එලිසබෙත් රැජින එංගලන්තයේ ද බිරිතානියේ ද රාජධානියේ ද?

෦  ෧   ෨   ෩   ෪   ෫   ෬  ෭   ෮  ෯

                                                 සිංහල ලිත් ඉලක්කම්

0  1    2     3      4    5   6   7    8    9

එලිසබෙත් රැජින එංගලන්තයේ ද බිරිතානියේ ද රාජධානියේ ද?

පඬියන්ට එක්සත් රාජධානියේ (United Kingdom)  වාසය කරන රටවැසියන් හැඳින්විය හැකි නමක් (නාම පදයක්) ලබා ගැනීම එතරම් පහසු වෙන එකක් නැහැ. ඇමරිකා එක්සත් ජනපදයේ (United States of America) රටවැසියන් හඳුන්වන්න නම් ඔවුන් නමක් හදාගෙන තියෙනවා. ඒ ඇමරිකානුවා යන්නයි. දැන් ඇමරිකානුවා කියන්නේ රටක රටවැසියකු ද නැත්නම් මහාද්වීපයක ස්ථිර පදිංචි කරුවකු ද? මහාද්වීපයක් රටක් නොවන නිසා එහි රටවැසියන්වත් රාජ්‍යයක්වත් නැහැ. පඬියකු ඕස්ත්‍රේලියාව ගැන ලියාවි. නවසීලන්තය ඕස්ත්‍රේලියා මහාද්වීපයට අයත් ද? එය දුපත් කිහිපයක්. ලංකාව ආසියා මහාද්වීපයට අයත් ද? අප දුපතක්. එංගලන්තය ඇතුළු බිරිතානිය යුරෝපා මහාද්වීපයට අයත් ද? කරුණාකර මහාද්වීපයක් අර්ථදක්වනවා ද? නිර්චනය කරනවා ද? අර්ථදැක්වීම හා නිර්වචනය යනු දෙකක් ද? ඒ දෙක ම එකම ඉංගිරිසි වචයකට දී ඇති සිංහල වචන.

ඇමරිකාව බබාලන්තයක්ද ?

මේ ලිපිය තේෂාන් ප්‍රියදර්ශනගෙනි

ඇමරිකාව බබාලන්තයක්ද ?
========================

මෙහි කියැවෙන අදහස සියල්ලන් විසින් පිළිගතයුතු නොවන බව පළමුව කිව යුත්තේ මූණු පොත යනු පඳුරකට පයින් ඇන්න විට පඬියන් හැට හැත්තෑවක් විසිවන ස්ථානයක් බැවිනි...තිබෙන තොරතුරු අනුව ගොඩනැගිය හැකි එක් වඩාත් සංගත අදහසකි මෙහි කියැවෙන්නේ...වියුක්තව මෙම කතාව කිවහැකි වුවත් බොහෝ දෙනා තේරුම්ගනුයේ සංයුක්ත කතාවලින් බැවින්, මෙහි සංයුක්ත නිදසුන් ද සඳහන් වෙයි. දැනට තිබෙන තොරතුරු සමඟ පමණක් මෙම කතාව තේරුම්ගැනීමට උත්සාහ නොකොට, ඉදිරියේදී ලැබෙන තොරතුරු ඒ සමඟ සංගත වන්නේදැයි මේ පිළිබඳ උනන්දු වන යමෙකුට සොයා බැලිය හැකි ය.

Defending the constitution

I had the opportunity of watching the entire second inauguration of Barack Obama on Sunday and Monday on television. On Sunday it was a private ceremony and on Monday which happened to be the Martin Luther King day it was a public ceremony with all pomp and pageant attended by nearly a million of people. On Sunday, Obama placed his hand on a Bible used for years by Michelle Obama's family. On Monday, he took the oath using two Bibles, one owned by Martin Luther King and one by Abraham Lincoln. On both occasions he said “I Barack Hussein Obama do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States. And will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God,” his hand on Bibles. I did not see any African culture during the ceremony and whatever the origin of Obama may be it was a hundred percent Anglo Saxon Protestant Christian affair with Obama asking the help of the God (definitely not Allah) to defend the Christian constitution of the USA with hand on Bibles. No civic rights movement people were there to ask Obama to speak in Spanish or to respect the other religions by at least inviting the clergy of those religions. The Sarva Agamika concept is not in the vocabulary of the Americans and I propose that we send some Sarva agamika Clergy to USA to teach a lesson or two on that concept to the white house people. I could not see Navanitham Pillai or even Ban Ki Moon among the distinguished gathering inside, perhaps they were mingling with the people, whom Obama referred to as We the People more than ten times during his brief speech. The public ceremony came to an end with a rendering of the National Anthem of USA sung in English only. Though there are a substantial number of Spanish speaking people even if we go by the nomenclature of Sambandhan, no Spanish was spoken and no translations of the speeches into Spanish were given during the entire ceremony. I thought there would be at least a sprinkle of Aboriginal culture but during the entire ceremony no mention was made of the aboriginals. Barack Obama is only dark in colour but in all the other aspects he is a white Anglo Saxon Protestant upholding the Christian constitution of the USA. This is something that a former envoy of Sri Lanka in a western Christian country could not understand by claiming that the Americans had elected a black American as the President. If any Tamil leader is prepared to respect the Sinhala culture and consider it as the significant culture I am sure that he would be considered for the President of Sri Lanka.

I do not mention these facts in order for our civil rights Gandhians and Lutherians to take the next plane to Washington to begin a civil rights movement so that at least by the next inauguration the ceremony would be conducted in Spanish as well and that the National Anthem would be sung in Spanish and an aboriginal language in addition to English. Anglo Saxon white Protestant Christian culture is the dominant culture not only in USA but in the whole world. All that I want to emphasize is that due recognition should be given to the Sinhala Buddhist culture without demeaning that culture by invalid arguments brought out by a hatred that the westerners and the Tamil racists have for the same. In the meantime I am worried by Obama’s statement to the effect that the Americans are committed to defend democracy in Asia and Africa. The problem with that concept is that the democracy is of the American people, by the American people for the American people. It is this democracy that Obama wants to defend in Asia and Africa and not the democracy that the Asian and African people would like to protect. Just as much Obama has taken an oath to defend the American constitution Mahinda Rajapakse has taken an oath to defend the constitution of Sri Lanka whether it is bahubutha or not. The other countries including USA should recognize the sovereignty of Sri Lanka by allowing Mahinda Rajapakse to defend the constitution.

The impeachment of the CJ is purely an internal matter of Sri Lanka and no foreigner however powerful he or she may be, should interfere with the procedure or the judgment given by the President. When the Appeal Court granted leave to proceed with the petitions filed praying for a writ to issue on the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) the Appeals court was in error to say the least. I have argued that the Appeals Court has no jurisdiction on this aspect in these columns and elsewhere and I do not want to repeat those arguments. I am not a lawyer by training but I am confident of my reasoning and arguments. The Appeals Court, meaning the three judges who sat on the bench referred a certain question to the Supreme Court on the grounds that they were requesting an interpretation of the constitution. The way the question was drafted and also the answer that the three judges who sat on the Supreme Court leave doubts on the minds of the average people such as me as to the genuineness. It is true that the Supreme Court is the sole authority on interpretation of the constitution but there are few questions that have to be asked with respect to this matter. It is a case involving the punishment of a judge and not an ordinary case. The disciplinary actions of judges are no ordinary matters and the constitution lays down a separate procedure when it comes to disciplinary matters of the judges. There is no provision in the constitution or elsewhere for an accused judge to appeal against the judgments of the President in such cases and the President cannot give arbitrary judgments as he is guided by the Article 107 (2) of the constitution. The Appeals court in their hurry quashed a decision of the PSC, which was only a finding and not a sentence or a judgment, depending on a so called interpretation of the constitution the Supreme Court. The appeals court is not empowered by Article 139 or 140 or any other article to quash a judgment that had not been given and also to interfere with deliberations of the parliament according to Article 80. There was no judgment to be quashed as at that stage the President had not removed the CJ. The Appeals Court had only a finding by the PSC which was an instrument of the Parliament that had judiciary powers together with the President in the case of disciplinary actions against the judges.

The Supreme Court amended the Article 107 (3) in the guise of an interpretation thus encroaching on the powers of the Parliament. In any event under 107(3) the Parliament could either by law or by standing orders provide the forum with the procedures etc., to “impeach” a judge. The standing orders are no law in the sense that they are not acts of Parliament but 107 (3) is law and abiding by that Article is not against the law nor illegal. The Supreme Court amended 107(3) and removed the words “or by standing orders” in that Article. In any event the parliament had acted in accordance with 107 (3) which is law in appointing the PSC as provided by standing orders 78 (A). Does the Supreme Court say that acting according to 107 (3) is illegal? The Supreme Court and the Appeals Court appear to have given unlawful judgments and have failed to uphold the constitution. The parliament on the other hand upheld the constitution and acted within the powers that have been invested in it by the constitution. The President has defended the constitution and not acted violating the constitution. However, the President and the Parliament are accused by the Brahmins and Navaneetham Pillais, the Canadian Prime Minister, commonwealth stalwarts and others for not upholding the constitution. They on the other hand praise the Appeals Court and the Supreme Court that have failed to uphold the constitution encroaching on the powers of the Parliament, and quashing judgments that had not been given.

President Obama is supposed to defend the American constitution in USA and not in other countries. Unfortunately it is the American democracy that is being defended everywhere in the world and when our courts act in a way so as to defend the American democracy they are praised condemning the President and the Parliament that have defended our constitution even if it is a bahubhutha constitution. The government that could not be influenced by the western powers, India and Brahmins during the humanitarian operations would not bow down to these powers and would only laugh at the claim by the impeached lady who still claims to be the CJ. On the other hand though the government should consider the possibility of impeaching the judges who have not upheld and defended the constitution it is unlikely that the government would do so and pardon them.

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

The Muslim protests

All over the world, especially in the western world there have been protests against a film made in USA, which is defamatory to the life of Prophet Mohamed, according to almost all the Muslims in the world . The violent protests in some countries cannot be condoned but it is very clear that the western media that has the power and the means to control the world public opinion is having a field day condemning the violence forgetting the film. The protests did not take place in a vacuum, and the Muslims world over, it may be a minority of Muslims who were involved but my gut feeling is that most of the Muslims are with those who took to streets though some may not agree with violence, had a valid cause to protest.

The Buddhists are not well organized as the Muslims but they also have reasons to protest against the western behavior when it comes to the attitudes and actions of those who have been brought up in the western Christian culture. When some French kiss the Buddha statue there are people in Sri Lanka with their media who would publish pictures of Christians (Catholics) kissing the statutes of Jesus Christ and his mother. What is implied is that it is not abnormal nor defamatory for Catholics to kiss statues of religious personnel. Even in the case of this particular film on Prophet Mohamed it is claimed that in the name of freedom of expression the person who produced the film had the right to make the film. I have not seen the film myself but the Muslims world over would not have taken to streets if the film was innocent as far as the Islamic religion was concerned.

Sometime ago when Prabhakaran was calling shots there were NGO peace vendors who insisted that the Tamils and the LTTE had no option but to take up arms and engage in terrorist activities. The world was told by the western media that it was the Sinhala Buddhist supremacy that was the cause of the problems. What was propagated for the consumption of the gullible people was that the LTTE would not have taken up arms if not for so called Sinhala Buddhist supremacy. In so many ways the pundits in the NGOs and their mentors in the west justified the terrorism of the LTTE. They also propagated the myth that the LTTE could not be defeated and the government had no option but to engage in so called peace talks with the objective of establishing a Federal state paving the way for an Eelam. The west engaged in that type of propaganda simply because the LTTE was the agent of the west against Sinhala Buddhist culture.

When the western media tells us that the person who made the film had the right to do so they talk from their vantage position as everything in this world is today decided by the western Christian supremacy. It is true that in the west they have made films such as Da Vinci Code, though the film was banned in Sri Lanka if my memory is correct, but these films are made in a world dominated by western Christian hegemony. The book and the film Da Vinci Code were produced by western Christian culture who are looking for a new interpretation of Jesus Christ against the Jesus of the Catholic Church. This should be the last step in the fight of Christianity against Catholicism, and I was not surprised when the Catholic Church here decided to ask the Sri Lankan government to ban the film.

The so called freedom of expression by the western Christian culture is used not only against Muslims and the Buddhists but against Catholics as well if the need arises. In any event even if it is used against Christianity it is not going to be effective as it is the Christian culture that is the hegemonic culture in the world. The Christian culture is in the saddle and the legal systems practiced in various parts of the world are based in the Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya, just as much western science is based in that Chinthanaya, and the western Christian Law knows whom have to be punished to defend the western Christian culture. The Law, Science, Medicine including Dentistry, Arts etc., are all produced, created in the Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya and one cannot dissociate say Law from Dentistry.

The west is in a position to control the protests by the Muslims against the film on Prophet Mohamed made by the American and he would go untouched, as if at all he would be tried under the American Law which is based on Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya. If he is tried under Sharya Law no doubt that he would have a different destiny whether one agrees with that particular law or not. The protests would not last long and the western media would get some Muslim religious leaders to appeal to the masses to be calm. However, this is neither the beginning nor the end of the tussle between the Muslim and the Christian cultures, and I think that we are already in the middle of a cold war between the two cultures.

The Buddhists who are more tolerant do not have the resources to take up the western Christian culture at the present moment. Their strength is more on the spiritual side but to develop an alternative scheme to the existing paradigms and Chinthanaya would take some time. What is forgotten by the westerners is that the present western Christian culture together with western Christian modernity came in to existence only about five hundred years ago and that it is not going to last forever. It is on the decline now and so called postmodernism indicates that the westerners in the Social Sciences are not in a position to create theories as they used to do based on Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya. In Western Mathematics the formal program of Hilbert has ended up with Gödel Theorem, and western Theoretical Physics is stuck with Copenhagen Interpretation.

The westerners who began their western science by absorbing knowledge from Hindu, Chinese, Buddhist and Muslim systems into their two valued logic based on Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya cannot proceed much further. The western Christianity culture which produced Capitalism as their economic structures has come a long way but fortunately cannot exist for ever. It will collapse with Capitalism not according to Marxism through a working class revolution but experiencing a natural death. The Muslims living both in the western countries and the non western countries would contribute towards the collapse of the western Christian hegemony taken as a world phenomenon. The western science will come to a grinding halt in the near future as the Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya is not adequate to maintain the hegemony.

The Muslim protests against the producer of the film degrading Prophet Mohamed will not start a world revolution but they are indicators of what is in store for the Supremacy of the western Christian culture. What is needed is a broad front of the non Christian cultures against the western Christian culture but unfortunately the other cultures have been divided by the very same Christian Culture whose supremacy would be ended in due course. The unity of the other cultures would bring the collapse of the western Christian supremacy much closer to our times and in Sri Lanka if the Tamil Hindus and the Muslims understand that there is no so called Sinhala Buddhist supremacy but a bogey created by the western Christian culture that is only interested in maintaining its dominance then most of the problems in Sri Lanka would be solved. Sri Lanka could become the ashcharya if we can understand this unity can be achieved.

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

Political Prisoner

Isn’t it curious that political prisoners are found only in non-western countries and that they are always claimed to be unjustifiably imprisoned? Typically when a non-western state finds someone had compromised the sovereignty of the state and denies that he or she is a so called “political prisoner” the west claims that the prisoner had merely criticized or acted to oust those in power and therefore is unfairly punished. There never seem to be a reverse situation where a non-western state is accusing a western state of having political prisoners. Are we to believe that only non-western countries are culpable of having political prisoners? Is it unfair to imprison someone for political reasons alone?

There certainly is an asymmetry in the recognition of political prisoners between western and non-western states. One reason for this is the hegemonic powers that the western educational system and the pro-western media enjoy over its counter parts. Usually opinions created by the west are uncontested by other sources of information, even in non-western countries. When the west brands someone as a political prisoner we are taught to accept it as the standard view and the opposition as mere alternative views whereas, ideally, all views should be given equal recognition. Unfortunately we have allowed this perverted standardization to permeate throughout our cultural and political space without hindrance. For instance, listening to a famous Sri Lankan pop duo singing about an “ethnic woman” makes one wonder whether we have come to accept white Caucasian race as the standard race while relegating other races to mere ethnicities. In any case, whether one is a political prisoner or not is debatable and there is no reason to consider the western view as the standard view.

The asymmetry is also due to the fact that western states are much stronger and unyielding than their counterparts. That mean, a person is less likely to pose a threat to the sovereignty of a western state by committing the same acts that would be considered threatening to a non-western state. Take Noam Chomsky of the USA against any of our own celebrated dissidents like Jehan Perara or Paikiasothy Saravanamutthu. Though Chomsky is miles ahead in caliber he has very little political leverage in his own country. This is mainly due to the narrow political view of the American public. Historically both democratic and republican governments of the US have behaved the same way when it comes to public policy but the media and the educational system have created an impression that they represent two extreme political ideologies. In reality the difference between the two is so insignificant that media outlets that openly support either one of the parties spend so much time and effort to distinguish them from the media that support the opposite party. In the end, the public taking comfort in this fake diversity is beaten into conformity of very narrow political view. Chomsky’s world does not fit in to their narrow view and the American public fails to fathom his point. On the other hand, the political spectrum in Sri Lanka is much wider and even likes of Saravanamutthus have a huge stake in it. However their political leverage is not due to their popularity on a grass root level or their ideologies but due to the western powers that finance their existence. These western powers can exert much pressure on the Sri Lankan state through the likes of Saravanamutthus than Chomsky could on his home state by himself. Therefore while Chomsky pose no threat to the sovereignty of the USA and has no likelihood of becoming a political prisoner in the USA, Saravanamutthus of Sri Lanka have the potential to pose a real threat to the sovereignty of Sri Lanka.

The asymmetry is also due to the hypocrisy on the part of the west which does not want to recognize that political crimes can be committed against sovereign states other than theirs. A political crime, according to the Wikipedia, is an “offence involving overt acts or omissions (where there is a duty to act), which prejudice the interests of the state, its government or the political system”. So if we are to believe that sovereignties of all nations are equally important then we should not have a problem in realizing that acts which prejudice the interests of any state is a political crime and a state has a right to incarcerate anyone it think has committed a political crime. Thus political crimes are not aberrations and political imprisonment is not always unfair as it made out to be; that is of course if we accept that sovereignties of all nations are equally important. But this is precisely what the western states do not want to accept.

However the west has no problem in punishing those who act against the interest of its states without calling them political prisoners. As commonly known, the western states harbor scores of prisoners whom they identify as Islamic terrorists. These prisoners, most of whom are not even citizens of western countries, can be found in various prisons around the world. While we may argue the fairness of these imprisonments, with respect to the western states these prisoners must be correctly identified as political prisoners as they have allegedly acted against the interests of certain western states.

Like human rights, the political prisoner is a political weapon invented by the west to undermine the sovereignty of other states. Instead of shying away from the accusations of political imprisonment we must assert that as a sovereign state we have the right to punish those who act against the interests of our state and in turn they may be identified as political prisoners if one wishes to do so.

-Janaka Wansapura

LLRC, USA resolution, reconciliation and sovereignty - II

Now what is the record of the western countries as far as reconciliation is concerned. Do the Afro Americans enjoy the same privileges as the European Americans? Obama follows the white Anglo Saxon Christian culture irrespective of the colour of his skin and he is only a token just as much the Afro American characters in the USA television shows are there to show the world that the blacks are enjoying very high standards of life. Can Robert Blake come with statistics on poverty lines with respect to the African Americans and European Americans? What is the percentage of poor people among the blacks? In England can one see a Welsh word on the roads despite the fact that the Welsh had been living there before the Norman invasion? How did the English reconcile with the Welsh and the Scotts in so called Britain and with the Irish in the UK? Of course they allowed Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wild to write in English thus contributing to that language rather than to Irish. In more than one way Shaw and Wild were used (kade yaveema) by the English for the benefit of the latter at the expense of Irish, perhaps in the name of reconciliation. Did any Englishman except for academic purposes learn any of the languages Welsh, Irish or Scottish in the name of reconciliation? In USA it is worse. What happened to the languages spoken by the Afro Americans? Are they spoken in the homes of Afro Americans? Then we come to the so called Red Indians. What were the steps taken by the Anglo Saxons who followed the pilgrims to reconcile with the natives, after poisoning the wells of the latter and massacring them through other means as well? The Sinhala people do not want any Tamil writer to publish in Sinhala ignoring Tamil and of course vice versa. The use of Tamil by Tamils have to be encouraged facilitating them to learn Sinhala if they wish. Similarly for the Sinhalas and the recommendation by the LLRC to make Sinhala and Tamil compulsory for all Sri Lankans in the name of reconciliation is not only meaningless but would create an antagonism among Sinhalas and Tamils. LLRC also wants the national anthem to be sung simultaneously which again is a meaningless exercise. Let the National Anthem be sung in Sinhala as it is, without following Ashraff of the SLMC who first advocated this racist idea. This is a continuation of the English policy of appointing one Sinhala and one Tamil to the legislative assembly without considering the demography, history and the culture of the country. In any event it is not clear what is meant by singing simultaneously since if the National Anthem is sung in two languages at the same time it would create only a noise and not any meaningful utterance. Perhaps the LLRC could not decide on the language in which the National Anthem had to be sung first.

I do not talk of double standards of the west as I feel that they have only one policy. That is to propagate their hegemony. The war crimes in Japan (Hiroshima Nagasaki) in Vietnam (My Lai) in Iraq and the latest in Afghanistan are forgotten with a “sorry” from the President of the USA. In Sri Lanka the west insists on punishing Sri Lanka for crimes not committed as they want to punish the Sinhala people and their culture again in order to maintain the hegemony of the Judaic Christian culture. We do not have to be afraid of the western forces who are now on the decline after more than five hundred years of world domination, and we have to concentrate on the Anti west block and also on uniting the people against possible economic sanctions and NATO aggressions. We have to be prepared for any eventuality, and we have to be self sufficient in many food items as we have achieved in rice. It would be much better if we can do this without depending on agrochemicals of the west, which in any event add poison to our soil. There are people who can advise the government on alternative “govikama” but unfortunately they have not had the best English education and the government is not prepared to listen to Sanga, Veda, Guru, Govi, Kamkaru which has become only rhetoric after 1956. Regarding so called war crimes many people including the members of the LLRC forget that long before the terms human rights and war crimes were coined by the westerners not because of any humanity but for political reasons to suppress the non westerners, King Gemunu had been contemplating on the people died in the war. Our armed forces have carried on these traditions and they have treated the “enemy” with much respect looking after the families of LTTE cadres killed in the operations. We are guided by our traditions and the LLRC should not have forgotten the example set by King Gemunu when he treated the dead body of Elara with utmost respect. The Sinhalas had not been like Maghas or Cholas or Portuguese, Dutch or English and there is no record of massacring people who lived in Anuradhapura after that city was taken by the forces of King Gemunu. Our present armed forces have followed this tradition in looking after the parents of Prabhakaran and the families of other LTTE leaders and other terrorists who died during the humanitarian operations.

I think the mandate given to the LLRC is not complete. The government instead of requesting the commissioners to inquire and report on facts and circumstances which led to the failure of the ceasefire agreement operationalized on 21st February, 2002, should have requested the LLRC of course with members from Sanga Veda Guru Govi Kamkaru as well, to inquire and report on facts and circumstances that led to the signing of the so called ceasefire agreement, and also on the crimes committed by the LTTE against humanity to use a phrase familiar to the west, and also on those here as well as abroad who directly, indirectly, tacitly or otherwise aided and abetted the LTTE to fight to establish a separate state in some parts of Sri Lanka, and also helped the LTTE directly or indirectly to engage in crimes against humanity. The government should appoint another commission not in the tradition of Colebrook and Cameron, but with members from Sanga Veda Guru Govi Kamkaru as well, with a wider mandate to report on these activities including those by the nations, the NGOs which are nothing but instruments of western colonialism established after the African countries were given limited independence in the sixties, the clergy of various churches (how can we forget the Bishop who talked of humanitarianism of Prabhakaran), and until the report of that commission is released no decision should be taken on the implementation of the report of the LLRC, which has acted on wrong assumptions. I am not questioning them on inquiring into the history of the so called ethnic problem which I think is within their mandate, but acting with preconceived ideas on the so called ethnic problem. When I went before the commission on their invitation I made it a point to present my facts to show that there was no ethnic problem as such. However, after I finished with my submissions I was told by one of the commissioners that though my presentation was logical they had to give something. It was clear that the commission was thinking of giving something to the Vellalas and the westerners who had trained the former, and I thought my effort and time had been wasted. If my presentation was logical and factual and they could not find any fault with what I said the logical step would have been to act after considering my views. It was clear that they were guided by the sentiments created by the myths propagated by the English and their Vellala agents and some of the recommendations stem from these pre conceived ideas. The commission specifically states that the grievances of the Tamil community has been a root cause for the ethnic conflict, and I challenge this statement. The problem in this country is depriving the Sinhalas, especially the Sinhala Buddhists and their culture their due place.

It is statements like that and some recommendations by the LLRC that the west wants to bank on in their attempt to control us, and we should never give into their attempts. It is true that the LLRC was appointed by the government, but that does not imply that the government has to implement all their recommendations. Let us appoint the commission I have suggested above and let the government after considering the recommendations of both commissions decide on what recommendations have to be implemented. The so called war crimes taken together with grievances of the Tamils give the western powers room to use the Tamils dispersed in their countries (the word diaspora itself is used with Biblical connotations to mislead people and attract their sympathy), which is their creation against the Sinhala people, the way they used the English speaking Vellalas in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the government has to be careful in giving a pardon to Sarath Fonseka, who initiated the white flag story. It is he and not Ranil Wickremesinghe whom the west wants to use as the leader of the puppet government after toppling the present government, and the government should make sure that Fonseka if given a pardon is not used by the American state department.

The maha sangha have answered the westerners in the Buddhist tradition with Poojas , peace walks etc., not to fight against the westerners but to extend compassion to the western leaders ho are responsible for decisions against Sri Lanka to destabilize the country in order to form another government. The latest in this series is a Sathyakriya commencing on Wednesday the 21st in front of the Fort Railway station by the maha sangha led by Ven. Bengamuwe Nalaka Thero in order to “bless” the western leaders with compassion and wisdom. The maha sangha have formulated the concept of national rights as against human rights and consider the former to take precedence over the latter. More details of this concept will be discussed in these columns.

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva

LLRC, USA resolution, reconciliation and sovereignty - I

The much awaited USA resolution on Sri Lanka was brought before the UNHRC on last Wednesday. It made the opponents of the government who propagated the lie that the latter has created a “gonibilla” to divert the attention of the people from fuel prices, bus fares, electricity bills etc., helpless. It exposed them to such an extent they now state that the USA and its allies in the west are against the government and not against the country. In Sinhala they say “kata boru kiwwath diva boru kiyanne nehe”, and this statement is an excellent example for the truth as revealed by the tongue. It is clear that the USA wants to topple the present government as the former is against the latter, and to install a UNP – TNA government if possible with Sarath Fonseka as the President. It should not be forgotten that Fonseka initiated the white flag story which commenced the war crime issue even before the last Presidential elections and that the TNA supported him at the elections. Now who should have the power to decide which government should rule the country? Is it the Sri Lankan people or the American state department? If the American state department can decide on the party or alliance that should rule the country, is it against the country or against only one of the alliances? The UNP and the TNA and their former leaders who supported the English against the Sinhala people especially the Sinhala Buddhists are now doing the same, supporting the USA and good old England, how much the latter has given us including some of our leaders, political as well as so called civil, with their education, and of course their wives who had the same English education, not necessarily in English medium. When some of these political leaders claim that it is the government that opened the gates for western hostilities they utter the truth. If the UNP government of 2002 with Ranil Wickremesinghe continued there would not have been charges of war crimes as there would not have been any war crimes real or imaginary without a war. The UNP would have signed a few more pacts with Prabhkaran and USA and UK would have facilitated the establishment of Eelam through Norway. When some of these leaders claim that this government is worse than even the colonial governments with respect to human rights, we know where we and they stand. It is becoming clearer and clearer that what we gained in 1948 was a limited independence.

In general those who want the government to implement the USA resolution if it is adopted by the UNHRC, are those who were against humanitarian operations and who claimed that the LTTE could not be defeated and that there was no other path to achieve peace than through negotiations that Norway “facilitated”. At Geneva those who are behind the USA resolution are generally the western countries good old England giving the leadership. Most of them are colonial countries that are noted for their track record on human rights. The USA wanted to bring a strong resolution but it is clear that the resolution is somewhat diluted than expected by many people who think that a resolution against Sri Lanka at an international forum, especially at the UNHRC is the end of the world. It is not so and it is clear as we have mentioned before the USA led west is acting very cautiously. They did not have much support for a strong resolution and now want to mislead the non European countries with a not so strong resolution. They were gradually building up pressure from white flags to Ban ki Moon, various statements by USA state department officials that include USA ambassadors and the nth secretaries in the embassy, threats, resolutions at various so called international fora and now USA at the UNHCR, after Canada failed last year. The west is very cautious simply because there is no case against Sri Lanka. If there was the slightest evidence that they could prove that Sri Lanka had violated human rights they would have already imposed economic sanctions and even attacked using NATO bombers without going through UN fora. The limited independence and the strength of the non aligned movement, Russia, China and other countries together with the fact there is no evidence of war crimes by the Sri Lankan armed forces prevent the USA from taking such action and they want to make their action as “legal” as possible. They will come out with many more Channel Four myths in time to come in order to convince the non European nations that Sri Lanka and its President, Secretary of Defense and some officers have to be punished for committing war crimes. As mentioned many a times it is time for a strong anti west movement, forget the non aligned name board as we have to be aligned against the west, at least because of their hegemonic education that has ruined the world together with the resources, after leaving counterfeit mannerisms among the western educated men and women in the Afro Asian countries. The USA resolution is not going to be their last attempt and the government should take all measures to defeat the resolution if the west presses for a vote. In any event there will be more resolutions in the future whether the USA resolution is adopted or not at the UNHRC. With the present resolution the west wants to monitor the so called reconciliation measures thereby to have a hold in our internal affairs. In this regard whatever the policies of the minister in the past Prof. G. L. Peiris has to be commended for the strong stand that he has taken against the west. Reconciliation is our business according to our traditions and not that of the westerners who have had no policy on reconciliation at all in their countries at any time of the history.

In the meantime the government appointed the LLRC to come out with a report in the good old traditions of commissions since Colebrook Cameron days, on lessons learnt and reconciliations. As in the case of almost commissions there were no members from Sanga, Veda, Guru, Govi, Kamkaru in the LLRC. After all Colebrook and Cameron were not from Sanga Veda Guru Govi Kamkaru and the President from Medamulana could not change the tradition. The government gave the following mandate to the LLRC. "To inquire and report on the following matters that may have taken place during the period between 21st February, 2002 and 19th May, 2009, namely:

The facts and circumstances which led to the failure of the ceasefire agreement operationalized on 21st February, 2002 and the sequence of events that followed thereafter up to the 19th of May, 2009, whether any person, group or institution directly or indirectly bear responsibility in this regard; the lessons we would learn from those events and their attendant concern, in order to ensure that there will be no recurrence; the methodology whereby restitution to any person affected by those events or their dependants or their heirs, can be affected; the institutional administrative and legislative measures which need to be taken in order or prevent any recurrence of such concerns in the future, and to promote further national unity and the reconciliation among all communities, and to make any such other recommendations with reference to any of the matters that have been inquired into under the terms of the Warrant."

It would have been better if the government did not appoint the LLRC. After all the Sinhala people have a history going back to more than two thousand five hundred years compared with a history of three to four hundred years of Americans and Europeans after the modernity was introduced towards the latter part of the fifteenth century. The west never respected human rights of the people lived in the colonies except perhaps of those who happened to have the “best of their education” and when people complain that the Europeans had a better record of human rights protection than this government it is clear whose human rights they are interested in. We have experience in nation building and we know how Yaksha, Naga, Deva and the groups who came from what I call Ardha Vedic Bharath were all united under one umbrella (eksesath) to form the Sinhala nation. Of course, it did not happen overnight and it took hundreds of years to finally reconcile all these groups, which we may call gothras not having the same meaning as tribes as used by the English. The tribe is translated wrongly as gothra by those who were educated by the English and we can only laugh when they claim that we follow the English when we use the term gothra. It was a reconciliation par excellence (vishistathama would have been better), if I may use an English expression, and we have that experience behind us. It is unfortunate that the LLRC does not mention of this reconciliation in our history.

Now who prevented the Vellalas who were brought by the Dutch reconciling with the existing Sinhala nation? It was the Dutch first and then the English who segregated the Tamils from the Sinhalas, first in Nagadeepa, then in Madakalapuwa, and finally in the coffee and tea estates. The English allowed only those who had their education to mingle with each other but they wanted the Tamils with the best of their education to become the leaders of the country over their Sinhala counterparts thus creating the present problem. The English had no respect for the other Tamils and they were left as a non entity under the yoke of the educated Vellalas until Prabhakaran came on the scene. It is this “non entity” that the government has to take care of without dancing to the tune of frustrated Tamil Vellalas with the best of English education and their masters in the west.(12/03/14)

Copyright Prof. Nalin De Silva