I am extraordinarily honored to be here today. It is wonderful to be back in Sri Lanka, for the first time since 2015, when I visited as a member of President Obama’s cabinet.
Sri Lanka has been a true partner of the United States, and I am grateful that many of the relationships I was able to form while working with your country have endured, and become very meaningful friendships.
Right now, I am in the final weeks of finishing writing a new book. I have been working non-stop to meet my deadline. I won’t even leave my house to buy groceries. But if there is one person who could get me to travel over 8,000 miles at the moment, it is Mangala.
Mangala is one of the most remarkable people I encountered during my eight years serving in the US government. So I simply had to be part of this occasion.
Those of you who know our guest of honor will not be surprised that, when I asked him how I should approach my remarks today, he said, “The less said about me, the better.” Now, considering this is an event about Mangala, this was surprising to my American ears. I come from a country where, as President Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter once said about her dad, politicians want to be “the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening.”
I have decided to compromise. I will speak today about what we can learn from Mangala’s 30 years in politics about the central challenges of our time – and how we must confront them. The three themes I believe run through Mangala’s life’s work are dignity, modernization, and democracy. So in his honor, I would like to say a few words about each.
Dignity
We have heard about how Mangala began his career, thinking he might become a fashion designer. The late fashion photographer Bill Cunningham once said that, “Fashion is the armor to survive everyday life.” Well, Mangala seems to have concluded from an early age that the most meaningful way to spend one’s days is to use one’s influence to help people. And, specifically, to help people to not only survive daily life, but to help ensure that they are able to build lives of dignity.
His inspiration to get involved in politics came in the late 1980s, when the government was suppressing the Marxist youth insurrection in the South, and dead bodies were being hung on lampposts in his home town. The son of a remarkably enlightened, trailblazing mother and a pioneering human rights lawyer father, Mangala thought to himself, “Maybe I can make a difference.”
“Maybe I can make a difference…”
Mangala, rest assured, you have made one hell of a difference. And you are only getting started!
When I asked his colleagues and peers about his lifetime of service, the word I kept hearing was “dignity.” Dignity, dignity, dignity. The belief that every individual is worthy of respect. The word comes from the Latin, dignitas, or “worthiness.” The pursuit and promotion of individual dignity seems to be the animating principle in Mangala’s career.
When I think of dignity, what springs to mind is the last civil rights protest Martin Luther King, Jr. was involved in before he was gunned down. It was in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968, when sanitation workers decided to go on strike to protest poor pay and the crushing to death of two workers in garbage compactors. The striking workers carried signs that said simply, “I AM A Man.”
I think of June 1989 and a slight man in grey slacks and a white shirt carrying two shopping bags, who decided to confront one of the hundreds of tanks that were mowing down student protesters in Tiananmen Square. This Chinese man, seemingly on his way home, who we have not seen since, standing before the turret of that tank, embodied the assertion of dignity.
I think of December 2010 and a Tunisian fruit seller named Mohamed Bouazizi who was so worn down by the humiliation and corruption he endured every day that he decided to set himself on fire in protest, sparking uprisings that would cascade across the Middle East and North Africa into the Arab Spring.
And I think of the mothers I have met here in your country, who clutch the weathered, faded photos of their missing sons and daughters, begging people to hear their cries. Or the heads of household who, needing money to feed their families after the war, relied on micro-lenders for small loans – micro-lenders who extorted them, charging spiraling interest that these families would never be able to pay back.
Respecting human dignity means not patronizing those who are less fortunate, but listening to – hearing – the reality of the lived experience of others. Making sure that nobody is invisible.
If decision-makers or leaders – whether of countries, of companies, or of classrooms — can put themselves in the shoes of others, if they can cross this essential imaginative threshold, they will have the motivation we need to act.
Mangala did this back in 1990 when he founded the “Mother’s Front” with Mahinda Rajapaksa – creating a network dedicated to tracing down information on the disappeared and pressuring the Sri Lankan government to provide compensation.
Mangala is well known for taking the fundamental step of recognizing past abuses and the critical need for reconciliation. As Foreign Minister he spearheaded the creation of the Office of Missing Persons, which is now finally operational. He helped push a law through parliament that will provide for reparations for war victims and survivors.
And more recently, as Finance Minister, he has orchestrated the forgiveness of loans taken out by those desperate families after the war. And he has just launched another debt relief program for those affected by the crisis of severe drought. As Nelson Mandela once said, “Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.”
But the best measure of Mangala’s regard for the dignity of those who have lost their loved ones or their livelihoods is that he knows none of this is nearly enough.
It is the deficit of human dignity that explains so much of the tumult of our age. We ignore it at our peril.
Modernization
Second, Mangala has shown his belief in modernizing Sri Lanka. He has prioritized opening up this beautiful country to the rest of the world, including to the United States.
He secured the launching of the first-ever US-Sri Lankan strategic dialogue. He announced in 2015 Sri Lanka’s joining of the Open Government Partnership. And he shepherded Sri Lanka’ application to the Millennium Challenge Corporation through a long and tortured approval process—dedication that is now paying off, as it will soon bring some $480 million in concrete benefits for a number of infrastructure projects in transportation and agriculture.
Long before this recent phase in his career, when he was Minister of Post and Telecommunications, it was Mangala who spearheaded the privatization of Sri Lanka’s telecommunications industry. This initiative introduced competition for the first time and knocked down barriers between the privileged Sri Lankans who had phones and those who had to wait as long as seven years to get one. Today Sri Lanka has one of the highest number of phones per person in all of Asia, and, despite being a country of 21 million, Sri Lanka is apparently home to 34 million cell phone subscriptions.
This progress has been absolutely essential as a foundation for economic investment and growth. However, for all of the good we know technology can do, rapid advances in fields from social media to AI to automation are also posing profound risks to our democracies. These tools are going to be decisive in global development going forward, but governments must confront their dark uses as well as their boundless possibilities.
I believe we need to dramatically increase our scrutiny of the effects of new technologies. That will require fresh thinking, critical perspectives, and bold steps by policymakers to find a better balance than we currently have—a balance that takes into account the impact that tech is already having on politics and human rights.
In the United States, in the wake of Russia’s interference in our elections, and because of the deep divisions in our society, we are seized with the question of how falsehoods and echo chambers enabled by social media impact our domestic politics.
But these platforms also have potentially deadly impact when it comes to the rights and well-being of marginalized groups.
The UN, for example, has found that the spread of violent hate speech and falsehoods on Facebook in Myanmar played a “determining role” in the mass atrocities perpetrated against the Rohingya. From the Philippines to India to Mexico to Indonesia, technology that barely existed 15 years ago is being used to scapegoat vulnerable populations, exacerbate societal cleavages to the point of violence, and empower the most extreme voices.
Last year, here in Sri Lanka, after hate speech and conspiracy theories about Muslims disseminated on social media led to violence and destruction, one of your government officials made a profound observation that I believe the entire world must heed: “The germs are ours, but Facebook is the wind.”
Mangala himself was one of the first political leaders to take to Twitter during the crisis to condemn the viciousness, sending a clear message of zero tolerance for politicians and others who incited racial violence.
In societies like ours – with mixed ethnicities and religions, with free speech and extreme voices – we ignore this reality at our peril.
I cannot overstate the impact of social media platforms. Despite going worldwide just 13 years ago, “Facebook has as many adherents as Christianity.” Thinking about it another way: at its height in 2018, Facebook was worth more than the economies of 167 countries in the UN – that is more than 85% of nations in the world!
Here in Sri Lanka, apparently some 6 million people regularly use Facebook. This will surely grow as mobile technology becomes cheaper and more widespread. Asia is already the company’s fastest growing market. And when you include the total percentage of people who use WhatsApp, YouTube, Twitter, and even newer platforms, you are already talking about a significant portion of the population.
When it comes to companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google, which failed for too long to grapple with the dangerous uses and effects of their products, it does now finally seem that they are seized with the abuses that their platforms have enabled. Excellent investigative journalism, public outrage, and the threat of oversight has certainly helped. But these companies need to prioritize contributing to the health of democracy as a goal, right alongside making yet more money.
I was encouraged to hear that Facebook has committed to serving up to 20,000 Sri Lankan children in a digital literacy program to be run this year, and that they are participating in the Information and Communication Technology Agency’s SMART Social Circles initiative, which aims to prepare people to better discern, as Mangala puts it, “the good from the bad, and the true from the false.”
This is important: the education and leadership of well-rounded, tech-savvy and civic-minded young people is going to be critical to reigning in the negative effects of new technologies.
However, given the human consequences, this is a drop in the bucket. We need to think far bigger. In my country, I would like lawmakers and policy leaders to think about a number of approaches:
- Instituting regulations and heavy fines for failing to remove hate speech;
- Greatly restricting the ability of advertisers (or nation states disguised as such!) to micro-target users with messages designed to mislead and enrage;
- Re-thinking the type of anonymity afforded to users so as to cut down on the spreading of lies with impunity;
- And probing seriously whether some of these tech monopolies have become so dangerously big – and so dangerous to open society – that they need to be broken up.
Governments like yours also have an essential role to play. You are going to have to insist that Facebook uphold its “Community Standards” for all of Sri Lanka’s national languages, or face serious repercussions. It is simply not acceptable that Facebook has not invested more in equipping itself to monitor posts in languages like Tamil or Sinhala. A platform with this much influence and reach cannot get by just doing the bare minimum—Facebook needs to be far more transparent, so that experts and civil society can guide the company in how to do better in the context of the unique challenges Sri Lanka faces.
As always, talking about technology is complicated – many countries would like nothing more than to have the grounds to regulate social media and the internet or to enhance censorship and surveillance—not to protect their people, but to protect themselves from scrutiny.
Indeed, at the other end of the spectrum, repressive governments are increasingly able to use technology to control and manipulate their populations.
Women in Egypt have been tracked down and arrested for sharing their experiences under the #metoo hashtag.
The Mexican government has infected the phones of local journalists and members of civil society with sophisticated spyware that allows them to capture every text and conversation.
Turkey – a member of NATO! – currently blocks access to 100,000 websites.
But I think what Mangala’s career shows us is that we in public life have a responsibility to take into account the human consequences of our tools – and our laws. At all of his stops along the way, Mangala has demonstrated how public policy can be crafted to address societal ills that others would prefer to ignore. The tech companies won’t have any sustained urgency to change unless those with power – all of you – make it known that you care, and insist that they care too.
Democracy
Third and finally, Mangala has not only been a believer in democracy and the institutions that are the cornerstone of our respective systems, he has himself worked to strengthen them. He has been, in his way, an institution, a one-man check and balance.
I am not sure what is on the best-seller list here, but in the United States people are buying books with titles like:
1984.
How Democracies Die.
How Democracies End.
The People vs. Democracy.
Can It Happen Here? Authoritarianism in the US.
Fascism: A Warning.
These books, and the feeling that democracy is in retreat, do not come from nowhere. They are moored in disturbing trends.
- Thirteen straight years of freedom in decline around the world, according to Freedom House, which has documented that it is consolidated democracies that are suffering from the worst setbacks. Overall, 68 countries suffered net declines in freedom in 2018 on measures like individual rights, freedom of expression and belief, and rule of law.
- Instead of rule of law, the Carnegie Endowment has documented how more than seventy governments in the last ten years have instituted rule by law, taking a number of serious measures to restrict civil society (from legal means like regulation to straight-up intimidation campaigns).
There are no silver bullets when it comes to trends like these. But fatalism cannot be the answer. Yet a confidence gap seems to have overtaken our world – authoritarians strutting around, though their model rests on very fragile foundations; democrats, meanwhile, seem to be running for cover.
When I graduated from college in 1992, a book about the global triumph of liberalism – Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man – had spent a month on the best-seller list, with its thesis “that there is a…common evolutionary pattern for all human societies…in the direction of liberal democracy.”
Things did not turn out that way. Today, though, people have begun speaking of democracy’s decline with the same certainty.
We must not make the mistake of replacing one triumphalist narrative – about the inevitable spread of democracy – with its doomsday opposite.
Recent events within established democracies like the United States are a wake-up call. We cannot take for granted all that we have taken for granted – the durability of liberal institutions, the status of science, attachment to facts.
But if you look at most autocracies and what lies ahead in terms of their ability to deliver for their people, I believe each of us would choose the resiliency and possibility for self-renewal of democracy.
And recall: despite the very real and worrisome backsliding, looking at all four of the most widely used and accepted databases that assess democracy over time, the percentage of democratic countries in the world in 2018 were at or near their all-time high.
You will unfortunately hear very few democratic politicians making these points, but allow me to summarize the essence of the argument: democracies have the better model!
- In autocracies economic growth is likely to be impeded by stagnant state-owned enterprise and a lack of transparency in the economy. Even in China growth is slowing, and one wonders how secure investors will feel with the arrest of expatriates and the absence of due process and property rights.
- Autocrats often overreach because they don’t hear from critical voices in their inner circles and often prefer the company of sycophants. If you worked for a strongman, you would likely be reluctant to be the bearer of bad news to your leader.
- In the military, the most capable officers may be less likely to rise than the most loyal.
- When you have no term limits or put in place a President for life, it can breed decay.
- While innovation is flourishing in some sectors within certain autocracies, we have reason to question whether innovation will be undermined in the long term by the absence of freedom of speech and the presence of fear.
- And finally, one of the biggest factors explaining the appeal of illiberal or populist leaders is inequality and the feeling of many that they are being left behind – a trend that will increase with growing automation. But there is no reason to expect that autocratic or authoritarian systems that concentrate power at the very top will more equally distribute benefits than liberal democracies.
I do not mean to understate the challenges of maintaining a truly democratic society. My country and your country are facing turbulent times.
The last time I was here, I could never have guessed that an American President would attack the judiciary, the press, women, minorities, our diplomats, our intelligence professionals, our law enforcement officers, and many of our closest allies.
In the US, many of the ills we face – intense inequality, big money in politics, gerrymandering and restrictions on voting rights, corruption, polarization, racism and exclusion – have raised serious questions among our own people about how functional our democracy is in the twenty-first century.
Sri Lanka has experienced its own political crisis, which raised alarm bells all around the world.
But critically, while our respective institutions have bent, they are not breaking in the US, and they are not breaking in Sri Lanka.
In the United States, journalists have done an extraordinary job investigating corruption and calling attention to abuses of power. In a number of cases, dogged reporting has led to resignations and exposed terrible wrongs. After doing almost no oversight for two years, our Congress has just been reinvigorated. There are more than 100 women in the House of Representatives for the first time in American history. More young people and women and minorities are running for office than ever before. And our state and local governments have taken a stand on many pressing issues, from climate change to immigration to voting rights, that the federal government is failing to address with any seriousness.
Here in Sri Lanka, during the recent crisis, your citizens made themselves heard, with many of them speaking not for parties or personalities but in defense of your hard-earned democracy. Your streets were home to the country’s first-ever spontaneous, popular protests not initiated by a particular party, proving US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis’ great wisdom that, “the most important political office is that of private citizen.”
One woman who participated in a protest commented, “As a mother, as a grandmother, I want to see democracy restored. I’m not against any person or any party but as a citizen of Sri Lanka.” Another said, “We’re doing this for the next generation, for the future of this country.”
Both traditional and new media outlets were able to play a key role in keeping Sri Lankans informed and keeping institutions accountable. Civil society – and again, both new and established groups – were active and effective. And your judiciary stood by the Constitution and enforced the rule of law with great independence and seriousness of purpose.
All of this is a credit to the resilience of Asia’s oldest democracy and to the checks and balances that Mangala championed over the years.
I hope that for both of our countries, the response to the challenges we are facing – and navigating – will end up affirming the enduring strength of democratic institutions and necessity of democratic accountability.
Your hope, Mangala – that Sri Lankans “create a civilized society where humanity and decency flourish and the rule of law is respected” – is what I hope for both of our countries. And I look forward to the continued friendship between our two nations as we work together to make it happen.
Allow me to conclude with a little history. Around a century ago, German sociologist and economist Max Weber was invited by a liberal student association at the University of Munich, in Germany, to give a series of lectures on the theme of intellectual or spiritual work as a vocation.
Germany had surrendered in the First World War not long before Weber delivered one of his lectures, “Politics as a Vocation,” on January 28, 1919. The utter destruction wrought by the war – human, physical, moral – was unprecedented in its scale. It was not a time of much confidence in the capacity of politics to be a force of human progress. It was surely one of the more difficult times and places in which to make the case for politics as a vocation.
Yet against that backdrop, Weber set about trying to answer, in his words, “what kind of a human being one must be to grasp the spokes of the wheel of history.” Weber laid out three interdependent qualities, each of which he considered indispensable to the vocation of politics: proportion, responsibility, and passion.
Proportion, in Weber’s view, was about maintaining the appropriate distance from a policy decision or endeavor in order to be able to analyze it rigorously and objectively, and to bring a necessary degree of humility to one’s ability to shape the world.
Responsibility involved remembering to think through the likely consequences of proposed actions and interventions – regardless of how well-meaning or logical the motivations behind them.
Passion was what Weber defined as a kind of “inner gravity” – the driving force behind one’s convictions.
At the end of his lecture to the students at the University of Munich, Weber declared:
“[O]ur entire historical experience confirms… that what is possible could never have been achieved unless people had tried again and again to achieve the impossible in this world… The only man who has a ‘vocation’ for politics is one who is certain that his spirit will not be broken if the world… proves too stupid or base to accept what he wishes to offer it, and who, when faced with all that obduracy, can still say ‘Nevertheless!’ despite everything.”
We are not coming out of a harrowing world war, but Sri Lanka suffered a brutal 26 year civil war that ended only a decade ago, and all of us are living in times that can test our faith in politics.
And yet I am as convinced as ever that despite all the cynicism out there, our strength will rest where it always has – in those individuals willing to serve, and the convictions they bring to the human endeavor of politics. Individuals who see the flawed world as it is, but are willing to say, “Nevertheless!” and strive to build a better world.
Mangala is one of those individuals, and I join you today and all days in thanking him for his thirty years of service.
We all know the best is yet to come.
Ambassador Samantha Power’s remarks at the celebration of Minister Mangala Samaraweera’s 30 years in politics – Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall – Thursday, February 28, 2019
Priyantha Cooray / March 1, 2019
Three decades in politics is a long time.
Its Mangala Samaraweera’s turn to retire
from politics now.
What has he done? He has mortgaged part
of Sri Lanka to the US. Last week he aided
and abetted in the US setting up an office
in Matara. Earlier, he co-sponsored a resolution
at the UNHRC – a confirmation that Sri Lanka
committed war crimes.
He makes a great issue of Obama missing to
visit Sri Lanka because of Vesak. If he really
wanted to, he would have got the Vesak postpone
for Obama. Who cares whether Obama came to
Sri Lanka or not.
Mangala has to be very careful, not about the
people in this country. It is the people around him.
The Ali Oluwas, Mah Nos, Ferdis, Sam Eeras etc,
He does not know what is going on!!
Samaraweera today is a lazy, lazy whisky drinker. Not
a politician nor a patriot. He is nothing more than an
American lackey.
/
Bandula Jayasekera / March 1, 2019
Priyantha.
Hoo hoooo why are you Jealous man.
Can Medamulana’s and Polonnaruwa’s approach the United States for help.
/
edwin / March 1, 2019
are you bandula jayasekera of sirasa kili maharaja fame? then we do not want you here
/
Bandula Jayasekera / March 1, 2019
Is this only for Addins then?
/
Ajith / March 2, 2019
Priyantha,
There are few who are in politics more than four decades as MP, PM, President, fake PM, fake OL. You don’t think that those who covered more than four decades and enjoyed all the benefits including bribes from Chinese investors and handing over Srilanka. You know how he and Srisena plotted against this country in 2018 after paying Rs.5 million per an MP. It is because of Mahinda’ the nation has to face UNHRC and actually Mangala & Ranil helped this country from further damage.
/
whywhy / March 2, 2019
Ajith .
Let’s be honest here . Nobody cares about the country but themselves !
Take just two very recent events ! Health department introduced a
Health ID card and the card was reported to have been first issued in
Kalutara . Now , US opens an office in Matara , again, neither because
Matara is the most popular city in the country nor is because of its
location . And a similar thing happened when Mangala was the minister
of Telecommunication . The whole of Matara was covered with
telephone connections while so many businesses and residences were
waiting for their turn for years in Colombo district . It’s o k that ministers
have to work for their electorates and districts but not at the cost of
priorities . No doubt Mangala is a better man among majority of worst
men in politics
/
Whatmore / March 1, 2019
Who paid for this massive tamasha? The Sri Lankan tax payer no doubt
/
Jeyaluxmi Muthuthamby / March 1, 2019
Does Samantha know about Mangala’s kurundu pol praharaya. If not, ask him and mention in your book my dear Sam
/
upul / March 1, 2019
Dear Samantha
Sri Lanka is a very poor country. Please help us.
/
Native Vedda / March 2, 2019
upul .
–
“Sri Lanka is a very poor country. Please help us.”
–
True.
–
Samantha Power
Please take all those descendants of Kallathonies (about 21 Million) to the USA and don’t let them come back (including Sarath Fonseka, Dr Gota, Basil, ……..)
–
/
Daya Gamage / March 1, 2019
Mangala Samaraweera in bringing Samantha Power to Sri Lanka for his 30-years in politics on February 28, 2019, has put the Sirisena-Wickremasinghe government in to a very difficult position; Dr. Power, using the forum patronized by Sri Lanka’s president and prime minister, castigated the the US Administration headed by President Trump, how he runs the nation. Will the President and the PM regret attending a forum that its Key Note Speaker from the United States who happened to be a top foreign policy person in the previous Obama administration – and even now a policy counselor to the Democratic Party – was harshly critical of US domestic scene under President Trump? When the report goes to the White House that Sri Lanka administration entertained an American, who is even now a counselor to Trump’s opposing party – Democratic Party – critical of Trump’s domestic handling of the nation, where does US-SL relation go? Can someone find out if the American ambassador, representative of the Trump administration, attended this forum whose celebrated keynote addressee – and guest of the Sri Lanka government – was critical of the handling of domestic and foreign affairs of President Trump. This is embarrassing to Sri Lanka administration. Definitely, Dr. Samantha Power did not promote good and cordial relations between the Trump Administration and the Sirisena Administration instead brought fissures. Why did the Sirisena administration allow Mangala Samaraweera – knowingly or unknowingly – to pull this diplomatic massacre. I am fairly knowledgeable of the diplomatic fallout from this type of events as I worked in the U.S. Department of State in its diplomatic and foreign policy areas for 25 years (1970-1995), and while working at the Colombo U.S. diplomatic mission we did diplomatic cables that filled these developments – with analyses – to Washington that sometimes ended up in the hands of the officials of the National Security Council at the White House.
/
Native Vedda / March 2, 2019
Daya Gamage
–
“I am fairly knowledgeable of the diplomatic fallout from this type of events as I worked in the U.S. Department of State in its diplomatic and foreign policy areas for 25 years (1970-1995), and while working at the Colombo U.S. diplomatic mission we did diplomatic cables that filled these developments – with analyses – to Washington that sometimes ended up in the hands of the officials of the National Security Council at the White House.”
–
Thanks for elaborate name dropping, for the umpteenth time.
You are not alone in the habit of name dropping, we have Dayan the public racist, Bandu de Silva, ……………….
/
Spring Koha / March 4, 2019
Native Vedda
Please do not take Daya Gamage too seriously. He was only a filing clerk with limited opportunity to seeing the true messages that were exchanged.
/
nalmen / March 1, 2019
how to jump from party to party to further ones political career
how to bum americans like power and biswas hoping to get a un job [ the effort failed when trump won]
i will leave it at that
/
Manimel / March 1, 2019
Samantha Power travelled 1st class for 8000 miles to deliver a lecture in Colombo. Who paid? Finance Ministry? We need full accounts please.
/
Mallaiyuran / March 1, 2019
Just don’t make big deal. For Ranil’s Birthday Party President Xi Jinping is coming. Thero is working to bring president Putin to New Princess’s new TV station opening. Sonia has said in an election meeting she is coming to Old Prince’s wedding. Are you happy now?
(The Rascals grounded permanently an entire Airline by diverting a booked fight for their whimsy. If Ex.Ambassador was given ticket or fee for this speech IRS will make sure she is declaring it. But can you get the $18B declared for which Mangala helped Old Royals hide it?)
/
Kugan / March 1, 2019
Wow we should proud of our politicians ,she missed quite lot of them out 1st head is over 40. Even the ex …………
/
justice / March 1, 2019
Mangala is/was NOT corrupt.
This makes him a unique politician in Sri Lanka.
He is fit to be president.
/
Imelda Goldmear / March 1, 2019
I heard chandrika k has issued bmich hall free for mangala to have ‘khema’s boy’. this is corruption.
/
Thamodaran Shelva / March 1, 2019
Mangala’s secretary Halloluwa is a big time crook. I hopeSamantha knows this
/
Sherin Watagedera / March 1, 2019
Dear Upali
You are a patriot. I’m sorry Samantha Power can’t do anything. She is retired. One of Obama’s girls
/
Koneswaran / March 1, 2019
Mangala is too close to MY3. they are working in unision as Mangala the Finance Minister throws billions at MY3’s whim and fancy
/
Srini / March 1, 2019
Samantha Power should write about Thusitha Halloluwa and Mangal antics. Will become best seller
/
Native Vedda / March 2, 2019
Srini
–
“Will become best seller”
–
Do you think her readership is stupid enough to be interested in and read about unknown little islanders?
–
I suggest you write Mahindawamsa including all your titbits to spice up the story which I am sure would titillate Mahinda’s cronies but won’t wise up the people.
/
Chamuditha Senanayaka / March 1, 2019
Medamulana in bed with Subramaniam swamy why not mangy with samantha fox.
/
Native Vedda / March 2, 2019
Chamuditha Senanayaka
–
Mahindawamsa was known to have shared bed with Robert O. Blake Jr.
from September 9, 2006 to May 21, 2009 and after.
–
Do political prostitutes have principles?
/
Jatila Wellabada / March 1, 2019
Parlimentarians have developed a madness to run big events to celebrate their politics. I’m sure Mangala will do it again in 35 years. John Amarathunga did the other day. The funny thing is people are not organising but the politicians themselves. Spends millions on such tamasha where’s the money coming from including Samantha Power flying 1st class
/
JD / March 1, 2019
CT ruined this page.
/
K.Pillai / March 1, 2019
The gut feeling of LayLankans was that Samantha Powers never had a sound grasp of Lankan politics.
/
Thondamany / March 2, 2019
Samantha Powers was only seen dancing with the Northerners during Obama tribe was in power.
/
Native Vedda / March 2, 2019
Thondamany
–
“Samantha Powers was only seen dancing with the Northerners during Obama tribe was in power.”
–
There are hundreds of Northern tribes in the USA for example
Arikara,
Cherokee,
Iroquois,
Pawnee
Sioux
Apache
….
…
…
Tell us which northern tribe was she dancing with?
What was the importance of this incident you just described above?
/
K.Pillai / March 2, 2019
In March 2008, Samantha resigned as Senior Advisor to the then SENATOR Obama. She had referred to the then Senator Hillary ‘a Monster’. Was this ‘off-the-cuff- unguarded-moment’ slip?
This type of ploy is in common use as an excuse to resign.
Here she is praising Mangala with her publisher in hot pursuit!
Following the Obama win, she became an influential figure in the President Obama administration. She persuaded Obama to support Sarkozy and intervene militarily in Libya.
The then Libyans who were NOT living in poverty, now openly trade slaves.
She won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for her book “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide”, a study of the U.S. foreign policy response to genocide.
How will she explain her silence on the genocide of Rohingyas?
/
Mano / March 3, 2019
So he has wagged his tails for 30 years nonstop. Should get a place in the World Book of Guinness Records.
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Usha S Sri Skanda Rajah / March 3, 2019
Samantha Powers managed to deliver the keynote address to celebrate Mangala’s 30 years in politics – a period when a genocide took place in the island – without mentioning it. Powers ignored the elephant in the room; how selective can people get, although quite correctly she refers to the “mass atrocities” against Rohingyas as important to mention. At the least she could have called for an international investigation, considering Mangala made hollow promises, on behalf of Sri Lanka, to America and the UNHRC (lies actually); he made them while it was being recanted by its president back in the island – and thus far there has been no consequences for Sri Lanka’s non-compliance of Resolution. 30/1 and 34/1; only Mangala got moved for agreeing to co-sponsor the resolution -he got yet another plum post though. Powers wrote a book on genocide that won her the Pulitzer Prize – ironically her book, is a critic on America’s response or lack there of to genocides happening around the world. I am suggesting she reads Ramu Manivannan’s Sri Lanka Hiding The Elephant, although I don’t think she’d bother.
Anyway what does she know about Tamils and their history? Nothing!
She ends by saying, “the best is yet to come.” I am curious whether she’s referring to herself, or Mangala or both.
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Chandraguptha Thennakoon / March 3, 2019
Samantha Powers was behnd the several Geneva Resolutions that US sponsored against Sri Lanka. She was very much pro separatist lobby. Sri Lankan leaders especially Mahinda Rajapakse should have detested her.
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Usha S Sri Skanda Rajah / March 3, 2019
Dear Mr Chandraguptha,
You better read my comments.
Samantha Powers was with us Tamils then not now. Now she is with MY3 clan. In her impending book I heard she criticises Piriparan, hero for Tamils.
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Usha S Sri Skanda Rajah / March 4, 2019
Heeeey who is this whose impersonating my name??? Hey I did not write this comment. I am Usha S Sri Skanda Rajah and I did not write this comment to a so called Chandragupta. Someone is impersonating my name.
Dear Colombo Telegraph can you act on this. Please check the email of this person, it’s definitely not mine!!! Please note I have only two e-mails. Can you write to this person and warn him.
This is my comment that’s been already published by you:
Samantha Powers managed to deliver the keynote address to celebrate Mangala’s 30 years in politics – a period when a genocide took place in the island – without mentioning it. Powers ignored the elephant in the room; how selective can people get, although quite correctly she refers to the “mass atrocities” against Rohingyas as important to mention. At the least she could have called for an international investigation, considering Mangala made hollow promises, on behalf of Sri Lanka, to America and the UNHRC (lies actually); he made them while it was being recanted by its president back in the island – and thus far there has been no consequences for Sri Lanka’s non-compliance of Resolution. 30/1 and 34/1; only Mangala got moved for agreeing to co-sponsor the resolution -he got yet another plum post though. Powers wrote a book on genocide that won her the Pulitzer Prize – ironically her book, is a critic on America’s response or lack there of to genocides happening around the world. I am suggesting she reads Ramu Manivannan’s Sri Lanka Hiding The Elephant, although I don’t think she’d bother.
Anyway what does she know about Tamils and their history? Nothing!
She ends by saying, “the best is yet to come.” I am curious whether she’s referring to herself, or Mangala or both.
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Usha S Sri Skanda Rajah / March 5, 2019
I am concerned – some one here has impersonating my name. i did not write this comment. Colombo Telegraph must investigate!!! What email did this person use?
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charles / March 5, 2019
He will be known as a person who gave sss to westerners. He is a man very unpopular among general population in Sri Lanka. We had people like him in our history too.
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Vanguard Intellictual / March 5, 2019
Further evidence that the US either does not have a clue or is just interested in spinning fairy tales about their chosen people.
Respect is decreasing.
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Christo Kaye / March 5, 2019
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Christo Kaye / March 5, 2019
This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn’t abide by our Comment policy.For more detail see our Comment policy https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/comments-policy-2
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Christy Kaye / March 5, 2019
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Amaradasa Salgado / March 7, 2019
USA under the Trump – administration new political hegemony that tactics and strategy has used for by regain US imperialism in globally. By and large that created is new path of right-wing political which nexus to that white “racism” advocated by Trump’s whole set of policies and his think-tank.
We do not want that listen to Samaptha -power is /was that she was just office position of ex-Obama rule of governances. She has selected by wrongly -person of 30 years of politics of Managala Samarweera man with out philosophy of knowledge of political by looking on appearances of island politics.
The MS was by products of CBK political federalism of SLFP since 1994 to 2005.
We are a nation of different stuff of politics ,we were under colonial power425 years . Ours decolonization that task is still unfinished. Classes of bourgeois are cowered class led by UNP and SLFP of family banadaism of house of Banadarake clan led by CBK 1994 to 2005 .
They had been betray all values of TRUE Democracy of one of old an Islander nation Independent and Sovereignty undermined by MS was one of them.
Well that Samantah was not that good at politics of Islander level is far above her of ours political standards is concern !
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