‘You never give advice to leaders’, President Rajapaksa tells Philippines media

Some important qualities for heads of state to have include leadership and steely resolve, said Sri Lanka’s President who also congratulated the newly installed Philippine leader Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.

“Best wishes to the new [Philippine] President,” Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa told The Manila Times in an exclusive interview on July 5 in Temple Trees, his office in the capital Colombo.

“The Philippines has always been a friendly country to us,” he said, adding that he had met former President Gloria Arroyo.

When asked what advice he can offer President Aquino, Rajapaksa said: “You never give advice to leaders.” Afterwards he smiled and laughed.

After pausing, the Sri Lankan leader cited two qualities — the first being leadership. He added that being a good leader also means being decisive, noting that a good leader should “not break down to other pressures.”

“If he thinks that this [a decision] is right for your country, if it is right for your people, then you must do it,” Rajapaksa told The Times.

Rajapaksa is not speaking theoretically when he gave the advice to President Aquino. The Sri Lankan leader defied international pressure — from the US, Canada and Norway — when he withdrew from the negotiating table with separatists Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2008. The Tigers, tagged as a terrorist group by more than 30 countries, were not serious about peace, Rajapaksa explained to The Times.

The Tigers had control of the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka for decades. When government troops successfully regained control of the east, Rajapaksa again brushed aside international pressure not to hold local elections there soon after the victory. But he did it anyway.

In the end, his decision proved to be right.

In May 2009, Rajapaksa defeated the Tigers, who were notorious for assassinations and were well equipped with a navy and an air wing. The victory ended 30 years of strife in Sri Lanka.

Most important of all, Rajapaksa said, he gave importance to the welfare of ordinary people — not so different from President Aquino declaring in his inaugural address that the Filipinos are his boss.

Rajapaksa also told The Times he was able to end three decades of fighting with terrorists because he enjoyed wide public support. Sri Lankans were basically tired of the conflict, which starved the island country of economic development, he explained.

Rajapaksa said that he wanted to be remembered as “a man who loves the people and the country. Nothing comes first.”

“What I want is to develop the country and to keep the people happy,” he told The Times, adding that the gap between rich and poor needs to be bridged. He said later, “People must be able to live a peaceful life, a happy life. And there must be a future for them. People must feel they have a future — for their children.”

A leader must listen to others, Rajapaksa told The Times, adding that it was not a problem having several advisers who tend to deluge the president with ideas and information.

In fact, it’s very easy to make a decision in that situation, he said. “When you have so many ideas, then you can [more easily] decide on your own idea.”

Just get the best advice, he added, noting that in the end, the president was the sole person accountable to delivering what he believes to be the people’s wishes.

The defeated Tigers of Sri Lanka had reportedly trained a number of other terrorist organizations around the world, including the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf group in the 1990s, according to an Internet source citing Westminster Journal. The MILF, like the Tigers before, are fighting to secede, while the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf is notorious for kidnapping.

“So it’s much better that we help the other countries to develop also,” Rajapaksa told The Times. – (Manila Times, Philippines)