{"id":191098,"date":"2018-06-04T00:42:58","date_gmt":"2018-06-03T19:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=191098"},"modified":"2018-06-11T18:36:47","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T13:06:47","slug":"gota-a-devout-buddhist-vegetarian-feeds-flesh-to-pet-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/gota-a-devout-buddhist-vegetarian-feeds-flesh-to-pet-sharks\/","title":{"rendered":"Gota A Devout Buddhist, Vegetarian, Feeds Flesh To Pet Sharks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Suranimala+Umagiliya\">Suranimala Umagiliya<\/a> &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The mainstream Sinhala media is awash with news of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Gotabaya+Rajapaksa\">Gotabaya Rajapaksa<\/a> being the front runner\u00a0from the Lotus Bud party at the next Presidential election. That sums up the\u00a0pathetic state of the media. The fourth estate must educate and guarantee\u00a0the citizens right to information. Such information must be disseminated with\u00a0great responsibility. Information presented with clarity will educate the\u00a0masses in making judicious decisions concerning their future and that of the\u00a0next generation.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Gotabaya-Rajapaksa-photo-via-His-Media-Unit-.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-191099\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Gotabaya-Rajapaksa-photo-via-His-Media-Unit-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"899\" height=\"550\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Gotabaya-Rajapaksa-photo-via-His-Media-Unit-.jpg 657w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Gotabaya-Rajapaksa-photo-via-His-Media-Unit--300x184.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 899px) 100vw, 899px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Gotabaya for President? Sri Lankans must be out of their minds or plain looney\u00a0to even give it a second thought. Here is a man who is suspected of grave\u00a0crime dodging appearing in Court to clear himself. An educated\u00a0public will insist that he goes through a legal process to confirm that he has\u00a0clean hands prior to representing them and their next of kin. The media must stop\u00a0the current nonsense and push Gotabaya to do so. Weren&#8217;t journalists assaulted, tortured,\u00a0abducted and even murdered during his tenure as the Secretary to the Ministry\u00a0of Defence?<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Viyathmaga\">Viyathmaga<\/a> movement apart, Gotabaya has shown how shallow his thought\u00a0process is. His new found foray into macro economics, delivered in measured tone<br \/>\nis fake at best. Consider how fake he is. He is a vegetarian. A self\u00a0confessed devout Buddhist. A Nationalist who assumes that Sri Lanka is\u00a0predominantly for the Sinhala\/ Buddhist.Well and good. But his pets are flesh\u00a0eating sharks !! Huh? That reflects his true persona. Fake.<\/p>\n<p>Gotabaya as complainant against The Sunday Leader defended the purchase\u00a0of MiG fighter jets as a Government to Government deal. He gave such\u00a0evidence under oath. It is now found to be false. He distanced himself from\u00a0the activities of the Army Intelligence who abducted,assaulted, tortured and even\u00a0murdered journalists. His style of leadership is to claim credit for affirmative\u00a0action but blame his subordinates for failure. Qualities of a poor leader.<\/p>\n<p>Seventy years after gaining independence from the British, us Sinhalese\u00a0(by virtue of being the majority race) have controlled successive governments. Some\u00a0may argue that the nation has progressed considerably.Is that enough or is it\u00a0the best we can do? Mirror that with the rest of the world and the answer\u00a0is clear. Corruption has become endemic. Gotabaya has also been\u00a0suspected of corruption, fraud and even murder.<\/p>\n<p>A self confessed vegetarian who feeds flesh to his pets is as fake as one\u00a0can get. Can Sri Lanka entrust the whole country to such person even as\u00a0an experiment? The Rajapaksa family miscalculated and lost the last\u00a0Presidential election. If any of them succeed the next time around they will\u00a0make certain to stay on forever.If not for any other reason, that is good enough\u00a0to thwart them.<\/p>\n<p>Does the journalistic profession have any shame? Go on do your\u00a0job and show what he is. Warts and all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":287,"featured_media":146416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2186,46,1,8,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-featured-news","category-constitutional-reforms","category-news","category-editorial","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Gota A Devout Buddhist, Vegetarian, Feeds Flesh To Pet Sharks - 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\/gota-a-devout-buddhist-vegetarian-feeds-flesh-to-pet-sharks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gota A Devout Buddhist, Vegetarian, Feeds Flesh To Pet Sharks - 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