It has been less than six weeks since the people brought new leaders to the political scene of this country. The fact that a once outlawed political entity has won the presidential hustings seems to have set the cat among the mice.
The attempt by the leader of the Pivithuru Hela Urumaya Udaya Gammanpila to score brownie points from the voters by embarrassing the government using the two committees appointed by former President Ranil Wickremesinghe on the terrorist attacks launched on the Easter Sunday in 2019 seems to have become a damp squib.
Even though the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) faced a major defeat during the last Presidential Elections, many of its members have entered the fray to contest for a seat at the upcoming Parliamentary Elections, scheduled for November 14.
The Embilipitiya Magistrate Court recently imposed an unprecedented fine of Rs. 116 million on two Russians who were caught while collecting specimens at the Sinharaja UNESCO World Heritage Site and Horton Plains National Park. Having arrested the two individuals following a tip-off the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) officials discovered over 230 specimens in the possession of these Russians.
The new JVP/NPP government has been in power for less than two months. They are faced with mounting problems which are not of their making. In Opposition the president and his political party, which now rules our country condemned the former president Wickremesinghe for ignoring the plight of the masses.
For the last couple of years since the tragic Easter Sunday attacks, some sections of the Catholic church led by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith and civil society groups have been wanting us to believe that nine Islamist suicide terrorists, having pledged allegiance to the transnational Salafi Jihad terrorist group, Islamic State, blew themselves up killing 250 locals church goers and foreign tourists in order to bring to power an ardent Sinhala Buddhis
The results of Saturday’s Elpitiya Pradeshiya Sabha election cannot be taken as an indication of the results of the forthcoming Parliamentary election scheduled for November 14, as some suggest, since the two elections are different in several aspects.
Israel pulled off two stunning espionage coups in recent months – the killing of Hamas’s top political leader Ismail Haniye in the Iranian capital Tehran, followed by the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah militant organisation in Lebanon.
This is the fourth part of an extended article focusing on Sri Lanka’s newly elected President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. In the first part of this article, the early years of Anura’s eventful life were delved into in some detail. In the second part, AKD’s steady growth as a political leader within the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) was related to some extent. In the third part, Anura’s rise to the leadership position of the JVP was recounted.
The can of worms that was opened by the Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) leader, Parliamentarian Udaya Gammanpila with regard to the Easter Sunday attacks seems to have been overshadowed by the US travel advisory due to a purported plan by certain individuals to launch a similar attack on Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka.
When ordinary citizens are brought before the law it is seen as a stigma, and shame. Times out of number, when officials are caught out -either embezzling funds, accepting bribes or any other offences; when produced before the court, these individuals tend to cover their faces in shame.
It is over five years since the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks which left over 270 persons dead. The families of the victims in that mass killing still remain traumatised. There has as yet, been no closure to their sufferings as we Lankan’s as a whole and Catholics in particular have no idea as to who master-minded the evil deed.
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