Be Ready For More Weliweriyas: Ruthless Regime, Incompetent Government

By Rajan Philips -August 11, 2013 |

Rajan Philips

Weliweriya exposed the ruthlessness of the Rajapaksa regime and the incompetence of the Sri Lankan government.  Weliweriya was the first to experience and expose this double whammy, but it won’t be the last.  The regime is shocked, but it is not sorry.  The Teflon President has expressed nothing except the painted smile.  The apologists, commissioned and freelance, have invented evidence of provocation from the protesters that in turn provoked the apparently endangered soldiers to open fire in self-defence.  One resourcefully creative commentator has suggested that the army did what it had to do to end the traffic stoppage on the Colombo-Kandy road caused by the wild protest! Wow!!

The usual critics have lambasted the regime’s usual heavy handedness.  Even friendly critics have spoken the politically unfriendly: the family, rather the brothers have let the President down; the war has been brought from the north to the south; and the regime has seriously undermined its professed innocence over war crimes allegations.  The UNP, which should seriously think of changing its name to “United International Party”, has gone out on a limb and called for an “international investigation.”  What are they smoking in Sri Kotha nowadays?

Taking on the UNP is Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the Defence Secretary (DS), who, apart from being in charge of defence, is also very ‘defensive’.  He has trained his guns on the UNP, reportedly “irate … that the Opposition was working overtime to compare the Weliweriya incident with the final battle against the LTTE on the banks of the Nanthikadal in May 2009.” The DS apparently felt constrained to stress that there was no similarity between the two events, or between Weliweriya in 2013 and Mavil-Aru in 2006.  Who is turning water, not into wine, but into politics here?                                           Read More