{"id":65550,"date":"2017-04-25T23:34:01","date_gmt":"2017-04-26T05:34:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=65550"},"modified":"2017-04-25T16:28:42","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T23:28:42","slug":"is-aluth-parapura-insulting-the-intelligence-of-sri-lankas-new-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/04\/25\/is-aluth-parapura-insulting-the-intelligence-of-sri-lankas-new-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Aluth Parapura insulting the intelligence of Sri Lanka\u2019s new generation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/p>\n

The following was prompted by the news story, appropriately headlined Punish perpetrators of war crimes, atrocities \u2013 NGO pack\u201d, in The Island of April 20, 2017, according to which, Akalanka Hettiarachchi, representing an NGO called Aluth Parapura <\/em>(New Generation), stressed that all those who had perpetrated crimes during the war and post-conflict should be dealt forthwith\u201d. The young NGO activist was addressing the media during an event conducted by the Collective of Civil Society Organizations (CCSO) at the Centre for Society and Religion, Maradana on Tuesday April 18, 2017. The CCSO called upon the government to investigate war crimes allegations (leveled against the security forces) in compliance with Geneva Resolution 30\/1, which was co-sponsored by Sri Lanka (in October 2015).<\/p>\n

The passion for justice shown by the NGO Aluth Parapura is commendable. Justice for all is a universal ideal whose validity no one would question. But the truth, in the context involved here, is that \u00a0there is no reasonable basis for thus urgently prioritizing the need for punishing the political and military leaders of Sri Lanka who defeated separatist terrorism at such personal cost (in terms of death, injury, and vicarious suffering of family members) on behalf of all Sri Lankans. They also deserve justice just as much as defeated terrorists, who are now determined to take their revenge on the armed forces and those who provided them successful political and military leadership. Since no crimes were committed by the security forces, the accusers have to depend on false or concocted evidence. \u00a0An immediate example of the general falsity of war crimes allegations against our armed forces is the case of the 35 year old Tamil political asylum seeker in UK, revealed to The Island newspaper (April 24, 2017) by former minister of external affairs, Professor G.L. Peiris. The British Court of Appeal rejected an appeal by this person, identified only by the initials KV. It was established that KV, the appellant, who was seeking asylum in the UK as an alleged victim of torture at the hands of the Sri Lankan military, had got a \u2018cooperative and clandestine\u2019 doctor to inflict injuries on his body with hot iron rods (presumably under anaesthesia) in order to mislead the British authorities.<\/p>\n

The patriotic majority of Sri Lankans must understand and exploit the implications of this incident (obviously not an isolated one) to defend the good name of the soldiers and their commanders against bogus war crimes allegations. Today, unfortunately, they are being subjected to a witch hunt by the West for reasons best known to themselves. As far as we know, the Western displeasure with Sri Lanka can only be due to the fact that our leaders were able to conduct a successful humanitarian campaign against the LTTE\u00a0 described by America\u2019s own FBI at the time as the most ruthless terrorist organization in the world.<\/p>\n

Hapless Sri Lankans are faced with two kinds of problems in these critical times: (1) issues such as the SAITM dilemma, the Meethotamulla garbage dump disaster, the heavy backlog of unexamined corruption charges (true or false) against some important members of the past and present administrations, and (2) the infinitely more contentious and nationally more important issues such as the intended formulation and passage of a new constitution, the controversial Office of Missing Persons (OMP) legislation, the signing of the Economic Technical Cooperation Agreement (ETCA), and the selling off of country\u2019s assets including seaports and airports and the oil tanks in Trincomalee as an economic strategy. It looks as if the problems in the first category are used as a smokescreen to conceal operations centering on those in the second. Considering these many crises facing the country at present, this demand for dealing with unsubstantiated war crimes allegations against Sri Lanka is ridiculously unreasonable and unnaturally unpatriotic.<\/p>\n

The speaker from Aluth Parapura blamed the National Freedom Front (NFF) leader Wimal Weerawansa and the Pivuthuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) leader Udaya Gammampila for shielding those in uniform allegedly responsible for atrocities\u201d, as reported. This shows how ill informed and how out of touch with reality\u00a0 young \u00a0NGO activists of his caliber are. Ironically, he condemns the very people he could and should profitably interact with, even if he doesn\u2019t accept their politics. Udaya Gammanpila (47) is a qualified lawyer (having graduated from Monash University, Australia) and has been engaged in politics since 2000. Wimal Weerawansa (52), though probably he cannot boast of high academic qualifications, is a well informed autodidact, and has been in active politics since the late 1980s. Of course, politicians are usually adept dissemblers, but, based on what I have been able to infer from their speeches and actions, I have no reason to doubt their sincere commitment to principled patriotic politics. Wimal and Udaya are two bright, relatively young, but experienced and mature, politicians. They represent the two vital complementary components of non-communalistic nationalist politics, the only force that will keep the country whole and undivided: the modern, eminently practical social democracy ideal emphasized by Wimal and the historic one country\/single state concept advocated by Udaya, both compatible with principles of cosmopolitanism in internal good governance and in the management of foreign relations. They are among the most articulate analysts of the country\u2019s current political problems. In their words and deeds, they demonstrate a high level of intellect, capacity for critical thinking, and personal discipline strengthened by experience. History entrusts them with a herculean task in the form of a vital role to play in helping clear the huge dump of political garbage that is currently threatening to engulf the whole nation. (A personal view \u2013 RRW\/April 24, 2017)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala Courtesy The Island The following was prompted by the news story, appropriately headlined Punish perpetrators of war crimes, atrocities \u2013 NGO pack\u201d, in The Island of April 20, 2017, according to which, Akalanka Hettiarachchi, representing an NGO called Aluth Parapura (New Generation), stressed that all those who had perpetrated crimes during […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}