My Dear Green Man,

I thought I must write to you when I heard you were away in London attending a meeting of some democratic organisation-because people here are now beginning to wonder whether you are an Opposition Leader in exile!

I agree that your present plight is not totally your fault. It was that nasty fellow Velu who miscalculated big time by asking the northerners and easterners not to vote at the last big election. Because of that you lost the poll narrowly and if not for that, you would now be in the hot seat instead of Mahinda maama!

But, Green Man the rest, as they say, is history. Velu has already paid for his sins and is now six feet under together with almost everyone else in his once dangerous outfit. And here you are, reeling under a string of election defeats with no respite in sight and people in your own party clamouring for you to leave.
Since you haven’t left, what some of the more prominent people in your camp did was to themselves leave and cling on to Mahinda maama’s saatakaya. We do not agree with what they have done, betraying the party on which they were elected but then, who will relish the prospect of being in the opposition for a long, long time to come?

Of course, you are not responsible for all of this, but most will also agree that you have contributed to some extent to the downfall of your party. The Greens now have virtually no grassroots level organisation in the country and there are no more Green strongholds as a result-except may be in the city of Colombo.
These are matters that you should think about seriously, Green Man, at least while you are on those long flights out of Sri Lanka. We know that you are interested in your own fortunes, having been twice Prime Minister and all that, but you do owe a duty to the country to put together a responsible Opposition as well.
You would of course argue this is precisely what you are doing by trying to get together with Avamangala and his so-called ‘Apey Jathika Peramuna’ or ‘Our National Front’. What puzzles me is why he insists on calling it the ‘Apey Jathika Peramuna’ when he is the only person of prominence in that party-he should be calling it the ‘Magey Jathika Peramuna’ instead!

Even you would agree that your popularity at this point in time is at a low ebb-and I can assure you that teaming up with Avamangala is not going to win you any new friends especially within your own party. After all, this is a man who first got together with Satellite to oust Anura and then switched loyalties to Mahinda maama to undermine her.

Why, by his own admission Avamangala says he was instrumental in striking a deal with the Tigers in order to ensure a boycott of the big election in the North and East, just so Mahinda maama could win against you. What baffles many is why you seem to think he is so indispensable!

Another big mistake you made, Green Man, is to scoff at the war effort. It is true you entered into the ceasefire agreement with sincere intentions and you strongly believed the Tigers would honour it to the letter in the face of international support-but then they didn’t and all those who believed in the ceasefire have now been proved wrong.

Your remarks about Thoppigala and Ravi’s remarks about Alimankada and Pamankada have also hurt the Greens enormously and in these times of national celebration following the victory over terrorism, I think it is time you take a stand, admit that you made a mistake and start afresh. It certainly would give the public more confidence in you than when you keep on saying how good the ceasefire was for the country.
Think about all of this, will you, Green Man? And while we still wish you well, we shall not talk about what will happen at Uva, shall we?

Yours truly,
Punchi Putha