Taking Stock of a Lifetime of Achievement on My Birthday

I celebrated my 62nd birthday yesterday. I expect most people my age must look back at their lives with a slight twinge of regret, and wonder with a sense of disappointment what they have achieved in their lives. What have they done to change the world, they must be wondering. And, they must come up with vague, bottom-of-the-barrel answers like ‘producing two beautiful children’, or ‘helping the poor’.

But, not me. I really have changed the world. I am proud to say that I have had an impact on millions of people. I am, after all, the democratically elected President, and unquestionably the most important person, in the Democratic Socialist Banana Republic of Sri Lanka.

Some of my lasting achievements are:

1. Returning a country to war and ending the longest period of peace in nearly 3 decades.

2. Achieving 22% inflation, a rate which will halve the cash wealth of the population in less than 4 years.

3. Borrowing $500 million dollars and spending it in less than a month.

4. Heading the largest cabinet of ministers  in the world, so large that we had trouble fitting them all in one place.

5. Repeatedly breaking the record for the biggest contingent on overseas trips.

6. Being the first President ever to be installed by terrorists.

7. Curtailing media freedom.

8. Harboring terrorists, and using child soldiers by proxy.

10. Helping Hambantota.

In recognition of this unprecedented record of outstanding achievement, I was given international recognition by means of a very thoughtful birthday present yesterday by a respected foreign government. I can now add this to my list of achievements:

11. Being the first Sri Lankan to have a road named after him in the state of Palestine. 

My Friend George W. Bush

I am happy that George W. Bush is my friend. I met him at U.N. He was very friendly, but I could not understand all what he was talking because of his Texars accent. He leaned in very close. I thought it was because I had some food stuck on my moustache, but Aiya said it was because he wants to be friends with me.

He smells very nice. It was an American smell, like Gota Malli used to smell like when he used to work at the 7-11 in U.S. – the smell of freedom, he used to say. My friend, Robert, the U.S. ambassador, says that Mr. George knows I am nice guy who wants to kill terrorists.

I really admire Mr. George. He is a great man. He is committed to defeating Islam terrorism. He knows that he has to kill every last Muslim  terrorist before he can rest. He does not let issues like health care, education, economy, international image, environment, the constitution, human rights and basic human decency get in the way of his objective.

I try to be like Mr. George in my career. Like him, I leave a lot of the policy decisions to my family and friends. I concentrate on more important things like shaking hands at weddings and funerals, and growing my moustache.

Basil Aiya advises me based on Mr. George’s strategy. Like him, we have explained to people that defeating the Tamils terrorists are more important than anything else. Everybody must support our armed forces who we have sent to die are sacrificing their lives in the noble cause of killing our own countrymen defeating terrorism.

Like Mr. George, I am also a very religious person. I don’t drink alcohol. Like Mr. Bush, we have also got the support of leaders of the majority religion. This is not surprising. Buddhism, like Christianity, preaches that all human life is precious and should be protected from terrorism at all costs. The concept of collateral damage is a major tenet of both religions.

Our strategy is working really well at the moment. Not only do people forget that the price of bread was Rs.18 at the beginning of the year and now it’s nearly double that, but I also get compared with King Dutugemenu for saving the country! Malli also gets to buy some really cool planes and guns, and the 10% will come in handy on a rainy day.  

However, Mr. George is still the master at the game. He recently took some time off from his busy golf schedule on November 11th (our National Heroes’ Day) to visit soldiers who had returned from Iraq. Some photos here. I hope Mr. George had a happy Veterans Day!

May the blessings of the Triple Gem be with you.

Until next time,

Sincerely,

Mahinda

 

My Family Trip

Dear Subjects,

I am sorry I have not written for awhile, but I have been preoccupied with some problems. Arranging my monthly family trip has been an absolute nightmare.

Firstly, I had to cancel our planned family safari in Yala because the baddie Tigers killed some people there. The kids were very pissed off and started sulking. Even after I sent 4000 troops to Yala, they refused to go, saying they didn’t want to see men with guns behind every tree, just leopards.

So then I promised the kids a ride on a jet plane to cheer them up, but just as I had coaxed them into selecting one they liked, the baddie tigers blew the plane to smithereens.

Selecting the plane before it blew up.

The kids didn’t speak to me for two days after that, until I promised them a culturally educative tour to England, the land of Ravi Shankar. This was not to be however, because after Karuna got arrested in England, the relationship with the British High Commision became as cold as Shiranthi’s nipples. Apparently, Karuna, the cheeky fellow, got in under a false name on a real Sri Lankan diplomatic passport. Apparently, “diplomatic” means that it was issued at the special request of a ministry in my government. Ooops.

So, after this fiasco, even the wife stopped talking to me, so I had to do something fast. I decided to give the family a real treat and take them to the Caribbean with our army boys who are UN Peacekeepers there. Guess what? Just as we were about to go, Haiti kicked 108 of our boys out of their country for sexually abusing underage kids and prostitution. I still wanted to go cos Malli said that he had heard the nightlife was very good, but the Foreign Minister thought that it may not be the best of times. 

So, I thought I’d just take the family over to India, but I changed my mind after that bastard, Karunanidhi the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, wrote a poem for Thamilchelvam. Frankly I’m so annoyed I’m not going to step in to that country until he writes one for me too.

Anyway, finally this weekend we are going to do it. We are finally going on our family trip. This time nothing can go wrong. We are going to Hambantota, and to make sure there are no surprises, I’ve sent the Army Chief to check it out and we’re setting up a Joint Operations Command in Tissamaharama to make sure my village is well protected.

So there. 

Yours Sincerely,

President Mahinda  

My Man Nimal Siripala

I just received a thoughtful gift from my old friend Nimal Siripala De Silva. It is the painting of beautiful longhaired village latha caressing herself. Apparently, some mad bugger at the Angoda mental hospital painted it. When I received the gift, I was deeply touched in a very special place.

Nimal and I go way back, and he has often helped me out in tight spots, and I have also helped him out of a few scrapes. For example, when his wife kicked him out for doing sex with his secretary inside the ministry. 

Nimal is such a picture of health, I decided to make him my Health Minister. He communicates the views of my government excellently. I was very pleased, when presiding over the international AIDS conference in Colombo recently, he clearly told the audience (that had a lot of visiting dignitiataries some of whom were gay) that although Sri Lanka supports educating people about HIV/AIDS and dispelling myths, this does not mean that we condone dirty naughty behaviour like homo sex. Chee. Damn good for them. Must tell the other ministers also not to have conferences that are not keeping with our pure Sinhala Buddhist morals.  

Nimal Siripala De Silva is also one of our smartest Ministers. He is a consultant lawyer in Human Rights. What a guy!  

Nimal selecting my painting which is now hanging in my bathroom at commode-eye-level.

My Favourite Place

I’ve been visiting villages to take part in Wap Magul paddy-field ploughing ceremonies. It gave me a chance to get really dirty and work with buffaloes - something I’ve always been good at.  

Here are some photos. I thought you might like to see my technique.

 
I like to call this method the Rajapaksa Rambull. Note the position of the knees.

I took the opportunity to tell village people about how I really like the village life. The cars and traffic in Colombo are really too noisy. I asked Gotabhaya to reduce traffic near Temple Trees, and he has done a pretty good job with road blocks on Galle Road, but still, it’s not as quiet as the village.

Some of the village people mentioned about the price of kerosene and diesel. I was telling them, we should be using firewood and bullock carts instead. It’s environmentally friendly. As mentioned in the Mahinda Chinthanaya, we must grow our own jak fruit and gotu kola and murunga. This is the only way we can afford to buy more MIGs we don’t need to fight the war. It’s as easy as A, B, and that other letter.
 

I managed to stop this guy complaining by giving him a gas cooker.

So, all in all, it was a really good visit. I must thank Maggi Noodles for sponsoring the t-shirts and caps – love the colours. Only thing is, next time, we must get some good old Sinhala Buddhist music. I asked for typical village people music, but they kept playing a song about the YMCA. Those damn AOGs are everywhere!

Yours Faithfully,

 President Mahinda

Two good looking guys

So I was hanging out in New Delhi, doing some shopping and meeting with an astrologer, when I heard that Shah Rukh Khan wanted to meet me. He and I go way back; we both started out in acting at the same time and at the time, Shah Rukh was just this skinny guy with a funny haircut. I’m proud to say that I taught him a thing or two; how to dance, how to woo women and how to speak Hindi (he’s actually from Pelwatte). A lot of people still thought that I was the one with the bigger future – in a way they were right, I could have been a movie star and have made lots of money for just hanging around and having my picture taken. But by becoming a politician I get exactly the same benefits, but without having to continually learn new dance moves – now who’s the smart one?

So anyway, Mr. Shah Rukh Kahn (which is what his friends call him) and I had a long chat. I gave him some ideas for his next film and he was very thankful. I invited him to come to Sri Lanka and hang out with me but he declined, saying that the last time he was there, some monks had tried to kill him. I tried to explain to him that this was how Sri Lankan monks behaved and that he’d get used to it after a while, but he wasn’t buying it – not such a tough guy after all.

Yours faithfully,

Mahinda Rajapakse

My friend Kofi

I don’t want to brag but my visit to the United Nations was probably the most successful visit by a Sri Lankan leader ever. This was largely because I was able to create a personal friendship with Kofi Annan, President of the United Nations (here is a picture of the two of us – he is looking away bashfully as I compliment him on his mustache).

To be honest, it was Kofi who made friends with me. As I walked into the UN cafeteria, he walked straight up to me and introduced himself. I know its not easy to approach someone as imposing as myself so I admired his balls (he was wearing very tight pants). From that point on, we were firm friends and he was kind enough to give me a few tips on how to vote for some upcoming UN resolutions. Now that I have the UN President on my side, its only a matter of time before the rest of the countries give me their respect and recognition.

Your friend,

Mahinda Rajapakse

Dear people of Sri Lanka,

Contrary to what you might read in the papers, I am very keen on communicating with my subjects and to that end, I have started this ‘weblog’ (on the advice of my tech-savvy brother Gotabhaya). I will write notes as frequently as my busy schedule permits and I hope by doing this, you the people will get an insight into the plans and policies of my government.

Yours sincerely,

Mahinda Rajapakse