{"id":134576,"date":"2014-12-09T05:16:20","date_gmt":"2014-12-08T23:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=134576"},"modified":"2014-12-15T15:48:22","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T10:18:22","slug":"wikileaks-maithripala-sirisena-is-a-rustic-style-politician-popular-in-rural-areas-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wikileaks-maithripala-sirisena-is-a-rustic-style-politician-popular-in-rural-areas-us\/","title":{"rendered":"WikiLeaks: Maithripala Sirisena Is A Rustic-Style Politician, Popular In Rural Areas &#8211; US"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Maithripala+Sirisena&amp;x=6&amp;y=6\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Maithripala Sirisena<\/span><\/a>, 53, is the new Minister of River Basin Development and Rajarata (North-Central Province) Development. He first entered Parliament in 1989. He holds a diploma in agriculture and is currently the secretary of the SLFP. Sirisena was the deputy minister of irrigation in the previous PA government and served as minister of Mahaweli (river basin) development from 2000-2001. As a &#8220;rustic&#8221;-style politician, he is popular in rural areas of the country. He is a Sinhalese Buddhist and is married.&#8221; the US Embassy Colombo informed Washington.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\">Colombo Telegraph<\/a><\/span>\u00a0found the related leaked cable from the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/category\/wikileaks\/\">WikiLeaks<\/a>\u00a0database. The\u00a0classified diplomatic cable details the biographic data on\u00a0Sri Lanka&#8217;s new cabinet was sworn in on April 10, 2004<span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">.\u00a0The \u201cConfidential\u201d is cable signed by the US Ambassador to\u00a0Colombo\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Jeffrey+J.+Lunstead&amp;x=10&amp;y=5\">Jeffrey J. Lunstead<\/a><\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">\u00a0on April 15, 2004.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Maithripala-S.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-134578\" alt=\"Maithripala S\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Maithripala-S.jpg\" width=\"570\" height=\"375\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Maithripala-S.jpg 570w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Maithripala-S-300x197.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 570px) 100vw, 570px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":134578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1,6969,2375,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-news","category-popular-stories","category-stories","category-wikileaks"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - 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