BBS wants public apology to all Buddhists from Mangala

Saturday, 16 February 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Bodu Bala Sena yesterday hit back hard at UNP Parliamentarian Mangala Samaraweera, saying that he was a bankrupt politician who always “played on the side of separatists” in the country and charged that his political funeral was near at hand.

Expressing their regret and strong opposition to statements made by Samaraweera at a news conference on Wednesday, Bodu Bala Sena General Secretary Galaboda Aththe Gnanasara Thero said it marked the day that Samaraweera had to prepare for his political funeral. “He is a man who never speaks on behalf of his race or his religion,” the monk charged, adding that the UNP politician had no grasp on history or religion or culture.

The organisation demanded that Samaraweera issue a public apology to all Buddhists in the country. Gnanasara Thero also demanded if his remarks reflected the UNP’s official position about the Bodu Bala Sena and its activities.

The monk-led group said that it was the country’s fortune that Samaraweera had left the Government a few months after President Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected. “Otherwise with him in the Government, the war could never have been won,” he charged.

Referring to the UNP legislator in deeply derogatory terms, Gnanasara Thero said that those who had elected him into office should be punished. Samaraweera had always played on the team of the separatists, the monk charged.

“In 1996, in the Chandrika Kumaratunga Government, it was Mangala Samaraweera who relegated the Sinhala Commission report to the dustbin.

Now he is with the UNP and by making these insulting remarks against Buddhists, he will ensure that the UNP too will be relegated to dustbin,” Gnanasara Thero said.

“It is these scoundrels, who cannot bring their palms together to worship the Buddha that are now shedding crocodile tears about communal harmony and casting allegations of extremism at us,” the monk said.

He added that if there were any patriots left in the UNP, they should come out into the streets to chase Samaraweera from the party.