, drawn from the lowest scum of his Community, had come to occupy a position of staggering strength and power to pose a threat to successive legitimately elected democratic governments which he had repeatedly deceived into believing him and trust him while he, without the slightest qualm went back on his promises, retracted and reneged: nothing was too sacred for him to defile; he was a virtual scourge unleashed upon earth; he stopped at nothing if it would pamper his shameless vainglory or for private gain. He spilled the blood of tens of thousands, it seemed, for the sheer pleasure of seeing people die. On numerous occasions when depleted in strength, he would consent to parley only to get up from the table and walk away when he felt he had recuperated! Time and again, he did this to decent, honourable govts. Who had, in their benighted folly, taken him on trust; he would tear up Agreements signed in all honour, without the slightest compunction. Such a scoundrel was this Prabhakaran! And now, he has been shot down in his tracks like the dirty dog he had been all along. His dream of an Eelam kingdom where he perhaps, had designs of reigning has vanished into thin vapour. The riffraff ranks, equally criminal, that he had gathered around him too, have been shot down like the pack of pariahs they were! The day he held his people in bondage under the whiplash, getting them to commit unspeakable crimes at his command, to throw away their lives as ‘suicide bombers’ a concept totally alien to this country but which he got his brainwashed foolish ranks to accept; the days when he walked over the dead bodies of his people and over smoking ruins of their homes, with dripping sword and still-smoking gun, are at last over. Speaking in this vein, as a Senior citizen of the country, this writer has a duty to remind our leaders, that History has this strange habit of repeating itself; what one terrorist, Prabhakaran did, another terrorist can do! Leaders have to be vigilant and Argus-eyed. Such Terror demons can come out only from the North - they can come again from the South as well; only; watch for them and, at the slightest sign; crush them with no mercy nip them in the bud before they grow in strength and get out of hand!. ªToday this nation is grateful to President Rajapaksa not merely for annihilating a national scourge and restoring peace and security to his people, but also for proving before an astonished world community that never believed anybody could do this! That this great people, Sri Lankans have not, in the least, lost that brave warlike spirit they have time and again displayed on numerous battle-fields it is still alive and as strong as it ever had been.

A word about our leaders of whom, if one may speak today, expansively, one may be excused and quite justifiably; too. When the night this country was plunged in, seemed the longest and the darkest and a sign of a dawn seemed nowhere near, he made this possible; he made things happen. Right from the beginning, he knew what was amiss and he knew what had to be done. Here was a man amply gifted with many attributes intellectual, moral and, if one may be pardoned for saying so, physically robust, broad shouldered to carry the devolving responsibilities of statecraft, he is a rare soul that frugal Nature had thrown upon this land as the country’s hope, saviour and Messiah and at the right time too. Principled, disciplined and astute beyond common intelligence, his shrewdness has been seen repeatedly outwitting his opponents; there seems to be in him a combination of both Chanakya and Machiavelli; readers can judge; in the Parliament when his critics confronted him with his certain undoing, with no hope of ever becoming a presidential candidate of his party, he would blandly laugh because he knew his strategies were laid and the trumps were in his hand; when his political enemies were drawing well-planned schemes to worst him at the Presidential Election round the corner, he kept his cool because he was always one step ahead of his opponents; when the rival Presidential candidate was cocksure of sweeping the Polls with the Tamils vote, Rajapaksa obviously had seen to it that these Tamils he banked on, never went to the Polling booths! The leader of the Opposition has lived to rue his cockiness which, to his regret had been totally unfounded and the Tamil leader, Prabhakaran who made it possible for the President to win that day - where is he today! With that monumental blunder, he had looked like a silly ‘Podian’ who had lost not merely his kingdom but also his pants! The events that were triggered off that fateful day have so escalated that it was only yesterday that the bullet-ridden body was found in a pool of mud, ignominiously shot down on his cowardly flight, ringing the curtain down on his life of horrendous crime that brought untold misery, suffering, destruction and death to tens of thousands, not merely to his co-called enemies, but also to his own people; let it be said in all honesty that the decimation and destruction he has brought upon his people cannot be repaired for another 50 years!

Finally, a great struggle for survival has thus ended; the Nation looks forward to a new dawn, a new era, of massive tasks ahead of rehabilitation, rebuilding and regeneration. Great President, it is time you addressed your mind to these numerous labours that are crying for attention; they can no longer wait. Dutugemunu, Valagambahu, Vijayabahu - all these great Kings must have had these same task waiting for them, once they freed the country. The people of this country are with him no doubt in these tasks with all the good-will in their hearts; may the Triple gem and the gods help him in his labours.

-Sri Lanka Guardian