It Starts…

With the arresting of retired Gen. Sarath Fonseka, the first domino has been nudged. I expect we’ll be seeing a repeat of arrests, assaults and murders of journalist since 2007, in the coming months. I dare say the white vans will be prowling the streets once again.

During his interview on BBC, Gotabaya Rajapaksa stated “He was a member of the security council. He only left three months ago. He divulged certain security information to the public. He did a wrong thing there. But we will not arrest him because he was the opposition candidate”.

So much for that…

It’s a no brainer that Fonseka has incriminating evidence against the government and this is an effort to have him gagged and bound. But the government has more to gain by drubbing him with a court martial.

For the upcoming Parliamentary Elections, the JVP had invited Sarath Fonseka (New Democratic Front) as well as Mangala Samaraweera (SLFP –M), Rauff Hakeem (SLMC), Mano Ganeshan (Democratic People’s Front) and Arjuna Ranatunga, to form a new alliance. This proves that even though the UNP has decided to enter the elections under their Elephant symbol, without affiliations with other parties, Fonseka still had the potentiality to discomfit Rajapaksa’s plans.

If Fonseka is court martialed his political career is over and the government’s strongest opposition would be eliminated. Sarath Fonseka aside, the government has the power to arrest anyone, however innocent they may be, and have them imprisoned on far-fetched charges that they’re experts in cooking up. We’ve seen this in the case of Tissainayagam. They’ve got the long arm of the law in a hammerlock.

Last year two bloggers were supposedly arrested for making comments on a website against the government. What’s important now, is for the media as well as bloggers to not cower in the shadow of the thug- that’s government intimidation, and continue to keep the masses informed. This is of course, easier said than done, but the public must be kept aware of all that is going on around them.

I find it hard to imagine where Sri Lanka will be 7 years from now. Wherever that may be, we’d best brace ourselves for it.

Blogger Road Trip to Jaffna

I went on a road trip to Jaffna over the weekend. My verdict— travelling to Jaffna using public transport is long, rough and certainly not for the fainthearted. On the ‘hardcore’ SinhalayaTravels spontaneous jaunts that I’ve been on so far, I’ve returned a bit battered- with cuts, bruises, sprained ankles, blood clots under my epidermis and a bad wheeze. As much as I’d hate to admit it, I’m not physically calloused for this. I’ve terribly sensitive skin and I’m accident-prone being the klutz that I am, but I’d never let that deprive me of an adventure! Also if you’re the least bit finical or pusillanimous I should warn you of the merciless weather conditions (meandering in the melt-your-skin blazing sun to traipsing in puddles while buckets of rain slosh over you), the non-gourmet food and the inferior conditions of the loos.

I enjoyed it very much though. Yes, my friends have already established that I’m strange, but I guess it’s that I find it adventurous and the discomfort is something that is expected which in turn makes the trip more of an awesome experience! Relating my experiences to my friends at work (the girls) they look at me in complete disbelief and expressions that read “you peculiar creature”. They find it difficult to comprehend how I can possibly enjoy ‘roughing it’.

But getting back on trail— Jaffna was amazing! I was expecting it to be dry and sparse, but Jaffna town is just like any other. The food at the town is only just so-so. Though the isso vades at Galle Face have nothing on the stuff sold in Jaffna!

The city isn’t much and the beaches smell of fish all the way up to Point Pedro. There are certain beaches that are however, exceptional. Such as the Casuarina beach that Halik has been raving about.

As for the people they were mostly overly friendly. Though, while it could be that I don’t understand the language, I felt that some people were rather reserved and would steal a curious sideway glance from time to time, although that could owe to the fact that we must have looked like penguins in the Sahara. With brightly coloured backpacks, faces hidden behind sun-shades and mostly that we were snapping pictures like trigger happy Chinese tourists!

If there’s one thing that’s intrinsic in Lankan culture, and by no means is lacking in Jaffna, is the perverts—men passing comments or blatantly trying to take your picture in a bus is rampant there.

As for the highlight of the trip, the eclipse was amazing! Just watching the moon gradually superimpose itself over the sun so that only a ring is visible is a marvel by itself.

Apart from that the road trip was brilliant. On returning I got to stand on the foot board of a moving train! Though I lost my slipper in the process but Jerry was kind enough to lend me his pair of slippers. Unfortunately, they were too big for my size 4 feet. Ended up tripping over at the Fort station and sprained my ankle.

We discovered that PaparéBoy and Halik know all the lyrics to Britney Spears’ songs. PaparéBoy’s swearing can make a sailor blush. AfoxHound is only deceptively quiet and that despite being a fully grown man has the amazing ability to scrunch himself up into a train seat and sleep like a baby. Libertad never leaves home without a butter-knife that he’s mastered brandishing threateningly. As for Jerry… well, he’s got abnormally large feet.

We didn’t get to camp on the first day because Jerry is an Indian. There was a hospitable Muslim man who let us sleep at his house. Here we also discovered that little mice make PaparéBoy scream like a girl. Only Libertad is man enough to admit he can cook. And I have a destructive streak; I broke the host’s bottle of salt.

From singing at the top of our lungs to the bemusement of passersbys, poking fun at each other, playing charades on the train and watching Halik being molested by an old woman, the trip was oodles of fun! I’d like to go back to Jaffna and scout it out a bit more. Turns out we’d missed out on quite a bit.

The Voting Dilemma

Mahinda’s Spin-doctors must be burning the midnight oil while trying to put a positive twist on all that’s arising from his poorly thought out campaigning tactics. He might want to consider giving up on the damage control and actually rethink his campaigning strategies. Apart from the much talked about new year text solecism he committed, he’s gone all out to reach the people by pitching up hoardings of himself in every corner of Colombo and as far out as isolated villages in Kalpitiya. Which seems to have been a waste of his campaigning funds. I say that after having come across a poster of Mahinda on which his face was concealed with thick wad of cow dung smeared across it, while I was in Kalpitiya over the weekend.

I was recently informed that the Muslims along the East Coast have already pledged their support to Sarath Fonseka. And there are rumours of Mahinda’s face being bloated during his public meetings as he gives magniloquent speeches because he’s drunk. Drunk because he’s afraid of Sarath Fonseka’s spearheading in popularity. But that’s just the word on the street, personally it’s not something I’ve noticed.

At the same time Sarath Fonseka seems to be winning the favour of the people solely due to Mahinda Rajapaksa’s foul-ups. He hasn’t got much of a campaign. All he’s got for him right now is that he’s ‘transparent’, which I’m willing to bet had nothing to do with his campaign but is, instead, something that emerged from him being terribly naive.

Voting during this Presidential Election will be a ‘first time’ for me and trying to decide between the two candidates is proving to be a difficult task.

On one end we’ve got Mahinda Rajapaksa, who mostly likely decided to bring forward the Presidential Elections in hope of winning with a majority of votes, dissolving the parliament, holding parliamentary elections and gaining majority of seats so that he will have unprecedented power and can pass acts without any contestation—to put it simply. In which case we might as well crown him the King of Sri Lanka.

On the other end, there’s Sarath Fonseka who quite frankly doesn’t really know what he’s doing. He is an ad hoc solution to throw a monkey wrench in Mahinda’s plans for unlimited power. But what if he does come into power? What then? Would he follow UNP or JVP policies? He might have been instrumental in winning the war, but what does he know about running a country?

The Presidential Elections is just three weeks away and my confidence in either of them is steadily plummeting.

Playing Dirty

Walking past the Vihara Maha Devi Park last night the absence of the monstrous cut out of the President was hard to miss. Large enough to cast a shadow over the entire Municipal Council, the unsightly addition to the park towered at about 60 to 80 feet, and when something that imposing goes missing you can’t help but notice.

The massive structure along with other billboards and posters, that pervaded Colombo as fast as a bad rash while the President casually picked petals about holding the Presidential Elections, have been taken down in compliance with election campaigning laws.

But what about that Rs. 1000 note?

Recently a case was filed regarding violation of election campaigning laws and the lengthy petition that was essentially about taking action against state media organisations that were promoting MR and completely ignoring the opposition presidential candidates, also included Rs. 1000 note that has the picture of the President in a stance which is being used in his campaign posters as well.

On the former, the Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake has issued a set of guidelines, but it’s a safe bet the guidelines will be taken very lightly.

As for the currency note, the counsel for the petitioner argued that this was a unique situation in which a picture of a Presidential Election candidate appeared on a banknote that’s currently in circulation, and since the same picture is being used in MR’s campaign as well, the court should consider ordering the notes to be recalled or alternatively since that wouldn’t be feasible, order that he refrain from using the exact picture of himself in his campaign.

The Attorney General protested saying that the note was issued in June, well ahead of the decision to hold the Presidential Elections a year in advance.

Court Proceedings were however, terminated. Which basically means no decision was made and if anyone feels the need to re-agitate the matter, they are free to file a motion.

Considering the situation at hand I’m somewhat inclined to believe that even if the note was issued in June, using the facsimile image in MR’s poster campaign, sort of makes the note part of his campaign as well. The banknote by itself is suggestive, with one side displaying solely a picture of MR with his hands raised in a victorious pose and other the side the soldiers arduously hoisting up a flag. It makes it seems as if he was single handedly responsible for winning the war.

That being said, I believe it isn’t appropriate that Sarath Fonseka is using a picture of himself in uniform in his campaign. It’s fallacious since he’s no longer a General.

It’s actually quite depressing reading the news. None of the Presidential candidates are worth voting for. At first I thought I’d just vote for whoever is the lesser evil, but by the looks of it they’re all equally bad. All right, I seem to have gone off on a tangent again…

Regarding the Banknote and Army uniform campaigning what’s your opinion?

Petrified!

Drew this for an author in New Zeland for his next book.  Since it’s being published, this time around I asked my bro to colour it up for me on Photoshop.

This is actually kinda exciting Having my drawing as the cover art for a book!