Now what?

I didn’t blog about Kebithigollewa massacre, because I didn’t think I had anything new to say. But now, with the increase of terrorist activities has led many, including acclaimed journalists to believe that we are indeed heading towards yet another war, so I am compelled to write something on a potential way forward, if again (god forbid), all hell breaks loose

I believe, if there is a resumption of direct hostilities between the LTTE and the government then the government must make a paradigm shift towards how it view the conflict. In the past any resolution of the ethnic conflict was tied with negotiations with exclusively, the LTTE. Now it’s time the people and the government tries to go around the Tigers if that’s what’s required to achieve progress.

What this means in essence is the Sri Lankan government must take steps to create a legitimate and acceptable political solution to the ethnic conflict even while fighting a war against the LTTE.

The CFA, despite its shortcomings (I’ve yet to come across a document without) resulted in a climate which created unique situations that didn’t exist before. For the first time there are a few groups which can claim to effectively represent the Tamil people other than the LTTE; from Karuna’s followers to Mr. Anandasangaree, to other anti-LTTE Tamil voices in Europe. There is now, new room to take a new view of the process.

So the government must, in the event it fails to re-start negotiations with the LTTE form a sort of a council given full authority to come up with a draft constitution to bring a lasting political solution. The council must comprise of the willing Tamil academia, other interest groups including the Karuna faction, and of course representation of other ethnicities via representations by political parties.

If the LTTE continues to refrain from engaging in talks and continues to engage in violence like in Kebithigollewa, or tries to blow up the whole coastline, as they seemed to be doing now this may be the only solution we are left with.

A Face-lift and some kottu, moju buttons

I had a pretty jobless couple of days, so finally got around to give my blog a much needed face lift. Nothing major, just a little editing of colors, and a little image here and there, at least it doesn’t look like, I donno, millions of other blogs anymore.

Also, got around to creating these Kottu and Moju buttons. A little something to have on your blogs and stuff if anyone would care to use. No licensing or any shit like that. Just go ahead and use them if you want to, a zip file with all the buttons can be downloaded at :
http://www.box.net/public/8qc1qq0ak4

Or just right click and save these..




Does anyone know a good, Free direct link file host btw?

Cheers,
Deane.

Devils and Angels

First of all This posts isn’t about Angels, it's not about Devils in fact it's about nothing. There are of course more substancial things to blog about but i don’t quite feel like having another session of mahinda-bashing/bitching. His time will come, a post like this would sure to charge me up, who the fuck does he think he is anyway, playing nanny to the rest of us on his mahinda-knows-best policy, huh.. to speak of the devil.

Speaking about the Devil though, yesterday was 06/06/06 the day of the devil. No real satanic things though, except for the little fact that when i wanted to post something yesterday about 666, Blogger wouldn't log me in, probably the Damien is working at Google now (blogger is owned by Google). so much for 'don’t be evil' policy. I wonder if there were anything related happening in Colombo, i know there is (was?) an anti-Christ church in colombo. I had a couple of friends who were worshipers back in school, Their stories were tempting enough to go check out the place, especially parts about lots of black-lipstick clad HFC chiks come there and do all sorts of crazy things. But you had to do some crazy things to get in, and to be honest i was a little chickened out, and then there's Morality issues and of course going against J.C is not a comfortable concept anyway. Most of these 'worshippers' are doing it coz they really want to be 'baad' and do the whole heavy-metal thing rather than any belief, in fact some of them are not Christians to begin with. I wonder if they had anything though, like a chicken-sacrifice. I wonder if someone can write an expose' on the papers. Probably not, The Sri Lankan media is increasingly disappointing me; Especially the papers, it seems no one can get past the LTTE and report on something a little interesting. For example Sri Lanka had it's Gay Pride recently nobody even reported it,

it's almost as if it never happened. Sri Lanka probably could do with a more youth-oriented paper perhaps, or even a more liberal one. Which takes about issues of sex, trends, and i donno.. whatever need being talked about.

oh well this post is going nowhere so I’m just stopping. Just felt like blogging today.

cheers,
Deane.

Da Vinci Code - Banned!

His Excellency has decided to ban all public screening of the now infamous movie Da Vinci Code due to the pressure applied by the Catholic Church.

One could hardly expect anything less from a president whose whole political philosophy seemed to be nothing more than simple populism, add to that the possible repercussions of not heeding to church pressure on an issue where there is no counter pressure from any other religious element.

It’s the Catholic Church who should be criticized for their unjust curtailment of freedom of expression not to mention the pure stupidity of not understanding the move would only be counter productive as this would result in otherwise unprovoked curiosity which could and probably will result in increased DVD sales of the movie which are already available as ‘camera-copies’. The church should have learned that from the whole ‘Hollywood Buddha’ protests that the Buddhist elements once organized some years ago even after film-maker removed the controversial poster and apologized.

On a more personal note, I, myself being a practicing catholic don’t think anything depicted in the movie (or the book) will change my prospective on the religion I was brought up on. The fact that Jesus could have been married and had children with Mary Magdalene is irrelevant to the philosophy of Christianity I believe in.

The Da Vinci Code is just a good story, many of the so called ‘facts’ in the book have been since proven to be inaccurate. However the best way the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka or elsewhere should have handled this issue is to have not handled it at all.

War, Peace and all the bullshit

Colombo is pretty much charged with a ‘lets-nuke-em’ mentality more than ever before, and who can blame them? The average blissfully apathetic Colombian has now had a taste whatever that was going on in that far eastern province. It’s not so much the number killed, it’s not so much the person targeted but it’s the way that it was carried out. The method, the location, the aftermath brings back memories long desired to be forgotten and forgiven. Many people at this point in time see the issue in black and white; they identify a clear enemy - a fascist terrorist outfit and call for its destruction based largely on the incident a few days ago coupled with the build up of activities to that day and after.

To me the problem must be considered in a larger sense, what led to these circumstances? Whose fault was it? Obviously one party at fault is the LTTE but certainly there are others, fault must be found in the leaders of this country past and present, and of course the people who brought them into power by either voting for, or not voting against those leaders. Ultimately we are all at fault, either by action or inaction to the sorry state of this nation.

It must be realized however, that the Sri Lankan government is not the white sheep it pretends to be, it merely is the lesser-evil, by a long way in immediate comparison but evil nevertheless. Evil because of its inability to find and propose a practical solution to the ethnic conflict, evil because of its inability of clear, unambiguous and decisive action resorting instead to selling off the conflict in the political stage for petty reward of power and political mileage.

It is very much apparent when looking at short history of this peace effort, the parties concerned have failed, despite the rhetoric, to ‘go the extra mile’ for peace. Initially when the ISGA proposals were put out during the latter part of 2003 there was a desire for both parties to start on with the stalled dialogue, but the then Prime Minister refused to hold talks without holding the control of the Ministry of Defense at which point in time Her Excellency has taken under her tender care. After some time the Prime Ministers and the governments changed, and in time, when the next chance for peace was offered the Red Comrades, then in government refused to support the effort on the basis of an ISGA proposal and hence that chance was lost. The pattern continued from that to the Join Mechanism and beyond. It would have happened to Geneva if not for the urgency with which the talks were required, midst the claymore mines.

The road to peace if ever there was one is bumpy, there will continue to be crisis. Some small, some uncompressible and seemingly unforgivable but how we negotiate them will measure the true strength and spirit of our leadership, our people and our nation. It is a mistake to think there is an easy solution out there, and that one sudden spectacular moment or action can bring an end to all ills of this country. You won’t wake up one fine morning and find peace at your door step. You got to work for it. You got to give it every chance, every inch, all the time.
And as some of us now call to fuck for virginity. We got to ask our selves, have we given it all?

Deane J.

Mahinda, The Great

Last week’s LC polls results signifies an important twist in the pathetic tale of Sri Lankan politics, now it seems that the all powerful president has received a commanding mandate to carry forward his ‘Mahinda Chintanaya’ and all that without the firepower of Wimal and his red clowns. At this point in time, Mahinda Rajapakse seems tall, towering and mighty. He seems to have beaten the odds, done the impossible and now seems to be in-tune with the will of the masses. My mind goes back to the time not so long ago when the name ‘Rajapakse’ meant little to the very people he now seems to command.

The year was 2003; one Ranil Wickramasinghe was in the Temple Trees, I and a cousin of mine was asked to deliver a package of fish on behalf of my uncle who happens to be the chief organizer for SLFP in one pro-UNP district. I recall browsing around the streets of the much envied part of Colombo, asking directions for a ‘Mahinda Rajapakse’ residence, some people hardly knew the name, let alone the residence. Yet after barely two years after the incident, Mahinda have gone from the leader of the opposition back then, to the prime minister, and then to the all-mighty president. His escalation from a political nobody to THE political everybody is truly extraordinary and for that fact alone he should be respected.

However, the title of this post is misleading; the man himself has a long way to go before begin called ‘great’. If he wishes to get there, then he must subscribe to some other sort of philosophy, because ‘Mahinda Chintanya’ is not designed to get him there. ‘Mahinda Chintana’ and other type of these rata-perata-type supposedly pro-poor ideologies are in essence – fake. When put into practice these so-called pro-poor chintanayas or ideologies are nothing but a set of block policies of no-privatization, fertilizer subsidies and other goodie bags to please the masses, all the while trying desperately (at least by some) to follow a sort of a free-market economy. The mahinda chintanaya as a philosophy too is fundamentally flawed; it tries to instill great national pride by calming to promote local industries and enterprises by restricting foreign imports, but what it really says is that Sri Lankans and its entrepreneurs cannot face the global challenges and we must run away from those challenges instead of facing them head on. So the mahinda chintana can be appropriately named as ‘ponna-chintana’ without damaging the underlying philosophy.

Unfortunately though, the leader of the grand green party or his merry men fail to use these in their campaigns, the United National Party has become an entity which has no brand, or anything at all that is sellable to the masses. It is a sad plight, to a party and its leader who at least in my opinion led the most successful government of free Sri Lanka. It must be accepted however that the UNP faces a tough challenge. It’s hard to argue a case against a program that aims to give a glass of milk to poor school kids, or a program that promises jobs for unemployed youth or indeed to make a case for a Cease Fire Agreement, when it’s been brutally violated time and time again.

But the challenge should be taken up; it should be taken up because it’s the right thing to do so, and because if these populist policies are stopped and lasting peace achieved, there is no telling where this country can go. Therefore the UNP must focus on its strengths rather than trying to minimize its weaknesses. If the multi-ethnic vote base is the strength then go for it, come up with slogans, logic and find people to carry the message. Focus on strengths, and then perhaps one day the giant can be tackled. It is an eventuality it’s just ‘when’ that remains to be seen.

Deane.

Beyond BORDERS Festival : SEE. THINK. ACT.

I was pleasantly surprised to see this post on moju about a 'British council Youth Festival', since they posted a sort of a press release, i wont repeat the exercise. instead i'll give you some info on the actual workshops.

The Festival will be happening on the 28th and 29th March at the BMICH committee rooms A & B. Registration is Free.

i'm one of the organizers of the festival. the project itself is the reason for my absence in the blogosphere and at the blog-meetup.. actually i could have made the meet up.. i was somewhere near (BC) but tired.. and not exactly dressed for the occasion.

anyway if any of you guys consider urselves young (16 -24, or can pass urself to be in the range ) then drop us an email at slbeyondborders AT gmail DOT com or call Hanim on 0773067347.

lots of skools have already registered. so hopefully loads of chiks will show up..

the workshops are probably going to be good, the Forum theatre thing , which is a sort of an interactive form of drama, where they first show the audience the drama, and the audience gets to change it around to change the outcome. The forum theatre on Conflict resolution is directed by Nimmi, (saw a post on kottu about her recently.. cant remember who posted it)

and the guys from Sage training, Robert & lalith are simply the best self-development guys in the business. 'citizenship – who cares' is a must see workshops.

oh and before i forget, there is a concert happening in conjunction with festival called 'junction', sunera foundation, Bathiya and santhush, the Fusion drummers from nomad will be there. tickets are rs.200 available at the British council. the concert will be on the 28th at 7.30 Pm at the HNB audi. tickets wont be available for long, so if u wanna come, get to it tomorrow or day after or email me : deane034 at gmail DOT com. (i wonder if that prevent spam..at all.. ne way irrelevant)

The following is part of the official write-up.. or at least one of the drafts :)

FORUM THEATRE ON HIV & AIDS and Conflict Resolution

This theatre form was developed in Latin-America in the 1960's as a special kind of performance, where the distinction between reality and theatre is lifted by inviting the audience with their ideas on stage. The aim of Forum Theatre is to
change the spectator from a passive to an active participant and to encourage people to get active and engage in dialogue about issues of concern within a given society. At the festival we focus on two themes on Conflict Resolution and HIV & AIDS.

WORKSHOP ON CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Conflict is part and parcel of our daily existence as human beings. They are built into our human relationships. The Workshop will deal with such practical aspects on conflict resolution and will give an introduction into how this tool can be used to better our lives. Mr. Harsha Fernando of the Attorney General's Department, a seasoned trainer in Conflict management will
conduct the workshop.

WORKSHOP on the HUMAN EFFECTS OF HIV & AIDS

Adolescent Reproductive Health is a topic that all young people should have knowledge on to lead a healthy life. This workshop will focus on the human effects that Sexually Transmitted Diseases including HIV AIDS have on people's lives and will also open you into practical elements of how to lead a healthy sexual life. An experienced activist in the field of HIV
and AIDS will lead the workshop.

Public Speaking

Public Speaking is an important tool that all of us should have and is not a quality expected and limited to those who want to be 'leaders'! This workshop brought to you by experts from the Colombo Toast Masters Club will give you tips and pragmatic inside information on how to become a good public speaker

Youth Activism

Young people are not just leaders of tomorrow but are being increasingly recognized as development partners for today. This workshop lead by Mr. Sanjana Hattotowa, a civil society activist will give you an introduction on how you can contribute to positive social change.

'Vision Passion Action'

This workshop will help you to streamline your passions to cultivate your vision and translate your vision into action.


'Citizenship- who cares?'

Active Citizenship is one of the three themes of the Beyond Borders Project. The workshop run by Robert and Lalith from Sage Trainers will focus on means and ways to be a pro-active citizen and will question some of our misconceptions, fatalist attitudes and perceptions!

Substance Abuse – A burning problem of our day

this session run by Prof. Ravindra Fernando, a medical professor from the University of Colombo will deal with the social effects that Substance Abuse brings about and will also deal with the Pharmacological aspects of the problem.

A glimmer of Hope

The waiting is over, the news from Wanni has arrived - there will be talks.

After weeks of bloodshed, doubt and fear finally there is a cause for celebration and a reason for hope. Hope that whatever happened during the past weeks, months and indeed yesterday will be behind us and a path to a more resilient peace will be before us.

So let us first wish the current administration of the Government of Sri Lanka, all the very best and god’s good graces in perhaps their greatest undertaking yet. Let us hope with all their inadequacies of appropriate leadership and skill, they will somehow be able to pull it off. Equally importantly Let us also be thankful to the man they call the ‘white tiger’, for this particular mission, nobody else could have done. Let us also be thankful to that other man they called the ‘traitor’ the ‘don juan’ and so many other horrible things, for what he has practiced and preached for years has been realized today.

When the man signed the agreement of the ceasefire, they said he was giving away the country; today they are desperate to implement it. When his delegation started the negotiations, they said the terrorists must first lay down arms; today they just want them to stop using arms. When the talks were held in Oslo and Bangkok, they said he was touring with the terrorists and talks must be held within the ‘motherland’, today they have agreed to hold talks in Geneva, no, not part of the ‘motherland’. When the man lost the reins of power, he asked them to engage in dialogue irrespective of its basis; they said the dialogue must be based on a final solution, today there is no basis mentioned. He said the country would slip into war if the talks didn’t resume. They said no. but he was right and ‘they’ were wrong. Lives could have been spared, time could have been saved, and things would have looked brighter. Yes, it’s a shame he’s not leading this country, but that’s our loss, not his own.

Despite this bit of good news, in the current way of things it is easy to justify war; it is easy to condemn terrorism, and condemn the terrorists, it is easy to say that to attain an ‘honorable peace’ we must first wage war. But that’s the easy thing to do. We need leaders today who can do the difficult things, the difficult thing as of this moment would be the commitment for peace, it is difficult because of all it’s complex underpinnings, because of it’s history and because all those who dared to tread the path of peace have failed to date, the only person to have tasted partial success could last long enough in the temple trees to attain his goal. That indeed is one of the hurdles; the path of peace and dialogue would not only require the resolve to tame the warmongers of the north, but also the resolve to tame the warmongers of the south, armed with their words of hate, which at times are more efficient than bullets and bombs.

Come what may, let the middle minded Sri Lankan know that this conflict can only really end by way of dialogue and diplomacy and not through claymore mines and paramilitaries. For those who think that permanent peace can only be achieved by dialogue there is no other way, for those who question, rightly, about the sincerity and the commitment of the ‘rebels’ then all I can say is that the best trap that we can lay for them is that of peace and not that of war. May that be realized.

Deane.

p.s – on a total different topic, today also saw the crossing over of two ‘ dissidents ‘ from the ‘green party’ to the government, reports say there is more to come. The reason given is that the MPs need to ‘offer their skills’ to the serve the people and country rather than wasting them in the opposition. Cutely put. But I strongly believe sirs that the right to serve your country and your people must be won, not surrendered. Ideals and beliefs cannot be traded, bought or exchanged.

Oh and yea.. about the whole post .. I was kinda feelin a little speechy :)

Cheers
~CC~ AKA Deane J

That belated New Year Blog

Meant to blog this long time ago but so far this has been one hell of a year. I got stuck at home on 31st night doing an assignment for college, only to find out the next day they have shifted the submission dates from 2nd to the 6th, of Jan. now how crap is that? Anyway that is probably a sign of things to come; I thought this college thing was going to be a breeze but it has been hell so far, and it doesn’t seems to get any better. Academics a side, it’s not that great socially either, I’m stuck in a class with NO girls (I’m serious), and here’s the clincher - majority of the ‘politically opinionated’ are Mahinda supporters (actually JVP, hence Mahinda).

I’ve been schooled in two schools in my life, yet I can actually name the three SLFP supporters we had in our class (and yeah, they so got bullied) so this is a whole new experience. Despite this at the core of it they are pretty nice people, although some of them do subscribe to groups like the SL patriotic group which sends out shit like this, and some of them openly resented the Christmas party, and all it's fund raising in protest, But most of them mean no harm. At least knowingly.

Another thing that hit me was by the end of this year, i will no longer be a teenager. now that sucks. just caught me by suprise that one, i just loved being seventeen and i had my reasons. must say i had a blast the last three years, doing what i like, met some wonderful people, of course most of them left the country as soon as they finished ALs. more will leave this year while i will be stuck here in mahinda-land for at least a few years. should have left when i had the chance, now i'll have to live with it.

another aspect of loosing the whole 'teen thing' is giving away of Sri Lankan Teen Central (SLTC), i'm officially asking someone to take over, which closes another chapter of my life. It was nothing more than a msn group, but those days back in 2002, there were hardly any sri lankan ones. in fact some time ago it was (albeit on loosely scientific accounts) the largest Sri Lankan community, a title it has lost to many other sites now, and belive me it was good while it lasted, met some of my closest friends through that site and the stories of SLTC deserve it's own book.

My resolutions for the year, well.. they are kinda private so no blogging them. Apart from that everybody’s blogging about the security situation, and how the war will start but that will be another blog. So that’s it for this one, need to get back to more assignments; hope everyone else is having a good time… oh and happy new year

Cheers
Deane.

Jeyaraj's Comments

This is in response to the lankanewspaper.com article titled ‘Jeyaraj attacks church hierarchy’ where the current Minister of transportation and so many other things apparently blamed the Catholic Church for it’s apparent support of Ranil.

First of all despite what jeyaraj has to say, majority of the Christian vote did not go for Mahinda, this is quite clear when looking at electorates where there is a Christian majority in the population. Even in his own electorate in Katana, usually a robust clean win for a SLFP backed alliance saw a great narrowing down of the gap between the UNP and the SLFP candidate.

It must be said, that statements near elections are in fact quite a common procedure for the church, where they usually preach about choosing a candidate who can bring peace. This has been the sermon of the church near election times for the past few elections, and if someone actually bothered to read the statement they would notice that even this time around the statement have not deviated from this basic message.

What is true however, is the fact that anyone reading a statement such as that, anything which calls for ‘peace’ over an election period would immediately get the perception that whoever wrote the statement is in support of the UNP. it’s also true that some Christian priests did ask very openly from the public to vote for Ranil, basing their arguments on mahinda’s JHU affiliations among others.

The truth be told, it’s highly unlikely that Christians would face great ‘atrocities’ in the hands of mahinda; after all his wife is a Christian, he sent his kids to a Christian school, and as far as I know, up until now had a pretty healthy relationship with the church.

I, as a Christian and a catholic would personally prefer if the church stayed out of the political process as much as possible, especially in instances where Christians as an entity is not under any sort of great ‘danger’. I strongly believe that religion is a personal thing, and the state and its politics should be separated as much as possible from religion.

However, if a criticism is leveled against the church for influencing the political thinking of its followers then the criticism should also be leveled against all the religious organizations and figures using religion as leverage for political gain, but unfortunately neither Jeyaraj, or anyone else for that matter have the balls enough to say anything against these other, mainly Buddhist religious organizations and figures influencing and participating in mainstream politics.

Cheers
Deane.


p.s – this was supposed to be one of my replies to the actual news story in lankanewspapers, but figured it would be better to just blog it.

Finally.. the Interact site is up..

After like a year since i built this, finally managed to upload the Gateway interact club site, now of course im out of school and out of the club, but the bureaucracy in Gateway is unbelievable, after building the site it took us 2 months to get approval,and then ofcourse i had to sit for ALs and then it was too outdated to upload. Even now this upload is on a free server.

The site is a little buggy, and i also did a pretty dirty job on HTML and as of now it's pretty much outdated, the new Interact board is supposed to send me the content; Hopefully they can get 'permission' for it, and pretty soon the site can move on to paid hosting and get a propper (already paid for) domain running.

Any comments are welcome, i know, the gfx arent that optimized, the HTML is horrible but apart from that.. looks alright huh? :)

hmm.. come to think of it, this is pretty much a pointless blog.. oh.. and probably my first non-political post :) .. wow.. i actually managed to do that..

Ahh.. Rajpal

It’s been a long time since my last post; things have been crazy with exams, Christmas and lot of other stuff. But hell, how often does your blog get referred on mainstream media? I just had to blog this one.

The shocker came yesterday when reading the Rajpal Abeynayake column (of the Sunday Times) where Mr.Rajpal, now back to his usual UNP bashing ways, referred to a blog post I made the day before the November 17 election where I wrote about how Rajpal likes to pinch, slap and punch the UNP, and in particular Ranil and Milinda Moragoda.

So our dear Rajpal is a blog reader (perhaps even a blogger?), must say I’m rather elated about the fact that he referred to the post, more so than I like to admit, and hell I’ve been always curious about knowing who this Rajpal pora really is, and what other columns he writes. Hmm..

so perhaps you can leave a comment next time you visit Mr.Rajpal, nice to see you in the LK blogsphere.

Ciao
Deane.

We, the silent majority

Getting actively involved with the Sri Lankan Blogsphere and if I may call it, the entire Websphere has been truly an eye-opener.

The pure and filthy Racism is not only hurtful but just horribly disgusting to even read. It seems the racists have sprung up everywhere most notably in comments on blogs, mailing lists, and news sites. A prime example is comments posted at Lankanewspapers.com a site which offers regular news updates from Sri Lanka. The comments for each of these news articles almost always end up in a war of words between Sinhalese extremists and Tamil extremists.

It’s interesting to analyze where exactly this blatant racism is coming from, usually the majority of Sri Lankans (please excuse Mr.Wimal Weerawansa) are rather laid-back creatures. Perhaps the apparent anonymity of the web gives them a sense of security to voice out what they really feel without worrying about the possible consequences. Either way the situation is very depressing, not only because there seems to be so much of racists but more so for the fact that there seems to be almost no response from the middle minded moderates of this country.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
(Edmund Burke)

So I think it’s time we the silent majority take some action, perhaps maintain a racist list in a separate Blog dedicated to Anti-Racism in Sri Lanka or maybe something as simple as a ‘I hate Racists’ button on blogs with a zero tolerance for Racism. Any ideas are welcome.

Cheers,
Deane J AKA ~CC~

An interesting week ahead

As far as Sri Lankan politics is concerned the coming week is an interesting one.

we have already solved the mystery of the Prime Minister. Rajapakse has gone for a safe choice as far his party is concerned and given it to Ratnasiri, an option CBK went for with same concerns in mind. The BBC, reporting the appointment called the new PM a Hawk, and a Sinhalese Nationalist Hardliner. Perhaps they should have just called him an idiot, because he's nothing much more than that.

The decision is surprising because despite Rajapakse's pre-election deals with the devils (JHU/JVP) I really never thought of him as an extremist or a nationalist, and I believed like some others, if he were to get elected he would try to tune down his ‘hardliner’ image which he seems to have created. The step to make Ratanasiri PM doesn’t do well to that end, as Ratansiri’s known to spontaneously flame the tigers with words that up until now, has had no weight. So definitely a not so positive move as far as the peace process is concern.

Other interesting development to follow will be actions of Anura Bandaranaike, most speculate that he is going to loose the Foreign ministry. I’m not so sure about that, I think it’s in Mahinda’s best interest that he keeps at least some solidarity with the Banda’s. Anura is such an unpredictable creature; you’ll never know what he will do, so he will be an interesting character to look out for.

It’s also reported that Jeppa’s wont accept ministries just as yet, so it will be interesting again to see who will get the key ministries of Finance, Agriculture, and if above speculation is correct, The Foreign ministry. It’s likely that Sarath Amunugama will retain as the finance minister; at least the guy has some common sense in him.

Other key appointments to look out for will be who will receive Kadiragamar’s national list seat, and who will be appointed as the peace secretariat after Mr.Danapala’s resignation. Let’s hope he wont be replaced by a ‘war secretariat’ :P

The other more perhaps important development will be to see how the UNP will reform it self, whether or not Ranil will leave will perhaps be the thing to watch this week. A lot of people speculate that despite the loss, he might stay on as the leader of the UNP. I must admit that it’s seems to be likely, he seems to have the backing of the party seniors. Having said that I think Ranil should start grooming the next presidential candidate from the UNP. So perhaps he will continue on as the leader of the UNP, and give the post of ‘Opposition Leader’ to someone else, like Mahinda Samarasinghe.

All comments/speculation/predictions/bets are welcome :)

We won the people, just not their vote.

Grief is now replaced by a glum acceptance. We will have to tolerate Rajapakse for six more years unless of course he keeps his promise and abolish executive presidency, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

In any case as a perhaps my final blog on the results it’s fair to say that Ranil even though he lost the actual poll, was the choice of Sri Lanka. To put it in prospective, there are more people today wishing Ranil was president instead of mahinda its just so happens that part of those who wants him, mainly the North, just didn’t show up on the poling booths to put that wish in writing. We now have to live with that grim reality.

My utter disgust and the feeling of betrayal from the north east Tamils is still very much present, whether they boycotted the polls out of pure loyalty or fear of the LTTE is immaterial at this point. What matters is that when I and many others like me who believe in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and an equal-to-all Sri Lanka voted on those ideals, the Tamil people of the north failed to give a response.

I can understand why the LTTE called the boycott. It is in their interest that Sri Lanka chooses a leader that the Tamils can dismiss as being acceptable to them, and this would mean greater control. What is most disappointing is that the majority of Tamils chose to follow this instruction; and to put it very simply, it just hurts Having said that, hats off to the people from the North who did vote, especially for that one guy in Killinochi (he voted for Ranil), who voted on behalf of the district. Well done sir and thank you.

What’s done is done. Sri Lanka perhaps lost its greatest leader, one who could have solved this stupid conflict for good. Now we might have to wait another generation, maybe even more bloodshed. I Hope it wont be the case.

A Blogsphere in Mourning

The majority of the Sri Lankan Blogsphere is in a state of mourning as can be seen by the posts in www.kottu.org. This perhaps is not a sentiment exclusive to bloggers but a certain sect of expressive sri lankans who expected a victory for Ranil.


Some Blogs, such as This one , seems to be on strike. while many others are filled with rather depressed blogs. i have also decided to display a black ribbon for an indefiinite period of time as as a token of my protest of the election results and the inability for the North Eastern people to exercise their democratic rights.


Meanwhile there is some speculation that the UNP is moving towards a re-poll in Jaffna as reported in Nittewa and also reported by Channel News Asia. there are also reports that Mahinda will move to a quick swearing in today at about 6PM.

As much as i would like to believe the re-poll rumors i just cannot think it happening, and us repeating a Ukrain. infact it seems these demands of a re-poll have aready being rejected

so it's over...

so it's over...

it still haven’t sunk in, but the fat lady is singing loud and clear. Ranil Wickramasinghe is not the President of Sri Lanka, the 5th executive president of Sri Lanka is going to be Mahinda Rajapakse and looks like we will have to tolerate him for the next six years.

Grief is an understatement on how I feel, in fact it’s a combination of many emotions that goes through me when I blog the entry I never wanted to. The emotion is a mix of sadness, disappointment, embarrassment, and possibly sometimes down right anger. Basically the LTTE fcuked us over, and we all cannot help but feel betrayed, after all the political capital we put behind the people of the north and east, all the shit we had to take from the south to protect those interests, the people of the north and east have abandoned the peaceful leadership and paved the way for a coalition of disorder.

The people of the north and east, primarily the Tamils in those reasons could have decided who the president would have been, they had the power in their hands, or so it seemed. It seems now the LTTE have decided for them and their choice was Mahinda. Why LTTE took such a decision would be a matter of debate over the coming days and weeks but if you are a pace loving citizen of this country then if ever there was a sign of war, then this must be it. Despite this, I hope with all my heart that Mahinda can somehow steer this country to peace, I really do; however it’s not the man himself that casts doubts in me but the devils he sleeps with. I can hardly imagine anything worthwhile happening while the JVP/JHU is involved; it is truly ironic, as some other bloggers pointed out that Mahinda it seems had the backing of all the extremists in the country, a key ally being the LTTE.

As the morning dawned, and when I heard the first news that at 11 AM yesterday, the turnout from the LTTE areas is virtually zero, fears began to rise, and as the day gave away to the night and night to dawn it was increasingly becoming clear, Wickramasinghe’s options were running out, and running out fast. He needed big victories, sort of victories he would/ or should have got from the north.

The writing is on the wall for Mr.Wickramasinghe, it’s unlikely that he will contest again, and that will be a great pity. Sri Lanka will never get to see the true capabilities of the man, and the man wont get the chance to properly serve Sri Lanka. What went wrong for Wickramasinghe would be again a matter of debate, but to be honest he was baking on the north and east, and if he got it, (and I know the IFs and BUTs don’t count.) he would be the president and this country and this entry would have been dramatically different. People will now try to analyze whether Mr.Moragoda was responsible with his interview, or was it Navin Dissanayake, but to be honest for the tigers to call for the boycott it has to be more than that. It would have been a policy decision by the LTTE.

Call it hypocrisy, but the result is the not wish of the whole of Sri Lanka. It may be the narrow wish of the south, but not the country. That should be accepted. Well I could go like this for ever so it’s time to stop.

So bottom line LTTE decides - Mahinda is the president.

The Voting is over,

Sri Lanka have decided, I must say out of all the campaign days this one is the most bleak.
Tigers have indeed asked the Tamils to boycott the polls, reports say that there is not a single vote cast from the LTTE controlled areas, and only about 5% in the rest of the north, these reports are of course from the State Media, but they cant be off the truth by much in this case.

We are still trying to be positive, and hope that that somehow Ranil will be able to pull it off. I simply cant stand to think that we might have to endure six years of rajapakse. Hopefully we dont have to, we will know in about 5 or 6 hours how the vote is going to go.

Deane J

Pre D-Day

For many Sri Lankans tomorrow will be Decision Day. Approximately 75 percent of 133,27,160 registered voters in Sri Lanka will go to the poling booths to decide whom they will refer to as ‘the president’ of the country for the next six years.

I on the other hand will be taking part in this whole ‘voting’ business for the first time. Being only 19, I’m kinda lucky that my democratic rights are reserved so promptly by the state while many of my friends are still made involuntary observers. This is possibly due to the fact that I knew our gramey quite well. (grama seva niladari ..hmm in English it’s probably Village Service Officer, probably not bt,.. you get the idea)

As for the whom to vote for… well if you have known me for like a day, you would know that I vote for RANIL. I even played my part in his campaign.

In fact unless the UNP dramatically changes its policies and/or there is a credible alternative to the UNP, unlike the impractical extremists JVP/JHU/SLFP alliance, my vote is probably a life-time UNP one.

the more interesting question is not whom I am voting, but who the rest of the country will vote for, i.e. who’s gonna win this damn thing tomorrow?

Well I know this question has been popped many a times but as much as people want to be, nobody’s sure. In fact the very reason I want to create this blog today was the fact that I want to make a prediction on tomorrow.

The main problem today is, that the opinion polls in this country cannot be fully trusted even less so, the SMS polls. If you are big on the number game, do all the number crunching you want, and you can probably turn the result either way (actually if you are middle-minded. There’s a lot to assume, and assumptions can be erroneous.

The only other source of enlightment is the media; the media again in Sri Lanka can hardly be called impartial. Even so, you can at least call some idea particularly through News Papers. There is a particular column I like to read in the Sunday Times, written by Rajpal Abeynayake. Now Mr.Abeynayake usually like to pinch, (sometimes even slap and punch) the UNP, and Ranil in particular. (other favorites include Milinda Moragoda, but that’s irrelevant) last Sunday in his article, he did a sort of number crunching which resulted in a result in favor of Wickramasinghe. In fact many pre-polls does seems to indicate there is a greater chance of a Wickramasinghe victory, the pessimists (also called the mahinda camp) would say as they are now ramping on about the ‘apparent’ boycott of North Eastern Tamils of the polls, and that would mean sure death in the polls for Ranil.. with all due respect to mathematics, I think the formula for the winner just got a little complicated, and there seems to be no one with the correct head to solve the it.

So in these times of desperation, there’s only one place to go, what does your gut say, and my gut says Ranil Wickramasinghe.

The country needs Him

Deane J

Welcome to My Dimension,

We all understand that the space have at least three dimensions, that of height, breadth and length.

Einstein believed that there are four dimensions the fourth being time. Some scientists now believe that there are many more than this, in fact they think that there are at least eleven or thirteen different dimensions.

if you think that there are thirteen dimensions then this the fourteenth if you believe there are then this is the fourth. If you think that’s all bullshit, then this is bullshit + 1 either way this blog is my dimension, my way of looking at things, my perspective, my factor in cyberspace.

Cheers and Peace

Deane