King Sasanka – Sri Lankan Writer & Retired Aviation Professional.

The much awaited presidential election in Sri Lanka is just a few days away but unfortunately we the migrant workers who are one of the highest foreign currency earners for the country’s coffer are left without a voice. All successive previous regimes have plundered most of the remittances, we earned by working in 50 plus Celsius degrees by spending them on many white elephant projects but never even considered giving us a voice, in return for our magnanimous contribution. We do not ask for permits to import luxury cars duty free to the country. Even if we ask it, I do not see there is anything wrong with it because many of the unproductive public sector employees, celebrities, sportsmen and many more (the list is too long to mention here) have already been granted this facility. The universal suffrage is something we Sri Lankans have been enjoying from early 1930s. All what we have been asking is to give the migrant work force also the voice but hitherto it has fallen in to deaf e...

Never in the history of any developing country has there been an opportunity to hand over the helm of the running of the country to a victorious and decorated soldier. In many instances, men in uniforms have taken over running countries, but the process of taking over was not democratic, nor were they victorious and decorated for what they have achieved on the military front. However, such instances can be found in the developed world (France & USA, to name a few). General Sarath Fonseka  has proven his mettle as a soldier serving the Sri Lankan Army for more than 40 years and led the country to victory on the military front over the terrorist group, The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a few months ago. Now he has relinquished his uniforms and the privileges accompanied by the title and has entered the presidential fray to take over the helm of running the country in a democratic way, putting his life in danger once more for the economic salvation of the land. Everybody ag...

Desecration or destroying a place of worship of any religion is sacrilegious. It is even more sacrilegious when a Cemetery is desecrated. What happened in the Auschwitz concentration camp yesterday is despicable. Whether it is a simple case of theft or politically motivated act, the authorities will have to find out soon. Many restored to such acts when they have miserably failed to prove their own hypothesises with hard facts than fictional ones. History cannot be obliterated or changed to propagate ones’ own political agendas by destroying or desecrating historical sites. Some historical facts are very stubborn and hard to swallow to many but unless you have learn to live with those facts and take guidance from the lessons learnt, then only they would be able to move forward in pursuit of whatever. But by opting to take the low road of vandalism, only exposes what you are really made of and the history would also not be very kind to such perpetrators too. Sasanka De Si...

Knowing the truth very well, neither Bush nor Karzai flinched. Maradona had the audacity to call it “Hand of God”. History is littered with such incidents in every spheres of life. So why call Thierry Henry as “Le Cheat”. The moral of the incident is “You cheat You will” and if you do not, then you are a looser. Stop calling people names. It is our own individual choice to decide to which camp you wanted to be belonged to.

The life sentence handed down yesterday in Canada on Desire Munyaneza for the war crimes he committed in Rwanda would, I am sure send a clear messages to many. After his killing spree, he went to Canada and sought political asylum and it was granted without any back ground checks. This is not a new phenomenon in Canada or in the west. Anyone who manages to reach their boarders and claims that he or she is being prosecuted in his or her country, because of their ethnicity or any other reason, those countries are happy to oblige. There are thousands and more who have either actively participated or have helped in various other ways in mass killings, genocides and other war crimes are still hiding behind in Canada and the West, milking their systems on the guise of seeking asylum. The mass rallies held, hungers strikes and havocs caused in those countries during the latter part of the three decade old war in Sri Lanka, where a democratically elected government was fighting a bu...

Boat loads of people are stranded in some parts of the world trying to reach countries which are economically prosperous. If the figures reported in some of the press are correct, the people now stranded in Indonesia have promised to pay or have already paid the smugglers in excess of two million American Dollars for the passenger of 250 people. This translates in to over a million Sri Lankan Rupees for each head, which is a very large sum of money for someone like me who is presently employed in the Gulf even. Looking at the pictures it is evident that the average family cluster on that boat is about four per family. I was wishing if I can raise that kind of money (Rupees 4 million), not to pay some slave trader but to start up something of my own back in Sri Lanka. Some may try to take political advantage on the predicament of those people still stranded on those boats. These people neither political nor economic asylum seekers but a bunch fools who always believe that th...

Ever since man decided that the only way to achieve a solution to a dispute between two of them is to take up arms, the rules of engagement have changed. They have evolved in a much slower pace that one would be able to keep abreast with it and be prepared for any eventuality. However, the 9/11 incident has changed the whole scenario. What is going on around in many parts of the world today are sufficient ample examples of the changes that have taken place in the rules of engagement. The conventional wisdom and the old school rules of engagement become lead weights, especially when a country where democracy prevails tries to fight off a terrorist outfit, threatening the stability of the country as well as in the region. The terrorists have only one objective and that is to terrorize and they would go to any extent to achieve their objective. Unless the democratically elected governments change their tactics and approach to the issue of how to deal with the terrorists, the hope of havi...