Lanka President silences ‘insulting’ World Cup song

HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka, (Reuters) – Sri Lanka  President Mahinda Rajapaksa has ordered broadcasters to stop  playing the official song of the country’s Cricket World Cup  campaign because it insults rival teams.
The island nation’s media stopped playing a locally composed  song to promote Kumar Sangakarra’s team after the country’s  president complained that it contained lyrics insulting  Australia, India, New Zealand and England.
The song in the Sinhala language invites fellow Sri Lankans  to support the national team by giving bird feed to Australian  kangaroos, holding the jaws of New Zealand, shaking English  palaces and melting Indian snow mountains.
Rajapaksa, after listening to the song at the opening match  in Sri Lanka between the 1996 World Cup winners and Canada on  Sunday, told television and radion stations to stop broadcasting  it immediately, his office confirmed.
“The President asked media heads why they were telecasting  such a song which insults and disgraces fellow cricket-playing  nations,” an official at his office told Reuters on Wednesday.
“As a result of that, the media has stopped using the song,”  he said.
Sri Lanka’s World Cup director Suraj Dandeniya told Reuters:  “It is true that there are some wrong words, insulting other  countries. We have been asked to stop this song and we have  stopped it.”