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The
Lankaweb Weekly Editorial
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Sri
Lanka's Real And Perhaps Only Hope For The Future Which Needs To Be Recognized.
In displaying great charisma and decorum with which she conductes her presidential duties with patriotic concern she has provided something all Sri Lankans should take great pride in, that their President has responded to the needs of all Sri Lankan and not pay homage to the combines of an isolated few who have all but attempted to sever the country and can be named as the UNF, The LTTE and Norway no matter what is said to counter the concept! There can be no denying the glaring evidence which has been confirmed through many sources of intelligence that the means afforded the LTTE to fortify their resources were naively extended by an undiscerning incumbent Administration with minimal vision towards the devious manouverings of the LTTE thereby providing a dangerous imbalance in the defence and security infrastructure of a Sovereign Nation which the President has literally collared by the scruff of the neck dispelling and confounding any ambitions the enemies of the State might have had towards ursurping its legitimate existence. She has been astute and affirmed about her reasons for suspending parliament, the manner in which she plans to resolve the power struggle with her political rival prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the prospect of resuming the country's peace process with the separatist Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam which though presenting itself as a yeoman task nevertheless is within her capabilities as she has the majority of the Sinhala Nation behind her with the backing of the Armed Forces, the Constitution and the assent of the International Community whose hypothetical dissention though portrayed to the countrary by unscrupulous media is miniscule at best and to be naturally expected. To Those who have taken it upon themselves to belittle the President's latest decisions in exercising the powers vested in her by the Constitution which are clearly outlined in absolute clarity that the Defence of Sri Lanka should be entirely under the President, they need to be enlightened about their sense of judgement and righteousness in the best interests of their Nation. If there have been any doubts about it, the recent Supreme Court ruling has provided her with the required confirmation that she had not erred in moving towards maintaining the natural order within a Sovereign Democracy regardless of the negative criticism of an undiscerning few and those who stood to lose vested interests. Defence as outlined in the Sri Lankan Constitution is inalienable from the President and a portfolio of responsibility held by all previous Presidents and prior to the formation of the Republic of Sri Lanka an exclusive responsibility of any Prime Minister who carried the office automatically. It has no co-relation to the Prime Ministers assigned duties bearing in mind its cross reference to the present Administrative setup in Sri Lanka which is a process of co-habitation between the Prime Minister and the President where the President is overall Chief Executive Officer in charge of operations! It must be remembered that the President was swept into power in 1994 during a continuing insugency proper which began in 1983 having boiled over from decades ago where the rule of law which was assumed as teetering on the brink of anarchy and complete mayhem was to a great degree averted by her leadership where fundamental rights of the people and proper governance was restored within a short space of time and an all important dialogue with the insurgent LTTE commenced albeit uneasily and temporarily where the changing of the political guard subsequently played a major role remembering the aberrations of norms relative co-existence leading to the events of disastrous impact perpetrated by the LTTE's quest for secession which had lasted for decades. Lately the confrontational political dialogue between the Prime Minister and President has evoked accusations of stifling a mandate to govern unconditionally as heard from the UNF leadership where the greater mandate undeniably lies with the President towards which she has acquited herself admirably and the mandate vested by the people in the Prime Minister squandered to a degree and further reason for the Nation to be thankful of the stand which has been taken by the President and has promoted the withdrawal of the Norwegian Peace Keepers hopefully on a long term or permanent basis and had seen thinking caps being fitted on the LTTE's hierarchy towards evaluating their future and the impact of Presidential assertion of her responsibilities towards Sri Lanka's Sovereign and Territorial Integrity which they have continued to provide cause for concern towards its longevity and permanence and the unhealthy symbiosis between them and their champions in the Parliament in Colombo which has now reached a level of intolerance as the mood within the land indicates. Graciously the President has refuted all the media claims about her animosities towards the Prime Minister where all is not lost in their cohabitation of political existence and has shown her class in reproaching the stringencies of totalitarian control the Constitution exercises by way of overall authority , in having recognized it as an undemocratic and bureaucratic attribute set in place by its founding fathers and has sounded a need for constitutional ammendment towards posterity and the future of Sri Lanka which further enhances her right to be recognized as an impartial yet sternly disciplined leader which Sri Lanka could ill afford to be without at this stage of her existence. As a confirmation of the Presidents dedication towards Sri Lanka she has been quoted as saying that"There are indications that the forces of the UNP and my party, the vast majority of the country want us to join hands. And they keep saying that if that happens this problem can be resolved, to work in tandem, to put up a united strong front and talk unitedly with the LTTE. And on the economy, look at our resources, they are much richer than most third world countries, but we just don't seem to take off. During my years in power we had growth of over six per cent a year. It's only in the last six months that growth has become minus. But both parties account for about 85 per cent of the vote at the last general election. So if we can work together we can solve things. So the people are demanding very stridently for this. Each party has come in during the last 55 years and done horrible things. I am deeply committed to peace and I have done a lot for peace. What the present government is riding high on is the work we did on a lot of sweat, tears and blood - my own blood also. I nearly died in that [Ms Kumaratunga lost an eye in 1999 to a terrorist attack]. And many of my colleagues have been killed by the LTTE. So I will never go away from that commitment. But also I cannot forget that it is not only the LTTE's problem. It is also the problem of the Tamil people and Muslim people and of the entire nation. And we have to arrive at a solution that will not endanger the lives of other people. At the moment the LTTE is endangering the lives of ordinary Tamil civilians.What I told the prime minister yesterday was: "Do you see me as a worse adversary than Mr Prabhakaran [the head of the LTTE]? We are on the same side and we belong to the same government, I have sacrificed much more than any Sri Lankan leader ever to resolve the Tamil people's problems because of my very deep commitment to no war and to a negotiated settlement and peace. I was the first political leader who said at elections that the Tamil people have problems and other people have problems. I was the first leader to have presented this to the country and that requires a lot of courage, I don't wish to sound immodest, but it did. I presented a constitutional draft to resolve the Tamil complaints and we offered vast amounts of devolved powers to the Tamils -the widest possible devolution. And the devolution we offered was much greater even than the Indian constitution.I am an eternal optimist even though many things have happened in my own life to make me the most depressed person on earth perhaps. [She laughs]. But I am losing faith in my optimism also. But we could try because, dialectically speaking, even though the situation has been made impossible by the prime minister - he is impossible, the peace process is supposed to be inclusive but it has been handled entirely exclusively.There are many positive aspects of this whole process in the last two years. But there are many seriously negative aspects which have to be dealt with without tur Perhaps Sri Lanka's Real And Only Hope For The Future Whom All Sri Lankans Should Unite To Support In Restoring Its Former Resplendancy.
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