{"id":134972,"date":"2014-12-16T12:26:35","date_gmt":"2014-12-16T06:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=134972"},"modified":"2017-12-16T12:38:56","modified_gmt":"2017-12-16T07:08:56","slug":"i-am-sick-and-tired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/i-am-sick-and-tired\/","title":{"rendered":"I Am Sick And Tired \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Emil van der Poorten<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Emil<\/a>

Emil van der Poorten<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2026.of the never-ending, refrain that we \u201cshould be eternally grateful to Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/span><\/a> and his family for putting an end to the Tamil Tigers and bringing Sri Lanka out of (enter your figures<\/i>) years of terror.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get this straight, in no way can Mahinda Rajapaksa or his acolytes make ANY claim to single-handedly<\/b> destroying the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE<\/span><\/a>, \u201cTigers\u201d) and its vicious war machine.<\/p>\n

What I am about to say is no way hindsight because I went on record in Montage Magazine (in 2007, long before the final denouement at Nanthikadal) describing what was as obvious as the nose on one\u2019s face: the Tigers were \u201cdone\u201d long before the war was officially ended with the wholesale butchery in that tiny North East corner of Sri Lanka and a useless loss of service lives in a stage-managed ending to a horrible conflict, meant simply to provide a crescendo of kiribath<\/i>-and-kavun<\/i> celebration which, in turn, was to herald the wholesale destruction of every vestige of democracy, decency and the rule of law in the name of the Second Coming of a 21st<\/sup> Century Dutugemunu<\/span><\/a> and his hegemonic rule, parading as some particularly peculiar brand of \u201cSri Lankan Democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tigers\u2019 supply lines had not just been disrupted, they had been completely severed by the interception and sinking of ships bringing in huge loads of explosives, armaments and other supplies essential to their war effort.\u00a0 This was done thousands of miles outside Sri Lanka\u2019s territorial waters and \u00a0was possible only<\/b> because of intelligence supplied by the current \u201cenemies of 2500 years of Sinhala Buddhist<\/span><\/a> civilization,\u201d the so-called \u201cwestern democracies.\u201d\u00a0 Yes, it wasn\u2019t<\/b> China or Russia that supplied Sri Lanka with the intelligence that enabled the total destruction of the Tigers\u2019 supply lines \u2013 it was those \u201cwestern democracies\u201d that have become, oh so handily, the whipping boys of the current bunch of self-identified geniuses parading as representatives of the \u201cmaster race.\u201d<\/p>\n

And what of the Tiger rump that survived Nanthikadal? (A pretty substantial \u201crump\u201d it was!)<\/p>\n

The financial mastermind, the infamous \u201cKP\u201d who bears direct responsibility for, literally, thousands of civilian deaths from every ethnic entity in Sri Lanka is now in the bosom of the current government, allegedly due to his ability to pass on a part of the largesse that he had control of with the demise of the Tiger hierarchy on the battlefields of north-east Sri Lanka.\u00a0 And in case there is any doubt as to what awaits those who butchered unarmed civilians and hundreds of policemen who\u2019d surrendered to the Tigers, we have another of KP\u2019s erstwhile comrades elevated to the National Legislature and given the trappings of one but the most senior functionary in the lead party of the current governing coalition.\u00a0 I speak here of \u201cColonel\u201d Karuna, jailed in Britain for illegal entry through use of a \u201cdiplomatic passport\u201d issued by one of the highest in the land. And, just in case there is any doubt with regard to the \u00a0\u201cprinciples\u201d of the ruling junta in dealing with those who butchered hundreds of unarmed civilians, we have two \u201cMasters\u201d in positions of importance and authority and another pint-sized character whose distinguishing feature is a receding forehead which speaks volumes in the matter of intelligence who, through nothing but the exercise of monumental stupidity, succeeded in doing himself out of the job of Chief Minister of the Eastern Province to which he had ascended by virtue of \u201canointment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hard to accept?\u00a0 Bite hard and swallow, buddy, for them\u2019s the breaks when fact needs to supersede monumental and deliberately contrived fiction in the matter of recent Sri Lankan history.<\/p>\n

This is the government that claims to have, singlehandedly defeated \u201cthe most feared terrorist outfit in the world\u201d and insists on its right to conduct its own<\/b> investigations into its own<\/b> conduct of a war in which it is accused of less-than-gentlemanly conduct!<\/p>\n

That members of the parties opposed to the Rajapaksa Regime insist that, no matter what political differences they have with that regime, they will not permit \u201cforeign interference\u201d in the matter of investigations of alleged destruction of human rights in Sri Lanka speaks simply to the fact that those accusing politicians of being totally bereft of decency and elementary intelligence might not be exaggerating!\u00a0 I do not recall anyone<\/b> subscribing to the belief that members of the National Socialist Party of the Fatherland should have been in charge of the Nurnberg trials.\u00a0 However, with our self-propelled meteoric rise to Master Race status, there is a certain twisted logic to such an approach, I suppose.<\/p>\n

No, it is time that the recent history of the destruction of democracy in the Debacle of Asia be placed on the record.\u00a0 The fact that democratic dissent can and has led to cold-blooded, gangland-style executions (as in the case of Lasantha Wickrematunge<\/span><\/a>), \u201cdisappearances\u201d as in the case of Ekneligoda or political exile in the case of too many to even begin to count in an article such as this amounts to a simple statement of fact.<\/b>\u00a0The intimidation of the media, what\u2019s left of it after the purchase of most of it by government stooges utilizing \u201cblack\u201d money or even using such purchases as a means of laundering dirty money, needs to be stopped in its tracks and then reversed. Those elements of the media that have survived by simply doing the bidding of the most corrupt and violent government in Sri Lanka\u2019s history must be exposed for what they are \u2013 simply propagandists parading as custodians of \u201cfreedom of expression.\u201d They must be drummed out of the profession of journalism, be it print, electronic or any other form. May I also take this opportunity to indulge in a little \u201cside-bar?\u201d\u00a0 Some years ago, I referred to my difficulty in distinguishing monkey from organ grinder in the case of two of the most reprehensible lackeys in the practice of \u201cjournalism\u201d in Sri Lanka. I owe them both <\/b>an apology for failing to recognize the fact that they were both <\/b>monkeys in the pay of Sri Lanka\u2019s No. 1 Organ Grinder, something they have since proved by going into his direct, un-shadowed employ!<\/p>\n

In order for the essential national catharsis to happen, we need a cleansing of the body politic without fear or attention to who\u2019s related to whom.<\/p>\n

We have the laws. After first having removed from the judiciary those who have been appointed to do the bidding of the Grand Vizier, engaging in corrupt and unethical practice without precedent, we need to put in places of authority and responsibility those able to carry out the law without fear or favour, thereafter commencing an absolute <\/b>cleansing.\u00a0 This is, truly, a sine qua non if we are ever to claim to be a civil and civilized society again.<\/p>\n

We need to clean out our Augean Stable beginning January the 9th<\/sup> 2015. Not one day later!<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":93580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nI Am Sick And Tired \u2026 - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/i-am-sick-and-tired\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Am Sick And Tired \u2026 - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/i-am-sick-and-tired\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-12-16T06:56:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-12-16T07:08:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Emil.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"356\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"433\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/i-am-sick-and-tired\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/i-am-sick-and-tired\/\",\"name\":\"I Am Sick And Tired \u2026 - 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