‘’It is going to disappear one day. It is like a miracle it will disappear’’ repeated Donald Trump former President of the United States of America
Let the above be our wishful thinking though living with Covid-19 is frightening and disturbing. But since we are compelled to live with it the challenge is ours and depends on how we react and fight the virus, following guidelines and medical advice. We are not experts to advise on any form of treatment or invisible forces to combat the virus. The news we receive are uncertain with no credible or scientific sources, leaving us in the dark. Whether the injections are effective will be decided in the future but it appears that UK is slowing down a bit.
No slowdown is yet shown in many rich countries after immunisation of the vaccine. There is no guarantee on the success of the vaccine and the side-effects. Progress is slow and every innovation has side effects and time is needed to test them. Rich countries have given the vaccinations to a majority while many poor nations have not been given the treatment at all. As this is a worldwide pandemic the solution too should be applied worldwide.
For example, Sri Lanka’s immediate neighbour India is densely populated and the close association with fishermen, – smuggling, drug trafficking and involved in the import-export trade are mediums of close contact and transmission between cross – border countries.
The Japanese way of prevention is strict adherence to the rules while Britain is engaged in educating their citizens on social distancing and adherence to rules. Despite the best NHS system, supposed to be the best in the world the death toll in the UK is increasing day by day with some reduction due to the vaccine. China, Taiwan and North Korea are extremely strict but some Western countries have a liberal attitude. All in all unless the entre globe acts as one unit the danger would spread faster than expected increasing the death toll and spreading the disease.
Abide by health guidelines
The Sri Lankan situation is unique though unsatisfactory due to indiscipline in the society acting in defiance of the regulations. The information and statistics received vary on a daily basis worldwide with uncertainty. We are trying to live with this menace and the best and easy way to meet the challenge is to be clean and abide by the directions given by the experts. Sri Lanka started well and if continued would have been one of the best success stories in the world. Some sections of society defy the most dedicated health sector advice. Now the situation has become worse and the pandemic appears to be fast spreading.
This is the time to turn to technology and digitalisation to combat the unseen but powerful enemy successfully. Technology today allows people to connect with anyone, anywhere in the world from almost any device. This has automatically changed people’s work facilitating 24/7 collaborations with colleagues who are disposed across time zones, countries and continents. We must forge all available energies to build new avenues and different paths. The whole world is in danger. The poor are the worst hit and left alone with no vaccine or assistance while the West is full of excesses which is the reality, based on the success of the fittest based on Charles Darwin’s theory, survival of the fittest.
The USA, the richest and the most powerful, is one of the worst hit. Often when you think you are at the end of something you do not realise that you are at the beginning of something else which may be exceptionally good. Let us wish to belong to this category. Let us be the beginning of a new successful post Corona world of our own. May the next year bring an end to the pandemic and the beginning of a normal lifestyle.
We have gone through worse situations before and it is inevitable that humans will emerge victorious, with the power they possess of imagination, innovation and determination. We must protect and save the environment we live in for our own good and the existence of Mother Earth. Covid-19 and the environment are interconnected as food pattern and the way of life has direct relevance to the menace we are confronted with.
There are many theories on the origin and source of the pandemic that started presumably in Wuhan, China and spread paralysing the entire world with the threat to continue and cause further destructions, and there is no possibility that it will end any time soon. Preventive measures were prepared for the community worldwide with little variations to be followed by citizens of all ages.
The preventive measures are as simple as follows: (1) Wash hands frequently and thoroughly (2) Avoid touching mouth, nose and eyes (3) Cover mouth when you cough or sneeze with elbow or with tissues (4) Dispose used tissue into a closed bin and wash hands or sanitise (5) Avoid crowded places (6)Practise physical distancing and maintain at least 1 m distance (7) Routinely disinfect surfaces (8) Stay at home if you do not feel well (8) If you have symptoms of fever, cough or difficulty in breathing consult a doctor.
In short it is mooting to live with nature and be clean, in an environment friendly atmosphere consuming healthy food preferably devoid of meat or fish obtained from worldwide food chains and consuming junk including poisonous beverages, especially the young. This is what ‘’Ayurveda’’ medicine too has taught us Asians for over 5,000 years and we have not come across pandemics or diseases such as cancer in our history. It is simple and effective to adhere to these rules.
Transform disaster to success
This pandemic has magnified every inequality in our society, such as, racism, gender inequality, and poverty. The citizen should transform disaster into success and opportunity by adopting to new challenges and circumstances with the help of people friendly innovations on livelihood, environment, employment, medicine, education and generally the way of life in pre– Covid-19 times.
This pandemic may give rise to stronger societies out of necessity and livelihood whereby families and neighbours will be closer and inter dependent on each other which may lead to new ventures in trade and business. Once secluded and confined in houses for long periods the friendship, relationship and neighbourhood bonds are bound to enhance and lead to developments and new thinking as groups. It will strengthen family ties and cooperation in all areas including joint livelihoods. This is the period of innovations such as in Israel where every other person is an innovator converted to a start-up company owner and SME for the development of the nation.
The youth in Sri Lanka today are innovative and computer literate with IT knowledge and computer centres at every junction with basic IT facilities available for payment of utility bills and data for the children for online education. The transport system has been changed with fewer public transport and cheaper three wheeler services, thereby preventing congestion on the roads.
Working from home and flexible office hours have strengthened family ties with less household expenditure. It has increased the resilience to crisis, ensuring sustainable developments. Digital transformation and setting of new digital platforms are inevitable adaptations that have resulted in drastic changes in the economy with a strong political will by the governance also out of compulsion and circumstances.
Education, a badly hit area
Education is a widely hit area in Sri Lanka where the students, parents and the school managements have bounced back successfully despite school closures and interrupted transport systems. Sri Lankan parents have resolved to invest on children’s education for a better future for them and the nation which is a good move. Parents with difficulties invested on expensive data, giving their personal smartphones to the children for their e- education.
E- education is booming in private schools as expected. There were news reports that children in village areas climbed water tanks for Wi-Fi which is a sorry affair and an encouraging news on their capability to adaptation with determination. This is an opportunity to improve e-education and to link with international players through the Ministry of Education and our University system, especially, the Moratuwa University should lead the process. Education should be linked with e education, e business, and e news and information based on advanced IT with ICTA.
The newly set up Technology State Ministries tend to attend seminars and meetings without getting into business and it is time the Minister of Education gives them specific instructions. The nation should rise above all in education and assist all other groups to emerge during the pandemic.
Road discipline and behaviour
The number of accidents is on the rise in Sri Lanka compared to deaths due to Covid-19 and Dengue that we successfully minimised. Road accidents are mainly due to indiscipline and loss of effective control by the governance that has failed to curtail accidents. Relating to the environment sector many youth had fallen victim to ruthless sand transporters in heavy trucks who have taken the law unto their hands with political patronage, linked to environmental destruction. In fact accidents should be on the decline due to less vehicular movements. However, greedy politicos eat into forests and sand on river banks according to the helpless Minister of Environment. Covid-19 is a by-product of the mismanagement of environment and it is the duty of the citizen to exert pressure on perpetrators destroying the environment that we have saved for millions of years.
Trade, employment and Commerce
The economy is bound to set back due to inactivity in all sectors and working from home with the loss of billions of rupees in all sectors worldwide. Sri Lanka feels it more due to less reserves while the pinch is bearable to UK, USA, Japan and EU with their food and fund reserves and assistance from International Organisations. Although there are improvements in the agriculture sector, employment, commerce and trade including exports have decreased. Sri Lankans have been brave and resilient to challenges by bouncing back after the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka and many countries. We won the Tsunami over and winning Covid-19 is certain! Let us raise our nation to be a world power such as Israel during the difficult period.
Covid-19 cremation or burial
During the ancient period, the Muslims who arrived in Ceylon obtained permission from the kings and lived in Sri Lanka for thousands of years as traders and friends having married Sri Lankan women with the freedom to practise their religion. They did not come as invaders- like some other ethnic groups did. Islam is a rigid religion unlike Buddhism, which is a philosophy and a religion with lots of freedom as free thinkers. Many Muslims became mild due to the association of Buddhists and bhikkhus while some became rigid due to fundamentalists’ influence of Middle East contacts.
Sri Lankans are friendly and work together in international and inter-governmental Muslim groups, helping each other in international issues fighting together against rich and powerful groups. Covid-19 deaths are comparatively less and we should and could have taken all the precautions as guided by the committee, and as Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, an experienced politician, supposed to be the most senior politician in Asia, indicated his views with few words in Parliament. We are in an internationalised world community and it is appropriate to adjust ourselves to the views of the international brotherhood which has an adverse effect on Geneva deliberation for no reasonable reason.
Be safe, be smart and be kind – DG, WHO
The virus will mutilate and live on with variants with permanent changes unless we outsmart the virus. The Israelis are the best innovators and best partners in this process to combat the virus. Variants will thrive in poor countries in the way they live with lack of necessary facilities.
The detection of variants in laboratories before they occur will fast spread, which shows the need for sharing of knowledge and international network in combating the menace. Every country must have budgetary requirements and or diversion of other funds for this important venture which is an investment for the future. Monitoring and organising the population to be vigilant and collection of data are important. It is not possible to keep countries in isolation or lockdown too long which could be disastrous.
Way forward to be free from Covid-19
As former President Donald Trump said the miracle will reach mankind as this affects the entire world. As the Director General of WHO stated we have to be smart, kind and safe. Are we? Very unlikely. If we are clean and follow the Ayurveda advice to go through the cleaning process there is no way that the virus would spread.
If we live with nature protecting Mother Earth, she will look after her children. It is time to change for the good or face the danger. Mankind went through many similar disasters of larger magnitude and escaped but the time factor is the issue despite the advancement of technology and science. We should expect the worst and start adapting to modern technology with new platforms and devices, as well as be innovative, for success.
We must have a global program and approach and not a national approach as it is a worldwide pandemic spreading fast so that the world has to act as one. There could be climatic changes and mass destruction of deforestation and release of mass scale garbage to the environment which will have an adverse effect of Covid-19 spread. World leaders must get together and exert a collective approach to face the menace with the scientists and the NGOs headed by the United Nations. This is a matter that cannot be resolved in isolation and therefore sharing of knowledge, experience and data is essential.
The IMF may think of keeping developments aside for a while and start helping members of the world family to get over the most difficult threat. Small is powerful and we will be victorious if we follow the adage that ‘’you are your own saviour and no one else’’. (The Buddha) Therefore, follow the simple rules to the last word and be safe, smart and kind. May everybody be healthy and happy. Sarth7@hotmail.co.uk
The writer is a President’s Counsel, former Ambassador to UAE and Israel and President, Ambassadors’ Forum
TORONTO — Armed with everything from school attendance records to drones, researchers across Canada are racing to shed light on a bleak part of the country’s history: How many indigenous children died at residential schools, and where are their unmarked graves?
From 1883 to 1998, nearly 150,000 indigenous children were forcibly separated from their families and sent to the government-funded, church-run boarding schools in an attempt to assimilate them. Once there, they were frequently neglected and abused. What happened at the schools was akin to cultural genocide,” concluded a 2015 report from Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
It also found that at least 3,200 students died at residential schools over those 115 years — a much higher rate than for students elsewhere in Canada — though the commission contended that the number was probably much higher and merited further investigation.AD
In 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action. Six of them deal specifically with creating a register of the missing children and mapping their graves.
But nearly three years later, some say that a lack of resources and missing documents is inhibiting progress, increasing the likelihood that the relatives of missing residential-school children will die without knowing the fate of their loved ones, and that unmarked graves could be destroyed.
There are scant resources being provided to do this work,” said Ry Moran, director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, which is working on some of these calls to action. We know some of those cemetery locations now sit under parking lots.”
A spokesman for the department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada said in a statement that the government provided the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation with $500,000 in March and that it is working closely” with it in making progress toward the completion of these, and other associated Calls to Action.”AD
Moran said he expects to have an initial register of dead schoolchildren ready by March 2019 but cautioned that it won’t be a complete list because there are literally millions more documents to review.”
Putting together the puzzle pieces found in those documents is seldom straightforward,” said Nancy Hurn, a former archivist at the Anglican Church of Canada who pores over church records to find the names of dead children in her retirement but is not affiliated with the commission or the center. She has so far uncovered the names of 119 dead children.
I’ve been an archivist for 40 years, and this is the most important work I’ve done,” Hurn said. There is a lot to account for.”
School records were often destroyed or inconsistently kept, according to the commission’s 2015 report. Officials also frequently failed to record the name and gender of students who died or the cause of death. Authorities even neglected to report the deaths to the parents.AD
Complicating matters further, Moran said, some of the Catholic entities responsible for running the schools have not yet turned over their documents.
The religious organizations that operated the schools — the Anglican Church of Canada, Presbyterian Church in Canada, United Church of Canada, Jesuits of English Canada and some Catholic groups — in 2015 expressed regret for the well-documented” abuses. The Catholic Church has never offered an official apology, something that Trudeau and others have repeatedly called for.
Children at residential schools often died of illnesses such as tuberculosis and typhoid, which spread rapidly because the children were not adequately nourished and sometimes were forced to endure hard labor. Others died by suicide, in fires or by freezing to death while trying to escape.AD
Those who died were commonly buried in cemeteries on school grounds, in part because the schools were located far from indigenous communities and travel was difficult in the winter, said Anne Lindsay, a former archivist at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
Moran said it should be easy to map the locations of the graves because researchers know where the schools were located.
Earlier this year, he and a team of researchers found an unmarked grave near the Muscowequan Residential School in Saskatchewan by using ground-penetrating radar near the school’s abandoned building.
Moran would like to use this radar technology elsewhere but said it isn’t possible without more funding from the government.
What is at stake is perhaps best exemplified by what is happening in Brandon, Manitoba, on what archivists say they believe is the former site of the Brandon Indian Residential School, which operated from 1895 to 1972.AD
After years of neglect, the school’s cemetery was marked and cared for by the Girl Guides, Canada’s version of the Girl Scouts, from 1962 until the 2000s, when city officials sold the land to a private owner and it vanished.
Lindsay said the principal’s letters, a hand-sketched map by a former student and other records indicate that the cemetery was just south of the school, near the Assiniboine River.
Lindsay and others say they believe that today, it is the Turtle Crossing RV park and that at least 60 students are buried there.
The park’s owner is planning to expand the campground, but archivists and Vince Tacan, chief of the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, oppose it.
Neither he nor the owner of Turtle Crossing responded to a request for comment.
This is a cemetery that sort of appears and disappears again,” Lindsay said. It speaks to how fragile that memory is and how much it needs people to actually commemorate and argue for remembrance.”
In an exclusive interview to India Today TV, Sri Lanka Foreign Secretary Admiral (Retd) Jayanath Colombage on Monday said that he expects India to stand by and vote in favour of Sri Lanka ahead of next week’s UNHRC sessions on the island nation’s rights and accountability record.
India has been urging Sri Lanka to implement and enforce the 13th amendment of its Constitution ever since the country’s war with Tamil separatists ended in 2009. At the ongoing session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, India said that it supports its neighbour’s “unity and territorial integrity” and remains committed to “aspirations of the Tamils of Sri Lanka for equality, justice, peace and dignity”.
In an exclusive interview to India Today TV, Sri Lanka Foreign Secretary Admiral (Retd) Jayanath Colombage on Monday said that he expects India to stand by and vote in favour of Sri Lanka ahead of next week’s UNHRC sessions on the island nation’s rights and accountability record.
“Abstention will not hamper ties. But India’s great leader speaks of ‘Neighbourhood First’. We are immediate neighbours,” Jayanath Colombage said.
ALLUDES TO TAMIL NADU ELECTIONS BECOMING FACTOR IN INDIA’S VOTING DECISION AT UNHRC
“We understand Tamil Nadu elections are coming up and Sri Lanka is always an issue. So we understand. India is a great friend. We expect India to stand by Sri Lanka. India is against country specific resolutions. They are against so-called rapporteurs being around to judge human rights situations in other countries. I think India is moving a resolution in that regard.”
ON PAKISTAN VISIT
“It was a bilateral visit. We did not visit [Pakistan] to garner OIC votes at UNHRC neither were we influenced by Imran Khan’s visit. We were very conscious of India’s concerns and ensured New Delhi is not embarrassed sorting the Pakistan Prime Minister’s visit. There will be no cooperation in defence or maritime with Pakistan. Sri Lanka’s soul will not be allowed to be used against India or to attack India.”ADVERTISEMENT
ON EAST CONTAINER TERMINAL
“Like farmers’ protests in India, our trade union protested against a deal. As a democratically chosen government we had to listen to them. We have offered India the West Container Terminal. I think they are happy with our offer and might even accept it.”
India described Sri Lanka as Priority One” partner in the defence sphere and said the participation of its military aircraft in the 70th anniversary celebration of the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) is indicative of the growing cooperation, camaraderie and friendship between the two militaries.
The SLAF is celebrating its 70th Anniversary on March 2 and to commemorate the historical event, a Fly Past and an Aerobatic Display is being organised for the first time in the country at a grand scale.
A total of 23 aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) and Indian Navy would participate in the grand event.
Sri Lanka is Priority One” partner for India in the defence sphere, the Indian High Commission in Colombo said in a statement on Sunday.
It said the assurance of India’s fullest cooperation in the field of defence and security was recently reiterated to Sri Lanka’s leadership by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval during his visit to Colombo for a trilateral Maritime Security Cooperation talks.
Doval attended the high-level trilateral maritime dialogue in Colombo among India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives in November last year. The meeting – hosted by Sri Lanka – took place after six years. The last meeting was held in New Delhi in 2014.
The statement underlined that the participation of the Indian Air Force and Indian Navy aircraft and personnel in the 70th Anniversary celebration of the SLAF is indicative of the growing cooperation, camaraderie and friendship between the Armed Forces of the two nations.
As a gesture of solidarity, and in keeping with years of close interaction and camaraderie between the two countries and their militaries, Indian Air Force (IAF) and Indian Navy will participate in the event with an Aerobatic Display by Sarang (Advance Light Helicopter), Surya Kiran (Hawks), Tejas Fighter Aircraft, Tejas Trainer and the Dornier Maritime Patrol Aircraft,” it said.
The deployment of such wide variety and huge inventory of aircrafts and helicopters of IAF and Indian Navy is testimony to the strong bonds of friendship and close interoperability shared between the corresponding forces of India and Sri Lanka services,” the Indian mission said.
It said that all the Indian aircraft on display are ‘Made in India’ and as such represent the indigenous technical prowess of Indian research and development sector and reliability of products of India’s defence industry.
Tejas Trainer, on display for the first time, would also afford the opportunity of independent sorties for the Sri Lankan pilots, accompanied with the Indian pilots whilst adhering to relevant strict health guidelines, the statement said.
During the deployment, the officers from Sri Lanka Air Force and Sri Lanka Navy will also have firsthand experience onboard the Indian Navy’s Maritime Patrol Aircraft Dornier, it said.
Sri Lanka Air Force pilots and Sri Lanka Navy observers will fly along with the Indian crew.
This is in continuation of the half yearly Dornier training sorties being facilitated for SLAF/SLN, it added.
Sri Lanka has reported 05 more coronavirus-related deaths, the Director-General of Health Services confirmed today (March 01).
As per the Department of Government Information, three male patients and two female patients are among the victims.
The new deaths bring the number of COVID-19 related deaths witnessed in Sri Lanka to 476 in total.
01. The deceased is a 73-year-old female resident from Ganemulla. She was diagnosed as infected with Covid-19 and transferred from Colombo South Teaching Hospital to Base Hospital Pimbura where she died on 01.03.2021. The cause of death is mentioned as Covid-19 pneumonia and cancer in the gallbladder.
02. The deceased is a 75-year-old male resident from Colombo 10. He was diagnosed as infected with Covid-19 and transferred from General Hospital Colombo to Base Hospital Pimbura where he died on 26.02.2021. The cause of death is mentioned as Covid-19 pneumonia and acute diabetes.
03. The deceased is an 83-year-old male resident from Bulathkohupitiya. He died on 11.02.2021 while undergoing treatments at Base Hospital Karawanella. The cause of death is mentioned as Covid-19 pneumonia.
04. The deceased is a 61-year-old male resident from Kandy. He was diagnosed as infected with the Covid-19 virus and transferred from the Teaching Hospital in Peradeniya to the National Hospital in Kandy where he died on 28.02.2021. The cause of death is mentioned as Covid-19 pneumonia.
05. The deceased is a 75-year-old female resident from Pujapitiya. She was diagnosed as infected with Covid-19 virus and transferred from National Hospital Kandy to Base Hospital Theldeniya where she died on 01.03.2021. The cause of death is mentioned as Covid-19 pneumonia and heart failure.
A copy of the final report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry on the Easter Sunday attacks has been handed over to Archbishop of Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith.
The Director General, Legal Affairs of the Presidential Secretariat Hariguptha Rohanadheera presented the report to the Cardinal Ranjith at the Archbishop’s House today (01).
Meanwhile the President’s Media Division stated that the report was also presented to the Mahanayake Theros of the Malwathu and Asgiri Chapters this morning.
The report was presented to the Mahanayaka of the Malwatte Chapter Most Ven. Thibbatuwawe Sri Sumangala Thero at the Malwathu Maha Viharaya in Kandy and to the Mahanayaka of the Asgiriya Chapter, Most Ven. Warakagoda Sri Gnarathna Thero at the Asgiri Maha Viharaya in Kandy.
Sri Lanka is facing repeated baseless accusations at the UNHRC this time around as well, which primarily stems from the Darusman report. What is the reality behind these calls for accountability?
41st Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka Sarath N. Silva joins Mahieash Johnney this week to discuss the legal basis of the challenges in the UNHRC.
The world is a divided place as evidenced by the interactive dialogue on the OHCHR Report on Sri Lanka during the ongoing 46th Session of UN Human Rights Council. Instead of being the mediator, the actions of the incumbent High Commissioner of the UNHRC Michelle Bachelet are exacerbating this division further. Unless Bachelet takes corrective measures that deviates her Office from the UN mandate, she too will leave behind her a failed legacy as her predecessors did. As such, all member States must engage with the UN and its bodies, namely the UNHRC that is under the cloud of being politicised, and constructively agitate for the much needed reforms.
Straight to the point response
Philippines’ succinct, straight to the point response was the best delivered in this regard. Its official response in verbatim was, The Philippines considers the credibility of OHCHR reports to be critical to the integrity of the work of the Council and has consistently called for objectivity and fairness in the reporting process. We are concerned that this report fails to ground itself properly on contextual realities, particularly the challenges of addressing the grave threats of the pandemic and terrorism to Sri Lanka’s 21.3 million people. For a country like the Philippines, which has lost precious lives to terrorism, the report’s mischaracterisation of security policies of Sri Lanka is insensitive to the long struggle of its people against conflict and terrorism. We regret that this feeds the troubling discourse in the Council that downplays the victims of terrorism and earnest efforts by affected countries to stop it within the framework of law. We note that despite the challenges, the Government of Sri Lanka actively pursues reconciliation, accountability and Human Rights through domestic processes with all stakeholders. We therefore find some of the conclusions and recommendations in the report to be inappropriate and ill-conceived.”
China, Russia and Pakistan as always are solidly standing by Sri Lanka. Japan too has expressed its confidence in the Sri Lankan Government and acknowledges the State’s efforts to promote the well-being of all its people – including the families of victims of enforced disappearances”.
Schizophrenic relationship
India’s schizophrenic relationship with Sri Lanka continues. While providing enormous support to face the pandemic related challenges, India accuses Sri Lanka of denying Tamils equality, justice, peace and dignity. Without specifying the policies that discriminate Tamils, India insists on the full implementation of the controversial 13th Amendment. It is curious how devolution will resolve these so-called issues when over 50 per cent of Tamils live outside the North and East and reasons to allow these two provinces to be merged where as the rest of the country that has not asked for devolution must live in a quasi federal system. It is also questionable how these comments were allowed when it violates the UN’s mandate of non-infringement of internal policies of sovereign States.
The West, as individual member States as well as the collective body of the European Union, has expressed their concerns over what they claim to be the deteriorating Human Rights, civil society space and democracy in Sri Lanka. According to their verdict, the minority communities in Sri Lanka are increasingly marginalised. Furthermore, it is their prescription that Sri Lanka cannot move forward without reconciliation and due accountability to allegations, which the domestic processes did not deliver”.
Hypocritical disappointed
These countries that have consistently refused to follow the same prescription for violent crimes committed by their own forces, are hypocritically disappointed with Sri Lanka for withdrawing from the UNHRC Resolution 30/1 and for taking a step back from the important gains” Sri Lanka had supposedly achieved by this Resolution. Remorselessly they ignore the manner these so-called gains paved the path to the Easter Attack. It is their recommendation that the Sri Lankan Government sufficiently resource the Office for Missing Persons and for Reparations and ensure its independence.
The West is strengthened by the rejoining of US, under the new Biden regime, back into the Council. The US support of the stance taken by Europe that is parallel to the LTTE ideologists is certainly fodder for thought, especially for those who expected gentleman politics from the new suave American regime and thereby welcomed the departure of the loud, swaggering and brash Donald Trump.
The position taken by the West is consistent with their historical role in global dynamics. For the past five or more centuries the Western envoys on the guise of promoting Human Rights have created discord among our communities, propagated mistrust in our governing institutions, discredited our systems and challenged (militarily and otherwise) our sovereignty.
As a consequence, entire civilisations have disappeared and their descendants are reduced and constrained. They are today the most vulnerable sectors in the global community. The strong Western economies have been built on enslaving other nationalities, deliberately destroying industries in other countries, suppressing indigenous ways whilst forcing an etiquette in line with the Western thinking and displacing countless populations from their ancestral properties to further their own production. The high rate of deformities in new borns and still births as well as cancers in East Asia and the burning rubble in the terrorist riddled Middle East attests to the calamities inflicted by the West.
The backlash in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, disproportionate number of non-Caucasians in State prisons and deeply affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic underscores the institutional discrimination that still prevails in the West. Despite their advanced and sophisticated security mechanisms, these countries have not prevented extremists from harassing their own citizens of Tamil or similar origins, nor stopped these groups from funding terrorism in other parts of the world.
Refusal to cooperate
The West expects the Sri Lankan Government to strengthen the Office for Missing Persons. However, these governments have categorically refused to cooperate with Sri Lanka to identify those who have sought or seeking asylum in those countries. Shamelessly they harbour well known terrorists as Adele Balasingham and yet demand that missing persons should be found. The insincerity is further highlighted by the terms of this Office. The status of a person listed as missing if found can only be amended with that person’s consent.
The Western block repeatedly pressurise the Sri Lankan Government to hold those accused of war crimes accountable. Yet, they will not furnish the UNHRC dispatches from their own defence attaches. The UNHRC too have not made any attempt to even request for this vital evidence from these governments. Such requests are not easily honoured either as Lord Naseby’s experience proves. It took him three long years to obtain few of the pages and that too were heavily redacted. Still the evidence in support of Sri Lanka and its military could not be suppressed. Lord Naseby, a true champion of human rights, has been underlining his findings since 2017. Yet the UNHRC had simply ignored him.
Countries like Sri Lanka are still battling to overcome the huge social problems inherited from the European forced occupation – especially the British. Farmers without land or water in an ever increasing conflict with the elephants can be traced to this ignominious legacy left by the British.
Sri Lanka as a traditional agricultural economy had jealously protected its thick rainforests. Especially the forests in the hill regions have been preserved for millions of years as restricted areas. Disregarding these ancient practices, the British mowed down forests in entire hills to make way for tea plantations. This deeply affected our weather patterns and the waterways that fed to the extensive irrigation system of the country. It also forced the elephant populations out of their homes and into areas below. The Wasteland Ordinance Act, supposedly to make better use of the land, resulted in displacing the people in their own country. In turn this has forced the people, especially the rural farmers to encroach on the elephants’ diminishing territory.
Since regaining Independence, successive governments have tried to resettle these internally displaced persons. However, this has been deliberately misconstrued by separatists as colonising” their homeland.
Meegaha
The use of the terminology ‘colony’ in this context is interesting. The European forced occupation is also termed as the colonising of the Island. The Government of Sri Lanka’s attempts at settling people of the country in the country is also termed as colonising. This thereby misinterprets the Government’s efforts as a form of invasion against the minorities. It is of little surprise that the West sympathies with the separatists who profess to be protecting their homeland.
Today the debate between the oscillating governments in Sri Lanka is between subsidising fertiliser and giving it free to the farmer. It is somewhat of a consolation that there is a revived discourse on the traditional practice of growing the meegaha (Mee tree) along the borders of our paddy fields.
Long before the West configured to use the atmospheric nitrogen into the much needed soil soluble format, we discovered the large doses of nitrogen released by the fruits of the meegaha through the digestion and excretion by bats. Furthermore, these 20-metre tall trees provide homes to birds who in turn feast on various insects below. Thereby, this magnificent tree not only provided a source of much needed fertiliser but also provisions for controlling pests.
When the West discovered the art of extracting Nitrogen, the British forcibly destroyed this tree to promote their chemical fertiliser. Our continued dependency on these chemical fertilisers not only enriches these western economies but also supports their arms industry. This industry for its growth continues to support or even create armed conflicts in the rest of the world in the guise of promoting human rights, establishing democracy and protecting minority concerns.
The only way to break this vicious cycle would be to gain independence in not only terms of territorial integrity, but also economically and technologically.
Science and technology
At the 15th Governing Council meeting of the Non-aligned and Other Developing Countries for Science and Technology, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa noted, Science and technology-based planning is what was used to build and transform the world. Indeed, technology provides answers to many of the challenges that are taking place in this dynamic world.” However, the major challenges in introducing new technologies due to high capital investment. Similarly, there is heavy competition developing countries have to face. As a result, our own inventions do not progress much.” The new Ministry of Technology, which is under the President’s purview will exchange technologies and collaborate with member countries to share best practices and so minimise our capital investment in introducing new technologies.”
It is heartening that steps were already taken to introduce scientific methodologies and technological advancements in major economic sectors such as Information and Communication Technology, agriculture, plantations, and fisheries. The President further asserted Sri Lanka has a proud history of indigenous and traditional technologies that are environmentally-friendly would integrate our local and indigenous technologies with high-end technologies.”
Success in this endeavour is the most effective protection against the hegemonic overtures by the West and India. The current role of the UNHRC is absolutely contentious. Instead of using human rights as a bludgeon vulnerable countries like Sri Lanka, this Council ought to support the Herculean efforts of the Governments to meet the pace of modern technology and thereby hugely improve the quality of life of all sectors. At the very least, the Council should not let other member States use its platform to bully and browbeat weaker members. After all, it is only the citizens that can be the true judge of its Government.
Bandaranaike had
advocated an independent foreign policy for Sri Lanka long before he became
Prime Minister. In 1952, Bandaranaike speaking in Parliament during the debate
on the Throne speech said that Sri Lanka has so far failed to formulate a well defined and independent
foreign policy. Sri Lanka should play an important and constructive role in
international affairs. She should be neutral in power politics. Sri Lanka
should occupy a position in South Asia like that of Switzerland in Europe, he said.
In 1954,
Bandaranaike persuaded Sri Lanka Parliament to
approve Panchaseela. The
Panchaseela policy advocated (i) mutual respect for each other’s territory and
sovereignty, (ii) non aggression, (iii) non interference in each other’s
affairs, (iv) equality and mutual benefit, (v.) peaceful coexistence. Panchaseela
first appeared in a treaty in the India-China agreement on the Tibet region,
signed in 1954 by Nehru and Chou en Lai.
Foreign
affairs was not an issue in the first three General Elections, 1947-1956,
observed H.S.S.Nissanka. Those in power had no understanding of international affairs,
said Bandaranaike. UNP depended on British advice and guidance in its foreign relations.
This was not in the interest of Sri Lanka, he said.
A non-aligned
foreign policy was introduced to Sri Lanka by SWRD Bandaranaike. His first
policy statement as Prime Minister of Ceylon on April 20, 1956, outlining his
government’s foreign policy and goals stated, “In its foreign policy, my
Government will not align with any power blocs. Consideration will be given to
exchange of diplomatic representatives with countries in which Ceylon is not at
present represented.”
Bandaranaike’s
foreign policy was a turning point in Sri Lanka‘s history, observed
Nissanka. It marked a new beginning in
foreign relations. V.L.B. Mendis said
Bandaranaike set the country’s foreign policy on a new course. Bandaranaike directed his foreign policy
towards relations which would help Sri Lanka‘s national security and economic
progress.
Bandaranaike
set the compass when it came to Sri Lanka’s international relations. All governments
that came after Bandaranaike have followed his policy of recognizing as many
sovereign states as possible, if it was in the interest of Sri Lanka to do so.
The
1956 MEP government, when it came to power, quickly swung to a non aligned
position in foreign affairs. The foreign affairs division in Radio Ceylon was headed by an
Englishman. SWRD did not like its rightwing slant. He appointed Mervyn de Silva
to the post.
Before
1956 Ceylon had diplomatic relations with 21 countries, with representatives in
9 of them. Bandaranaike expanded this list. He established diplomatic relations
with Afghanistan, Greece, Israel, New Zealand, Philippines, Switzerland,
Thailand, Turkey and UAR.
The
previous UNP government had failed to send a representative to Canada despite
the fact that Canada had representation in Colombo. The
Government of Canada feels aggrieved about this. Their High Commissioner in Ceylon
has been very helpful to us. We will remedy this very quickly, said SWRD in
Parliament.
Bandaranaike
gave formal recognition to the state of Israel. The previous UNP government had agreed to
diplomatic representation by Israel, said Bandaranaike. When I assumed office
the Israel Government, kept on pressing us to find out whether they could send
their representative here as the previous Government had decided to recognize Israel,
so I agreed.
Israel opened
its diplomatic mission in Colombo with a Charge’de’Affairs. Then the question
of appointing our Representative to Israel arose. Arab states object, therefore
I have laid it by, concluded Bandaranaike in Parliament. After Bandaranaike’s
assassination in 1958, interim Prime Minister, W. Dahanayake sent the representative
to Israel.
A
number of world leaders visited Sri Lanka when SWRD was Prime Minister. They
included Robert Menezies, Prime Minister of Australia, Walter Nash, Prime
Minister of New Zealand, John Diefenbaker, Prime Minister of Canada, Harold
Macmillan, Prime Minister of UK, Ludwig Erhard, Deputy Prime Minister of
Germany, Soekarnao, President of Indonesia and Nobusuke
Kishi, Prime Minister of Japan. This was an
impressive recognition of SWRD and a tribute to his policy of non alignment,
said Vernon L.B. Mendis.
MEP government
had also established diplomatic relations with
socialist countries. Viliam
Široký Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia visited
in 1958 accompanied by Czech Minister of Foreign affairs.President Josip Broz
Tito, President of Yugoslavia visited in 1959.
Sri Lanka was one of the first countries to establish diplomatic
relations with Cuba soon after Fidel Castro took power in 1959. ‘Che’ Guevara
visited Ceylon as Castro’s special emissary in August 1959. Guevara visited
Yahala Kele rubber estate in Horana and planted a Mahogany tree there. Bandaranaike
entertained these leaders at great expense, observed Nissanka.
Joint
communiqués were issued at the end of these visits. Bandaranaike and Prime Minister Siroky of
Czechoslovakia had discussed, inter alia, the stockpiling of atomic weapons. Japan and Sri Lanka jointly said nuclear
tests should stop. Disputes between nations should be settled through
negotiation. Japan also promised to help Sri Lanka’s economic development.
In 1956, Sri
Lanka celebrated Buddha Jayanti, the 2500 anniversary of the parinirvana of Gautama Buddha. Sri Lanka
invited heads of state to visit. King Mahendra of Nepal, Prince Norodom of Cambodia, Prince and Princess Mikasa of Japan came. Also Prime Ministers of India and
China. For all five red carpet was unrolled, streets were decorated, and they
were taken to see places of interest Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Kandy, noted
Nissanka. Large crowds welcomed them. The
chief justice of Burma, Justice Chan Htoon and Ven. Othani, high priest of
Japan also attended.
The visits of
foreign heads of state made a great impact on the public, who were allowed to
line the roads to welcome them. The wide publicity given in the local press to
these visits and the countries they came from encouraged the general public to
take an interest in foreign affairs.
Under SWRD Sri Lanka
diplomatic ties with India, China and Japan became strengthened. SWRD wanted a close
friendship with Asian states. Within a space of four
months in early 1957, the Prime Ministers of India and China were in Sri Lanka as
state guests, followed by Nobusuke Kishi,
Prime Minister of Japan.
First to come was Chinese Prime Minister Zhou
En Lai. Followed by Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who visited in May
1957, accompanied by daughter Indira. The highlight of his visit was a trip to
Anuradhapura where a large crowd was present to listen to his address. Nimal Karunatilleke translated Nehru’s
speech into Sinhala. Bandaranaike hosted official receptions at Temple Trees,
for Nehru and Chou en Lai, when they visited.
Rajendra
Prasad, President of India visited in June 1959. Bandaranaike went to meet him
at airport, carrying an umbrella. Photograph shows SWRD and Sirima
waiting to greet President Rajendra Prasad at the airport.
DS Senanayake
thought India was going to invade Sri Lanka .He viewed India as an enemy.
Bandaranaike knew better. Bandaranaike brought India and Sri Lanka closer, said
Nissanka.
Bandaranaike
insisted that relations with India had to be based on cordiality and that the issue
of Indian labour must also be settled in a cordial manner. Sirimavo followed this policy in her
relationship with Indira Gandhi. The Sirima Shastri pact” could be considered
the culmination of the discussion started by Bandaranaike.
India helped
a lot during the floods of December 1957. India sent planes, helicopters,
boats, clothes, food, medicine and engineers from Indian army Rescue Unit. Indian
air craft flew more than 150 sorties, and dropped over a total of 600,000
pounds of food and medical supplies.
SWRD
developed a personal friendship with Nehru. That is not surprising. Both came
from ‘aristocratic’ families and had been educated in Oxford and Cambridge,
respectively. They would have felt comfortable with each other. Also they were
in the same boat. Both were struggling to administer intractable, newly independent states. When Bandaranaike died,
India ran its flag at half mast, and declared a day of national mourning. The
messages of condolence when Bandaranaike died
showed that the rest of Asia too, mourned his death, observed HSS
Nissanka.
The
previous UNP government had followed a strong
anti-Communist and pro western foreign policy. UNP was considered
to be a party which had sold Ceylon to America. D.S.Senanayake
permitted US planes to fly over Sri Lanka airspace during the Korean
War. Ceylon had signed two treaties, in
1951 and 1954, agreeing to broadcast Voice of America. Sri Lanka‘s statement at the Japan Peace conference at San
Francisco in 1951 was to
hit Russia, not to help Japan, said Bandu de Silva.
Kotelawala,
the next Prime Minister, took a firm anti-Communist stand at Bandung in 1955. Kotelawala
did not allow Soviet scientists to come to Ceylon to
observe the eclipse of the sun in 1956, but permitted French planes to
fly over Sri Lanka airspace to Vietnam. John
Foster Dulles, US Secretary of State visited in early 1956.
Bandaranaike
changed this. Bandaranaike established diplomatic relations with six communist
bloc countries, while maintaining the cordial relation with the western bloc.
The communist countries were China, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Poland and
Yugoslavia.
This brought
benefits. In 1959, China, Poland and Yugoslavia,
gave scholarships. It also brought assistance
from USA through Fulbright grants.
In 1963 or so, University of Peradeniya had 2 visiting professors from USA, Georg
Lerski was one and also two Fulbright undergraduates.
The socialist
ideology started to come in. Many writings from the Communist bloc were
translated and circulated throughout Sri Lanka including rural areas. Books on socialism were available
at low prices in bookshops.
There was also an influx of
films from these communist countries. University of Peradeniya showed many well
made communist bloc films. They came from at least three different communist
countries. From Poland came the films of Andres Wajda.
Bandu de
Silva said that this socialist policy was due to Philip Gunewardene, not SWRD. Bandu compared the MEP manifesto of 1956
with the SLFP manifesto of 1951. The MEP manifesto displays the uncompromising
position of Philip Gunawardena more than the pacifist position of SWRD.
Bandaranaike was the first to open diplomatic relations with the
Peoples’ Republic of China and the Soviet Union. In August 1956 SWRD sent a delegation to
visit China and Russia and report back on the feasibility of establishing
diplomatic relations, said Wiswa Warnapala. Diplomatic relations were approved in September
1956. SWRD informed Britain and USA of his intention to open diplomatic relations
with China and Russia, thus avoiding abrasiveness in implementing foreign
policy decisions, observed Bandu de Silva.
There was a public debate on the ambassadors for these two
countries. The choice was of critical importance. Competent individuals had to
be selected. Wilmot Perera went to China.
Since India was sending Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan to Moscow, SWRD also sent
an academic, G.P. Malalasekera.
Malalasekera had to cover Czechoslovakia,
Yugoslavia, Poland, Austria and Rumania as well.
SWRD established diplomatic relations with China in
1957. Chou en Lai visited in February 1957 during his tour of Asian
countries. He came with Vice Premier He
Long. Chou had been invited to
participate at the ninth celebrations of Sri Lanka’s Independence. Chou en Lai
toured the island. He offered flowers at Dalada Maligawa, climbed Sigiriya,
visited a colonization scheme and met colonists.
Bandaranaike and Chou issued a joint statement. China
gave a loan of 75 million rupees for a period of five years. Scholarships
to study in China were offered. Bandaranaike was
specially honored by Chou en Lai with the gift of a conference hall which later
became the BMICH, said VLB Mendis.
Chinese
culture arrived in Sri Lanka, notably Beijing Opera, followed by other Chinese
dance and drama troupes. Chinese literature, including Mao’s speeches
started flowing into the country, said Nissanka. Sinhala writers translated
Chinese revolutionary literature to Sinhala.
There were cultural exchange programmes. Ceylonese artists
performed in China. In the early 1960s,
there were beautiful Chinese paper cut outs, book marks and other such items,
for sale in Chinese stalls at exhibitions. Reprints of Chinese paintings were also available. The scroll with a black
flying horse was very popular. High quality books on Chinese culture were
available at exhibitions in the 1970s too.
Bandaranaike established
diplomatic relations with Russia In
1957. Wiswa Warnapala found, when he went to USSR as Counselor, in the 1970s that
during Malalasekera’s time, the ambassadors from India and Sri Lanka had had easy
access to the top leadership of the Soviet Union, including Khrushchev,
then General Secretary of the Communist Party. Malalasekera had given talks at
Russian universities on Sri Lanka. Russian magazines had published articles on
Sri Lanka, including some on native Sinhala medicine.
In Sri Lanka, Russia gave scholarships to Sri Lankan students, to
study medicine and engineering at prestigious Russian universities. Sri Lanka exported tea, rubber, coconut oil
and coir products to Russia. Tea was the major export item to Russia.
Sri Lanka signed 3 agreements with Russia in 1958. The most
important agreement was the agreement on cooperation in economic and technical spheres.
Through this agreement Sri Lanka was able to gain Russian assistance in many
fields’. The projects including Oruwala Steel Mill, Modera Flour Mill, Kelaniya
Tyre Factory, Samanala Weva hydro-energy project, Russian aid and technology. Sri Lanka also received heavy machinery such
as tractors, tippers, cranes. Russia helped some housing projects, too.
This agreement
referred to above listed 16 areas of assistance. They were
Kelani Ganga flood control, Malwatu oya dam and irrigation canals, clearing
of jungle land for sugar cane at Kantalai, clearing of land at Hambantota for
cotton, mining of peat at Muthurajawela, pilot plant for extracting flour form
manioc, setting up factory for motor car
tyres and tubes, metal works centre, a
flour milling plant with an annual capacity of up to 70,000 tons of wheat ,
construction of a grain elevator up to
20,000 capacity, plant for building
materials and prefabricated units for house construction, cold storage plant
for 200 tons of vegetable and fruits, assistance
for utilizing by products of salt manufacture, development of fisheries
and assistance for science laboratories in schools.
There was a
flood of Russian literature into the country. There were low priced, well bound
editions of the writings of Marx Engels, Lenin, also Tolstoy, Chekhov,
Dostoevsky, and recalled Nissanka. A three volume version of Das Kapital was
available at less than two US dollars. The Russian novel was studied in the
Sinhala Departments of the University .Modern Sinhala works were translated
into Russian, by Russian scholars who had learned Sinhala in a very short time.
The Sinhala
intelligentsia became aware of Russia’s role in science and technology. The public
also saw plenty of Russian films, including the ubiquitous ‘Cranes are flying’.
Russian film festivals were held in Colombo and University of Peradeniya. I saw ‘Ivan the Terrible’ by Eisenstein at Peradeniya.
The image of Russia as a land of cold winters, regimentation, purges and forced
labor, began to fade, observed Nissanka.
The link with
Russia had another benefit, later on. During the visit of Prime Minister Sirimavo
Bandaranaike to Russia, in the 1970s, Sri Lanka asked Russia to provide a
statue of SWRD. . Lev Kerbel was asked to do it, as he had done many such statues. Kerbel observed that most of the
monuments in Sri Lanka were colonial. He wanted his to be different.
Kerbel said he
wanted to portray SWRD as a people’s leader. He worked on the premise that it
was SWRD who had brought real freedom to people of Sri Lanka. The statue was to
be the posture of dynamic personality striding forward anticipating numerous
vistas of political and social change. That
was the answer to the question, why such a big monument to such a small made individual.
In order to
do the statue Kerbel studied Sri Lanka history, people and culture and also the
political philosophy of SWRD. Kerbel had also spoken to the family, SLFP
politicians and the Left. I had to visit
him at every stage of the work to discuss certain aspects, recalled Wiswa.
The Arts council of Russia had to approve the
clay statue while the political committee too examined it. Deputy Minister for
Foreign affairs, Firubin, and Sudrikov, Head of Asia Department of foreign
ministry wanted it to be a political contribution. Firubin had been to Sri
Lanka and had met SWRD.
Bandaranaike‘s
foreign policy had far reaching benefits. By linking with the Communist bloc,
and also with several other countries in Europe and Asia, Bandaranaike had
expanded the world view of the Sri Lanka public. They were now shown a more
diverse view of the world. This was
something new for Sri Lanka who till then only knew the views of it colonial
rulers. It enabled Sri Lanka to get out
of the orbit of Britain and the Commonwealth. Cultural links with other countries was encouraged. USA, China and Russia started to
communicate directly with the people of Sri Lanka.
However,
Bandaranaike’s far reaching foreign policy was not given the recognition it
deserved until H.S.S. Nissanka took up the subject for his postgraduate study
in the 1970s. The work was published under the title, The Foreign Policy of
Sri Lanka: Under S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike by H. S. S. Nissanka, Department of Government
information, Sri Lanka, 1976.
Nissanka was
one of the first, if not the first, to introduce S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike’s
foreign policy to the world through an academic contribution said Bandu de
Silva. His book remained for a long time, a standard reference work among
students of Sri Lankan foreign policy.
Marshall
Singer of the University of Pittsburgh who supervised the thesis said, he found
it to be an outstanding thesis which added considerably to our understating of
Sri Lanka’s foreign policy of the time. It should be made available to as wide
a group of scholars as possible as a publication”.
In 1956, when
Bandaranaike became Prime Minister, there were only 14 Officers in the Foreign
Service. The first recruits had been personally selected by D.S.
Senanayake. There was no separate Ministry
of Foreign affairs. The Foreign Service
was an extension of the Defence Ministry.
Some officers
lacked any knowledge of international affairs. One officer told Bandaranaike
that Ceylon’s foreign policy was same as Nehru’s. The Foreign Relations Advisor,
who was a top Civil Servant, had pretended he had not heard of the Suez
invasion and Bandaranaike wanted him removed from the Ministry by noon.
Bandaranaike wanted a strong Foreign Servicewith experienced diplomats trained in the art of conducting foreign
policy, which would support a dynamic foreign policy.He saw the importance of having
career diplomats, who could rise up in the service as in other countries.
Bandaranaike removed the Civil Service hold on the Foreign Service. Bandaranaike gave
orders to device a new scheme of recruitment. “I want a scheme to take in
people with foreign experience.” he said. Two batches were selected through a competitive interview, alone. We
had two batches recruited during Bandaranaike’s premiership who were entirely
recruited on the basis of interviews said Jayantha Dhanapala.
Jayantha
Dhanapala observed that Bandaranaike
did this, because he realized that interview skills were vital for a potential
diplomat. Bandaranaike met these two
batches of recruits. That was the first time a Prime Minister had met new
recruits, though that was a common practice in many other countries, recalled
diplomat Bandu de Silva. (Continued)
The annual patriotic taunts and the laments of the majority are heard as the day of reckoning approaches in Geneva. We are shouting ourselves hoarse, complaining that the whole world is ganging up against the brave Sri Lankans, to punish them for eliminating the most brutal terrorist outfit the world has ever seen. It is true that what was achieved in 2009 is something that no other country could do in eliminating terrorism. But does that guarantee peace when the basic grievances that led to civil unrest over the years have not been addressed?
This article is not an attempt to justify violence, untruth or deplorable and unprincipled activities of other countries. Nor is it to devalue the achievements up to 2009. The intention is to open the eyes of my own countrymen to the reality of the hopeless situation facing the nation.
As was mentioned in earlier articles, seeds for racial disharmony were laid during the British colonial period. With their divide-and-rule method, they pitted the majority community against the minorities. This was done by establishing proportionately more schools in the North to ensure a better education, and thereby giving them superior positions in government service. Thus, with the country gaining Independence in 1948, and the Sinhalese gaining the upper hand, the minorities, mainly Northern Tamils, felt disadvantaged. They tried negotiations with the Southern politicians. Naturally, their demands like Ponnambalam’s 50-50 were unjust, but we could have negotiated that. With the watershed political upheaval in 1956, the situation became very volatile. With the Sinhala chauvinists becoming very influential and vociferous, taking politicians virtual hostage to achieve their aims, the minorities were getting increasingly marginalised. The Bandaranaike- Chelvanayakam Pact and later the Dudley-Chelvanayakam Pact were not honoured, without working on them to solve the ongoing disputes. There were several episodes of violence against unarmed members of the minorities during that period.
With the overwhelming electoral victory of the UNP in 1977 (followed immediately by another bout of violence), the majority assumed that whatever grievances of the minorities could be stepped over. Eventually, the Tamils were expelled from Parliament blaming their non-allegiance to the Constitution, leaving them with no forum to air their grievances. The terrorist outfits were taking shape in the North, claiming to be the sole representatives of the oppressed. The Southern leaders ignored the political sensitivities of India, which strengthened the terrorists calling them Freedom Fighters”.
The pogrom of 1983 is the darkest patch in the recent history of our paradise. The unarmed Tamils in Colombo were killed, even burnt alive and their property looted. With the government not making any efforts to curtail the violence for several days, there was a worrying suspicion of state patronage. Many Tamils, who worried about their lives, escaped to Western countries. Naturally, they were warmly welcomed as refugees in those countries as their embassies here were witnesses to what happened in Colombo and elsewhere. From then on, the Eelam war escalated, and it is not necessary to detail here the damage done in both human and material terms over thirty years. Many subsequent peace overtures of the government were rejected by the terrorists, who were determined to establish their own Elam.
After eliminating terrorism in 2009, what actions have we taken to restore lasting peace? Have we had at least belatedly, an ongoing dialogue sans political rhetoric with the Tamil leaders to see what their grievances are and taken steps to address them? Instead, our politicians kept on boasting of their victory”, further arousing separatist tendencies with communal rhetoric, purely to ensure that their success in winning the battles will keep them in power for generations. They were fighting with each other claiming credit for what was achieved.
The Tamil refugees who settled down in Western countries were establishing themselves. Well educated and employed, they are working according to a plan. With their natural energy, determination and ambition, characteristics we used to admire in our Northern countrymen for ages, they are flourishing making the best use of the opportunities provided there. The diaspora is making use of their increasing numbers to influence the local politicians, who are interested in winning their votes, to speak up for them at influential fora. They themselves have taken to politics and entered legislatures.
One can imagine the grudge they must be harbouring against us. They will tell the generations to come about barbaric violence they suffered. That generation, about everyone under 40 years of age at present, will not be informed of terrorism, suicide bombers, child soldiers, killing of innocent villagers, massacre of Samanera monks or bombing of Buddhist holy sites. They will be taught only about the 1983 pogrom and unsubstantiated allegations of civilian killings and the elimination of their freedom fighters” in 2009. In fact, there is a campaign in Toronto schools to have a week declared every year to commemorate the so called Tamil Genocide”. This and subsequent generations in the diaspora will be increasingly hostile to us. Though the LTTE remains proscribed in many countries, they have managed to operate freely with political patronage.
There is no use in shouting ourselves hoarse about the unforgivable crimes committed by the rebels during the war years if future security and peace is the concern of Sri Lankans. We will be facing this formidable force of the diaspora at every international forum in the future. Our diplomats, who are mostly the kinsmen or other acolytes of those in power and grossly unqualified to represent the country, have failed miserably to give the correct picture to those that matter. The whole world is well aware of the atrocities committed by the Tigers. Yet, successive governments have failed to exploit that knowledge to turn the world opinion favourable to us.
Despite all this, many educated members of the diaspora still love this country. Many of my colleagues there are still dreaming of the day they might be able to return after retirement. They keep visiting us regularly, having bought property here. Some have put up hospitals, churches and indulge in other public service ventures to help especially those in the North. So many doctors having achieved high positions in the health services overseas, help the country train our postgraduate doctors.
Sri Lankan politicians are still fighting among themselves without any concrete plans to counteract the allegations being made. Enough ammunition is being provided to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, UNHCR, to work against the country. After agreeing to various conditions imposed over the years, but dishonouring them immediately afterwards, the country has become one of the most untrustworthy to deal with. Those in power keep blaming the previous governments for the international agreements reached, without working for a common stance to face the imminent threat. Guarantees are being given repeatedly to the international community about an impartial judiciary to deal with various allegations emanating from the ethnic war. At the same time, new legislation is enacted to ensure that the opponents of the government are punished by a judiciary handpicked by the rulers. While saying that minority rights are being respected, the Muslims are denied their fundamental right to bury their dead.
It is meaningless to claim that other countries should not interfere with the internal affairs of Sri Lanka, which is a sovereign state. Having signed many international conventions and agreements, we cannot seek self-isolation when the situation suits us. We have allowed our internal matters to be discussed at international fora by failing miserably to solve them ourselves, often due to political expediency. This has forced our own citizens to seek relief from international organisations. If not for the influence and intervention of external sources, by now many countries in the world would have become ruthless dictatorships torturing their own citizens.
If the gravity of the issue was realised, a permanent secretariat should have been established in the foreign ministry long ago, with experienced diplomats purely to conduct an international campaign against the misinformation, and give the correct picture to foreign countries and various organisations that matter.
Our politicians know that they can fool most Sri Lankan voters all the time. But if they believe they can continue to fool the international community in the same way, they are sadly mistaken. Unfortunately, the whole nation will suffer paying for their folly.
Since
the Department of Archaeology began exploration and excavation work in the
Northern areas of the island, it has been the talk of the town. There were some
incidents which stirred up some controversy, starting from arguments about the
identity of these ancient monasteries and the true inheritance of them. One
such highly controversial place was Mullaitivu. Despite the archaeological and
historical evidence, there were disputes about the place’s history. Therefore,
Ceylon Today took you on a voyage to the past of Mullaitvu in one of our
previous heritage articles.
As
a stone element was unearthed at one of the ancient stupas at Mullaitivu,
things were steamed up once again. The ancient stupa at Kuruindi Vihara was
excavated. Then a stone architectural feature, which is known as a yupa gala
was discovered. As soon as it was unearthed, photographs and various
interpretations began circling in social media, print media, and the electronic
media. While the monolith could be instantly and clearly identified as a yupa
gala, certain groups all of a sudden claimed it to be a Siva Linga. As the
monolith had eight faces, the term Ashta-Thara was added by these groups.
Siva
Lingas are not uncommon or new to us. We have discovered a considerable number
of ancient Siva Lingas as well as yoni symbols, which were highly venerated
sacred objects of the Hindus. Thus, our scholars are not unable to identify a
Siva Linga if one was discovered. Also all of these discovered Siva Lingas,
Siva sculptures and all other Hindu veneration objects are well preserved and
loved by all of us and they are considered a part of ‘our’ proud heritage by
Sri Lankan scholars and the public. If such an object was discovered, there is
no reason to not admit it and distort its’ identity.
Moreover,
a Siva Linga cannot be discovered in the centre of an ancient stupa mound. This
has never happened before. Yet we have found a number of yupa stones in ancient
stupa sites. Today we at Ceylon Today will present to you the story of the
Buddhist architectural feature yupa gala and its evolution. Well known Sri
Lankan senior archaeologist, Professor emeritus T.G. Kulatunga who has done
extensive research on the Stupa and Buddhist art and architecture joined us to
share his knowledge about the yupa gala.
What
is a yupa stone?
A
yupa stone is an architectural feature of early Buddhist stupas. In the ancient
text Manjushriwasthavidya, this is called the Gajasthambha. Gaja-padaka is also
an ancient name for the yupa stone,” said Prof. Kulatunga.
Prof.
Kulatunga explained that according to the Divyavadana, once the dome of the
stupa is built, the yupaya was fixed on it. This was fixed on the top of the
ceiling of the topmost relic chamber.
The
yupaya was always an octagon-shaped pillar. The top was curved, the bottom half
which is buried beneath the surface has four sides.”
Prof.
Chandra Wikramagamage in his scholarly work, Stupa, says that the yupaya was an
architectural feature of the stupas belonging to the Abhayagiri sect. This is
because we do not see a yupa stone in every stupa in Sri Lanka,” explained
Prof. Kulatunga.
The
antiquity of the concept of the yupa stone goes back to pre-Buddhist times in
India. It was an object used for veneration by Vedic Brahmin priests; it was a
sacrificial pillar. Animals who were supposed to be sacrificed were tied on to
this pillar. Therefore, the yupaya was a pillar dedicated to the gods.”
Although
scholars believe that the yupa could be having a pre-Buddhist origin in India,
in his scholarly work The Ceylon Stupa, Prof. Senarath Paranavithana says that
there is no evidence to say the Sanchi had a yupaya, nor at stupas in Amravati
and Nagarjunakonda. Therefore, he says that the yupaya may not have been a
common feature among all Buddhist stupas.
He
further says that an octagon pillar similar to the one we know as yupaya today
was placed on the top of the ancient stupas in Java. He also says that yupaya
could be the stone pillar known as the Indra-Kilaya by today’s Buddhist monks.
Dr.
Roland Silva in his highly acclaimed work, Thupa, Thupaghara and Thupa-Pasada,
says that, Basing himself on a passage in the Divyavadana, Paranavithana uses
the term yupa – a Vedic sacrificial pillar – for the stone inside the
devathakotuwa, which is also called the danda or chattra-danda, the equivalent
of which is the yasti.”
According
to Prof. Wickramagamage, the yupa was visible between the chathra and the
harmika. When the chathra evolved into the koth karalla, the yupaya became the
devathakotuwa. In ancient dewathakotuwa there can be seen eight deities who are
to be known as the ashta-dik-pala. He further states that the yupaya was a
symbol of Buddha.
What
was this called in ancient times?
An
inscription at Vessagiriya mentions the term karawidaka. The inscription is as
follows; Mahanaka raja pitanika chethehi karawidaka kotawaya chatha aruwaya…
which means King Ila-Naga (38 – 44 CE) built the koth karalla and the chathras
of Pitanika Stupa. This is how Prof. Paranavithana translates this. According
to him, karawidaka means karali,” explained prof. Kulatunga.
That
cannot be accepted. At the terrace of Ruwanweliseya, remains of a yupa stone,
was found. It is the bottom half of the pillar. There is an inscription on it
which says that the pillar is a karawidaka tabi. Tabi means tamba or pillar.
Thus, if we compare the Vessagiriya inscription and this, the term karavidaka,
hints that it means the stone pillar or the yasti which we know as the yupa
stone today. So we can assume that during that time this stone pillar was known
as karawidaka,” Prof. Kulatunga enlightened us.
Why
does yupa stone have eight sides?
Prof.
Kulatunga explained to us that various pre-Buddhist deities were adopted into
the Buddhist culture and some of them were considered as guardian gods of
Buddhism.
We
have ashtadikpala deities; which means, deities representing each eight
direction. So the pillar had eight faces. Each side represents each deity. The
yupa stone was dedicated to these gods, who were considered as protectors of
Buddhism and the stupa.”
After
the yupa stone was not in use…
The
Stupa style evolved with time. Many of its early architectural features changed
into new features. So did the yupa stone,” said Prof. Kulatunga.
In
this process of evolution, the upper half of the stupa changed and instead of
the yupa gala, devathakotuwa was developed. In the devathakotuwa there are
eight deities facing the eight directions.”
When
did koth karalla evolve?
Based
on archaeological evidence we believe that it was king Kanitta-Thissa (164 –
192 CE) who was the one who first added a koth karalla to a stupa.
Our
assumption is based on an inscription we found at Deegavapi. A golden casket
was discovered here and it had a koth karalla and also the name of the king,”
said the professor. We have evidence to believe that small stupas developed
the koth karalla, while larger stupas still had yupa stones on them. Later they
evolved into the dewathakotuwa.”
Other
evidences of yupa stones
–
Two massive yupa stones at Abayagiriya.
–
Mihindu Seya – a casket was found by Prof. Paranavithana in 1951. This has a
yupaya.
–
Daliwalakota Vehera – hundreds of caskets were found here. They all have
yupayas. These were found by then Commissioner of Archaeology Dr.
Godakumbura
Prof.
Paranavithana says that the remains of yupas found at Abhayagiri and Mirisveti
are massive in size and that they would have weighed more than twenty tons at
their fullest.
Apart
from these examples there are yupa stones at Lahugala, Manikdena, Yatala, and
many other ancient Buddhist stupa sites.
Sri
Lanka is a country that practiced religious harmony for more than 15 centuries.
These are not just words. Archaeological and historical evidence proves this.
Yet, due to some unfortunate recent incidents and well-planned political
stunts, starting from the shrewd British rule, ethnic and religious harmony of
the island is destroyed. ‘Divide and Rule’ was their strategy. And we were
fools to fall into their traps. We still are in it.
Fighting
over the identity of cultural heritage is also a result of games played by
politicians for their own good. Once the dispute between the two main
ethnicities of the island is over, once understanding and harmony bonds these
two communities, politicians and their manipulators will be deprived of their
power. Therefore, it is the responsibility of us to act wisely. Scholars, media
and the public should act wisely and sensibly.
Let’s
not allow ‘them’ to distort our cultural heritage and to nourish ‘their’
vicious existence. Let us not fall into prey. Scholars, please step forward and
share your knowledge and enlighten the public. Media, be responsible, ethical,
and wise. Use words carefully as words can be very dangerous. Public, be wise
and rational.
A
concerted effort to preserve our heritage is a vital link to our cultural,
educational, aesthetic, inspirational, and economic legacies – all of the
things that quite literally make us who we are.”
–
Steve Berry
By Ama H. Vanniarachchy | Published: 2:00 AM Feb 27 2021
India has said the update lacked ‘objectivity and impartiality’.
United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet. Photo: Twitter/UNGeneva
New Delhi: United Nations Human Rights commissioner Michele Bachelet raised the farmers’ protests, sedition charges against journalists and curbing of social media in an update to the Human Rights Council on Friday, February 27.
In her oral update, Bachelet had raised concerns about human rights issues in 50 countries, ranging from Spain to Sudan.
In the part about India, she observed that farmers’ protests highlight the importance of ensuring laws and policies are based on meaningful consultations with those concerned”. She hoped that the dialogue efforts by the farmers and Centre will lead to an equitable solution to this crisis that respects the rights of all”.
She also stated that sedition charges on journalists and activists for reporting or commenting on protests and attempts to curb freedom of expression on social media are disturbing departures from essential human rights principles”.
At least three BJP-ruled states have filed FIRs against journalists for sharing unverified” news about the tractor rally on January 26. An FIR was also filed against The Wire, its founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan and reporter Ismat Ara for reporting on the allegations made by the family about the death of Navreet Singh at the tractor rally on January 26. An independent journalist, Mandeep Punia, was arrested at Singhu border for reporting on the farmers protests.
The Centre had also asked social media platform Twitter to block tweets and handles which had been actively posting on the farmers’ protests. The accounts included that of magazine Caravan, the farmers’ protest account Kisan Ekta Morcha and several independent journalists and activists.
Bachelet also appreciated the experience of a pilot programme from Kerala where officials, civil society organisations and community leaders have used innovative technology to ensure that the voices of marginalized and poor people are heard, and their needs addressed, in the pandemic response”.
Police personnel placed iron nails near the barricades in an attempt to stop farmers from crossing Tikri border during their agitation against the new farm laws, in New Delhi, Monday, Feb. 01, 2021. Photo: PTI
India’s permanent representative to UN, Indra Mani Pandey stated that Indian government had set a target of doubling farmers’ income by 2024. The purpose of enacting three Farm Acts is to enable farmers to realise better price for their produce and enhance their income. It will particularly benefit small farmers and offer more choices to those farmers who opt for them. The Government has shown utmost respect for protests by farmers and has remained engaged in dialogue with them to address their concerns,” he said.
Pandey said that the Indian government was perplexed to note some of the comments by the High Commissioner”. She appeared as oblivious of the enormous efforts made by my Government to address the challenges, as indeed of many of the factors driving these challenges. The unprovoked violence on our Republic Day in the name of farmers’ rights, apparently, left her unmoved,” he added.
Bachelet also spoke on the situation in Kashmir, noting that restrictions on communications and clampdowns on civil society activists remain of concern”. She observed that despite the restoration of 4G access for the first time since August 2019 in Kashmir, the communications blockade has seriously hampered civic participation, as well as business, livelihoods, education, and access to health-care and medical information”.
Raids against human rights defenders in October and November exemplify the continued restrictions on civil society, and resulting impact on the rights of the people of Kashmir to impart and receive information, and to engage in free, open debate on Government policies affecting them,” she noted.
Across the border, Bachelet said that there had been students’ protests in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir due to disruptions in internet access.
Pandey, meanwhile, claimed that the constitutional changes in status of Jammu and Kashmir were welcomed by the people of India, including people of Jammu and Kashmir”.
He said that India has restored grassroots democracy, through District Development Council (DDC) elections, and provided good governance through the ‘Back to Village’ initiative”. There has been a significant decline in terrorist attacks and progressive national laws have been extended to Jammu and Kashmir to enable the people there to enjoy the same rights as the people in rest of India,” he added.
Lashing out at the UN human rights chief, Pandey stated, Her indifference to terrorism is, of course, not new”. Bachelet’s office has issued repeated observations about the human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir following the complete lockdown in the state after August 5, 2020.
Objectivity and impartiality have to be the hallmarks of any Human Rights assessment. We are sorry to see that the High Commissioner’s oral update is lacking in both,” said the Indian diplomat.
Veemansa Initiatives’ discussion
on ‘external debt situation in Sri Lanka; Are we heading for a resolution or
crisis?’. The Governor Central Bank is
confident all debt obligations will be met.
–
The Central
Bank Governor affirms the government’s commitment and ability to honor all debt
obligations.
–
Sri Lanka to
mobilize domestic financing to meet countries investment requirements.
The
measures to increase foreign currency inflows and restrict outflows to
continue.
A
Low-Interest regime and monetary expansion is sustainable in the prevailing
conditions of suppressed demand and the absence of inflationary pressures.
Doomsday
predictions prompted by forthcoming UNHRC Session on Sri Lanka
Colombo, 28
February 2021- The inaugural webinar of the Veemansa Initiative, a newly launched
policy development and advocacy think tank on the external debt situation in Sri Lanka
was held on 24th Wednesday, February 2021. It highlighted
several challenges facing the country’s economy and concluded with valuable policy
responses from expert panelists and participants.
Delivering the keynote address on the topic, External Debt Situation in Sri Lanka: Our Route to
Resolution, the Governor of the
Central Bank, Deshamanya Professor W D Lakshman said that despite the COVID-19
pandemic and its impact Sri Lanka will maintain its unblemished records of debt
service. The following are the key point
of the Governor’s speech.
COVID-19 pandemic and its wide-ranging
impacts have compelled the country to rethink its economic strategies. In the
past, we borrowed from multilateral agencies, initially on concessional terms, and
over time, our foreign debt had increased slowly but steadily. While graduating
to the middle-income country status, Sri Lanka has become less eligible for
concessionary funding and had to move increasingly into commercial borrowing to
finance its investments as well as to meet its consumer imports and debt
servicing obligations,”
The Government has decided that reliance on
foreign borrowings, particularly commercial borrowings, should be phased out
gradually to reduce the burden of debt service. The Government is of the view
that the country’s development projects should be as far as possible domestically
oriented, both in terms of the implementing parties involved and the funding sources,
wherever possible. The medium-term objective is to reduce the foreign to
domestic ratio in Sri Lanka’s public debt to 33:67 from the current level of
43:57. Although this could have been done during the 2nd half of the
last decade, the foreign debt volume has increased from $ 24.6 billion in 2015
to $ 34.7 billion in 2020.
This will no doubt require some austerity in
terms of mostly cutting down of import of non-essential consumer goods and
enhancing all forms of foreign currency inflows. Due to these measures, the
current account deficit of the balance of payments (BOP) in 2020 is estimated
to have reduced to $ 1 billion compared to $ 1.8 billion in 2019. This tendency will strengthen further in 2021
and the target is to achieve a surplus in the current account in 2021. These
inflows to the current account will be complemented with FDI on the Capital
Account. The Colombo Port City and
Hambantota Industrial Zone are expected to be major contributors of FDIs.
The necessity of adopting such policies have
become very important in the current conditions in the global financial markets
after the outbreak of Covid19 pandemic. Particularly for Sri Lanka, the
prospects of external financing have been constrained by risk aversion and
volatility in global financial markets,”
While stability in the price level, the rate
of interest rate and rate of exchange to a politically stable and economically
feasible level is desirable when conflicts emerge on these objectives, required
trade-offs have to be worked out. The
production in the Sri Lankan economy remains below the potential and demand-led
inflation pressures remain weak in the aftermath of the pandemic. There are
possibilities for monetary expansion within reasonable limits to meet the
government’s expenditure to meet COVID-29 related social protection needs as
well as capital expenditure. The limits here are dictated by domestic inflation
and changing external reserve position. The empirical research carried out in a number
of countries including Sri Lank has failed to establish a direct relationship
between changes in money supply and price level.
Despite these challenges, and adverse predictions
by many parties who projected doomsday scenarios, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka
affirms to all foreign stakeholders, that Sri Lanka remains committed to meet its
debt obligations, as it has done impeccably in the past and it has the ability
to so in the future. Of around US
dollars 3.7 billion to repay in external debt in 2021, we have already paid a
considerable chunk in the first two months of the year.” the Governor said.
The Governor also indicated that gloom and
doom predictions are seemed to have coincided with the UN Human Rights Council
Sessions where a resolution is moved against Sri Lanka by a group of western
countries. The governor has outlined a number
of measures that the government and the Central bank has undertaken to increase
non-debt creating foreign currency reserves.
The keynote speech of the governor followed by
a discussion among an eminent panel of experts chaired by Prof. Sirimal Abeyratne – Head of Department
of Economics, University of Colombo. Mr.
Sumanasiri Liyanage – Senior Academic, Formally of the University of Peradeniya
and Sanasa Campus, Dr. Nishan de Mel-Head of Verite Research, a renowned think
tank, and Dr. Ravi Liyanage Chairman Raigama Group, participated in the panel
discussion.
The experts also discussed the need to
create a conducive environment for investment through tax reforms as well as
legislative reforms, thereby making Sri Lanka a destination of promise for
investment, domestic and foreign alike. The panelists agreed that maintaining
the interest rates low is conducive to post COVID -19 economic recovery. In this context, a panelist suggested a more
gradual and phased approach to the transition from external financing of
government debt to predominantly domestic financing.
Over 150 participants from Australia, China, India,
Philippines, US, etc. joined online sharing experiences on a range of issues
that included import substitution, fiscal gap, the debt obligation for this
year, non-debt creating financial measures, that the focus of the government in
the short and medium-term.
Veemansa initiative has made provisions to make available the
recorded session on its website. https://veemansa.org. .
Dr. Hans Wolfgang Schumann is a German Buddhist. He is a well known Buddhist scholar and chronicler of the history of Buddhism in Germany.
Born on January 31, 1928, Dr. Hans Wolfgang Schumann died on June 26th, 2019 in Bonn.
In a seminal article on the state of Buddhism in Germany, ‘ Buddhism and Buddhist Studies in Germany’, Maha Bodhi Journal, Vol. 79, (February – March 1971) page 99, Dr. Schumann raises a significant question as follows:
Shouldn’t Germans be grateful to Sri Lankan Buddhist Societies for giving organizational help at several critical periods of Buddhism in Germany and thereby helping in saving the flame of the Buddha Dhamma in Germany” ?
Dr. Hans Wolfgang Schumann, answers as follows: another important Buddhist Centre is the Buddhist House’ founded by Paul Dahlke in Berlin – Frohnau in 1924. It survived World War II in a dilapidated condition and probably would have been auctioned and dismantled if the Ceylonese ‘German Dhammaduta Society’ (founded in 1952) which inherited a large sum of money from a German Buddhist had not come to its rescue. The GDS purchased the house in 1958, renovated it, furnished it with additional rooms, a well stocked library and Ceylonese Bhikkhus (monks) sent from the GDS took charge of regular lectures and meditation courses.
Dr.Schumann further states …..Asian Buddhist mission was successful. The organizational help which Asian Buddhist Societies, in particular Ceylon, in several critical periods had extended saved the flame of the Dhamma in Germany. Isn’t this for the Germans reason enough to be grateful? ”
UNP Deputy Leader Ruwan Wijewardena says that the leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress Rauff Hakeem is directly responsible for the split in the party.
He was addressing a meeting of UNP district representatives.
The Polonnaruwa District Representative Meeting of the United National Party was held today and the party members expressed their views as follows.
Meanwhile a meeting of UNP representatives in the Trincomalee district was held yesterday.
By Lakshman I. Keerthisinghe Courtesy Ceylon Today
I detest that man, who hides one thing in the depth of his heart and speaks forth another”– Homer- Illiad (Deciet)
The United States is fully committed to the universal protection and promotion of human rights”
– Antony Blinken- US Secretary of State -Video Message to 46th UNHRC Session in Geneva
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressing the 46th UNHRC Session stated: We encourage the Council to support resolutions at this session addressing issues of concern around the world, …the lack of accountability for past atrocities in Sri Lanka.” He also announced the US will seek election to the UN Human Rights Council for the 2022-24 term. Being surprised by this new stance of the Biden administration, the remark on alleged ‘lack of accountability in Sri Lanka’ as alleged by Blinken raises the issue of lack of accountability by the US for its past grave atrocities in global human rights abuses. Sri Lanka has already taken meaningful steps in appointing Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), Office of the Missing Persons and Reparations Commission and several other institutions to investigate any such allegations and take appropriate action.
As stated by Lord Naseby in the UK Parliament the statement that 40,000 deaths occurred during the last stages of the conflict has been disproved with evidence but Commissioner Bachelet repeats these unsubstantiated charges against Sri Lankan Armed Forces baselessly.
A horrible video depicting LTTE child soldiers being trained by Adele Balsingham presently based in UK tying cyanide capsules around the necks of innocent Tamil children forcibly removed from parental custody by the brutal terrorists is presently circulating in social Media. Further evidence produced by Lord Naseby indicates the humanitarian manner in which Sri Lankan troops assisted civilians escaping from the LTTE human shield to protect their terrorist cadres in combat. It was proved the LTTE massacred escaping civilians from the LTTE human shield.
Sometime ago responding to such adverse remarks of then US Ambassador Sisson, Sri Lanka’s President then Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa said, The job of an ambassador was to strengthen relations between two countries and not to ruin them by giving lessons in good governance in the host country.”
US human rights violations
Hence, this article attempts to investigate the accountability of the US in its own record of global human rights in addition to recent racist brutal police shootings of Blacks in US and other human rights violations in the form of cowardly drone attacks killing large numbers of innocent women and children in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries in the world. Subsequent to the 9/11 attacks in the US by the Al Qaeda, US appears to be engaged in a witch-hunt indiscriminately murdering human beings all over the world in acts of unwarranted revenge targeting innocent Muslims. American website Policymic reported thus: ‘Meanwhile, U.S. drones are killing children and terrorising families abroad. Earlier this year, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that 176 children have been murdered in Pakistan alone. And along with drone attacks, an average of 4.8 children is killed per day in Afghanistan where earlier this year, a U.S. sergeant is reported to have killed nine children. Will these murders be deemed worthy of our thoughts and prayers, or even our news headlines?
Thus before talking about fictitious past atrocities committed by Sri Lanka we invite Blinken to first put his own house in order.
Antony Blinken are you aware of the human rights violation in the form of atrocious torture committed by US troops in Vietnam, Guantanamo Bay and other prison camps maintained by the US? The US Government adopted American Service-members’ Protection Act (ASPA) to protect any US citizen from appearing before International Court of Criminal Justice (ICJ). The ASPA is a United States federal law introduced passed in August 2002 by Congress. The stated purpose was to protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the US government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which US is not a party.” When attempting to falsely implicate our heroic soldiers in alleged past atrocities with the UN Commissioner applying universal jurisdiction, is the US prepared to annul the ASPA and produce the US servicemen before the ICJ for necessary reprisals?
In conclusion, the painful truth behind the deceitful American concerns about human rights violations in Sri Lanka is to bully the present regime in to submission so as to make Sri Lanka a power base in Asia subservient to the edicts of the US Government and thereby gain a foothold in the Indian Ocean region by planting the US troops in our peaceful motherland. Homer’s statement quoted above comes to mind.
The writer is an Attorney-at-Law with LLB, LLM, MPhil.(Colombo)-keerthisinghel@yahoo.co.uk
I grew up, spending my childhood, adolescence and early adult life, in the home of a judge who ended his judicial career as head of the country’s highest court. I also had the enviable experience of serving as his private secretary sometime between my graduation and entry into the profession. The life of a judge of that time, as I observed it, is perhaps best described in the words of Justice Michael Kirby of the High Court of Australia. The regime imposed on a judge, he said, is monastic in many of its qualities”. Lord Hailsham, a former Lord Chancellor, described the vocation of a judge as being something like a priesthood”. Sir Winston Churchill considered that A form of life and conduct far more severe and restricted than that of ordinary people is required from judges”.
While judges did not isolate themselves from the rest of society, or from school friends and former colleagues in the legal profession, they rarely, if ever, socialized with politicians. They declined to perform the quasi-executive function of serving on commissions of inquiry. In that relatively calm and stable economy, their salaries were rarely increased. They drove, or were driven, to Hulftsdorp in their own cars. They lived in their own homes, except for the Chief Justice who was provided with an official residence.
In the early 1960s, when I was admitted to the Bar, and began practising before the courts of this country, any suggestion that a judge or magistrate might be corrupt would have been so preposterous that, in fact, it was never heard. A strong tradition of integrity underpinned the judiciary at every level. At a time of immense change, both political and social, the judiciary remained constant in its commitment to equal justice under the law.
Of course, the judiciary had its share of problems and its critics. The trial rolls were long; the backlog in the appellate court was enormous. The rules of civil and criminal procedure were Victorian. I recall expressing the exasperation of a starry-eyed young lawyer when, writing the annual report as honorary secretary of the Bar Council, I described the judicial system as an antique labyrinth with tortuous passages and cavities through which the potential litigant must grope, often blindfolded, in his search for justice. From below the Bench, some of the judges seemed short-tempered and discourteous; some seemed lazy – one, in particular, appeared to fall asleep from time to time; and not every judge appeared to be learned in the law. However, it was unthinkable that a judge could be corrupt.
The emergence of judicial corruption
It was some ten years later, in the 1970s, when I was serving as Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Justice and also, ex officio, as a member of the Judicial Service Advisory Board, that I encountered, for the first time, a complaint that a magistrate had accepted a bribe. The complaint appeared to be true. When confronted, the magistrate resigned his office. It was also during this period that I saw and experienced, with considerable unease and sadness, how some serving judges could demean themselves, and the sanctity of their office, in the pursuit of preferential treatment from the executive branch of government. When some of these efforts proved to be rewarding, it was difficult not to become sceptical. It was time for the illusions of youth to disappear.
Conventional bribery
The picture changed dramatically in the 1980s and in the decades that followed. The civil, criminal and appellate procedural reforms of the 1970s which we introduced were repealed and the Victorian laws revived. Thereafter, many a litigant or accused person began to find it more economical to secure the disappearance of a case record or the absence of a witness than continue to retain counsel for prolonged periods when no progress was made in his or her case. Complicated procedural steps meant several gatekeepers requiring payment to facilitate movement to the next stage of judicial proceedings.
In a direct mail survey in 50 Sri Lankan judicial stations conducted by the Marga Institute in 2002, civil litigants, virtual complainants, and remand prisoners reported to having paid bribes to lawyers’ clerks, court clerks, police officers and fiscals. Lawyers reported hundreds of incidents of bribery, the beneficiaries being the same. Several Judges admitted to being aware of such acts of bribery, and added members of the legal profession to the list of beneficiaries. Finally, the Judges identified at least five of their own brethren as bribe takers, three of them being in connection with the delivery of judgments. The report of that survey was published by the Marga Institute under the title: A System Under Siege; An Inquiry into the Judicial System of Sri Lanka”.
Global phenomenon
Judicial corruption was not a Sri Lankan phenomenon. In Bangladesh, a national household survey revealed that 63% of those involved in litigation had paid bribes to either court officials or the opponents’ lawyer. In Tanzania, a commission of inquiry reported several instances of judicial officers accepting bribes to grant injunctions, reduce sentences or dismiss cases; accepting bribes from advocates to give preferential judgments; and colluding with auctioneers to share the receipts from selling property belonging to litigants. In Uganda, the Chairman of the Judicial Service Commission reported several complaints of judicial officers taking bribes to give bail or judgment. In Argentina, 57% of those polled said that they felt corruption was the main problem with the judiciary. In Honduras, three out of four polled believed the judiciary was corrupt. According to the Geneva-based Centre for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, out of 48 countries covered in its annual report for 1999, judicial corruption was pervasive in 30 countries.
Undue influence
Corruption in the judiciary is not limited to conventional bribery. An insidious and equally damaging form of corruption arises from the interaction between the judiciary and the executive, as well as from the relationship between the judiciary and the legal profession. For example, the political patronage through which a judge acquires his office can give rise to corruption if and when the executive makes demands on such judge. Similarly, when a family member regularly appears before a judge, or when a judge selectively ignores sentencing guidelines in cases where particular counsel appear, the conduct of the judge would give rise to the suspicion of corruption. So would a high rate of decisions in favour of the executive. Indeed, frequent socializing with particular members of the legal profession, the executive or the legislature, is almost certain to raise the suspicion that the judge is susceptible to undue influence in the discharge of his duties.
The blurring of a critical relationship
In Sri Lanka, a dramatic change in the relations between the judiciary and the executive occurred with the advent of the Executive President, the ultimate source of power and patronage. For example, in 1983, a Judge of the Supreme Court described to a parliamentary select committee his relations with the then President:
I want to say this. My relations with His Excellency the President have been very cordial. In fact, I know him. I have only met Mrs Bandaranaike for a few seconds in my life. But I have known the President from 1948 and I have had very cordial relations with him. We had a common interest in history. I admire his culture, his refinement, and it was never my intention to do anything harmful to him personally. We have met at several functions at President’s House, at private dinners, and in 1981 he invited me and my wife for his birthday party at President’s House. We were very honoured. My community, my family, are his traditional supporters”.
The same Judge described how he enjoyed the hospitality of a Cabinet Minister:
Thanks to the hospitality of the Honourable Minister of Lands, we were all sent on that wonderful trip of the sites. We got younger. You know, we all went and it was a delightful trip. I wrote and told you about it. Lovely time, delightful! We were hoping we could make it a sort of annual trip.”
He also spoke about a prominent Opposition parliamentarian:
His step-brother, Mr Michael Dias, has been a friend of mine since he was my tutor in the Lex Aquilia at Cambridge University in 1945-48. However, my friendship with Michael Dias has brought me no advantages. The two brothers are as different as chalk and cheese. I think in 1973, Honourable Minister of Lands, your nephew Upul had that tragic death by drowning. I met you in the funeral house. That was a time when he was turning Hulftsdorp upside down. We had a conversation about that. I think I told you in plain, blunt, Anglo-Saxon what I thought of him. You may remember this. I wish to say that in the 1977 election nothing gave me greater pleasure than listening all night to the Dompe result.”
The blurring continues
The blurring of the critical relationship between the Judiciary and the Executive continued under later Presidents. For example, in 2004, on the eve of the general election, a Chief Justice, reputed for his political sagacity and legal acumen, participated in a religious ceremony in a Buddhist temple together with a Cabinet Minister and several candidates of a particular political party. The television camera constantly focused on the Chief Justice, who was seated at the feet of the Minister (who appeared to be on an elevated seat) during the long programme. Several years after he had left office, the same Chief Justice publicly apologized for not having given the right judgment in a politically sensitive case. I am very sorry. I am asking the whole country: forgive me”, he was reported as having said (Sunday Times, 26 October 2014).
In 2011, barely weeks after his retirement, another Chief Justice was appointed as an Adviser to the President. When a judge, and a Chief Justice at that, decides to take a great leap from the Supreme Court to the Presidential Secretariat to serve the executive branch at its core, the alarm bells must surely begin to ring. The country was entitled to know, but was not told, whether the Chief Justice had sought this position, or whether the Head of the Government had offered it to him, when and why.
In 2014, yet another Chief Justice travelled from Colombo to the deep south, to join the then President, his immediate family and his siblings, in celebrating the Sinhala and Hindu New Year rituals at the President’s ancestral home”. Several pictures that were published showed the participants, including the Chief Justice, attired in white and facing south” feeding milk rice to each other and engaging in other traditional transactions in what was essentially a family occasion.
In the same year, the same Chief Justice joined the President’s entourage (which included Ministers and Members of Parliament) on an official visit to Italy and the Vatican. It was the first occasion when a Chief Justice had accompanied a political leader on a state visit abroad.
Such conduct too, was not peculiar to Sri Lanka. A former President of the Supreme Court of Jordan, speaking at a conference in 1999, provided several illustrations from his own personal experience of this form of judicial corruption. He described how judges were pressurized by executive authorities to render judgment contrary to law; received benefits from the government in the form of gifts in money or in kind; and offers of employment to the judges’ children. He also spoke of victimization when the decision did not accord with the wishes of the executive.
The corrupting influence arising from the interaction between the judiciary and the executive has been documented by a Nigerian jurist. For example, he describes how a newly appointed judge, still undergoing training, was flown by a presidential jet to try a sensitive case of national importance and delivered his judgment by midnight; and how a judge trying a case of an opposition leader said he would need time to consult others before delivering his judgment. In Costa Rica, 54% of those polled believed that judicial decisions were subject to external pressures”.
Combating Judicial Corruption
In 1997, after almost two decades in academia, I was persuaded by a former colleague at the Commonwealth Secretariat to come down from the ivory towers” to work at Transparency International in Berlin. That non-governmental organization was then in its formative years, and one of its principal objectives was to identify sectors that were vulnerable to corruption, and then to formulate strategies to combat such corruption. It was there that credible evidence began surfacing of corruption in judicial systems. How should this phenomenon be addressed? Independence had always been considered to be the single fundamental requirement for a national judiciary. Judicial independence is not a privilege of judicial office, but an essential pre-requisite for the protection of the people. How real was that protection if the evidence that was surfacing was an accurate reflection of the state of the judiciary? Was judicial independence being traded for money or other benefits? Was adherence to the principle of judicial independence, by itself, sufficient to ensure the delivery of justice? Was it now necessary to formulate and implement a concept of judicial accountability?
Judicial Accountability
Accountability was not a new or novel concept. It is a constitutional requirement in a society based on the rule of law and democratic principles of governance that every power holder, whether in the legislature or the executive, is, in the final analysis, accountable to the people. Was there any reason why the judiciary, which is entrusted by the people with the exercise of judicial power, should not, individually and collectively, be accountable for the due performance of its functions? The challenge, however, was to determine how the judiciary could be held to account in a manner that was consistent with the principle of judicial independence. My colleague, the late Jeremy Pope, and I agreed that these were issues that were best resolved by the judges themselves.
Judicial Integrity Group
For that purpose, we initiated discussions with a representative group of ten Chief Justices from Africa and the Asia-Pacific region who agreed to meet under the auspices of the United Nations. At that preparatory meeting in Vienna in April 2000, which was chaired by Judge Weeramantry, Vice-President of the International Court of Justice, the Judicial Integrity Group (as this group of Chief Justices is now known) agreed that judges should be accountable to the community they serve through their absolute adherence to a set of judicial values, and that a statement of core judicial values should be capable of being enforced by the judiciary without the intervention of the executive and legislative branches of government. The Group believed that transparency at every critical stage of the judicial process will enable the community, especially through its legal academics, civil society and a free media, to judge the judges.
The Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct
At the request of the Group, I prepared an initial draft statement of principles of judicial conduct, drawing on rules and principles already articulated in national codes of conduct (wherever they existed) and in regional and international instruments. Over the next twenty months, that draft was widely disseminated among senior judges of both common law and civil law systems in over 75 countries. In November 2002, at the Peace Palace at The Hague, a revised draft was placed before a Round Table Meeting of Chief Justices drawn from both the civil and common law systems, at which Judges of the International Court of Justice also participated. The final draft that emerged from that meeting – the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct – identifies six core values of the judiciary: Independence, Impartiality, Personal Integrity, Propriety, Equality, and Competence and Diligence.
In 2006, the Bangalore Principles were unanimously endorsed by the UN Economic and Social Commission (ECOSOC) in a resolution which requested Member States to encourage their judiciaries to develop rules with respect to the professional and ethical conduct of judges based on the Bangalore Principles. Sri Lanka has ignored that request.
Commentary and Implementation Measures
In 2007, at the request of ECOSOC, the Judicial Integrity Group developed a 175-page Commentary on the Bangalore Principles which has since been published by the UN and by national judiciaries in several languages. Sri Lanka has failed to take note of that.
In 2010, the Judicial Integrity Group agreed on Measures for the Effective Implementation of the Bangalore Principles. That statement describes action required to be taken by the judiciary, and the institutional arrangements to be established by the State to secure judicial independence and accountability. Among the latter is an independent appointment mechanism with both judicial and non-judicial members to ensure that persons selected for judicial office are persons of ability, integrity and efficiency. Through the recently enacted 20th Amendment to the Constitution, Sri Lanka has rejected that requirement.
Conclusion
The Bangalore Principles now provide the judiciary with a framework for regulating judicial conduct. It is the global standard. These Principles have been the model for codes of judicial conduct from Belize in the Caribbean to the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, from Tanzania to the Philippines, from Bolivia to Jordan. They were motivated by the need to address the phenomenon of judicial corruption. Many judiciaries across the world have profitably employed them to achieve that objective. However, the Sri Lankan Judiciary has chosen not to formulate or to implement a code of judicial conduct to regulate itself.
Director-General of Health Services today (February 28) confirmed 07 new COVID-related fatalities in Sri Lanka.
The new development has pushed the country’s death toll from the virus outbreak to 471, Department of Government Information said.
Details of the deceased are as follows:
01. A 56-year-old man from Kurunegala area – He was under medical care at the Kurunegala Teaching Hospital at the time of his passing on Friday (February 26). COVID-19 infection and acute diabetes were recorded as the cause of death.
02. A 55-year-old man from Anuradhapura area – He has passed away at his home on Friday (February 26). The cause of death was recorded as acute complication in respiratory system due to COVID-19 infection.
03. A 59-year-old man from Gampaha area – He was transferred from Dompe District Hospital to National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) after testing positive for the virus. He died today due to COVID pneumonia, blood poisoning and liver infection.
04. A 79-year-old woman from Rukgahawila area – She was moved to Homagama Base Hospital after testing positive for the virus at Wathupitiwala Base Hospital. She has fallen victim to COVID pneumonia and shock due to blood poisoning on Saturday (February 27).
05. A 51-year-old man from Demalagama area – Upon testing positive for the virus, he was transferred from Colombo North Teaching Hospital to Homagama Base Hospital where he died today. The cause of death was recorded as COVID pneumonia and cancer.
06. An 81-year-old man from Colombo 05 area – He tested positive for the virus in a COVID test carried out at the Colombo National Hospital. He was then moved to Homagama Base Hospital where he succumbed to COVID pneumonia today.
07. An 87-year-old man from Pannipitiya area – He died yesterday at the Kandy National Hospital after being transferred from Colombo South Teaching Hospital where he tested positive for novel coronavirus. The cause of death was reported as COVID pneumonia, blood poisoning, acute kidney damages and heart disease.
Sri Lanka registered 148 more positive cases of COVID-19 today (February 28) as total novel coronavirus infections reported within the day reached 352.
Department of Government Information says 346 of today’s cases are close contacts of earlier cases linked to the Peliyagoda cluster.
Four others were detected from the prison cluster and the remaining 02 are reportedly arrivals from foreign countries.
New development has pushed the country’s confirmed COVID-19 cases count to 83,242.
According to COVID-19 figures, 3,824 active cases are still under medical care at selected hospitals and treatment centres.
Meanwhile, total recoveries reported in the country now stand at 78,947.
Sri Lanka has also witnessed 471 fatalities due to the outbreak of the pandemic.
The Tamil
people followed Velupillai Prabhakaran blindly because he promised to deliver
Eelam. The gains of the initial military adventures of the LTTE also made him
look like the messiah who could fulfil their dream. But he took
them for a ride – the biggest in the history of the Tamils — and gave them
Evil-laam. His only achievement was in constructing and honing the most
efficient killing machine which targeted and killed mostly Tamils.
His
juggernaut had its roots in the violent political culture of Jaffna. He became
the iconic image of the Tamil political culture, particularly with his
cadre of suicide bombers, because he was an integral part of the traditional
fascist culture of Vellala-dominated Jaffna. Nothing represents Jaffna
political culture better than Prabhakaran’s fascist one-man regime. He hit the
headlines of the New York Times on May 28, 1995 with
James F. Burns branding him as the Pol Pot of Asia”. The Vellala
supremacists dominated the history of Jaffna particularly from the Dutch period.
They never loosened their iron-fisted grip on Jaffna and open their society for
democratic liberalism at any stage. In broad outline, Jaffna could be
divided into two layers: 1. the Vellala oppressors, the dominant majority and
2. the marginalised low-castes whose lives were determined from the womb to the
tomb by fascist casteism. Prabhakaran was the genie that came out of the corked
violent Vellala culture.
The only
difference was he did not belong to the Vellala caste. He was a karaiyar,
the fisher caste, who catalysed and transformed Vellala fascism into his
brand of Tamil Pol Potism / Prabhakaranism. Vellala fascism segued
into Prabhakaranism naturally like a river that flows into the sea and when the
integrated forces emerged as Tamil Pol Potism in the 20th century
the Vellalas took to it like duck to water. They glorified him, financed him,
spun theories to legitimise him, internationalised him as key player in S. Asia
taking on even India, lobbied for him, provided logistics and expertise to oil
his killing machine etc. Prabhakaran mobilised a broad front of various
castes but without the critical and massive support of the Vellalas
he could never have gone as far as he went. In the end, one was hardly
distinguishable from the other. They were two sides of the same coin. The
change over from Vellalaism to Prabhakaranism was as easy as Stalin taking over
oppressive Czarist culture and marketing it as glorious and liberating
communism. Prabhakaranist fascism was marketed as glorious Tamil nationalism.
Vellala
leaders like Rajavarothiam Samapanthan and M. A. Sumanthiram fell at his feet
and accepted his supremacy. He was elevated by them to the highest position of
being the sole representative of the Tamil nation”. In other words,
they acknowledged voluntarily, without any compulsion, that they were the
servile factotums willing to obey the commands of the master killer of Tamils.
They never once raised the issues of dignity of the Tamils, justice for Tamils,
equality for the Tamils and peace for Tamils with their Supreme Leader. They
never went to UNHRC to complain about the war crimes and crimes against
humanity community by the Supreme Commander of the busiest killing machine ever
produced by the Tamils.
Ideologically,
there was no difficulty for the Vellalas to embrace Prabhakaranism because it
was merely a secular version of the Vellala religious dogma spelt out
with clarity by the holy guru of the Vellalas, Arumuka Navalar. In one
of his commentaries he says: It is the duty of every Saivite to kill
those who steal Sivan’s property or revile him. If one is not strong enough to
kill the blasphemer, one must hire another to do it. If one has nothing to hire
with, one must leave the country where the sinner lives. By remaining in the country
one becomes a participant in the sin .(p. 80 – The Bible Trembled,
the Hindu-Christianity Controversies of Nineteenth-Century Ceylon, by
R. F. Young and Bishop S. Jebanesan, Vienna 1995).
So, killing
is anointed as a religious duty in the Hindu-Vellala culture to
retain the supremacy and the purity of the believers. Going step by step
to any length in violence to preserve the supremacy of the deities of the day –
including anthropomorphic demi-gods like Sankili and Prabhakaran – is the
validated norm. Killing or hiring someone else to kill is the legitimised modus
operandi. For instance, the Vellala elders who declared war in the Vadukoddai
Resolution was too old to kill. So, they licensed the youth to take up arms and
kill anyone who stood in the way of attaining Eelam.
This sealed
the affinity between Vellala religiosity and Prabhakaranist secularism. In some
Vellala homes abroad they light lamps and place it before Prabhakaran’s
image located alongside other Hindu gods on the mantelpiece of the living room.
Tamils who have no remarkable heroes in their history are left with no
option but to go down the lowest depths to ferret out heroes from the
best killers of Tamils as their demi-gods. Only a warped culture which
has lost its humane values would pick the most heinous killer as their hero.
So, the Tamils have picked Prabhakaran, the evil genie who had killed more
Tamils than others, as their latest hero.
The desperate
bid in Tamil politics has been to fill the vacuum in their history. Though the
Tamils of Jaffna boast of a great Tamil culture they never produced anything
worthy of note in the civilizational domains of literature, drama, art, music,
architecture etc. They were at best third-rate imitators of the great Tamil
culture of S. India. So, when they boast about their great Tamil culture they
refer to the classical Tamil culture of S. India and not anything innovative or
creative that came out of Jaffna. Mediocrities are genetically incapable of
producing great cultures.
The perennial
oppressive culture of Jaffna has either produced a one-man regime or a fascist
ideology like Vellalaism / Prabhakaranism. This oppressive culture had its
origin in Sankilli, the forefather of Prabhakaran, who marched down to Mannar
in 1544 and massacred 600 Tamil Catholics who refused to recognise him as the
sole representative of the Tamils” – an incurable obsession with Tamil
leaders. As Catholics they had sworn allegiance to the King of Portugal.
Because they refused to pay homage to him he massacred them all, babies,
pregnant women, old and young without any discrimination. Tamils specialised in
eliminating discrimination with either the sword or the gun.
Sankili put on record the first mass massacre. Prabhakaran was the last.
Jaffna never
had space for liberal, open, tolerant, pluralistic, or an inclusive
political culture. After Sankilli came the slave society with the
Vellalas rising as a dominant force during the Dutch period. The Tesawalamai legitimised
slavery and the supremacy of the oppressive Vellala culture. It was this
culture that dominated and warped Jaffna society. After the Vellalas came
Prabhakaran, the first child born out of the Vellala Declaration of War on May
14, 1976 at Vadukoddai. Ironically, Prabhakaran began by eliminating the
Vellala elite who declared war against the Sinhalese in the noted Vaduukoddai
Resolution and ended by throwing bombs and shooting the helpless Tamils refuges
running away from him into the arms of the Security Forces.
Tamil people
running away from their first Tamil state – it was only a quasi-state —
was the ultimate insult to Tamil nationalism. It exposed the fake Tamil
pride of being superior to all other communities. It is a state that could
not give the Tamils food, security or dignity. It had to depend on the
Sinhala state” to feed their people. Or to wait for parippu to
fall from the skies. It also meant that what God has put together cannot be
separated by the force of brutal Tamil violence. History that has
rejected Tamil invaders, marauders and colonialists repeated itself once gain
in 2009 to prove that those who forget history end up in
Nandikadal.
The Tamils
who hero-worship Prabhakaran fail to realise that he had Eelam in the palm of
his hands and he threw it away. He had it when Rajiv Gandhi offered him the
Chief Ministership. He had it when Chandrika Bandaranaike offered him the North
and the East for ten years without elections. He had it when Ranil
Wickremesinghe gave him the power that was nearest to Eelam, with international
guarantees. Every one of these offers was a prospective political base from
which he could have launched his political manoeuvres to reach his next
political stage on the road to Eelam, if he knew how to get there. But in his
arrogance and total ignorance of alternatives methodologies to achieve
political goals, he assassinated Rajiv Gandhi – the goose that laid his golden
egg. And he shot to pieces CBK’s offer and, most of all, Ranil
Wickremesinghe’s deal for which he (Ranil) was expecting to win the
Nobel Peace Prize.
By
miscalculating and missing the best opportunities that came his way,
Prabhakaran too proved to be a congenital idiot”, in the colourful phrase of
Prof. Kumar David. Drunk with his own belief of invincibility he went
beyond his limits to take on GOSL, India and even some segments of the
international community who were initially sympathetic towards the Tamils. He
had only one answer to all his problems: kill, kill and kill. In the end
he ran short of killers. He had to forcibly drag children out from school
to fight in his futile war. In short, he overreached himself. He went for Eelam
or nothing. In the end he got nothing.
Apart from
his own arrogance he was misled by the glorification of the Tamil diaspora and the
servile Vellala elite, led by the TNA. Like the politically bankrupt Tamils
Prabhakaran was a victim of his own egotistic myths. The inexhaustible
capacity of Tamils to believe in their political piety, purity and greatness
has been suicidal. At each stage of their political movement, starting from
satyagraha on the language issue, they deceived themselves – and the world —
with their manufactured myths and, in the process, took the wrong route which
finally led them to Nandikadal.
This brief revisit to the past is to question the
role of the current Tamil leadership which is whipping up hate politics in the
name of minority rights. As in the past they are once again parading as
non-violent Gandhians performing satyagraha. D. B. S. Jeyaraj, (DBSJ),the best-informed Tamil
journalist, wrote about the latest protest march of the Tamils in the Daily
Mirror (13/2/2021) in dithyrambic ecstasy. He wrote: The latest is the
Pottuvil to Poligandy” (P2P) Protest that ended last week was a watershed
moment in the political history of Sri Lankan Tamils. The Five day P2P”
began in the East on Wednesday, February 3 and concluded in the north on
Sunday, February 7. Thousands of Tamils marched on foot and proceeded in
vehicles from Pottuvil in the Ampara District to Poligandy in the Jaffna
District….. What is forgotten, ignored or conveniently overlooked is the fact
that for over three decades in post–Independence Sri Lanka, the Tamil political
struggle was basically non – violent and adhered to the noble doctrine of
Ahimsa” (avoidance of injury/violence) enunciated by that great apostle of non
– violence Mahatma Gandhi.”
Now DBSJ
knows, only too well, that the last sentence in particular is a load of bunk.
He knows that neither S. J. V. Chelvanayakam nor his followers were ever
noble apostles of non-violence in the mould of Mahatma
Gandhi. The essence of Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violence satyagraha movement was to
combat high-caste oppression of the low-caste, leaving aside his
anti-imperialist campaign. When did Chelvanyakam ever sit with the low-castes
to back their non-violent campaign to open the doors of Maviddipuram
Temple – the historic battle waged by the low-castes against the Vellalas? On
the contrary, the Chelvanayakam leadership did nothing when the Vellalas
cracked the head of the non-violent low-castes staging their protest at the
Maviddipuram Temple? He never took a courageous stand and defended the rights
of the low-castes to enter the Hindu temples. Prof. Bryan Pfaffenberger, a
leading American authority on the caste system in Jaffna, said that
Chelvanayakam and the Federal party tip-toed out” of the issue. The entire
Tamil leadership, from Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan, and running through G. G.
Ponnambalam and Chelvanayakam never followed Gandhian principles in
dealing with the persecuted low-castes of Jaffna.
DBSJ’s article glorifying the Tamil Satyagraha 0f
1961” (DM –13/2/2021) is typical of the Tamil propaganda to portray the Tamil
politicians as highly moral apostles of non-violence who were forced to give up
non-violence by the failure of the non-violent Tamil struggle to remedy
prevailing political maladies.” Romanticising of the doctrine of Ahimsa
(avoidance of injury / violence)”, he gives the Tamil leaders the aura of
being non-violent saints who were about to enter Mahatma Gandhi’s nirvana when
the frustrated youth took up the gun.
This, of course, is the external façade presented
to the world outside Jaffna. While the Tamil leadership was posing apostles of
Ahimsa in Colombo and other places outside Jaffna, inside Jaffna they
were beating the daylights out of the low-castes who had dared to
challenge the fascist might of the Vellala supremacists. He says, I quote:
What is forgotten, ignored or conveniently overlooked is the fact that for
over three decades in post-Independence (sic) Sri Lanka, the Tamil political
struggle was basically non-violent and adhered to the noble doctrine of
Ahimasa” (avoidance of injury / violence) enunciated by that great apostle of
non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi.” Here he dodges the brutal history of Tamils
oppressing, persecuting and murdering Tamils which was an integral part of the
Jaffna political culture throughout its history. It ceased only the day after
the Sinhala state” ended the 33-year-old war on May 19, 2009 at
Nandikadal.
He says and I quote: …for over three decades in
post-Independence (sic) Sri Lanka, the Tamil political struggle was basically
non-violent and adhered to the noble doctrine of Ahimasa” (avoidance of injury
/ violence) enunciated by that great apostle of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi.”
There were two political struggles going on in Jaffna: 1. the racist war
declared on May 14, 1976 at Vadukoddai by the Vellala supremacists (the
holy Ahimasavadins of Jaffna) to retain their feudal and
colonial powers and privileges and 2. the low-intensity war of the low-castes
against the Vellala supremacists — the perennial oppressors who had denied
them their basic human rights.
In 1968 the Vellala supremacists went all out to
suppress the Nalavars, Pallas and Parayas etc., rising as an organised front
for the first time against the Vellala oppressors. Prof. Bryan Pfaffenberger,
America’s leading authority on Vellala casteism, in his essay on the Temple
entry Politics of the Vellalas, revealed that the Vellala Gandhians
cracked the heads of the non-violent protesters with bottles filled with sand.
He added that the Vellalas who led the Federal Party tip-toed out” of
the crisis without standing up for the low-castes. Rajavarothiam Sampanthan,
who was then an up-and- coming young man in the Federal Party, was never
seen fighting for the dignity, equality, justice and peace” of the Tamils
oppressed by the Tamils.
In a grim snap-shot of the
Vellalas Prof. Bryan Pfaffenberger wrote: Vellarlars had long considered
the Jaffna Peninsula a private preserve for their interests……In the fifties, for
instance, many Minority Tamils ( Vellahla euphemism for their untouchables /
dalits ) still lived in Vellarlar – owned palmyrah groves or wasteland; if they
did not submit to Vellarlar labour demands, they could be threatened with
expulsion. The economic compulsions were paired with informal political
controls : Minority Tamils who attempted to raise their position would find
their communities victimised by Vellarlar- organised gangs of thugs, who burned
down huts and poisoned wells.” (p. 81 — The Political Construction of
Defensive Nationalism: The 1968 Temple-Entry Crisis in Northern Sri Lanka, The
Journal of Asia Studies, 49, No. 1, February 1990).
How does this compare with DBSJ’s Jaffna which
he thinks is the ideal nirvana of the apostles of non-violent Gandhians ?
This question the veracity of DBSJ’s claim that the Tamil politics in the first
three decades of independent Sri Lanka was based on the non-violent doctrine of
Gandhi. In any case, can DBJ cite an instance where Gandhi took the side of the
Brahmins as against the harijans? What were the chances of Gandhi
walking up and down the entrance to Maviddipuram Temple with a walking stick
like Prof. C. Suntheralingam, threatening to beat the hell out of any low-caste
daring to enter the holy space of the Vellalas?
Tragically, our age is dominated by lies. We live
in an age where 74 million Americans believe that Trump won the election and
Biden stole it from him. Isn’t DBSJ acting like another Tamil Trumpian twister
of the truth? He knows – if not, he should know – how the imported slaves from
Malabar were treated by the Vellala supremacists down the ages in his glorified
land of Ahimsa apostles. He knows what happened at Maviddipuram. The
temple entry issue at Maviddipuram in 1968 was the climactic moment when the
Jaffna Tamils were asked to choose between evil and violent casteism and
humane politics of giving the Tamils – just not the Vellala caste/class –
their dignity, equality, justice and peace. Can DBSJ tell us in what part of
the Tamil verti was non-violent Gandhism tucked in?
DBSJ should know, with all his deep knowledge of
Tamil affairs that the path to Nandikadal began with the first satyagraha
staged by the Vellala leadership at Galle Face Green. It was staged not for the
oppressed Tamil but for the privileged Vellalas. It was Vellala elite
performing satyagraha for Vellala privileges and not for the oppressed
Tamils. If he loves his Tamil people and if he desires to prevent the kind
of beating he got from the Tamils he must stop writing bunk – at least for the
sake of peace and reconciliation.
People in Sri Lanka see the current ‘Geneva debacle’ of UNHRC/OHCHR as a tug of war between a handful of white ex-colonial masters and the past and present Rajapaksa governments, with India hopelessly caught in between. However, when we try to unravel this Geneva game from a historical perspective, it becomes obvious that the real fight was/is between local black-white agents of Geneva and the Sinhala Buddhist patriots. When we properly understand this fact (truth), this Geneva headache could easily be dismissed as ‘much ado about nothing’ by a corrupt UN agency, just like Cuba and Israel routinely ignore its toothless bites. In a way these Geneva characters get some low oxygen supply from Sinhala black-whites and from some Tamils for an Eelam.
The black-white side is represented by Sajith Premadasa’s brand new foreign policy guru Dayan Jayatilleka, who is known as the < father> of the 13-A plus project in Sri Lanka. Others behind him write almost daily reports to the Colombo Telegraph and some English newspapers. DBS Jeyaraj from Canada and Rajan Philips are also in this club. Kumar David and Victor Ivan compete for a top place of this demolition crew. Amazingly, all of them named and not named here have Christian origin! The Sinhala Buddhist side is led by the now public security minister Sarath Weerasekara with Dinesh Gunawardena behind him. The subtle attacks against Sarath indicate that black-whites consider him as the real enemy to be crushed, jumping on every statement he makes inside or outside the Diyawanna motel.
Balkanization of Sri Lanka
In the case of Ceylon, the aim of the ex-colonial masters (now international king makers) has been to divide the island on ethnic lines. This had shadows of the Christian project that began in the late 19th century to balkanize India on Dalith/Hindi fault lines in South India. The Dravidasthan Movement that began in 1917 in Madras Presidency with a Marxist/Christian/anti-Hndi/anti-Brahmin touch, influenced the Tamilakkam (Tamilness) project of Arunachalam Ponnambalam in 1921/24. When separatism was finally proscribed in India by Nehru in the aftermath of India-China war (1963), its agents took the separatist germ to Sri Lanka Kandyan Indian Tamil habitat as a DMK (Kallathonis) operation, during Dudley Senananayaka’s time in the mid 1960s.
SJV Chelvanayagam of the South Indian Church, moved from Malaysia to Colombo, when Tamils there faced harassment and eviction threats, and started his Colombo Christian-dominated Tamil State party in 1949, based on a claim of a mythical Tamil homeland in the artificially created Eastern Province. In 1957, SWRD with his B-C pact foolishly gave a boost to this myth directly and indirectly. Later, in 1965, Dudley Senanayaka with his D-C secret agreement made it worse for the Sinhale with JRJ behind it. In 1977, JRJ came to power and messed up ruining everything he touched including the black-white created Tamil ethnic issue. This unfortunate man became a pawn in the hands of Dixit and the USA. White masters led by America, capitalized on his weakness and failures, and carved out a new path making Sri Lankan black-white politicians willing or unwilling servants of the balkanization project. As explained later, when a comparison is made between Dayan J and Tamara Kunanayakam, surrendering to the West began with the consensus resolution (no vote) passed at UNHRC on March 12, 1987. India was behind this trap, in which JRJ agreed not to oppose the Red Cross coming to the island to help with its ‘humanitarian problem.’ But within 3 months it turned out to be a dhal invasion by Indian war planes on June 5, 1987, followed by Rajiv-JRJ humiliating agreement on July 29, 1987, 13-A created a federal state in the island. The Indian agent’s stand at Geneva at the current meeting that Sri Lanka should implement in full the 13-A is the next step of going from federal to Eelam state. On May 27, 2009, just 8 days after Prabhakaran went to heaven, as MahindaR’s trusted advisor, Dayan J promised this to UNHRC. In October 2015, Managala Samaraweera completed that promise and much more! Before discussing these in detail, there is a world history-Sinhale history interface that needs to be examined.
Colonialism A Sinhale king once sent an envoy to a Roman emperor. Yet, on the Greeco-Roman world map, barbarians lived in hot lands outside Europe. Europe obtained almost ‘everything’ from the East via the Silk Route (Jesus went to Kashmir) This East later became an ‘Eastern nightmare,’ which we see now as the fear of China by America. The fear of India was overcome by dividing the subcontinent into three pieces. Historically, the Crusades and the determination to reach the Christian kingdom of Prester John of Ethiopia, to jointly fight against the Muslims had other aims such as obtaining spices and luxury items for the rich in Europe. Portugal and Spain took the lead in this regard Columbus going to America and Vasco da Gama landing in Goa India. From 1505 white colonial enterprise started in Sinhale. What did they use/develop as tools and weapons in this regard? < Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right>
Sword – now bombing and military bases by USA2. Bible – colonist came to civilize and save natives- now Christian Fundamentalism (Evangelist conversions)3. Bottle (arrack) – which ruined the remnants of Kandyan aristocracy first4. Humiliation – Anagarika Dharmapala fought against this and item 8.5, Divide & Rule – used even the caste system for this purpose6. Genocide- 1818, 1848 and so many minor ones in between7, Discrimination against Sinhala Buddhists and temples8. Creation of a black-white class with English education (Lord McCaulay vs. Ven. Walane Siri Siddhartha)9. Remote-controlled colonialism -use of black-whites rulers (Clause 29 (2) of 1947 constitution) after 194810. NGOs and INGOs (NGO idea created to overcome government corruption is now a massive dollar business) 11. Spy agents-CIA/RAW etc. (Indian embassy branch in Jaffna is a spy center) use of NGO agents to create tension in the country capitalizing on government weaknesses and defects – e.g., Digana/Aluthgama/Galle/ Rathupaswala/ Katunayake export zone strike/prison riots etc. SOFT POWER- new smart power strategy (selling western democracy)
Human rights and R2P (Tamil genocide theory of Vigneswaran. Sumanthiran & Ponnambalam)13. Rule of Law (found only in books)13.1. Non-majoritarian constitutional provisions- end result weaken central sovereign state and break it14. Representative democracy (presently the Diyawanna motel)-giving razor blades to monkeys15. International agencies- UNO, IMF, WB, WTO. UNHRC, UK based Commonwealth etc.16. Free market globalism – open exploitation local resources including plants and insects17. MCC trap-instead of traditional weapon of US foreign aid agency18. Index and rating games – religious freedom/ development/ poverty/ economic health/credit score Of the above methods items 4, 8,12 & 15 are directly relevant to the current situation at Geneva UNHRC session 46 in Feb-March 2021. The idea of world peace with a League of Nations was American president Woodrow Wilson’s plan (Versailles Treaty 1918), and one could not deny there is some benefit to the world from agencies mentioned on item 15. UNESCO, WHO, WLO are clear examples. But they are mostly methods used by ex-colonists and the USA to maintain their hegemony and ‘Euroceric developmentalism’ (poor countries exploited using European agenda or extension of the sovereignty of European nation states beyond their own boundaries). Items 12 and 13 are deployed by USA, Canada, UK and some EU members such as Germany, as a saintly and noble attempt that they wish to accomplish using UNHRC as the implementing arm. But how many member countries really know that the hidden agenda is balkanization of Sri Lanka! The Indian agent is direct in this regard with 13-A plus demand as the target, whereas the American agent is indirect in his approach.
Colombo black white agency Any support from locals of a targeted country is better than nothing for the politician set in the few western countries determined to partition their prey using UNHRC/OHCHR mechanism as their saintly vehicle. Besides they receive dual benefit; unjust enrichment through LTTE funds plus Tamil vote bank in their respective electorates. In Sri Lanka they find hordes of local Sinhala black whites working for them as NGO agents and opposition political party supporters. With the Yapalana-Orumitthanadu combine in power, for the first time in UNO history, the government itself became an active supporter of western political agenda. Of course, LTTE and other western donors, including the US government, pumped millions of dollars to get it elected defeating the Rajapaksa regime. Sri Lankan party politics is such a dirty game run by black whites, leaders wearing pirith nuule, who paid lip service to high Buddhist principles but failed to apply them in solving the so called ethnic conflict in a just and reasonable manner. They played a hide and seek game with local Tamil separatists, until finally, Rajiv and Dixit forced JRJ with the 13-A death trap. Events leading up to this federal formula were briefly discussed above. !3-A solved nothing, other than black white politicians trying to make deals with Prabhakaran, who opposed 13-A. After JRJ, a local half black white politician, R Premadasa decided to hold the tiger’s tail until he was bitten by the tiger. Before that he sacrificed 600 policemen who were asked to surrender to Karuna, Prabakaran’s agent. Mrs. Chandrika wanted to go beyond 13-A and prepared 3 draft package deals and a final constitutional document in 2000, balkanizing the island into 7-12 regions. GL-Neelan-Jayampathy trio took special care to carve out a Tamil mono-ethnic region in the island plus a Muslim region. The west loved it because a separate Eelam and the disintegration of Sinhale were inevitable consequences of this betrayal. In the meantime RanilW as PM gave a free hand to Prabhakaran with a CFA 2002, which is recorded as the greatest betrayal in world history. He sabotaged Mrs. Chandrika’s package deal because it went against his secret ambition to become the president. She was willing to empower Prabakaran with Ptom and ISGA (2003) projects. Despite their private rivalries both Chandrika and Ranil thought that Prabakaran could be satisfied if a federal form of power sharing was offered. Chandrika and Rpremadasa respectively offered Northern Province to Prabakan on a 15-year lease. In 2005 MahindaR won, defeating RanilW with a razor thin margin. Western politicians who supported the Eelam project were behind Ranil. It was the late Ven. Soma’s Sinhala Buddhist dowry that helped MR.to win. His attempts to have a peaceful solution failed, and after the Mavil Aru blockade (July 26, 2006), the Sri Lankan military won the war on May 19, 2009. USA, UK and EU politicians tried their best to save Prabakaran from death, and to give him shelter in a foreign location so that the Eelam fight could be continued. If this had happened, he would have run a LTTE government in exile with much more influence than the Rudrakumaran Tamil Government today! The USA, UK and others wanted to break Sri Lanka, and they realized the best path to take was 13-A plus. But this plan has to be camouflaged with other saintly-looking objectives such human rights, war crimes, missing persons, rule of law, democracy and minority rights. Who could then imagine that Dayan Jayatilleka sent to Geneva by MahindR would betray him and deliver all what they wanted! German politicians could not believe what had happened to Prabakaran, and quickly brought a resolution at the UNHRC against Sri Lanka’s ‘war crimes.’ Dayan agreed to work with Geneva and promised 13-A plus on May 27, 2009. Funny thing is Dayan boasts that he won the Geneva battle. A 30-year was ended by the sacrifices made predominantly by Sinhala Buddhist village boys and girls. They fought against 13-A to save their motherland from disintegration. A Christian-Marxist Colombo black white agent betrayed and sabotaged that victory in 8 days This is where Tamara Kunanayakam’s views are relevant and important. She says that we should never give our consent to proposed by UNHRC. It is like a Genevian Trojan Horse. JRJ agreed for one such thing on March 12, 1987. India was behind it, but then within 3 months India dropped dhal from air. With her experience at UNO, Tamara tells that America runs the UNHRC show! There is no democracy, equality or justice in their internal operations. And they dictate edict for poor countries to follow. Dayan was later fired from his Geneva job, but his servile behavior before white colonial masters paved the way for the separatist TNA politicians in Colombo to continue Prabakaran’s war using pen. This is why America spent millions of dollars to get RanilW- Mr. Chandrika couple back into power in 2015 using candidate Sirisena as a puppet. Similar Attempt failed in 2010 with Sarath Fonseka as the fall guy. Total surrender to the USA-UK-India Geneva plan was done by Mangala Samaraweera in October 2015. Accepting everything that UNHRC/OHCHR wanted it to accept, the yahapalana cabal betrayed the nation, the country and the Sinhala Buddhist heritage. They did all they promised, including the burning of weapon storage at Salawa and dumping costly weapons in the sea. The only thing that went wrong was the plan to balkanize the country as an Orumitthanadu. America tried to recover ground using the MCC bait. A foothold in Sri Lanka is sine qua non with its China fever. Failing that it is no wonder that America is behind promoting 13-A plus because with that a merged NP and EP would be American friendly territory. It is therefore understandable why America is trying hard to force the Bachelet document on the Sri Lankan government. America forgets democracy when it is disadvantageous to it. What right Bachelet has to question what Gotabhaya is doing to fulfil the mandate given to him by 6.9 million voters twice within one year. The problem Gotabhaya is facing is that he is too slow in implementing the One Law-One Country election promise he made. Even RanilW, who could not win a single parliamentary seat, is making sarcastic comments about it! The decision by the Gotabhaya government to throw Bachelet’s baby with the bathwater and the tub is the best kind of humiliation a small country could give to corrupt global politicians who manipulate UN agencies with ulterior motive, while wearing saintly or sanitized robes. Perhaps this time these manipulators cross the red line. What they tried to do to Sri Lanka is an alarm signal for small and poor countries in the world. These ex-colonies are struggling due to actions and omissions of the white masters. The masters are now coming back with remedies beneficial to themselves and not the former colony. The black-whites they created in these colonies ruin them by sheer mismanagement, and these black-whites in turn are in cahoots with the former masters. It is an unending cyclical circus.Tamara questions the justification for threatening countries with R2P (intervention to prevent danger) and Universal Jurisdiction. The Bush doctrine of intervention destroyed Iraq, but the American military did not find any nuclear weapons. She says sanctions should be applied only if there is a threat or aggression. Politicians in the west should not be allowed to attack governments they do not like using UNHRC as a vehicle. Tamara says, 13-A means division of Sri Lanka on ethnic lines and President Gotabhaya should not allow it to happen. She says as a Tamil she cannot see any ethnicity based discrimination in the island. Dayan, the father of 13-A plus project and Sumanthiran-Vigneswaran-Ponnambalam and the American-UK -EU Ambassadors need to digest her message.
(I benefited immensely from a series of essays written by Geethanjana Kudaligamage (Lankaweb, March 29 -May 11, 2010) in writing this essay)
All sensible adult citizens of Sri Lanka confidently hope that
today’s youthful politicians will realise the importance of working together
with their rivals in the national interest while maintaining their separate
political identities, because, in the final analysis, all politicians of
whatever party or faction they are affiliated to have no reason for their
existence except their commitment to serve our motherland Sri Lanka . It is
time they understood that any ethnic or religious or cultural community struggling
to promote its own welfare disregarding the interests of other communities is
not going to achieve permanent success. This has been demonstrated by the
failure of older generations which pursued such divisive strategies in the
past, regretfully slowing down the country’s forward march. Though they may be
committed to different political ideologies they should be able to resolve
their differences democratically in a cultured manner. Only when an atmosphere
of value-based politics becomes the norm will politicians, whether in the
government or the opposition ranks, be able to make their fullest contribution
to the survival of the nation as an independent sovereign entity and its future
wellbeing.
Friendly personal relations among politicians who fiercely clash
in public are nothing new. This has been always the case. But today such
interaction between political opponents must be seen in a new light in view of
the more widely shared socio-cultural and political sophistication of the
Sri Lankan populace.
It can’t be denied that Sri Lanka has achieved some tangibly
positive results at least in terms of a much larger proportion of the
population being afforded a chance to dream of a better future. This is a
direct result of a high rate of literacy achieved through free education.
Economically, she may have lost the stability she used to enjoy at
independence, as so often pointed out by those interested in the subject, and
slipped a few notches down in the scale of overall development in comparison with
some neighbouring countries. However, the generally growth-oriented policies of
the successive post-independence regimes led in turn by the two main parties
have brought about considerable human development, and a corresponding
improvement of the lot of the common people, and that too in the face of
unprecedented problems posed by a steadily increasing population, overt and
covert foreign interference in our affairs, politicization of issues and
institutions, terrorism, economic and political upheavals elsewhere, and other
crises that threw a spanner in the works most of the time.
Within a generation our society has undergone tremendous change.
The nation has emerged victorious after one of the most trying periods of
its history, which, though it slowed down the rate of growth, failed to arrest
it altogether. Today our literacy rate is among the highest in the region. We
enjoy fairly satisfactory healthcare services, both public and private, in
spite of occasional lapses. More people own houses and cars than before, and
more young people take part in cultural activities such as singing, dancing,
and drama than their parents used to in the past. Increasingly accessible
modern technology is revolutionizing every aspect of their life. People living
in the remotest districts are aware that they too have a democratic right to a
decent living standard like those placed in better circumstances in urban
areas. Amidst all this, today’s young, particularly those in their thirties and
forties, have known no life other than the one they have had to live under
terrorism (which is now fortunately out of the way; the under-twenties
were spared any adult experience of it). They expect more from life, are less
prepared to put up with privations, and are more aggressive in meeting
challenges than earlier generations. Their expectations are high.
These social, economic, and political realities influence the
thinking of the youngest section of the population, particularly those below
thirty. They are almost completely insulated from any meaningful memory of the
conditions that prevailed thirty to fifty years ago in which their parents grew
up, and that helped form the latter’s values and attitudes, which may not be in
tune with the existing state of affairs today. Youth are usually more
responsive to change than the old. The former love the excitement of change,
while the latter prefer the sedateness offered by a settled order. The
traditional clash between the old and the young in any age in opinions, values,
and attitudes known as the generation gap applies to those involved in
parliamentary politics too, though it is often obscured by an ostensible
unanimity of opinion among members of the same party. In this context, the
young are in a better position to decide what is in the best interest of the
country.
By this, however, I don’t mean to say that every young politician
is invariably forward looking and progressive in outlook, and that every old
one is incorrigibly retrograde. There are enough examples of senior politicians
adopting fresh viewpoints in keeping with the changed circumstances in
principled ways; there are also young novices who squander their youth and
energy by aligning themselves with old fossilized elements of yesteryear with
no future. In other words, a certain fossilization of ideas and attitudes is
characteristic of an older generation; but there can be exceptions; some older
politicians prove themselves more progressive, and more adaptable than their
younger colleagues.
When politicians decide to accept the membership of a particular
party, they do so after committing themselves to the ideology and the policies
of that party. It is important to adhere to these. But since situations may
arise in which a particular party line is not the best position to adopt in
regard to a critical issue, it becomes necessary in such instances to be
flexible in order, for example, to avoid betraying the whole country through
blind adherence to a particular policy such as some conservative politicians’
unrealistic commitment to a negotiated settlement of the separatist crisis in
the face of the intransigence of the separatist terror outfit, which is now no
more. A critical turn of events may demand that established beliefs and ways of
behaviour be given up in favour of new modes of thought and action to serve the
national interest.
Some time ago an MP from a prominent party, then in the
opposition, said that the main role of the opposition is to bring down the
government at any cost. If what he said was true, then no government would have
an opportunity to rule or to implement any development plan without being
baulked at every turn, irrespective of the soundness or otherwise of the
policies pursued. The irrational way some opposition politicians criticise
every move of the government suggests that this in fact is the principle that
guides their conduct even today. Probably the same principle was at work when
it was clear that not even the December 2004 tsunami nor the raging separatist
terror led the opposition to join forces with the government to rescue the
country from those disasters. However, in the critical last stages of the then
MR government’s campaign against terrorism, it was thanks to the support
extended by seventeen opposition MPs acting on their own in defiance of the
party hierarchy that made it possible for the government to put an end to that
scourge. Now that there are more young MPs who are capable of thinking in
terms of promoting the national interest rather than their own self-interest,
we may be hopeful that the constitution making project embarked upon by the
present administration will go ahead without a hitch.
In terms of the ordinary people’s understanding of parliamentary
democracy, the role of the opposition is to ensure that the ruling party
governs the country well by monitoring its conduct and by criticizing its
actions when they believe that it is not performing its duty, and to be a
potential alternative to the government. The broadest interface for positive
government-opposition interaction includes the three interrelated areas
of the rule of law, human rights, and good governance. The opposition’s
responsibility is to maximize the chances of these three things being realized
for the good of the country through constructive criticism of the government’s
performance. When faced with external challenges and threats, the opposition
and the government must act as a single solid group in defence of the nation,
based on the commonsense realisation that in geopolitics a country is obliged to
interact with both friendly and hostile countries who sometimes happen to be
one another’s rivals.
Such a political culture will evolve only when young broadminded
politicians take the centre stage. If there is any obstacle to the unhindered
development of such an environment, steps must be taken by the concerned
politicians and ordinary citizens to remove it. Of course, politicians can’t
act by themselves unless they have a similarly educated and inspired following.
An enlightened electorate that will promote cultured politicians is already
there, to show their mind when the old fossils, among the present-day
leaders, either ensconced in positions of power or already kicked out into
irrelevance, finally bow out or are successfully convinced to do so gracefully.
