Did you hear the nonsense that Sri Lanka “tread a very destructive path” since 1977? It is the usual pot calling the kettle black!

 The President in his budget speech alluded that the country has tread a very destructive path since 1977 owing to the ‘Neo Liberal’ policies and that had been adopted. It is hardly surprising that as always he also continues down the neo liberal path while pretending that it is a nationalistic patriotic approach. In the nationalistic sense all the forests are now cut and raped by the nationalists of the party not foreigners. They have complete disregard and contempt for the conservation laws of the country. The killing of wildlife and the sale of cubs is now done not under the patronage, but by the Ministers themselves with no shame!

The land taken over is farmed off to the kith and kin and all the crimes of business, from bribery, protection rackets and drug pushing is carried out by the grace of the government. While it may be true that some of these rough elements started life in the UNP which gave them shelter, their worst excesses have been committed in this regime. It is therefore a little smug or a bit rich! to blame previous administrations when the current administration beats all comers into second place.

A neo liberal economic policy is one where there is independence of the Executive from the Legislature and the Judiciary, all of which run without any interference from the other. In Sri Lanka it is true that there is no difference between the three branches, as all are under a dictatorship, with no independence from the other.

These asinine statements made by the highest servant of the state about the state that has fallen into the depths of moral decay, in no small part due to the political forces at play and visible to all, by the actions that were condoned by the highest executive of bashing up even opposition MPs in the well of the Parliament smacks of the rogue states we read about, or at least a state led by thugs and condoned by the populace who have rubber stamped this regime.

Taking in all kinds people, especially those with a history of criminal conduct, as they are the easiest to suppress and threaten with exposure, allows the leadership to control all opposition with force making it difficult to express one’s views without fear of retaliation, and in many cases especially with journalists who do not tow the line, with death. This current state of the country needs a very strong and vocal opposition with a clever message that goes to the core of the people’s beliefs that can bring the masses out of their own free will to demonstrate and ultimately topple the dictatorship as that is the only manner in which dissent of the masses can get a hearing in light of a population that is broadly very malleable and pliable.