Dinesh Breaks Coconuts

By Shyamon Jayasinghe –February 6, 2016

Shyamon Jayasinghe

Dinesh Gunawardena, MP is an old friend and neighbour of mine. A good man he is, and I always respected him. His Dad was a youthful hero for me. However, it is with a mixture of amusement, bemusement and dissapointment that I observe his behaviour since the defeat of Mahinda Rajapaksa. The newspapers report that he has organised a trip to the Seeni Devale in a little island in the South noted for occult practices and black magic performed by desperate persons to supplicate an imaginary god and typically pray for harm to enemies.

Dinesh has moved to prayer in order to stop the “revenge,” on the Rajapaksa family, which according to him now takes place. He wants to curse theyahapalanaya government and bring it down without even the votes of the people.

The Yahapalanayagovernment set up by President Maitripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe had sought and won a mandate from the people to investigate charges of corruption and abuse by the Rajapaksa regime.

There was absolutely no doubt that the broad electorate and independent civil organisations had been traumatised by the daily gossip about alleged huge corruption by that regime. Besides the gossip, the very conduct of the regime had been full of impunity, irresponsibility and extravagance that were in such magnitude that these acts hit the very sensibilities of right thinking and socially conscious people and seemed to confirm the perceptions of corruption, abuse and murder.

External behavioural manifestations of conduct unveiled a lot. The disregard for the law and for due process was shocking. Critical incidents included the arrest of war warrior General Sarath Fonseka and the impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake. There were numerous other incidents that could be listed with ease.

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