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By Charles Perera

Wish you a Happy Birth Day, and many more happier birth days to come. Sri Lanka, blessed by the several visit of the Compassionate Buddha, and protected by the four deities, is fortunate to have had you elected as the President of Sri Lanka, at a crucial time of its history. There had been several Presidents, since the beginning of terrorism in Sri Lanka, and none of them made a determined effort to stop it, and at least one of them gave his life for having trusted the terrorists. The other, who extended her arm of friendship to the terrorists, escaped death by sacrificing one of her eyes.

It should be said to the credit of Chandrika Kumaratunga, that at the beginning, after the rein of terror under the President .Premadasa, she was a welcome change. She had good intentions, and she too knew the terrorism is the vicious cancer that was eating into the flesh of Sri Lanka hampering it, in its development. She attempted in her own way with political packages to the terrorists, to bring in a period of calm in to the troubled political situation she inherited.

But, the opposition leader Ranil Wickramasinghe- she in turn inherited, was one with an inborn capacity for trouble shooting. He did not make it easy for her as well, as Wickramasinghe was, as he is now , a man with a one track mind . He wants to be the President, and nothing more nothing less. Chandrika had to give up her attempts to seek peace with the terrorists because of Ranil Wickramasinghe. There after, she became a defeatist, and her usefulness to the country became less important. She began to exist with a heart full of rancour, and even to-day continues to live with it.

In the meantime, the most traitorous man, Ranil Wickramasinghe, who became the Prime Minister during an unfortunate period of time, of our beleaguered Island , strengthened the terrorists and was almost giving them a Part of the country to set up their fascist Eelam. That was the blackest period of the history of Sri Lanka. May that not happen again, we the ordinary people incessantly pray.

It was at this time, that we had the good fortune to have had you elected as the President of Sri Lanka, and the right thinking people of Sri Lanka will be ever grateful for those who voted to have you elected to this august position, and make prayers of gratitude to protective deities of the mother Island.

You deserved to have been elected, as you are a man of honour, with a sincere disposition, not for self aggrandisement, but to save the country from the helpless state it had been pushed into by incapable right wing politicians on one side , and well armed ruthless terrorists on the other.

You knew as you are sincere and honest, that what ever promises you have made, and the projects you had in mind for the communal unity and happiness of the people as a whole, which you harbour deep down in your heart, cannot be carried out as long as terrorism has not been eliminated. You gave priority to stop terrorism at all cost, so that the way would be clear to carry out the pet projects you had in mind, through out those period of long political hibernation under rightist Presidents. People who do not understand that are people blinded by their personal ambitions or through envy, and hatred for what you are.

You are a good man Mr. President. A man, whose esteemed position has not gone into his head. You mix with kings but you have not lost your common touch, as an English poet had said. You walked into 10 Downing Street to meet the Prime Minister of Great Britain in a simple sarong and shirt. You addressed, the General Assembly of the UNO in Sinhala- your mother tongue. You did that in all sincerity to honour the country and the people of your mother land, though people with ugly minds, wrote ugly words even to minimise the importance of the issue. You are a good man, because you respect your religion as an ordinary man. You can, despite your prestigious position, go down on your knees in a temple to make offerings to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha.

You are a good man, because you do not sit on your high horse when meeting and speaking even to the people who dishonour you, reject disrespectfully your repeated invitations to come and help you. You do not stop asking people, who speak demeaningly about you, to come and join you to help the country overcome its present dangerous situation. Some think of the purity of their socialist cause like Lenin with Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. That is JVP, even the mention of them makes one sick. They are not better than Ranil, Tissa Attanayake, Lakshman Kiriella, Michael Perera, or Hakim. You will never know where you will be with them.

If you had invited Ranil to form a National Government, it is because you are a person who do not harbour hatred even against your worst enemy. Ranil is not worth forming a government with, nor with Somawansa Amarasinghe as a matter of fact. As an enemy even Prabhakaran is not as bad compared to them, because at least with him you know with whom you deal with.

They complain your Budget is not for the poor. You had of course made provisions to ease their burden. You would have liked to do more, but you have the priority of eliminating terrorism, and that requires purchase of material to successfully deal with the terrorist, and remove them from the mother land. It is not easy, because, they will rise up again from places least expected. But it is necessary to give them the death blow just now, to end their mad folly. That is the reason why you could not do more in your present budget to ease further the burden of the common man.

The ordinary people will understand, though the people with their minds rotting with political ambitions will disagree. They want you to stop corruption. Of course you would like to do that, but, Is it the priority problem Sri Lanka is faced with ? And corruption of all sorts had existed from the beginning of time, and no country in the world has been able to stamp it out. Even the Communist System in USSR and China had failed in that. We must first have an undivided Sri Lanka, to clear the country of thieves, criminals, and what not, and carry out development projects. We have the terrorist who do not seem to give up terrorising, the civilians, and shoot at the Security forces. To keep them at check with retaliatory attacks may also kill unfortunate civilians, and that is not violating human rights, because the Security Forces are not deliberately killing the occasional civilian. Kidnapping of people and extortion of money, are criminal acts. And you cannot be blamed for that, because you have the Police Force to do that. And they seem to be gradually getting hold of the criminals involved.

They complain, that you have put all your brothers into important places. We understand, because at this hour you need men whom you can trust , who will render service with undivided loyalty. For that who are better than persons of your own blood. You cannot of course have people who will stab you on your back.

They also complain, you have allocated a large sum of money to Presidential Budget. That is a normal thing for a President to have a special allocation for unseen expenses. They are not for your personal use, the people know it, but the political rivals try to make capital of it.

There are lot of Humanitarians like Kumar Rupasinghe, Jehan Perera, Kusal Perera, and political analysts like Professor Viyangoda, who attack you, and their long articles speak of no terrorists, other than the LTTE. They make you out as a man terrorising innocent freedom seeking politicians of a party called LTTE. They are either heavily paid for their writings or they are bogged down in an intellectual morass not understand simple things. Intentions of many good men were deliberately misunderstood, for personal gain- "just for a hand full of Dollars". Jesus, Gandhi, Kennedy, Martin Luther King, SWRD Bandaranaike come to mind.

So take courage Mr. President , the ordinary people will understand you . Please take care the country needs you.

May the blessings of the Triple Gem be with you, and the four great Deities protect you.

PS. I plead a cause that needs your attention. Please give employment to those unemployed graduates who followed the Tharuna Aruna Programme as they have suffered a lot with tear gas, baton charges, and false promises.

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