War and Peace

Yesterday LTTE has tried to assassinate the Army commander. This is not new to Sri Lanka. There is no doubt that this is a barbaric act done by the murderous LTTE. But if we look at the circumstances under which this has taken place, the only words I can think of to describe this are hilarious, stupid and incompetent. First, the Army commander was attacked inside the highly guarded army headquarters. The suicide bomber was dressed up as a pregnant woman who had come to the maternity clinic of the army hospital. The website lankatruth.com had reported the following.

Officials say a woman exploded a powerful bomb in front of the silver Peugeot 406 which had three gold stars marked on a red background indicating it was the vehicle carrying military commander Sarath Fonseka. He was escorted by Land Rover Defender jeeps packed with armed soldiers and heavily armed motorcycle outriders, one of whom kicked the woman bomber as she tried to get near the convoy, a military official said.

This raises the following questions.

1.Why does the army maintain a maternity clinic inside the highly guarded headquarters? Why do they allow non military personnel to come inside the headquarters for matters that does not have any military importance?

2.Why did the army commander travel in a marked car (with three gold stars, etc.)?

3.How can an army, which can't protect its own commander inside its own highly guarded headquarters protect the country or go to war and defeat the LTTE?

And last but not least

4. How can the government put the blame for this incident to Ranil and his cease fire agreement? (Suggesions: i. The bomber came to Colombo when Ranil was the Prime minister. ii. The cease fire agreement stopped the war and the Tamil people had time to have sex so this suicide bomber got pregnant, which had lead to this incident. iii. Ranil had made the woman pregnant and which lead the path for her to go to the maternity clinic. Naaaa. Nobody would buy that.)

Picture tells it all

Sri Lankan government changed the clock from GMT + 6 to GMT + 5:30. I am not going to say anything about it. The above picture tells it all. (For those who don't know what Angoda is, it is a town in Sri Lanka which is famous for its mental hospital.)

Our Honorable President

This is the Honorable President of Sri Lanka who was voted in by more than 3.8 million people. This is one of the pictures which was published in Sunday Leader news paper. He is supposed to have done this act during his visit to India. Even before this picture and the article was published, Mr. Rajapakse, the honorable President had called the editor of the news paper and, let me put it this way so that this blog should not have to be categorized as an adult only web site, told Mr Lasantha Wickramathunga that his (Lasantha's) mother is a sex worker (trying my best to be diplomatic here) and that he (Lasantha) should go and have sexual intercourse with his (Lasantha's) mother. What a president and what a temperament he has. My friends, this one goes to you who voted for him. Cheers!

Kauda meevata vagakiyanne

A couple of years ago, when the UNP was in power (but the Presidency was with the UPFA), the UPFA launched its election campaign against the UNP with the slogan “Kauda meevata vagakiyanne?” which means who is going to be responsible for this? or something like who would pay for this? Since the President had the control of the state media (TV and radio) every 15 minutes they blasted our eyes and ears with bullshit allegations of the UNP government trying to sell the water resources, industries, etc. and asked us “Kauda meevata vagakiyanne?” Then they won the election because the masses believed them. Now the UPFA won the presidential election by telling similar cock and bull stories of UNP conspiring with the LTTE etc. The people voted Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse, the UPFA candidate as the president. Just after the election people learnt how the LTTE helped Mr. Rajapakse to win the election by preventing the people in the North and East from voting and also by removing more than 200,000 known UNP supporters from the ballot list. The deal with the LTTE was a classic case of two extremes helping each other to keep control of its own territory. While publicly criticizing each other, they help each other behind the scene. After the election, the clashes between the LTTE and the government forces increased by more than 10 times. I can't even remember how many soldiers and sailors died after the election. So who is responsible for all this? “Kauda meevata vagakiyanne?” The UPFA would say that the UNP is responsible because the LTTE became strong during the ceasefire brokered by the UNP. But this is the stupidest excuse. UNP was in power for two years during the 4 years of ceasefire and even during that, for several months the President who was from UPFA had the ministry of defense under her. So why the hell didn't UPFA do any thing while it was in power? A more valid statement would be that the UPFA is responsible for the pathetic situation we are in now because they duped the public and won the presidency giving legitimacy to the LTTE extremists to wage war. This is a valid argument.

But if you ask me “kauda meevata vagakiyanne?” I would say it's the 3.8 million imbeciles who voted for the UPFA.

Happy surfing folks!

Kalama Sutta

I quote the following text because most of the so called Buddhists don't even know about this.


Kalama Sutta

Do not believe in anything (simply) because you have heard it.

Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.

Do not believe in anything because it is spoken and rumoured by many.

Do not believe in anything (simply) because it is found written in your religious books.

Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.

But after observation and analysis when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conductive to the good and benefit of one and all then accept it and live up to it.

Siddhartha Gautama Buddha
(Anguttara Nikaya Vol. 1, 188-193 P.T.S. Ed.)

Why do I write my blog?

Recently a friend of mine asked me why I write my blog and why is it about politics. The reason is the only thing Sri Lankans are really good at, that is, the only field Sri Lankans can be considered to be equal if not better than the best in the world is doing political blunders. We are really good at messing things up. So what subject is better or more interesting than world class political blunders. So why do I write a blog? Why not write a book or write to the paper? Well, one reason is that it is very very difficult to get published. You need to have personal contacts. Even if you have contacts, if you publish something and it was good enough to piss off a politician or some other powerful figure, then you can get sued or worse even get killed. So why would I bother to take the risk of being a writer or a journalist just to write about stupid politicians? What good would it do? Yes it can do some good to the country but what about myself? Why would I get myself in trouble? Our politicians have been doing blunders for the past 50 years. A lot of people have got themselves killed. But for what?

A lot of people who meant good for the society came forward to express their political opinion. Some of them got themselves killed. Some others went to prison. A few more got themselves beaten up. But for what? In the early 70s followers of JVP wanted to create a Marxist state and declared war against the SLFP government. A lot of them were killed. Now the JVP is in the government with the SLFP. So why the hell did all those JVP members got themselves killed? The LTTE killed a lot of TULF (Tamil United Liberation Front) members like Mr. Amirthalingam, Mr. Thiruchelvam, etc. But now most of the TULF members are supporters of the LTTE. So why did those TULF members got themselves killed? In the late 80s, the JVP killed a lot of Communist party members and members of New Samasamaja party. Now the Communist party is in the same government with the JVP. The leader of then New Samasamaja party is also in the same group with the JVP supporting the new president. I wonder what the Communist party leadership and Mr. Nanayakkara, then leader of the New Samasamaja party would tell the families of their colleagues who were killed by the JVP. So as I see it, no political cause is worth dying or getting harassed because in a couple of years you will find the cause obsolete and the people who believed in that cause collaborating with the enemy.

So the best way I see to express my opinion without getting involved is to write a blog. This way I can express my ideas while staying anonymous. If my blog is written well enough, people would read it. It is the easiest way to publish your ideas. The problem is still only a very small minority of Sri Lankans have access to the Internet. But what to do? Happy surfing.

When will we ever learn?

The government is carrying out search operations in Colombo and its suburbs these days. The man in charge is said to be former policeman Mr. Kotakadeniya. He is the adviser to the defense ministry about Police affairs or some thing. This guy is a member of the racist political party JHU. So I can assume that he is a racist himself. Now the TNA or Tamil National Alliance members of parliament are accusing the government of harassing innocent Tamil civilians in Colombo through these operations. TNA is the unofficial political front of the LTTE. So they are massing support for LTTE using these allegations. So is the police really harassing innocent civilians? If the police drag people from their houses at midnight and hold them in police stations for hours if not days just because they have a Tamil name, I think that is harassment. The guy in charge is a known racist. So the average Tamil civilian will tend to think that the government is being racist and harassing them. So they are pushed towards the LTTE. This is the same thing that happened in 1983 when 13 soldiers were killed by LTTE in the north and then president J. R. Jayawardene encouraged the Sinhala mobs to attack Tamil civilians in the south. This was the most barbaric episode of Sri Lankan history after independence in 1948. LTTE whose membership were not more than a couple of hundred at that time, received immense support after this Black July incident of 1983. So when the government is being extremist or when it looks like racist, the other extreme gets the benefit. So now the government is doing it again by assigning a known racist to a sensitive post. This is exactly what the LTTE wanted. This shows the immaturity of Mr. Rajapakse. I am not a fan of former president Mrs. Kumarathunga but she was much more tactful. I am not saying that the government should not carry out search operations but there are ways to do it without alienating the Tamil population. When will we ever learn?

Talibanism in schools

These days, most of the government schools wouldn't let mothers of school children to come inside the school premises unless they are wearing sarees (Kandyan or Indian version). The reason given is that certain dresses worn by mothers are provocative so it disturbs the students. (especially boys.) But does this mean that all women's clothes except sarees are provocative? Also, why does this only apply to women? Why is that there is no dress code for men (fathers). If they bring a dress code for fathers also, then would that mean all the fathers would have to wear sarongs? Scary!

Do these school administrators who have imposed these unofficial dress code for women think that the school boys get teleported from their homes in to the schools? (like in Star Trek) The school boys usually walk or take the bus to school. And on their way, they would pass hundreds of women everyday and the majority of whom would not be wearing sarees. All this reminds me of Taliban.

Wimal pokes his head out

Mr. Wimal Weerawanse of JVP poked his head out of the fox hole he had dug for himself last week. The guy who was screaming his head off about the danger of LTTE before the presidential election was nowhere to be seen or heard once the LTTE escalated violence after the election. Now the guy appeared on TV and said that we all should be careful and think about the way the LTTE really want us to react and avoid reacting that way. What a joke. He should have told this before the election. Then if all the people understood the ulterior motives of LTTE, the people would have elected Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe instead of Mr. Rajapakse. What the LTTE wants is to have an extremist government in Sri Lanka and legitimize its terror. So they helped Mr. Rajapakse to come to power. Now this clown who helped Mr. Rajapakse to win the election is saying we should be wise.

Where the hell is the amendment of the ceasefire agreement?

Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse, our new president and his group of friends (JVP, JHU, etc.) were screaming before the presidential election about amending the ceasefire agreement. Now LTTE has killed more soldiers within one month after Mr. Rajapakse becoming president than the four previous years after the ceasefire agreement. Then the day before yesterday, LTTE has attacked some navy crafts and abducted 3 sailors. Now the LTTE is saying the sailors were killed (drowned) during the battle. If the ceasefire agreement had to be amended because the LTTE killed 17 soldiers in 4 years, shouldn't it be amended for them killing 20 in just one month? So where the hell is Mr. Wimal Weerawanse, Mr. Somawanse Amarasinghe of JVP, Mr. Champika Ranawake, Mr. Udaya Gammanpila, ven. Rathana, ven. Sobhitha, etc. of JHU? And where the hell is the ceasefire amendment? What the hell is Mr. Rajapakse doing now? Now you guys have the power. So why don't you amend the agreement? Where are the brave Dutugemunus of the 21st century?

I guess you are too busy peeing in your pants to do anything about the situation in the North isn't it?

It's one thing yelling about something when you claim that you don't have all the power but a complete different thing when you are in power and when can't claim that anybody is pulling your leg isn't it?

Honarable Peace

During the past few year, after Mr. Ranil Wikckramasinghe signed the ceasefire agreement with the LTTE, the JVP, JHU and the right wing SLFP extremists were constantly saying that the country needs an “honorable” peace and not what ever that was there during that time. If the country needed an honorable peace that implies that there was no honorable peace. Either there should have been war or a dishonorable peace. If you compare the past four years (just prior to Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse becoming president), there were only 17 or so deaths in the Sri Lankan military due to LTTE attacks. All of them were either informants or intelligence officers. In the two years before that (1999-2001), there had been thousands of deaths. (Remember, the army lost Elephant Pass army camp during that time.) So if that was war (1999-2001) then I would definitely say that we did not have war during the last four years. So what did we have during the past four years? If it was not war, then it has to be peace. But according to the JVP, JHU, SLFP it was not honorable peace. So it has to be dishonorable peace. Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse said that he would fix this problem. So now I guess we have honorable peace since now he is the President. So just what is the difference between honorable peace and dishonorable peace? During the dishonorable peace, there were no major confrontations, there were no artillery attacks, there were no suicide bombings but 17 military personnel were killed. After we achieved honorable peace, still there were no major confrontations, there were no artillery attacks, there were no suicide bombings but the number of military personnel killed is nearly I think 18 in one month (with two bombings). So it would be 18 times 12 times 4 in the next four years. That would be 864 if I got my maths correct. So we voted Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse to get 864 military personnel killed in the next four years by changing the dishonorable peace to honorable peace. That would be a change from less than 5 deaths per year to 216 deaths per year. Right?

But wait... What is the problem that we are trying to tackle? Is it the population problem?

Imaginary World

I watched a political discussion on TV. I think that was on TNL last Monday. When I changed to that channel, there was a Buddhist monk (most probably a member of JHU) talking. He was saying that by looking at the history, it was evident that the LTTE eliminated its political opponents during times of ceasefire. He was accusing Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe of letting the LTTE get an upper hand by declaring a ceasefire. I don't know history of which planet he was talking about. May be Mars. If you look at the history, was Mr. Doreappa (I don't know whether I am spelling this correctly) killed during a ceasefire? Was President Premadasa killed during a ceasefire with the Sri Lankan government? Was Mr. Rajiv Gandhi killed during a ceasefire with India? Was Mr. Thiruchelvam of TULF killed during any kind of ceasefire? Were the two consecutive mayers of Jafna killed during any kind of ceasefire? Did the LTTE try to kill President Kumarathunga during a ceasefire with the Sri Lankan government? There have been killings during certain times of ceasefire. But that number is much less than the number of political opponents killed during war. The JHU is living in an imaginary world. They are against any ceasefire agreement. (Like the blood thirsty Taliban.) They try to blame all the problems on the ceasefire agreement. I don't think they are lying. I think these kind of people create their own imaginary world to support their own theories that they have come up with, due to the hatred they have in their minds. The reality is no matter who signed the ceasefire agreement, it saved hundreds if not thousands of lives and also billions of rupees and the Sri Lankan economy. I had to change the channel because I didn't want to spend half an hour cleaning my own vomit in my living room.

How Mahinda lied to the country, stabbed the voters in the back and conspired with the LTTE to win the election at any cost.

There is a sinhala saying “ballo maralahari vaedee karagannava” meaning getting the work done even by killing dogs. This means getting something done at any cost even if you have to stoop to an unimaginably low level. (Killing dogs is considered as a degrading act.) Well, a few of our politicians have done that. In fact what they have done is worse than killing dogs. It is paving way to kill humans. The following article was published on the web.


http://www.tamilweek.com/LTTE_Mahinda_secret_deal_1120.html

I am pasting it on my blog just in case the article is removed from that web site.

It goes like this.

Did LTTE have secret deal with Mahinda to enforce
boycott?

by D.B.S. Jeyaraj

Speculation is rife in Colombo political and diplomatic circles about a possible secret deal, prior to the Presidential poll of Nov 18th , between Mahinda Rajapakse and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to have the new President elected through an enforced boycott in the Tamil majority regions of the North - East!

According to preliminary reports there is much speculation that an arrangement was ensured after a series of meetings held between LTTE political commissar Suppia Paramu Thamilselvan and a special representative of Mahinda Rajapakse.

The special envoy is believed to be none other than Tiran Alles the chief of the Katunayake International Airport in his capacity as chairman of the Airport and Aviation services Ltd.

Tiran Alles who was operations manager earlier became chairman after the resignation of Eastern Province Muslim Congress politician Hizbullah.

According to informed sources Tiran Alles is a blue - eyed boy of Aviation and Ports Minister Mangala Samaraweera who was campaign manager of Mahinda Rajapakse for the Presidential election.

He was reportedly commissioned by Samaraweera with the approval of Rajapakse to undertake a series of visits to Kilinochchi in the North and meet with the LTTE hierarchy particularly the political commissar Thamilselvan

It is said that Alles had established and cultivated contacts with LTTE leaders like Thamilselvan, Pulidevan, Nadesan, Para, Balakumaran and others during their several trips to and from Asian and European destinations through Katunayake for peace talks.

According to sources Tiran Alles was mandated with the task of ensuring a boycott by the Tamil people of the Presidential polls.

It was realised that given the pacts signed by Rajapakse with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and Jathika Hela Urumaya and policies outlined in his election manifesto an open and straight forward deal with the LTTE was out of the question.

With the LTTE articulating a strong anti - Mahinda viewpoint for Tamil consumption any possible deal with him would have been detrimental to tiger interests.

Likewise the Rajapakse campaign too had a stridently anti - tiger line and charged Ranil Wickremasinghe of having entered into an "Ali - Koti "(Elephant - Tiger) deal to get the UNP candidate elected. INformation leaking out of a Mahinda - Tiger deal before elections would have been counterproductive.

The hush - hush talks therefore focussed on an indirect support being extended instead of open or direct support.

Since it was a foregone conclusion that the bulk of Tamil voters would be voting for Wickremasinghe in a free and fair poll the idea was to ensure a Tamil boycott of the election. This would have prevented Tamil votes being cast for Wickremasinghe. This in turn would help Rajapakse who was expected to get the majority of Sinhala votes.

It is believed that the LTTE formally launched an attack on Wickremasinghe to herald a boycott after an arrangement was made with Alles. The political offensive against Wickremasinghe was flagged off by senior leader KV Balakumaran in an interview to "Voice of Tigers" (Puligalin Kural) Radio on Nov 4th. Thereafter the boycott campaign gathered steam.

This in turn led to a national and international backlash against the LTTE. It was pointed out that a Tamil boycott would onlt help defeat the pro - peace, pro - devolution Wickremasinghe and ensure the victory of Rajapakse the hardliner on the ethnic question.

Much international pressure was exerted on the LTTE. Periyasamy Chandrasekeran of the Up Country Peoples Front went as a special emissary of Wickremasinghe to plead Ranil's case with Thamilselvan. Wickremasinghe wanted the LTTE to refrain from enforcing a boycott and allowing the Tamil people freedom of choice to vote.

Thamilselvan then informed the UNP and international circles that the LTTE will not thrust a boycott down Tamil throats and the people would be free to vote for any candidate.

This was carried in the media of Nov 16th and the stock market picked up from the doldrums. Yet the LTTE went back on its assurance and stabbed Wickremasinghe in the back by enforcing a harsh boycott through violence and intimidation.

This resulted in a drop of Tamil votes particularly in Jaffna where only 1. 5 % of Tamils voted. The shortfall of expected Tamil votes due to the tiger enforced boycott led to Wickremasinghe's defeat by 186, 000 votes. The UNP condemns the tiger act as a betrayal.

While analysts and political observers were trying to fathom the reasons behind the LTTE's seemingly inexplicable conduct of defeating the pro - Federalism Ranil and getting the anti - Federalism Mahinda winning the Colombo grapevine began humming with the tale of a Mahinda - Puli deal

It is believed that Tiran Alles undertook an urgent mission to Kilinochchi after reports of a boycott relaxation and met with Thamilselvan. Alles had been able to "persuade" Thamilselvan into revising tiger stance again and enforcing the boycott.

Alles returned triumphantly to Colombo after ensuring an enforced Tamil boycott that shattered Ranil's chances of victory.

Darisha Bastians writing in the "Daily Mirror" of Nov 22nd said that Rajapakse had hugged Alles openly and thanked him for making the victory possible. This is what Darisha wrote -

"Small wonder then that when Friday dawned and a Rajapakse victory was confirmed, the new president-elect violently hugged Aviation Authority Chairman Tiran Alles as he walked into Temple Trees and thanked him for making it all possible. Alles, whose support had been solicited by Minister Mangala Samaraweera had been the chief negotiator with the LTTE on the UPFA's behalf. Alles, following a series of dialogues with the Kilinochchi leadership, finally ensured that the rebels called a boycott of last Thursday's poll, effectively snatching certain victory from Wickremesinghe and handing it over to Rajapakse on a silver platter. "

A website run by the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization also referred to a representative of Mahinda Rajapakse being present in Kilinochchi to pressurise the LTTE into enforcing a boycott. The website stated that Rajapakses special representative was Tiran Alles.

It is also noteworthy that a Sinhala newspaper in Colombo had carried a story some weeks ago about a possible deal in the making between the LTTE and a special emissary of Rajapakse.

Chandrasekeram a well - known LTTE sympathiser has been pissed off by the tiger betrayal and in a statement called upon the LTTE into reviewing its strategies.

Tiran Alles is the son of former DS Senanayake College principal Ralph I.T. Alles. The well - known educationist was not re-instated as Principal after he returned from a foreign trip. This was apparently done on a directive of Ranil Wickremasinghe who was Education minister then. Despite pressure on behalf of Alles by Ranasinghe Premadasa and Sirisena Cooray Wickremasinghe remained form and refused to relent. This action by Wickremasinghe many years ago has not endeared him to the Alles family.

Political and diplomatic circles in Colombo were alerted to the Alles connection in the LTTE boycott after reports of the warm embrace of Tiran by Mahinda and the profuse thanks extended to him began to circulate.

Strenuous attempts are being made by Diplomatic and media circles to find out more details about the suspected LTTE - Mahinda deal. What the terms are is not known yet .

A western diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity said that he suspected a financial arrangement was more likely as a political arrangement was virtually impossible under pevailing circumstances where both sides maintain mutual hostility openly. He also said that it was unknown at present as to whether LTTE supremo Velupillai Pirapakaran was aware of the deal or whether the high flying Thamilselvan had gone behind his leaders back.

A colombo newspaper editor said that efforts were being made to contact all parties concerned and find out the truth. "If our investigative sleuths uncover concrete evidence about a Mahinda - Tiger deal and its terms then the shit will hit the fan" he said.

"Both the Sinhala and Tamil people must know the truth behind this. Did the new President whose election campaign accused Ranil of having a deal with the LTTE enter into a secret deal himself with the tigers? Did the LTTE which provided various reasons for the boycott enter into a deal with Mahinda to ensure his victory through an enforced boycott? The people must know the truth" the editor said.

This is how one extreme helps the other extreme to achieve their own goal. The people in the middle are the ones that would suffer.

What happened in the Presidential Election? How did we get here?

We had a Presidential Election last month. Some of you my friends who are not Sri Lankans may not know much about it. OK, I'll give a brief explanation.
There were two main candidates along with 11 or so clowns. Those two were, then prime minister Mr. Maninda Rajapakse and former prime minister Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe. Who are these two guys?

Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse was the prime minister of the UPFA (United People's Freedom Alliance) government. He was from the SLFP (Sri Lanka Freedom Party) which was the biggest political party in the alliance. Then president Mrs. Chandrika Kumarathunga was also from the same SLFP. The SLFP held the presidency from 1994 till now and held the government also from 1994 till now except from end of 2001 till April 2004. Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse had been a member of parliament since the early 70's and was became a minister in 1994. Then the People's Alliance (PA) which was the coalition in which the SLFP was the biggest party at that time lost the government to UNP (United National Party) headed by Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe at the end of 2001. Then once again, the President Mrs. Kumarathunga used her power to desolve the UNP government and called for elections in April 2004. Then SLFP forged a new alliance with the so called JVP (Peoples' Liberation Front) and it was called UPFA. They managed to win the election and Mr. Rajapakse became the prime minister. Then were does the war fit in? OK I know this is confusing. I'll give all this in point form.

1948 – Sri Lanka wins independence. UNP (United National Party) comes to power.
1956 – Former UNP member, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike who split from UNP and formed his own party SLFP (Sri Lanka Freedom Party) wins election and becomes prime minister. He makes Sinhala (majority in Sri Lanka) the official language. Some people believe that the sort of nationalistic agenda of Mr. Bandaranaike sparked the Tamil (minority in Sri Lanka) nationalist and separatist movement. But I believe the policies of Mr. Bandaranaike paved the way for a lot of underprivileged Sinhala people to achieve a better level of education, jobs and living standard. Mr. Bandaranaike tried to solve the ethnic problem that was brewing up but the hard line nationalist supporters who helped him to come to power prevented him.
1959 – Mr. Bandaranaike is shot dead by a Buddhist priest.
1961 – Mr. Bandaranaike's wife Sirimavo Bandaranaike becomes prime minister.
1971 – Mrs. Bandaranaike becomes prime minister again after loosing power in mid 50's. JVP (Peoples Liberation Front) who calls them selves Marxists starts an armed revolt against the government in spite the fact that Mrs. Bandaranaike's government was also pro socialist. The rebellion is crushed. The JVP members were either killed in battle or put in prison.
1972 – Mrs. Bandaranaike's governement declares Sri Lanka as a Republic.
1977 – UNP wins election in a landslide and opens up the economy. UNP also freed the jailed JVP members. (This was regarded as a step to put pressure on Mrs. Bandaranaike.)
1978 – Mr. J. R. Jayawardene, the UNP prime minister becomes Sri Lanka's first executive president after changing the constitution.
1982 – During local government elections, UNP supporters runs havoc in Jafna, the biggest town in the Tamil dominated north. They burn the library and several other buildings.
1983 – LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam) an armed Tamil militant group which was gaining support after the 1982 incident in Jafna, kills 13 army soldiers and sparks a backlash against tamil civilians in the south. 100's of Tamil civilians are killed and property looted and burnt. UNP blames several political parties including the JVP and bans them for the riots but most people (including myself) believe that UNP was the main culprit. The war officially begins between the government and Tamil rebels.
1985-1987 – The JVP starts its second rebellion.
1987 – UNP government signs a pact with Rajiv Gandhi, the prime minister of India to send troops to fight the rebels in the north so that the government can fight the emerging rebels in the south. Partial devolution of power is initiated through provincial councils.
1988 – UNP prime minister Mr. R. Premadasa becomes the president defeating Mrs. Bandaranaike in presidential elections. The JVP rebellion escalates.
1989 – Rajiv Gandhi is defeated in Indian elections.
1989 – The JVP leaders are captured and killed. The rebellion dies away.
1990 – R. Premadasa supports LTTE to fight rival Tamil militant groups who were supported by India and Indian Peace Keeping Force. This forces Indian troupes out of Sri Lanka. LTTE starts attacking Sri Lankan forces again.
1991- Former Indian Prime Minister Mr. Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated by an LTTE suicide bomber.
1993 – President R. Premadasa is assassinated by an LTTE suicide bomber. Prime minister D. B. Wijethunge becomes President.
1994 – Ms. Chandrika Kumarathunga, daugher of Mr. and Mrs. Bandaranaike first wins general election from a coalition of parties called the peoples' alliance (PA) which is dominated by SLFP and then goes on to win the Presidential election. Her mother Mrs. Bandaranaike becomes prime minister. A peace deal comes to effect between the government and the LTTE.
1996 – LTTE breaks ceasefire and starts 3rd Elam war. The government captures Jafana town and gains ground. LTTE holds on to a part of the country south of Jafna peninsula and north of Vavunia. The government controls most of Jafna peninsula cut off from the south by LTTE controlled area.
1998-2000 – Sri Lankan government looses ground to LTTE. Almost looses Jafna town.
2001 – LTTE attacks Katunayake International Airport. The economy falls.
2001 – UNP wins general election. Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe becomes prime minister. Declares ceasefire with LTTE. Saves Sri Lanka from economic dissaster.
2003 – President Kumarathunga takes back key ministries from Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe's UNP government claiming the UNP government gives in to the LTTE too much and there is a threat to national security.
2004 – SLFP of Mrs. Kumarathunga allies itself with the JVP (which by the way, tried to kill her mother and take over power in 1971) and dissolves parliament and wins election blaming the UNP is trying to split the country.
2005 – Mr. Laxman Kadiragamar, the foreign minister who is a Tamil by ethnicity and opposes LTTE is killed by a sniper at his residence.
2005 – Presidential election is held. Mrs. Kumarathunga can't run again since she has held the post twice. The SLFP, JVP alliance (UPFA) puts Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse as the candidate who is also supported by the JHU, a buddhist extremist party while the UNP puts Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe. The UPFA claims Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe is allied with the LTTE to break the country in to two. The UNP wants to create a federal state. The LTTE prevents voters in the north and east from voting. The few who voted, cast their votes to Mr. Wickramasinghe and his Federal proposal. In the south Mr. Wickramasinghe looses marginally. Mr. Rajapakse wins by 180,000 or so votes. The number of votes prevented by the LTTE exceeds 700,000 in Jafna district alone. LTTE has helped Mr. Mahinda Rajapkse to win the election falsifying the claim by Mr. Rajapakse's camp that LTTE supported Mr. Wickramasinghe and his UNP.

After a long break...

Well, I have simply forgotten my blog because of my studies. During that time, all hell has broken loose in Sri Lanka. So I thought of starting my blog again. But some sites which had my comments, images, etc. have simply vanished. So some articles in my blog do not make much sense. But hold on to your seats. Panhindha is back!

Was Tsunami a punishment for people's bad behavior (bad karma)?

On CNN today, I saw a reporter interviewing a Buddhist monk of a destroyed temple. The report was said to show the Buddhist explanation for the Tsunami. The monk said that the Tsunami was the nature's way of punishing people for their bad behavior. In other words, the monk meant to say that there is a all mighty power which he referred to as the nature. This is similar to the concept of an all mighty god. That power has punished the people. In other words there is a universal accountant who would calculate the sins and merits of each individual and the all mighty power has punished the people for their bad behavior. (bad karma.) So the answer to the question of why this Tsunami happened was that people had done bad things and the nature (something like an all mighty god) has punished the people. According to CNN this was the Buddhist answer or Buddhist explanation for the Tsunami. (This has a striking resemblance to the story of Noah where the god destroyed the entire world with a flood because the god was angry with the people for their bad behavior. So according to CNN, the Buddhist philosophy is in line with the Bible, isn't it? Also there was an article written by a Sri Lankan Muslim with a satellite photo of Kaluthara beech showing the receding waves saying that Allah has punished the people for their bad behavior and written Alla's name in Arabic on the beach. This is also in line with the explanation given by the Buddhist monk.) This explanation given by that monk is utter bull shit. This is an insult to all good people who died in this disaster. This monk is an ignorant laymen who doesn't even know the basic fundamentals of Buddhism. But CNN chose to interview that monk and broadcast that interview all around the world portraying the Buddhists of Sri Lanka as a group of ignorant, stone age, stupid bunch of religious nuts who are no better than the Taliban.

So how do you explain the Tsunami according to Buddhism? In Buddhism there are 5 categories of explanations for the things that happen. They are
1.Irthu niyaama - These are seasonal changes. eg. Day night, spring summer autumn winter, etc.
2.Biija niyaama – Things happening because of a seed that has been planted. eg. A bridge was built with one faulty strut. The bridge collapses after 25 years because of that faulty strut. A man gets a cancer at the age of 85 because of a gene he inherited from his father when he was born.
3.Dhamma niyaama – Laws of nature. Earth quakes, Tsunamis, etc. These are not affected by anything else other than the nature itself. In modern science, theory of chaos explains this. There are too many parameters to consider in too little time making it impossible to exactly predict what would happen. In a storm, if you want to predict exactly which way the storm would go, you need to analyze all the forces of attraction between all the particles in the air. (This is what caused the Tsunami.)
4.Kamma (karma) niyaama – Something happening as a result of the action of an individual. eg. You are driving on the road and make a u turn without looking at the rear view mirror. Another car crashes in to your car and you loose your leg. You kill somebody and you go to prison for 20 years. This is the most mis interpreted niyaama in Buddhism. A lot of people believe that everything that happens to an individual is based on the karma. If that is the case then how did it all begin? This kind of bad interpretation has come from Hinduism where everything is supposed to go in a cycle without a beginning or an end. So everything is base on past karma. According to Buddhism, karma is only one out of 5 reasons for something to happen.
5.Chiththa niyaama – Something that a person does based on his own free will. You kill somebody. This doesn't mean that this murder was based on past karma of the one who died. You could have killed a totally innocent person. This is the most powerful niyaama that governs your own fate (fate is just a figure of speech here). You can decide what happens to you. But you may get affected by other niyaamas.

Some times, more than one niyaama plays a role in the outcome of something. If we take the death of a person who was killed in this Tsunami, obviously dhamma niyaama caused the Tsunami. But the action of that person, the decision of that person for being near the beech (let's assume that he lived 50 km inland and went to meet his friend who lived near the beech) also played a part on his death. That second cause was kamma niyaama. But that doesn't mean that this karma was a bad deed that that is punishable by death.

So please don't try to find complicated, divine, mysterious explanations when simple, logical, realistic, logical explanations are right under your nose.

Scavenging on the misery

There are various organizations trying to help the tsunami victims. One is called the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Sahana Seva (JVP relief service) which is a part of the JVP political party which is part of the government. Earlier there were allegations that donations made by others were being distributed by the JVP pretending that the aid was from JVP. Now these people are pretending to help the victims. I saw one group wearing smart sleeveless jackets custom made for this even with JVP logo and other propaganda printed at work. They were wearing nice jackets. They had put up a lot of banners all over the place. They had a three wheeler with a loud speaker and they were hard at work telling the people that they were working. But the funny thing was more than 75% of their workers didn't even have a shovel or any other tool. What they were doing was taking one cement block at a time and taking it from one place and putting it on another 5 meters away. I saw some of them picking up 10 or 15 bread fruit leaves by hand and taking it to a rubbish heap. You may ask what's wrong with putting rubbish on a rubbish heap. Well, the entire place was full of rubbish. The entire area is destroyed. How long do you think it would take if everybody collected 10 leaves at a time? It may take 15 years or more. This was just a show. But their loud speaker kept on blasting. They were warning the people not to get tricked by people who pretended to be helping the victims. (Or in other words, don't get tricked by anybody other than the JVP themselves.)

Tsunami victims still keep turning up

Even two weeks after the Tsunami disaster, the bodies of the victims still keep turning up. I saw within 500 m of coast line at least two badly decomposed bodies surfaced from the mud after two weeks.

Worst disaster in 2000 years

The Tsunami that hit Sri Lanka on the 26th was the worst disaster recorded in the Sri Lanka's more than 2000 year old history. This is the first clearly recorded sea flooding after the flooding of Sri Lanka in the 1st century BC during the reign of king Kelani Thissa. That also could have been a Tsunami. Another similar but smaller in scale disaster was recorded during the Portuguese rule about 500 years ago. When we read the history books, we tend to think that those events recorded would have been misinterpreted or exaggerated. That's because we simply cannot imagine that the sea could rise up to 5 or 10 meters. But it happened. As of today the death toll is around 30,000 in Sri Lanka and several tens of thousands still missing. This would be around the number of people killed during the past 20 years of war in this country. People of this country have been killing each other for land or home land or whatever. But disasters like this show us that how insignificant we are in this world. It took only several minutes to wipe out entire towns and villages. The people there may have been fighting for their land for decades. But what was the outcome. Only death. All their houses and wealth got washed away. That is nature. It does not discriminate among race or religion, good or bad, rich or poor. This makes me wonder why we struggle to accumulate wealth, land, etc. since we are going to die anyway. Entire families got killed. So why did they bother to do what ever they did. We are going to live in this world for a very limited number of years. So why do we bother to build concepts like my race, my homeland, my religion, my house, etc. when we don't even own our own lives. Tsunami took at least 30,000 lives. Those live were thought to belong to 30,000 people. But they really didn't have any control over their own lives. So did those lives really belong to them? Did they own them or did they simply used them for a limited period? Do we own our own lives? Why do we bother to label country, race, religion, land as mine or ours, when we don't even own a life of our own?

Sugar and Milk powder

Last week I heard on the radio that our president has said that Sri Lanka is spending several billion rupees to import milk powder and sugar and similar stuff. She has said that we should produce them instead of importing them so that we could save a lot of money. My god. Does this mean that all this time we had the capability to produce all the sugar and milk powder needed right here but was spending billions of rupees just because the president didn't think that we should do so? What the hell was she doing all this time? If she got this bright idea 10 years ago when she came into power, how much money could we have saved?

Scam mail

We know spam mail. Now there is scam mail. One of my friends received this mail recently.

Dear Sir/Madam
Please let me introduce myself to you, My name is Rosa the wife to the late
leader of the National Union for The Total Independence of Angola who is
now deceased leaving his family just one hope to secure their future. Fortunately
or maybe unfortunately funds realized from Diamond Royalties paid to my
late husband were lodged by him with a security company till the event of
such an event as his death.
As fate would have it the circumstances surrounding his death would have
it that his family would be on the run, being exiled with the rest of the
family so we had to leave Angola for our dear lives to a neighboring country.
Apart from I, only his blood brother Robert (my in-law) had the knowledge
that my husband had kept the royalties with the security company being lodged
as artifacts. He had lodged these artifacts under the pretence that a foreigner
would be the beneficiary. All vital papers were given to Robert for safe-keeping.
Now the family needs the assistance and collaboration of a foreigner in
getting the money from the security company out of Mauritius overseas where
the family intends to migrate to. We will require extensive support which
will be explained in detail upon your acceptance to look into this matter.
Be rest assured that a healthy provision has been mapped out for anyone
who helps us with this mission. I decline to state the total sum of the
funds hidden for obvious reasons but it is quite a sum of money. I also
wish to state that all logistics to make this mission possible has already
been mapped out by my late husband. I assure you a good business relationship
and that I would personally have no hand in anything illegal.
Upon your positive response I shall forward you more details to enable you
decide if you would want to go on or not. Please reply my only if you are
sincerely interested in helping someone even though its someone you do not
know. Another thing I shall ask of you is to take your time in making a
decision. I must confess I really have tried finding the right person but
maybe God had been waiting for me to contact you.
How I wish my prayers could be answered by the time you finish reading this.
I wish you the best of life and hope you reply positively soon. Thank you
for taking the time to at least read this through.
Yours truly,
mrs Savimbi

NB: If you feel inclined towards replying this message, please include a
contact phone number so we could also talk about it on the phone. I want
you to reply back to this box for security reasion. (rjsavimbi02@yahoo.co.uk)



This mail is supposed to have been sent by the wife of the terrorist Jonas Savimbi. There are various scams like this. Some emails say that its the daughter of a murdered African president. What they want is information about you like your contact details, account numbers etc. If you get greedy, they will get your details and you may loose all the money in your account.

What a chief

This week Ravaya news paper carries an article about how some policemen caught the Chief Justice half naked with a young woman in a car. The story goes as how four police men on patrol found a parked car in an isolated spot near the Diyavanna oya (the road that goes near the parliament). When they searched the car found a half naked young woman in the driving seat and a half naked old man in the car. When they requested the ID cards from the occupants, the had refused to provide them. Then another policeman on his way to night duty noticed the incident and decided to help the other four policemen. Then this fifth policeman had identified the old man in the car as the chief justice. Then the old man had admitted that he was the chief justice and the policemen had let them go. But the policemen have documented everything that happened. Ravaya news paper carries the statement of one of the policemen which he has written in the police log book. After this incident, the chief justice have made a complaint saying that this is a campaign against him to discredit his image. Poor chief justice. What lengths people go to discredit this saint of a man to portray him as a filthy old man. All he is accused to have done so far is to abandon his wife and son and run away with another married woman and then used his powers to influence the divorce case filed by the husband of his mistress and to refuse to pay alimony to his own wife and child. And also a few other things like telling a judge to dismiss a case against a woman who has swindled money from some foreign employment seekers and when he refused he was dismissed from his job. Well also he is accused of helping a judge who had requested to have sex with a woman to let her husband go free. Well also the chief justice is accused to having connections with a gangster. I believe those are all mud which local news papers, especially Ravaya, created to discredit this saint of a man. Even though the statement given by the chief justice about this latest incident sound like the excuse given by the man who climbed the Kithul tree, it's not like that. This is the Chief Justice we are talking about and not any filthy old man who is addicted to alcohol (and sex) like the uneducated bum who climbed the Kithul tree. The chief justice is appointed by the President. She wouldn't appoint a man who is addicted to all this sex and vice would she? She wouldn't appoint anybody who is not like her would she? She herself is not addicted to alcohol, sex and all the other vices is she?

Happy surfing.

Boom Boom

A suicide bomber blew herself up killing herself and four Police personnel when they arrested her and tried to search her at a police station in Colombo last week. The new UPFA government came to power saying that the previous government compromised on security. But bombs didn't go off then. Now the new government is saying that the bomb was brought to Colombo during the time of the previous government. Maybe the police found a transport order with the date issued to transport the bomb to Colombo. Can you remember the story about the Kithul tree?

The man who climbed the Kithul tree

There is an old Sinhala saying that “Kithul gahata giya minihatath kiyanna dheyak thibunalu” which means that “even the man who climbed the Kithul tree had an excuse”. Kithul is a tree somewhat like a Coconut. Like Coconut, Kithul is also used to make Toddy, which is a local alcoholic drink. The toddy tappers will climb up the tree and would crush the Kithul flower and hang a pot under the flower to collect the syrup from the flower. The next day the toddy tapper would climb up again to collect the syrup. If the syrup is left for sometime, it will ferment and become alcohol which is then called toddy. Once upon a time, a toddy tapper caught a man up his Kithul tree. The only reason for a man to climb up somebody else's Kithul tree is to steal and drink the toddy. When the man saw the owner of the tree, he started to climb down. The owner yelled at him, and the man said that he went up there to cut and collect some grass for his cow. The owner asked whether the man didn't know that grass usually doesn't grow on top of Kithul trees. Well the man said that now he knew that and that's why he is climbing down. Most of the time when somebody gets caught doing something wrong they give excuses no matter how stupid and ridiculous they are. Recently the new UPFA government started to raid the brothels around Colombo. It is said that once when the police raided a brothel, they caught a government minister inside the brothel. He is supposed to have said that he didn't know that it was a brothel and he just went there looking for a place to get a drink. Poor man. He comes from a party that is so clean and respectable that it's members have never been to bars (or brothels) that they cannot tell the difference between a bar and a brothel.

Muppet Show

The parliament was like the Muppet Show yesterday. The historical reasons behind this were that two Buddhist monk MPs who have got selected to the parliament from the JHU (the monk’s party as it’s called by international media) crossed over to the side of the coalition government of SLFP and JVP. Somehow one monk resigned from his post and when his replacement was about to swear in, the SLFP/JVP members started the Muppet Show. At the end of the day 2 monks ended up in the hospital. The JHU says that this shows how the parliament is ruled by a gang of thugs and it shows the true nature of the JVP. This sure does show the true nature of the JVP and this is the same way JVP supporters behave in universities. They are the cause of most of the trouble in the universities. Some of the JVP members of parliament seem to have forgotten that they are no longer in the university but in the parliament. But we have to remember that two of the main supporters of the JHU, Udaya Gammanpila and Champika Ranawake were JVP supporters when they were in school. They behaved the same way and shamelessly they criticize the JVP without apologizing about their own behavior when they ver JVPers. “Dhaen piruvata aendhagena aevilla bana kivuvata, ee dhennath issara ohoma thamai. Dhaenuth indhala hitala Champikage parana purudhu mathuvenava tharaha giyahama.”

The Sihala Urumaya which became the JHU behaved the same way a few months ago when they beat the hell out of some intellectuals and artists when they were holding a seminar or something to strengthen ethnic harmony or something. Then the Sihala Urumaya said that those people were supporters of LTTE and they deserved the beating. Now the JHU (who did not condemn that incident and thus endorse it) seem to have got the taste of their own medicine.

Anyway, the performance of the Muppet show is not a good sign. How do we expect the younger generation to behave responsibly when the members of parliament is behaving like hooligans? These kind of behaviors give an open ticket to the thugs in the universities to continue their unruly behavior. Even though the JVP has entered the democratic process, they still seem to act as they are still in the jungle. I think there is a saying “Even if you take the tiger out of the jungle, you can not take the jungle out of the tiger.” This is true with the JVP.

Pyramid crap

A friend of mine sent me the following info.

There is a new plague in Sri Lanka. It’s not Dengue, Leptospyrosis or AIDS. It’s pyramid banking schemes. There is one which gives a gold coin or something. There is another called Pentagono.

In this Pentagano scheme you have to pay Rs.1500 to your seller get an application form and then when you submit your form with Rs.3000 you get 3 forms so that you can sell them to your friends for 1500. They say this covers your cost. Then you get Rs.2000 from every sale down the line down to 7 levels and you are supposed to get Rs. 4,374,000 at the end. But there is a hitch here. Even these conmen had made a mistake. Not everybody in the pyramid on all 7 levels will get 2000 each. Everybody up in levels 1 to 7 will share the Rs. 2000 each. Or maybe the conmen didn’t made a mistake but expect the rest of us to be idiots who don’t know maths. Anyway this reminds me of an Asterix comic book I read sometime ago. In that book, Asterix and Obelix go to a town. I think its name is Lutetia or something. In that town all the people are shop keepers and all the shops sell wine and charcoal. So Asterix asks one man in that town to whom they sell the wine and charcoal since all the people in the town are wine and charcoal vendors. This man says that they sell it to each other. Asterix is supposed to be silly and hypothetical. But this pyramid schemes are real and serious. People put in their hard earned money in to them. But they fail to understand that to whom are we going to sell these forms when everybody in the country had already bought them. When you invest some money in something, that money will go to work, paying somebody some salary to produce something which could be sold at a higher price than what you paid as salary and you get some profit. That’s simple logical economics. But in these pyramid schemes eg. in this Pentagono scheme, you pay some money, a part of it is gobbled up by the schemers, and the rest goes to people above you in the pyramid. There is no growth in money. You get paid from the investment of people below you. If everybody could sell their 3 forms in say 1 month (as they say it’s supposed to be so easy) then there would be 24 levels in the pyramid in 2 year. That would mean that there would be 3 to the power 24. That is 282,429,536,481. That is 282 billion members and 464 trillion Rupees earned. But there is only 5 billion people in the entire world and the amount will be couple of hundred times the GDP of Sri Lanka. So since we don’t have 282 billion people in Sri Lanka, we would have to buy this crap among ourselves like the wine and charcoal vendors in that Asterix book.

If somebody is interested in brining these crooks to justice, their address is
Pentagano Lanka Trading Company
No. 2A, 1st Lane,
Nawala Road,
Nugegoda
Tel. 011 282 79 70

Don’t get caught in this scheme. It’s against all economics principles. It has been proven that these pyramid schemes do not work in USA, Yugoslavia, etc. and people have gone to prison for running these schemes. More than anything else, it contradicts common sense. You will loose your friends if you sell this crap to them and they couldn’t sell it to anybody else.
DON’T BUY OR SELL THIS PYRAMID CRAP.

Is India a friend now?

Last week I heard about a statement given by the JVP which is a part of the coalition government expressing their dissatisfaction of involving Norway for the peace talks. They have said that the Sri Lankan government should get India involved. But isn’t JVP the party that banned Sri Lankans from doing any business with India when they were trying to overthrow the UNP government about 15 years ago? Didn’t they threaten people not even to buy medicine made in India. Didn’t they kill the chairperson (I think) of the State Pharmaceutical Corporation for signing the documents to clear a consignment of children’s drugs from Colombo harbor which had been manufactured in India. At that time the JVP thought that India was so bad that we should sacrifice the lives of our sick children in order to prevent any money from going to India. (Like preventing a drop of water falling into a lake or something.) They thought that the chairperson of SPC was such a traitor for clearing that consignment of children’s drugs (even though children were dying without that medicine) so that she should be shot in the streets of Colombo. But now it seems that India has become a good friend of JVP and Norway is the villain now.

JVP and bull shit

One of the promises the JVP and their alliance the UPFA gave to come to power was that they would give the fertilizer subsidies back to the farmers. But after coming to power, I saw on TV, the minister of agriculture Mr. (Comrade) Anura Dissanayake of the JVP emphasizing the virtues of organic fertilizer. He said that using organic fertilizer instead of chemicals is healthy and would prevent the flow of money to foreign fertilizer companies. He is now telling this to the poor farmers who voted for them believing that the new government under the JVP and SLFP would give them money to buy fertilizer. This may be because now the JVP realizes how much money the government has to spend on fertilizer subsidies. Now the JVP is saying who needs chemicals when we have cow dung. Well, the farmers can now use the bull shit the JVP gave them on their fields. Well done Comrades.

Pool of Shit

I saw an article on a JVP news paper which said that the JHU monks have got themselves bogged down in a pool of shit. Well, I think the only reason they are complaining is that the monks got in that pool of shit before the JVP did and they are not letting the JVP play with the “Racist and Religious” shit. The two sides seems to be unable to divide this stinking pool of shit. So that's why they are fighting each other. Both seem to want the pool of shit to play for themselves. Stinking bunch aren't they?

Did you watch “Jana handa” (people's voice) on TNL last week?

Well, first there was one hilarious part I'd like to mention first. Champika Ranawake, one of the leaders of Sihala Urumaya (Sinhala Heritage) party who gave its ticket to a group of Buddhist monks to run for the last election and let them change the party name to Jathika Hela Urumaya or JHU (meaning almost the same thing) said that the JHU's Uththariithara Sanga Sabhaava (Supreme council of monks) had seven members (all monks) including the late ven. Gangodavila Soma thero. He said that ven. Soma was helping or supporting the party from the world of the dead. Yes, this guy said this on TV. Can you imagine it? You can imagine what sort of a screwed up head this guy has. He is spreading Avidhyaa (anti science) which Lord Buddha tried to eradicate. He is doing it in the name of Buddhism. This would make a real Buddhist's blood boil. Anyway, when I was talking about this with a friend of mine, he said that, OK now JHU has late ven. Soma on their side. Now the other side, the JVP and SLFP alliance can always say that the late ven. Migettuvaththee Gunaanandha thero, the late Valpola Raahula thero are in their central committee. Or they can even say that the Maithree Bhodhisathva is also in their central committee. Can anybody dispute that?

One other thing that was evident on this particular TV program was that the UNP and the JHU are on the same side now. The TV program was set up in such a way that various callers including some monks from the JHU were waiting on the line to ask questions from the JVP/SLFP alliance participant. They sure did their job. I personally don't like Mr. Sripathy Suriarachchi who represented the JVP/SLFP alliance but this TV program was designed to put Mr. Suriarachchi in a difficult position. One caller talked about the personal history of Mr. Suriarachchi. This was quite unnecessary. Then there was Mr. Hemakumara Nanayakkara the MP from UNP. He was the most disgusting person on the show. He brought up the religion of Mr. Jeyaraj Fernandopulle who had objected to the behavior of the JHU monks in parliament. Mr. Nanayakkara said that a non Buddhist should not criticize Buddhist monks. That was utter bullshit. Once the late US president John F. Kennedy had said that “If you can't stand the heat, you should keep out of the kitchen”. So if a Buddhist monk or any member of the clergy of any religion can't stand the criticism a normal politician gets then he/she should stay out of politics. Mr. Nanayakkara also brought up the fact that Mr. Suriarachchi's mother or somebody might have not been Buddhist. Well, as far as I know, late Col. Olcot's parents were not Buddhist either. Well, talking about the religion of somebody's parents, well, Lord Buddha's parents were not Buddhist either, were they? The UNP seems to be treading on dangerous ground once again. The late president JR used racism in late 70's and early 80's for petty political gain and we are still suffering because of that. Now Ranil's UNP seems to be using the same tactics. I sure hope Ranil would not support these tactics because if Ranil is supporting this racism and religionism I would not be able to forgive myself for voting for UNP.

Is the marriage in trouble?

The hideous marriage between the SLFP or PA or whatever and JVP seems to be in trouble. The SLFP had promised several ministries including Mahaweli ministry as the dowry when the marriage was arranged. But after the election, after getting jealous of JVP’s success, SLFP has refused to give part of the dowry which is the ministry of Mahaweli. So now the JVP is refusing to take any of the ministries. Didn’t even Chandrika think that the new alliance could win when she promised something that she couldn’t give to JVP? Anyway, now the JVP can just wash their hands off from the whole mess the alliance would get into when they fail to deliver the sun and the moon they promised to the people during the election. They could always say that the SLFP even tricked them. Poor little “thoththa babaala” aren’t they?

The cat is poking its head out of the bag

The JVP has boycotted the swearing in ceremony of the ministers. According to today's news papers, the reason was that they didn't get the Mahavelli (irrigation) ministry. Another UPFA member has done the same. The reason for that, according to today's papers was that he didn't get the ministry of sports. The person is former Sri Lankan test cricket captain Mr. Arjuna Ranathunga. According to the news papers, the president has not given Mr. Ranathunga the ministry of sports because Thilanga Sumathipala the arch rival of Ranathunga and also a member of the family that runs the largest network of horse racing bookies and also the chairman of Sri Lanka Telecom and the president of Cricket board has asked not to give the ministry to Mr. Ranathunga. Thilanga has promised (according to news papers) to get the support of the JHU (Buddhist monks' party) for the new government. Thilanga is currently in jail pending trial for immigration fraud. He is accused of sending a leader of one of the mafia gangs to UK to watch the cricket world cup with the money of the Cricket board under a false passport. Anyway, one might wonder how he could secure the support of the JHU. Well you don't need to look far. His mother is the chairperson of the Buddhist congress and it is believed that it's the money of his family that funded the JHU in the last election. Maybe that's why the JHU, which says that the country should become a religious state and ban all bars and casinos but doesn't even mention betting on horse races. There may be 50 or maybe 100 casinos. But there are at least 1000 race bookies. At least one in every town and village. Only the elite goes to the casinos but all the people who bet on horses are from the poor families. It's the manual labourors who earn less than Rs.200 a day that goes to these bookies and waste half the money they earn. It's the poor families that suffer from the addiction of their men folk to betting on horse races and not the rich. But the JHU seems to be more concerned about the casinos than these race bookies. They are not at all concerned about the bookies. They seem to be only concerned about the welfare of the rich and not at all concerned about the poor. They never say a word against race bookies. How can they, when the money that fund their election campaign come from the bookies. All this reminds me of Syoko Asahara, Japanese Buddhist cult leader, mass murderer and first class nut. He had his own TV programs where they show a cartoon animation where Asahara rides a Horse with wings and come to the salvation or the people. JHU can also have TV programs where the monks could be depicted riding horses and comming to the salvation of the Buddhists of Sri Lanka. They would surely get the sponsorship of "Sporting Star" which is the gambling network owned by the Sumathipala family for the TV programs. So now the cat is slowly poking its head out of the bag. It will be completely out when Thilanga secures the support of JHU to the new government. Then we would be able to see what this Buddhist revival is really about wouldn't we?

Future doesn't look good

The voters of Sri Lanka have finished voting. The initial results do not look good. People seem to have voted for irrational, unrealistic promises over common sense and religion over solid clear policy. The JVP/SLFP alliance has promised jobs (the only way I think that is possible is to put more people in to government establishments that already have a surplus of workers) and various concessions and subsidies to farmers, etc. (The only way that I could see anybody doing that is printing more money which would devalue the Rupee and make the prices of everything go up.) We have to see how the SLFP/JVP is going to fulfill their promises and we will have to wait to see how they handle the LTTE. We have seen how the government under President Kumaranathunga handled the war and the economy between 1994 and 2000. They sold half the government assets (SLT, Sri Lankan Air Lines, etc.) and they lost even the Elephant Pass army camp during that time. Let's see how her new partners, the JVP could help her do any better. We've seen how JVP carried out military operations in 1971 and 1989 haven't we. Another point is that people seem to have voted for JHU which still doesn't seem to have any national policy or plan. They seem to have played every card they had. Religion, race, etc but hopefully they don't seem to be getting the magic number of 10 seats in the parliament. I hope we wouldn't slip into the slippery slope of racism and religionism or what ever. We've seen what could happen when the majority of a country become racist. We know what happened to Germany in the 30's and 40's and Yugoslavia and Ruwanda. Let's hope we wouldn't end up with the same miserable fate.

And the award for the best production in the Bull Shit category goes to...

There is a TV program called “Aeevarai Dhaeevrai” which means going once, going twice (like in an auction). I saw that couple of times here and there and it was supposed to be about local resources and places of interest which are supposed to be being sold or something. I did not get to watch that program in detail until today. Today's program was about water resources and various people talked about the plans of the government about selling water resources to multi national companies. Most of the things these people were taking about were utter Bull Shit. They were talking about the ancient technology our ancestors had when they built the tanks (reservoirs) and how they are better than any technology the west has today and because of that how any multinational company cannot manage our tanks. I know the technology our ancestors had thousands of years ago when they built the tanks were quite ahead of the time and I am very proud about that. But saying that the technology in irrigation today is behind that old technology is utter stupidity. Those people might not have seen or heard about the Hoover dam in USA or the internal water ways in former USSR where sometimes you can drive your car underneath a canal where huge ships travel. This is making mockery of our ancestors. Those people were talking about how the government is planning to sell water resources to water bottling companies and how our people would have to buy bottled water in the future. Do they think that the bottling companies take the entire flow of a huge river or the entire content of a tank? Most bottling companies take water from a spring or a tube well and compared to the ground water resources we have in our country that is negligible. One wise guy was taking about how Sri Lanka is having 3 times the rainfall or the entire world. I think this guy wanted to say that our country has 3 times the average annual rainfall of the world. Anyway that is not a big deal. There are countries that gets less than 12 mm of annual rainfall. (eg. Yemen) So compared to Yemen we get about 100 times more rain. Anyway, if we are getting that much amount of rain then there is nothing to worry about is there? Another guy was saying that in the future, people would have to pay to bathe in a tank. They were referring to IIMI about making the plans to sell the water to multinational companies. So IIMI is the scape goat. I really don't know whether the government is planning to sell the tanks or not but is sure sounds impossible for any company to put up a fence to prevent people from bathing in them even if they buy the entire tank outright. So this entire program has the hallmarks of Weerawansa productions. This program is suggesting that the UNP government (which is now a caretaker government) is selling public property to multinational companies. (They seem to have forgotten how the government under the president sold the SLT and Sri Lankan air lines which were making huge profits to foreign companies.) People are taking about how Vimal Weerawansa, the media secretary of JVP is holding meetings at ITN every morning about how the government media should be handled during that day. This is to make sure that the media help the SLFP/JVP alliance to win the election. So the media ministry under the president is going on full steam working against the UNP government. There had been a court ruling against the government media under the president to prevent them from discrediting the UNP. But it seems that this ruling does not have any effect on Weerawansa productions. So in the next TV awards ceremony this program Aeevarai Dhaeevarai could win an award if there were a category as Bull Shit or something.

Who is going shopping for whom?

There is a famous JVP phrase “going shopping for somebody” which means doing work for somebody else and not getting anything in return or “washing somebody else's dirty cloths”. Some people say that SLFP is going for shopping for JVP and some others say vise versa. So who is going shopping for whom? Well if you look at the statistics and note down the minimum number of preferential votes a candidate from PA (whose major party was SLFP) in the last election needed to get to get selected to parliament in each district and compare it with the number of votes JVP got in that district you might notice that in most districts, the number of JVP votes exceed the minimum number of preferential votes to get selected. eg. If you select Kaluthara district, a candidate from PA needed to get at least 30,000 preferential votes. The JVP got 60,000 votes in the same district. So this time since SLFP and JVP are running from the same list and if all the people who voted for JVP gave their 3 preferential votes for 3 selected JVP candidates within the so called alliance (SLFP/JVP alliance) all three would get selected. If the JVP is organized enough to split their voters and mark the preferential votes correctly, they could even send more of their candidates. You can clearly see this strategy in Colombo district where the JVP is asking the people to mark their preferential votes to three selected JVP members. So when the election is over SLFP would find that more JVPers have gone to parliament than last time and their own number has reduced. As the Jathika Hela Urumaya ask people to “chandhaya puujaa karanna” (give the vote as a religious offering), the SLFP "thamangee parlieenthu aasana JVP ekata puujaa karanava." (SLFP is offering their seats in parliament to JVP.) So who is going shopping for whom?

Happy surfing Anura.

By way of deception

By way of deception is the name of a book by Victor Ostrovsky, a former Israeli agent. This was one of the books I enjoyed reading. It gave an insight in to the Israeli society and the book has some references about Sri Lanka (basically how the Israelis helped J.R,'s government to deceive the World Bank, etc.). The title is taken from the motto “By way of deception thou shalt do war” of the Israeli intelligence agency better known as the “Mozard”. Some things happening in Sri Lanka reminded me of this book. Since the death of ven. Soma, a lot of Sri Lankans have been sending emails trying to inform each other of the things “Christian fundamentalists” are doing. Since a group of Buddhist monks gave nominations for the general election these emails increased. A few weeks ago, I received an interesting email. It had a picture which supposed to have been taken from a Sinhala news paper. The picture depicts a statue which looks like Lord Buddha who is seated with a woman seated on his lap embracing him. This looks like a picture from Kamasuthra. The news paper says that this is a picture which has been circulated by Christian fundamentalists in Sri Lanka. But it doesn't say which group is responsible or when or where the paper found it. Then there is another email which also has the same picture and in addition to that, this email says that there are biscuits in the form of Buddha statues being distributed by Christian fundamentalists. It also mentions about a bar called Buddha bar in some Christian country. These emails would generally make a Buddhist's blood boil. One would think why should we tolerate these Christians. We should kick them out of our country. Then comes the point. How can we do that? Well we could always vote for the monks of Hela Urumaya party can't we? Their aim is the same isn't it? To save Buddhism and Sinhala nation from the Christians. Well that is what a normal person would think. But as Buddhists we should be more cautious, more wise in our actions. So let's take the assault on Buddhism one by one. First, the statue of Buddha embracing a woman. If you do some research you would learn that the picture in the statue has been created in Nepal. It is supposed to depict prince Siddhartha defeating daughters of Maara which resembles the rejection of temptations. So if somebody has tried to insult Buddhism it is the Nepali sculptor and the Nepali museum which exhibits it and not any Sri Lankan Christian. The next, the biscuits. There is a famous Buddha statue in Japan called laughing Buddha or something. A friend who visited that statue about 20 years ago had told me that the shops near this tourist attraction had biscuits made in the shape of the statue. So biscuits in the shape of Buddha has been there for at least 20 years. So it seems that the Japanese are trying to insult Buddhism. We should do something about these Japanese shouldn't we? Then the Buddha bar. This has been there in the US for some time. I've seen it my self in a capital of a European county several years ago. It definitely was of bad taste. Using Buddha statues as the theme in a place where the main business is selling alcohol can not be acceptable. But where have all these emailers been all this time? These bars have been operating for years but all these emailers started educating us about it only after some monks decided to go into politics. So what is the force behind this. I would say definitely deception. A better motto for the Hela Urumaya party would have been “By way of deception thou shalt go to parliament.” Generally Buddhists are expected to pledge 5 things to one self (Pansil).
1. I will not kill (harm) any animal
2. I will not steal
3. I will not indulge in illicit (inappropriate) sexual activities
4. I will not lie (or deceive)
5. I will not intoxicate myself with alcohol (or narcotics)

But looks like the emailers of Hela Urumaya and the speakers in their election meetings (various speaker have been saying the same stuff as the emailers) are not following number 4. The monks who are saying the same stuff or just sits there on the stage while others say these things should either be ignorant fools who are like frogs living in a well who have never heard about the Nepali statue, the Buddha biscuits, etc. or are deliberately trying to deceive the public in order to get votes. In a country where some Buddhist monks post paper advertisements saying that their voodoo (I think voodoo is the correct word for these kind of witchcraft) can bring lost lovers or break love affairs or get you jobs, these kind of deception by Buddhist monks could be expected couldn't we? I know there are Christian organizations operating in Sri Lanka who do certain unethical things but these kind of stupid accusations will only make all the Buddhists look stupid and ignorant. It would also help to legitimize the work of these Christians. So if you are a Hela Urumaya supporter, do your self a favor. If you want to deceive the public get somebody who has an IQ higher than a brick and get him to make up something creative accusations. These kinds of stupid accusations are embracing to all the Buddhists of Sri Lanka.

Man, do you people think that we don't watch Discovery channel, don't surf the web and don't read books and news papers?

GMOA, the scum of Sri Lankan society

The GMOA or the Government Medical Officers’ Association has once again gone on strike over salary. This is like the 100th time the GMOA has gone on strike in the past 10 years. The only people affected by this are the poor people who don’t have money to go to private hospitals and not any government official. So the GMOA are taking the poor people hostage knowing that the political parties want the support of the poor masses to come to power so they would give into any demand to solve the crisis. I generally use mild language when criticizing somebody in this blog but this is different. 99% of the Doctors of Sri Lanka have got their education under free education policy with public funds. They have not paid anything to the universities. Then most of them get scholarships from the government to go abroad and get further post graduate qualifications. Then when they come back, unlike any other university graduate of this country, they have a guaranteed job in the government hospitals. Unlike any other profession they don’t sign in when they come to work. When one minister brought in the rule to have the doctors sign in an out they went on strike. Why? Because then they loose the freedom of doing private practice during working hours. I have not heard about doctors going on strike in any other country except here. So I would say that you are the scum of society. (You know, the scum, the stuff that floats at the top or your septic tank.) Did you go on strike during the dictatorship of president Premadasa? If you did you would have ended up six feet down. Now you are exploiting the little democracy we have left in our country by taking hostages. You know, all you stinking weasels who have gone on strike should be rounded up. Then a few of you should be selected randomly and shot in the foot. They should be denied medical attention until the rest of you start treating the poor patients in the hospitals. Then you will feel the misery of the rest of the people of this country. It is high time that some government get tough with you. If there were a hell, you would rot in it. But since I don’t believe in hell or heaven, somebody should make a hell for you on earth because you have made hell for the rest of the country.

Who would benefit from Hela Urumaya campaign?

A party called Hela Urumaya is running for the elections next month. The main thing that differentiates it from other parties is that all the candidates are Buddhist monks. Another difference is that this party doesn't seem to have a complete manifesto. All that party is saying is that they are going to make a Dharma Rajya (religious state) and going to work for the benefit of Sinhala Buddhists. According to Lord Buddha, when you have a problem you have to find the following four things. Dhuka, dhukata heethuva, dhuka naethikiriima, dhuka naethikiriimee maargaya which means, the problem, the cause of the problem, necessity to solve the problem, the exact way to solve the problem. The main problem (dhuka) this Hela Urumaya sees is that as they say is forceful conversion of Buddhists into Christianity. They have identified several Christian missionaries (Jehova's witnesses, Assembly of God, Pentecostal church, etc.) as the main cause of the problem (dhukata heethuva). Then they have decided to put an end to this problem. (Dhuka naethikiriima). They have decided to go to the parliament and bring legislation against the missionaries in order to solve this problem. (Dhuka naethikiriimee maargaya.) But when I look at it what I see is a different picture. First of all, I don't see any forceful conversions. We've never heard of any Christian dragging a Buddhist, against his will, kicking and screaming and baptizing him. So there is no forceful conversion. Only unethical conversion. So my dhuka (problem) is a little bit different from the Hela Urumaya's interpretation. The Dhukata heethuva (cause of the problem) as I see it is, that the Buddhist clergy has neglected the people of the country and the vacuum is being filled by the Christian organizations who are like scavengers praying on the dead and the dying. There aren't enough Buddhist charities and other support groups to help the poor and destitute Buddhists. The dhuka naethikiriima (necessity to solve the problem) as I see it is, this is not a critical problem or at least the problem that should have the highest priority. If you look at the statistics, there are around 70% Buddhists in Sri Lanka. Around 7% Christianans. From those Christians, 6% (of the entire population) are Roman Catholics who are not accused of unethical conversions. Only 1% of the entire population belong to the sects in question. So Hela Urumaya is concentrating on the problem caused by 1% while LTTE is controlling, say around 20% of the land of this country and around 20% of the population. We are at a turning point in the 21 year old war. So in my book, 20% is more important than 1%. OK let's assume that Hela Urumaya is aware of the LTTE problem and they would want to solve that problem. Then we go to Dhuka naethikiriimee maargaya (the way to solve the problem). Well Hela Urumaya doesn't seem to have any. They have not published a detailed manifesto which describes the exact legislation that they would bring to stop the unethical conversions. They have not explained how they are going to handle the LTTE. They have stopped at Dhuka naethikiriima (necessity to solve the problem). They still don't have a plan on how to proceed from that point. As far as I can remember it was Indiana Jones who said that he would device a plan while on his way chasing after the villain on horseback. But this is not a movie. This is real life. Lives of real people are at risk. All they are saying is that the members of the parliament would object to anything that is harmful to Buddhism and Sinhala interests. The people who say they are going to vote for Hela Urumaya say that the two mainstream parties (JVP/SLFP alliance and UNP) will have to rely on minority parties to form a government so they are bound to give unfair concessions to the minorities and Buddhist monks of Hela Urumaya in parliament would object to that. But if you think about it, let's say if Hela Urumaya was not there and one mainstream party wins 95 seats in parliament while the other wins 90. That would make 185. There would be 40 seats going for other smaller parties of minorities. So the party that has 95 seats would need to get the support of 18 members from the minorities to form a government. (To make 113 out of 225 in the parliament.) So these 18 members will have a certain amount of say in the government. Then let's introduce the Hela Urumaya factor. If they win 10 seats in parliament, those 10 would have to come from the voters of mainstream parties because the minorities would not vote for Hela Urumaya. So the minorities will still have 40 seats while the number of the mainstream parties will lets say drop by 5 in each. So now one mainstream party will have 90 seats while the other would have 85. So now the party which has 90 would have to find 23 members to form a government. If Hela Urumaya supports this party with their 10 seats still they would need to get 13 seats from the minority. This is a reduced number but as Hela Urumaya say, they would not support a government that gives concessions to minorities. So if Hela Urumaya withdraws their support from the government, the governing party would need to find 23 seats from the minorities which would give the minorities more power. The governing party cannot rely on Hela Urumaya alone because even Hela Urumaya does not believe that they could win 10 seats. And since the demands of Hela Urumaya and the minority parties are mutually exclusive, the governing party would have to choose between Hela Urumaya and minorities. Since Hela Urumaya doesn't have enough to help form a government, they would have to rely on minorities. That's a fact. So Hela Urumaya entering the race for the parliament is going to increase the power of the minorities in the next government. If the major parties would not make concessions to the minorities the only outcome would be to go to another election within the period of just over another year which would cost another 600 million rupees. This is not rocket science. It's just elementary mathematics and common sense. If I were as paranoid as the Buddhist monks of Hela Urumaya, I would accuse the Hela Urumaya of conspiring with the LTTE to destabilize the Sri Lankan government. Because it's all what they are going to do by contesting. But I am not doing that because I know it's not conspiracy that's driving Hela Urumaya but mere lack of common sense.

Have a nice day.

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time, there was a prince. For simplicity let's call him X. X's father was a king. After his father, X was going to become the king. He had everything. Power, wealth and every comfort a man can dream for. But he got fed up with power, wealth and comfort and wanted to liberate himself. So he gave everything up and started to search for liberation. Then he found it. His philosophy was not specific to his race or community. It was meant for every human. X treated every human being as equal, not just the people from his community. He didn't stop at that. X said that all living beings should be treated with respect and kindness, not just the humans. A lot of people started to follow X's philosophy. There were Kings, Queens, rich people, poor people, beggars and even slaves. But one thing has to be remembered about X. He had renounced throne, political power, wealth. X's son, wife, step mother, half brother and almost all his cousins became X's followers. So when X's father died, there was nobody to claim the throne. So one could say that X practically put his own race in danger. But X's kindness towards all humans was much more greater than any race. X never claimed to be a god or a magician. He never claimed that he could cure the sick and bring dead back to life. He never blessed anybody by touching them. All he did was explain reality to his followers. He said that only forgiveness could end hatred.

About 600 years later a boy was born to a poor carpenter's wife. For simplicity let's call this boy Y. When Y grew up, he claimed that his real father was the god. And he proclaimed himself as the King of his tribe. He found a religion. Y claimed that he cured the sick and brought the dead back to life. He performed miracles like walking on water. He blessed his followers and anything he touched instantly became holy. Then the real king of Y's tribe got really mad with Y and had Y tortured and killed. However, Y's followers managed to spread his religion.

Y claimed that he was the king. (Or at least his followers did.) His followers managed to come to power in the largest empire known to man at that time. They were more powerful than kings. So in a way Y's wish came true. They even waged wars in the name of Y and added more land to the empire. Some of the followers of Y performed miracles and blessed people.

Meanwhile X's followers never waged any war in X's name. As X claimed they treated humans of all races as equal. Like X, they never performed magic or miracles and never blessed people by touching their foreheads. They treated everybody with respect, kindness and forgiveness. X's followers never tried to come to power.... Hey what am I talking about? Am I crazy? I shouldn't let my imagination run wild, and tell all wild stories, should I?

At last, some common sense.

At last it seems that some of the LTTE members have come to their senses. The leader of LTTE in Baticaloa area has split with the leadership of Prabakaran in the North. This guy Muralitharan or commonly known as Karuna had complained that their commanders in the North are discriminating against the members from the East. Sometimes we don't understand the discrimination based on the cast because in our community (Sinhala speaking) we practically don't have any cast barrier. But some of my Tamil friends have told me that in their community, the cast and regional divisions exist. I can remember reading about some captured LTTE cadres in the 80's refusing to share the same prison cell because they were from different casts. They could die fighting for one cause together but when it came to sharing a room they couldn't stand each other. In the universities ragging is wide spread among the Tamils. At least one student was ragged to death. Main cause for this is the cast and other discrimination in their home towns. When they get to the universities, the students from the deprived casts retaliate by ragging the students of the oppressive casts. Now it seems that Karuna has realised that their is no future for him and his people from the Eastern province under the leadership from the Northern province. Even if the LTTE managed to gain full statehood for Elam, the next war would have to be fought between the North and the East. The Sri Lankan government merged the Northern and Eastern provinces in the 80's as a consession to the Tamil nationalists but I doubt whether the Easterners would gain anything other than serving their cousins in the North. Baticaloa would have been governed from Jafna which is several hundred kilometers away. It's a good thing that at least some of the LTTE members have come to their senses and have stood up to the Fascist dictatorship of Prabakaran.