BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS

This year’s Indian independence celebration primarily focused on regional security, which is a vital issue for all countries in the South Asian region. It seems that certain media of Sri Lanka attempts to mislead people of the country focusing on unimportant issues that are entirely worthless and they are really like opening soda bottles when gas has gone out the bottle become water bottles. In that way, it seems that news media focus on the presidential election and the candidates for the election. They have given priority to personal considerations such as Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s citizenship which is entirely a private matter for Mr. Rajapaksa as American Embassy pointed out.  America is not an irresponsible country to disclose personal matters to journalists or people who looking for points to coverup the mistakes done during the 2015 presidential election.

These people (Journalists) seem to be behaving like gossipers than responsible professionals and an article in a weekend newspaper named them as stooges and during the LTTE war also some of the journalists behaved irresponsibly and disguised after the war. Now they have emerged with a view to making money spreading lies or taking advantages out of the vulnerable nature of Sri Lankans.  

These stupid guys are pointing out cases against Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, which are still in courts without final judgments and many journalists are irresponsible who attempt to prejudice with a view to making political advantages for supporting candidates.  Last weekend newspapers especially Island carried good articles based on various points of views and the political analyst has published an interview with a lawyer who replied to significant legal points.

Many criticisms against Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa are court cases which are like cases that exist for many other people and the truth of the world is that many currents presidents in the world had court cases before they become presidents.   The cases were not cases against the presidentship.  Why these journalists use the profession for prostitution than using it respectfully for giving the right information to readers and listeners and beguiled Western nations with a view to making money fabricating news against the Rajapaksa regime as they have done in 2015. Now Western countries know the truth and again they will not offer money for lies.

Regional security and economic issues are the most significant points to the presidential election in Sri Lanka.  It seems that UNP and NGOs reluctant to openly talk about regional security because many UNP supporters and JVP supporters associated with the Easter Sunday bomb attack and they want to coverup the issue pointing figure to unnecessary points.  India, America, China, Russia, Japan, Australia, and Korea highly concern about regional security and it appears that Islamic terrorists have looked on Sri Lanka to use as a centre for spreading terrorism. UNP, SLPP, SLFP and all other political parties need to stand on one policy as the regional security must be a vital point all needed to concern.  New security threat is not like LTTE threat but it is associated with global terrorism which has a disguised face.

When compared to India Islam’s population in Sri Lanka is over 9.5% and there are plenty of young Muslims in Sri Lanka to use for terrorist targets.  They are blind on the faith and terrorists have used them in the name of religion and the operations and administration of Eastern province in Sri Lanka showed that the ruling political parties were not interested in look into what was going on and gave full freedom to operate against the democratic world.

UNP needs the support of Muslims to election winning so they are not interested in regional security and the secret behaviour of Muslim guys, who associated with terrorism. Sri Lanka doesn’t want to go against any religion, but the incident in the Easter Sunday showed that authorities of Islam religious institutions attempted to either disguise what was happening in their institutions or they purposely supported to terrorist activities with a full knowledge that such terrorism would be harmful to the country as well to the entire region.

India has only less than 5% of the Muslim population and the Indian government concerns the behavior of these people and it is quite difficult for Muslim people to spread terrorism in India.  However, Sri Lanka has more than 9.5% of Muslims, which is a quite large population for Sri Lankan authorities to control and is an easy target for Islamic terrorists to get publicity because of party politics in the country supports to operate Islamic terrorists.  The presidential and other election has caused many terrorists to get refuge in political parties as in 2015 happened with JVP.  Many small party leaders want to make money out of elections and it would be an opportunity for terrorist’s disguise and operate.   Disguise Islamic terrorists can activate in the country as strong supports of political parties wants power than the security of the country.  People of the country need to understanding this situation and need to support a presidential candidate who is concerned about regional security.

Sri Lanka cannot waste its resources for the reconstruction of terrorist destructions and needs supporting for securing friendly nations from terrorism.  Australia, New Zealand and Japan are major targets of Islamic terrorists, who consider that Sri Lanka is the best way for them to enter those countries.  The politics in Sri Lanka clearly show that there are top politicians to safeguard them. Some Sinhala UNP candidates in the Muslim majority area need support from Muslim people and they are ready to safeguard these terrorists.  Television pictures showed that some accused people who associated with Islamic terrorists sitting with political leaders of parties and many active NGOs have active relationships with Muslim personnel who have an association with Islamic terrorists.  In this situation, Sri Lanka needs a president who strongly concerns with regional security and who is possible to attract financial and other supports to control terrorism and ensure regional security.  Sri Lankans must understand that due to politics in the South Indian area governments and political parties are reluctant to work against Islamic terrorism and Sri Lanka also pushes to that level and after Marth of the Easter Sunday bomb attack political parties attempt to coverup the issue in the name of elections.

According to the public statement of Mr. Sarath Fonseca only 50% of terror supported personnel were arrested in the country and the balance 50 % have not identified or are still working under the disguise of political supporters and these people are carrying a high risk to above-mentioned countries.

A day’s incident on the Easter Sunday damaged more than 15% of Sri Lanka’s economy and if any candidate attempts to protect terrorist supporters, they can be done more damages to the economy as well as to other countries.  Therefore, regional security and the economy of the country must be vital points in elections.

Presidential election supports to electing a visionary leader but entire policy development and policy implementation would be depended on the parliament elected members from the general election. This means that Sri Lanka needs a visionary leader and policy-oriented parliament members and this might not understand many voters. If it takes Malaysia, Mr. Mahathir was against the social culture of West but he never refused Western investments and never allowed to ISIS terrorism though he was a person in the Muslim faith. The experience in the world clearly shows that the president of Sri Lanka must be a visionary leader who concerns regional security.

The economy of the country has a highly positive relationship with the security of the country and if it mathematically calculates the relationship between two factors, it would be more than 0.9, which means that without ensuring the security of the country no investment will be attracted.  This is the highly significant point that must be considered by presidential candidates and except Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, other candidates are reluctant to talk about security.

It is also shown that many Western democracies have understood that they will not financially support to so-called NGO leaders who are talking on stages for money rather than working for democracy.  These NGOs were reluctant to condemn terrorism and appreciate the policies relating to regional security. This means that they don’t bother about the security of countries that provide funds for them. The politics of Sri Lanka should not allow terrorists to enter the countries through it in the name of politics.