President on the warpath
That is a brave thing to do. President Sirisena has declared war on a worm. At least this time, he has interpreted the constitution correctly. Or maybe one of his legal maestros who told him he has the constitutional power to dissolve parliament anytime he pleased was able to read a simple constitutional provision without tripping over his own feet.
Yes, the previous time was a real mess with the entire seven- member Supreme Court bench telling the president and his Socratic advisers not to play games with the country’s Holy Grail and slapping them back into their respective corners.
But this time he seems to have got it right. No wonder he was looking like Wellington after the Battle of Waterloo as he stepped on native soil after giving Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte a clean bill for extrajudicial eliminations.
As head of state, not to mention defence minister and commander- in- chief of the armed forces, he has the sole power to declare war against an enemy of the state or defend it against intruders.
I may be wrong, of course, but that is what I was told by a president’s counsel of sorts, whose legal expertise has more to do with traffic offences than constitutional conundrums. That is not a bad job anyway seeing the number of fatalities in accidents and bad drivers on our roads.
If the lawyers are anything like our drivers , who seem to get stuck at railway crossings and face oncoming trains when they have a whole road to travel on, then it is time that some of them returned to Law College to learn a little more of the law.
But never waste time on trying to sort out legal convolutions when more important issues confront the nation. Take this worm or caterpillar or whatever it is by the name of Sena.
Who named it Sena, why and when, does not seem to interest many people. In fact, I am not particularly interested in it either, what with the consequences of Brexit or not to think of. Why worry about a little worm when there are bigger animals, particularly two- legged ones that are doing more damage to the nation by robbing, wrecking and ruining this country even from sedentary positions than the widely travelled Sena.
Now there are various theories of how the worm or caterpillar got to Sri Lanka. Some say it came from the United States and that arch enemy of everybody who doesn’t play a trump in support of the beleaguered man in the White House because Sri Lanka is playing footsie with the Chinese.
As everybody knows Trump will not even touch a noodle with a chopstick and has been looking for an opportunity to teach Sri Lanka’s chopsuey- lovers a lesson or two. Hence the worm with the acronym FAW has been catapulted over the island by US drones. Within a couple of months they have begun destroying our maize fields and banana plantations, so we are told.
Believe me there are even more devious concoctions in circulation that seem to have come from the fertile imagination of a Wimal Weerawansa rather than a Frederick Forsyth. Ever since there were leaks from cabinet about planned assassinations and the hand of RAW, the more conspiratorial and machinatious each new version has turned out to be.
So now the hand of RAW is seen in FAW all because President Sirisena was opposed to India being given the development of the East Terminal at the Colombo port. Or so the story goes.
Also doing the rounds is yet another juicy story. It appears that a foreign spy agency’s special agents, especially trained in biological warfare, attached some caterpillar eggs to President Sirisena’s clothing and baggage when he was having a gay time at the UN in New York telling the world about his yahapalana government that was soon to implode.
To me, it seemed a rather poor imitation of the plot carried out by Vladimir Putin’s intelligence chaps that tried to get rid of a Russian defector living in the UK but ended up by killing an innocent Briton who picked up what she thought was a dropped bag.
Some say President Sirisena’s animosity towards the worm is because the name given to the worm is half of his own name. Maybe he thinks that this is the work of some UNP geek with a poor sense of humour.
Imagine if some stranger spotting a worm on a leafy branch yells out “menna Sena”.
One news report said that President Sirisena had declared war on the Fall Army Worm, as some call it, and “instructed his officials to launch a national programme to eradicate the threat.”
His media division also reported that he had instructed the officials “to jointly implement a programme to spray pesticides with the assistance of the public as well as the private sector.”
Now that is a worthy thought. The public, I am certain, will join such a venture with much enthusiasm and alacrity if the pesticide spraying will start at Diyawanna Oya by the House that Bawa built where such an exercise will surely be most effective. If pesticides are expected to work against pests what better place than where pests are gathered in substantial numbers- -- much larger numbers than Sri Lanka ever required.
The public need not be invited. They will turn up with their kaththa, porowa and manne and bottles of chilli powder dissolved in water along with their buth parsal ready to do a productive day’s work -- getting rid of the unwanted, which some describe as a national pestilence.
Even before he would declare war against Sena whose senadipathi is still to be found, President Sirisena opened a second front. Hardly had he -- and his
So now the hand of RAW is seen in FAW all because President Sirisena was opposed to India being given the development of the East Terminal at the Colombo port. Or so the story goes.
SLFP foot soldiers taken along for a free ride -- landed in the Philippines than he declared for the whole world to hear that his Manila counterpart President Rodrigo Duterte had deployed a task force to wipe out everybody who could spell narcotics.
Applauding Duterte’s drug war, Sirisena said the Manila Man’s extrajudicial doings were an example to the entire world and he, Sirisena, would take a lesson from the Philippines and hang a few chaps spending their time in prison with nothing to do.
After all, Sirisena was used to leading from the front, though the front was somewhere in Nandikadal when the president says he conducted the war in those difficult days.
As Sirisena told the story, in the last two weeks of the war he was acting defence minister. The political and military leaders had retreated beyond our shores or something. So he stepped in to take charge.
With that experience, President Sirisena is well equipped to fight on two fronts. But then one must not forget the tactical mistake that Hitler made in opening a front against Russia.
It turned out to be a strategic error as military historians’ record. The Russians cleverly retreated allowing the German troops to advance deeper into Russia. When winter came -- and what a winter it was -- the Germans found themselves in a logistical bind. Their supply lines became increasingly vulnerable isolating the German frontline divisions.
President Sirisena might consider himself something of a military expert after overseeing for two weeks of the 25 years or more war. He might well eliminate Sena and hang some convicted drug dealers.
Even if he succeeds in liquidating Sena the worm, can he worm himself out of the political morass he finds himself in as he plans for his second coming?