Change theme during last four years - Minister

Lakshmi de Silva
Change is the most important theme in the policy of President Mahinda Rajapaksa during the past four years, Construction and Engineering Services Minister Rajitha Senaratne said.

He said the President succeeded in converting Sri Lanka to a peaceful and beautiful country. The New York Times recently put out a travel advisory of 31 countries and Sri Lanka named the best among those countries. It was made possible by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Addressing a UPFA press conference at the Mahaweli Centre he said President Rajapaksa defeated terrorism and made the country safe for all groups of people. The JVP-UNP-NDF alliance was propagating hatred as they had no policy. The JVP was putting up posters with Fonseka in uniform. But it was the same JVP that killed army persons in uniform during 1988 -90. The only common factor among the JVP-UNP- Fonseka alliance was hatred as there was nothing in common among these three parties.

However there was unrest among the UNP as Sarath Fonseka was appointing retired army officers as electoral organizers over the heads of UNP electoral organizers, he said.

The minister said Tamil National Alliance leader R.Sampanthan after his return from India recently was trying to indicate that India was behind the destabilization move headed by Fonseka-Ranil-JVP combine. But foreign money that had come to support the move was not Indian Rupees but 25 million US dollars that had come from one western country and more from other western countries.

He said when the Tamil people of the north and east were suffering the consequences of the terrorist war, the TNA did not even look at their fellow citizens as they were the rubber stamp of the LTTE. But it was President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Presidential Advisor Basil Rajapaksa MP and Resettlement and Rehabilitation Minister Rishard Bathiudeen who looked after the displaced people of the north and east.

Another strange development had taken place. Ranil Wickremesinghe had become the media spokesman for Sampanthan. Ranil is repeating a statement made by Sampanthan denying the agreement between Sampanthan and Sarath Fonseka. However TNA parliamentarians Shivajilingam and Thurairatnasingham assert there is an agreement between Sampanthan and Fonseka.