Ranil’s private visit

The destruction caused by the recent floods exposed the fundamental vulgarity and meaninglessness of our politicians.

When disaster happened, we were completely unprepared. The Minister in charge of Disaster Management was in Mexico discussing strategies for disaster management. For our politicians to travel to foreign countries is heaven ndeed , and he did not think it was important for him to return due to the disaster at home, whatever the personal inconvenience. After all, the world must benefit from the wisdom of our leaders!

This attitude starts right at the top and comes down to the secondary politicians.

Our Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is the master of the game, spending most of his days overseas averaging three to four trips a month. Although we are a small irrelevant country with an insignificant economy, our PM has many things to discuss with the indulgent global leaders. 

Of all our leaders: DS, SWRD, Sirima, JR, Premadasa, MR; Ranil is the most travelled leader. Even when in opposition he maintains the same travel schedule. First class tickets, VIP treatment, posh hotels, these are things that thrill the man. It must be frustrating that he has to deal occasionally with the despicable ‘yakkos’ when at home for short breaks. But that is the price he has to pay for his fairyland lifestyle. As long as he can retain the UNP leadership, this lifestyle is available. At that he is unsurpassed, or the UNP is so morally and politically bankrupt they cannot shake him off.

This does not mean that the other side, the Rajapaksa gang is any better. The Rajapaksas have mastered the art of living off public money. During the 50 years of the MR political career everything they have enjoyed in life was either with public money or money given to them by corrupt businessmen. When they were in power (2005-2015) the whole Government sector became something for the Rajapaksas to squeeze for the family benefit. 

When the floods hit us, Ranil was in Vietnam. Now, a country like Vietnam is not Ranil’s cup of tea. Although he stays at the most expensive hotels there, not being an adventures type he prefers the old comforts of the First World. It is to America, Europe and Australia (lands of the whites) he will travel more often.

So when the floods hit us, Ranil made a dramatic statement that he would cut short his Vietnam trip by one day (!) and fly back to his country. Such a great sacrifice!

The Prime Minister arrived in Colombo and called a meeting of Government officials, whom he lectured on disasters and flood management. They listened to him with their mouths open. The next day his office made a sudden announcement that Ranil was going to the USA for a pre-planned ‘personal visit’. The people were upset at their Prime Minister’s attitude. Then, in a calculated statement, his office added to the announcement that it was a pre-planned visit for ‘health reasons’.

In America, according to the Prime Minister’s office, he attended an unknown (at least to us, in little Sri Lanka) hospital for two days and was given a complete bill of good health. Ranil described this supposed to be serious health issue like this, ‘the hospital was plusher than my hotel in America’. He added that the main reason he chose this particular hospital was that there were two “old Royalists” working as doctors at this hospital. 

For international readers, Royal is an elite secondary school in Colombo (self-proclaimed). It is named after the royalty of England and not the extinct royalty of Sri Lanka! Apart from Ranil Wickremesinghe, other illustrious old Royalists are Arjun Mahendran, Ajit Dias, Ravi Karunanayake, Sajith Premadasa, Malik Samarawickrama, Dinesh Gunawardena, Prasanna Gunawardena (brothers) and Mahindananda Aluthgamage.

After he got the good health certificate, our Prime Minister met a series of foreign dignitaries including the Secretary General of the Commonwealth. We do not know if they were pre-planned meetings or whether on learning that the profound Prime Minister was hovering around America and Europe, these international leaders seized the opportunity to pick his brains on various issues like global warming, rising tensions in the Middle East, or the moral issue of Theresa May retaining her premiership (and party leadership) now that the British voter had somewhat withdrawn their endorsement.

Anyway after about 10 days (now the floods had receded) the Prime Minister returned to his country of origin.

His main subject on arriving was to talk about the amazing health facilities available in these expensive hospitals in the West and furthermore that these hospitals now offer special wards and services to politicians from third world countries. With that he shut up any criticism from other politicians who, like the duty free cars made available to them, now started dreaming about these fabulous hospitals in the West especially dedicated to look after their precious lives.

The rich world has never been shy to exploit the greed and unscrupulousness of third world leaders for profit. We saw how this happened with the stinking corrupt leaders of Libya, Iraq , Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Africa and even China and India. They and their families invest in the West, enjoy the best of the West and continue to lead poor countries.

Ranil Wickremesinghe then mentioned Singapore specifically as a country which has retained services of an American hospital for their politicians. This is surprising news, considering that Singapore promotes itself as a state-of-the-art health centre to the world. If the Singaporeans start thinking on the same moral lines as our Prime Minister then the end of that Asian miracle cannot be too far. They are tricking the rest of the world and thinking that is very smart.

As for the tricked and abused 21 million people living in this country, I have only one question: Why don’t we all do religious observances to invoke the blessings of gods on our leaders so that they continue to enjoy a good and healthy life while leading us forward?

Ruwan Fernando