Dear Madam President,
Please accept our sincere congratulations on the victory you have attained at this unique moment in the country’s history.
We consider your triumph to be politically and historically a very significant one. You are the only national leader who came to power through the general acceptance of the people of all communities, overcoming parochial divisions. In that sense the greatness you have achieved surpasses that of your father and your mother. No other Sinhala leader who came to power after independence had been able to become a national leader acceptable to all the communities and not merely to the Sinhalese. The appeal of the leaders of the Tamil community too was confined to that community and none of them was able to become a leader of national stature.
This does not mean that all those leaders were chauvinists. But because of their fear to embrace in their thinking and actions, a field wider than their own community they were unable to think beyond the narrow limits of their respective communities.
The best example that can be given in this connection, I think, is your late father. He cannot be considered a Sinhala chauvinist. However, he did not dare to go against the pro-Sinhala wave of the day and to act according to his conscience. Due to that reason he lost the opportunity to become a national leader acceptable not only to the Sinhalese but also to other sections of the people.
The fact that our country has not produced national leaders like Mahatma Gandhi who could transcend narrow ethnic boundaries is, I think, one of the main reasons for our failure so far to bring about a broad nationalist society in place of one divided on ethnic lines. If the leaders who came to power after independence had been able to serve not only the interests of their own ethnic and religious group but also those of all other such groups equally and equitably, it would have permitted the growth of a Sri Lankan nationalist society where all ethnic and religious groups in the country would be able to maintain their own identities. If that had happened, it would not have been necessary to shed so much blood in ethnic strife.
However, you have been different from them all, and have stated before the people the truth about the ethnic problem as you understand it. At the last Southern Provincial Council election and the Parliamentary election the trump card used by your opponents against you was racism, but in both those instances the Sinhala people gave you a clear mandate in disregard of the racist propaganda.
Now you have scored your third triumph at a time when your opponents used rabid racism against you, making use of the death of Mr. Gamini Dissanayake. In fact, one of the racist leaders said that the only thing that you lacked now was a ‘pottu’. Accordingly, your opponents carried on a campaign to draw a pottu on the forehead of your portraits in your posters. However, those political humbugs could not deceive the Sinhala people. For the third consecutive time the Sinhala majority approved of your policies proving that they (the Sinhalese) are no longer rabid racists.
This shows that the Sri Lankan society in which we live is no longer the old one and that it is changing and that it has changed.
It shows that a suitable environment has come in to existence for bringing the ethnic problem to an end. The general public expect that you will be able to make use of that advantageous situation and bring about a permanent solution to the ethnic problem which has caused an endless war.
We think that another fact involved in your victory is that you are the first ruler to represent the present generation. In spite of your connection with a Walawwa, and your being a daughter of two prime ministers, politically you grew up not in Walawwas and official residences of prime ministers but in the lap of a broad based socio-political life. You forged ahead as an active participant of various political tendencies and in the midst of various hardships and the cut and thrust of politics. Most of your life has been spent not amongst members of the elite but amongst men and women of the lowest ranks in society. You selected not the genteel politics of the ladies of Colombo 7 but the tough brand of politics among the oppressed people. With the knowledge and the tempering gained through all this experience you have now become the president of the country. Those people expect that you will do your duty by the new generation you represent, and by the ordinary people who were the main force behind your victory.
Before you became the President you were first a Chief Minister and thereafter the Prime Minister. Although your term as Prime Minister was very short, we admit, you have taken a number of very effective and meaningful steps to reconstruct the country which had been destroyed by the old corrupt regime. At the same time you must know that there are also matters that have not pleased the people.
The people appreciate the fact that you have not followed the practice of earlier Governments which in order to give jobs to their own party people, had sacked supporters of other parties in large numbers. The political views held by a person should not be a reason to deprive him of his job. The policy followed by you is correct. However, it is different in the case of corrupt public officials. It must be stated that the liberal policy adopted by your Government, for whatever reason, has aroused doubts among the ordinary people.
The former rulers did not plunder the country by themselves. They were helped by some selected corrupt officials. These activities filled not only the pockets of those politicians but also those of the corrupt public officials. A new Government has came to power and there is constant talk about plunder of the country by the former rulers. But what puzzles the people is that nothing is said about the corrupt officials who joined those corrupt politicians in plundering the country. Those officials now appear to have been appointed to positions of greater power than those held by them earlier. How has it been possible? Is it due to ignorance on the part of the rulers? Or have the ministers and others in the new Government too been caught in the net cast by those officials beforehand? This is a suspicion that lurks in the minds of the people.
The other matter that has aroused the curiosity of the people is about the powerful businessmen who were cronies of the last Government. They had been a subject of severe criticism on your part and that of the People’s Alliance. The system that had existed was not an open and competitive one. It was a vicious system in which all available major opportunities were given to crony businessmen. Through that the politicians who ran the system as well as the crony businessmen who had ganged up with them robbed this country at will. The question now is whether those persons should be allowed to retain and enjoy the national wealth they had plundered or whether that wealth should be restored to the nation.
An instance of such abuse is the very large sum of money paid to the Nawaloka group for the marshy land supposed to have been obtained from that group. Whether the true owner of that marshy land is the Nawaloka group or the Government is a different question. The price paid per perch of marshy land with a market value of Rs. 15,000/- is Rs. 125,000/-. The total amount paid to the Nawaloka group on this account is Rs. 95 million. An additional sum of Rs. 40 million too has been paid to the same group as delay charges. The difference between the value of the land and the amount paid as compensation is Rs. 83 million.
Is not every cent improperly obtained by the Nawaloka group money that should belong to the people ? How can recovery of that which has been obtained improperly be unjust ? This is only one of the large number of improper transactions of that period.
Another striking example is the Airbus deal which was entered in to at great cost to the country. Because Ravaya was the first to expose this deal, we naturally have a particular interest in the manner in which it is progressing.
We admit that this transaction cannot be given up in its entirety. But who shall be held responsible for the loss it has caused to the country? The parties who were behind this massive transaction were the Secretary to the Treasury R. Paskaralingam, the Maharajah Organisation, and the Jayakody family. The country must not pay for this transaction which was planned for the purpose of improperly earning billions of Rupees for those people. The loss to the country must be recovered from those responsible for the transaction.
The story about the Ruhunu Cement factory too is similar. Is it not a matter for suspicion that the complex of industries, the plant, all the houses, all the vehicles and about 125 acres of land were all assessed at Rs. 8 million, which is roughly equivalent to the price of two Pajeros? All the funds for the purchase of the factory came from a state bank. So it is as if the buyer had got the factory at no cost to himself. When, while all that is so, Rupavahini gives a lot of publicity to a story that the Yasodha Enterprise has agreed to reduce the price of cement and that it is in the process of importing machinery to modernize the factory, the people get the inevitable suspicion that this improper transaction is being suppressed.
We do not say that the Government must take over the enterprises given to the private sector. But if they are considered to be public property, the Government must get their proper value. If the Government has not got their proper value, there must be some means by which it may be obtained. If these who got those properties do not agree to pay the full value, the Government must recover it by selling them to other entrepreneurs.
We are aware that the tasks before you are neither simple nor easy. Indeed, they are difficult and complex. Although it is easy to destroy a country it is difficult to reconstruct a country which has been completely destroyed. We know that it is such a difficult task that you have to perform. We believe that you’ll be able to do it. However, we would request you to beware of the wolves in sheep’s clothing who might be among your flock, when you proceed.
Wolves feed only on flesh and not on grass. It must be understood that they are not animals that can be rehabilitated. It is impossible to wean them away from the habit of eating flesh and to make them eat grass. If you succeed in distinguishing between the true sheep and the wolves in sheep’s clothing you’ll certainly be able to attain your aim of building a new land.
We wish you success.
Victor Ivan