What economy came into force and what legitimate rights for self rule has been granted to the people of the East?

All what was done was rigging to put the armed thugs supporting a government and the puppets of Muslims to power !!

Give a few months we will see reality. We have had many gimmicks like this in the past. Tamils speaking whether Tamils or Muslims will suffer enormously.

How did Rajapaksa manage to get 20 out of 37 seats?

Rajapaksa promises CM post to Pillaiyan, so then Pillaiyan stuffs ballot boxes, and helps Rajapaksa steal the election from SLMC-UNP.

SLMC-UNP won 15 seatts out of 35.
UPFA-TMVP won 18 out of 35
And Tamil Democratic National alliance won 1 seat
JVP won 1 seat.
And then Rajapaksa UPFA gets 2 bonus seats for polling the most.

I say that SLMC-UNP should have won at least 17 seats, and the election should have been much closer.
I don’t know who would have won. But I really wonder what would have happened if there had been no foul play. Maybe the SLMC-UNP could have won.

Rajapaksa seriously could have lost this election if not for foul play.

And now Rajapaksa wil play out Pillaiyan when he gives the CM post to Hisbullah.

What will Pillaiyan do if he doesn’t get the CM post?

I must agree with you about the future of east or any other part of the country rather than thinking of licking the wounds and bracing for revenge etc. We must build up a mindset to turn defeats into victory and victory into product social service.

No matter who holds the post of CM – irrespective of his qualifications, he must have the basic ability get the right people to do the right job and prove it to the rest of the country that he can deliver the goods.

The trick lies in getting the right people to do it without resorting to nepotism or gratifying those who towed the line for other reasons – sacrifice necessitated in the best interest of the majority.

We know for a fact, that the Central Administration and the Provincial Administrations in the rest of the country are breaking at their seams with corruption, inefficiency, nepotism, lack of transparency and absence of accountability – free-for-all economy.

If the maiden Eastern PC could show a semblance of distancing itself from these tendencies, half the job is done. A fat hope? So be it!

There is no harm in dreaming. But given the benefit of doubt, even if the new administration wants to do it, how can it be achieved?

Take a careful look at the election results. What are the voters saying? Look at the number of rejected votes. Are they saying that they do not believe in any of the major parties? The majority of postal votes- supposedly from educated lot clearly gives the indication that they cannot accept the system.

What one has to do is to demonstrate to them this can work provided the right agenda of the elected is put in place. They may have been called names by vested interest in the past. Now their destiny has been handed to them into their own hands.

What they are going to do with would decide their future and THEY MUST ALWAYS REMEMBER IT IF THEY ARE TO PLITICALLY SURVIVE!

It would be prudent to look at the agenda of the Government in this process. The way the government heavy-weights behaved is more than despicable.

If this is the trend the Universal Franchise taking in Sri Lanka, it is becoming more and more meaningless to say the least. Reminds me of a programme in the DISCOVERY channel of a pack of wolves (the government machinery) devouring on an animal (democracy in this case) dying in Sri Lanka. For the literal wolves here it represents their own survival. The victim is the democracy.

The UNP for its part has started whining for its able gangsters like SB had been put out of action by CBK & Co for which MR should be grateful. Ranil, with his outstanding ‘soft-speaking’ political image (he thinks he is contesting in the UK or USA and expects the majority to understand) has forgotten or ignored his priorities.

Ranil when he became the Prime Minister he appointed Dayaratne as the Health Minister that baffled everyone. Even as a Minister befitting his qualifications as an Electrical Engineer earlier he did nothing to write home about. As a Health Minister he was less than nothing. I am still trying to sort out what he did have in his mind putting him there in the first place. He messed up everything.

Blunders of this sort keep Ranil suffocated for which he has to blame only himself.

His grass-roots in the Pradheshiya Sabha levels are the worst rascals violating all norms of justice and fair-play. Under these circumstances he is unlikely to get people believe his words. He has to look into this first if he has to go ahead with his western plans. Be a Roman when you are in Rome!

So, be it Pillayan or Hisbulla or whoever. Remember this is the bread-basket of the country. Every possible, imaginable resource is available. You have the responsibility to make or break. Forget who manipulated to get you there, you have your own future and that of the people in your hands. DO NOT LET THEM DOWN AND WIN MORE ENEMIES TO YOUR SIDE.

This will happen very soon. just like Karuna got biffed out, Rajapakshe would try to do the same to Pillyaan. Well, Pillyaan knows this very well and is prepared too…

By this the Eastern Liberation would hve come full circle. DUMB.
Put the TMVP on the deck and serve justice. People of the east will choose democratically, whoever they want to be their representatives..

This is what has happened today and they will walk away with the spoils, which is flaming the hard sentiments already prevailing between the Tamils and Muslims. UNP would not be too unhappy about it given its past history either. The sentiments hitherto between these communities had been akin to what once JFK said ‘ ‘Forgive your enemies and don’t forget their names.’ This does it!

The fundamental problem of coexistence between the two communities had always been the ‘land grab’. Muslims historically were given the option of settling down in vacant lands between Tamil villages and the expansion of areas of Muslim settlements was fast and furious for obvious reasons. The fact that they had the inclination to live as a closely knit society initially tempted them to buy the adjoining lands at attractive, if not exorbitant prices resulted in enormous pressure on the adjoining Tamil villages.

When tactics of buying at attractive prices failed, leaders of sorts sprang up among the Muslims creating dissentions resulting in riots and torching homes used to be the usual practice with handsome offers to drive away the Tamils in some areas to safer havens. Leaders from Tamil community also sprang up to counter the so called atrocities and eventual confrontations. I used to be an eye witness to some of these happenings. Places like Karavahu are a typical example. What used to be a typical Tamil (Hindu) village is no more! Now it is part of Sainthamaruthu as a division. In fact the historical Vigneshwara temple of ‘Karavahu’ that was venerated by all Hindus in Eastern Province at one time was converted initially into a ‘BEEF STALL’ and currently stands as a mosque of sorts. Several riots, torching and killing had taken place to achieve this. This has left an indelible mark between the two communities.

Then came the ‘Pure Muslim’ theories orchestrated by the new political Muslim leaders and the subsequent ‘Jihad’ movement to which Sinhala Governments gave more than enough support salivating on the possible easy colonization and ‘Sinhala Land Grab’ that lead to a head-on collision with my beloved friend late Mr. Ashraff and Ven. .late Soma Hamuduruwo where Ashraff scored an undigestable lot.. Mr. Ashraff as much as I liked him so much, he had no alternative but to turn hooligans like ‘Kitchil & co’ a well known rowdy clan who murdered Tamils openly in the borders of Kalmunai town to counter the Tamils that lead to the divide expanding further.

The purists referred to above went on to destroy the ‘Kadatkarai Palliwasal’ or the concept thereof, that stood as a monument and reminiscent of the mothers of current Muslims who in fact were Tamils and Hindus and respected both by Hindus as well as Muslims attendant with practices common to Hinduism and Islam where Muslim females could go to this mosque and pray as opposed to the conventional Arabic mosques. This was a thorn in the new Islamic Practices coming into surface notwithstanding that their mothers of bygone era came from Tamil Hindu communities to which there is still evidence of ‘Kudivazhamai’ most of the Muslims are steadfastly clinging onto no matter what the newly emerging fundamentalists want to propagate. Remarkably the so called ‘Kudivazhamai’ is similar to that is practiced among the Hindus. In the Tamil culture in EP, they are ‘Sonahakkudi’, ‘Sinhala Kudi’ etc depicting the coherence of these communities of yore. Unfortunately this is dwindling for political reasons.

In my view, take the religious part away from the East, we are all Tamils, we speak Tamil. We have had great Tamil poets from the Muslim communities not so long ago. Only the religion makes the difference. It is disheartening to not that even among the Muslims there are further divisions of ‘Sunni’ and so forth. The recent incidents in Kattankudy setting off sect violence among Muslims are not a palatable development.

We are all Tamils notwithstanding religions. We have a common enemy, not in the name of Buddhists but with Sinhalese who want to exploit these minor differences. This has been happening for decades. Let’s get together and share and bear whatever we have and teach a lesson to those who want to exploit us! Let’s get together and form a unit of devolution demonstrating ‘we’ are there and we can make it work!