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| Thursday, 14 March 2002 |
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Letters | |
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Hon. Laksman Yapa Abeywardane (MP), in the Parliament, referred to the letters exchanged between Her. Excellency the President and V. Pirabakaran in 1995 and lamented that the letters were not tabled in the Parliament. The alleged letters are partly reproduced in the book titled" Negotiating Peace in Sri Lanka - Efforts, Failures and lessons" - edited by Dr. Kumar Rupasinghe.It is also understood that these letters have been published as a book, elsewhere, by Dr. Anton Balansingam. It is now appropriate that these letters are made public, so that the
public will know, the extent to which Her. Excellency had gone to
accommodate the LTTE and the moot points which ultimately caused the
collapse of the talks. Recently a teacher in a leading Colombo School had delivered around 30 violent blows across the face of a generally quiet and well-behaved O/L student for merely not naming the mischief makers in the class.The victim is presently undergoing treatment for swollen face and impaired hearing.When the parent visited the school and inquired about the incident, except the errant teacher all the others confined that this student is generally quiet and well-behaved. However, the sectional head resented the inquiry made by the parent and had told him to take away the student to another school if he does not like teachers punishing students.Several such instances of abuse by teachers go unreported for fear of repercussion on their children. In most leading schools at the time of admission students & parents have to sign agreeing to abide by the code-of-conduct.Similarly teachers too are required to observe rules laid down by Education authorities when handling student indiscipline. In these rules even the size of the cane and force that could be used are specified. Unfortunately, these rules are observed in the breach by teachers as
can be seen from the above incident. I was at Durdans for treatment for a heart ailment. During this period, I happened to read the Felicitation Message accorded to M. Sivasithamparam, President, TULF and MP. The Message was by V. Vimalarajah, President, J/Karaveddi Vigneswara College, Old Students' Association, Colombo Branch, appeared in the Daily News of February 16. It deals with among other things the exemplary noble traits of Mr. Sivasithamparam: the Message provokes thinking. Mr. Vimalarajah narrates an incident where a teacher insisted Mr. Sivasithamparam should accompany him to Jaffna Education Office to secure the cancellation of his transfer, despite the fact that Mr. Sivasithamparam had to appear in a murder case in Colombo on Monday, the following day and that Mr. Sivasithamparam, as he was too good to all, yielded to the teacher's desire, having made the necessary arrangements regarding the case. Mr. Vimalarajah tells us how the teacher came on Monday with a story that he was unable to accompany Mr. Sivasithamparam as labourers had come to work in his paddy fields and wanted Mr. Sivasithamparam to go to the Education Office and get the transfer cancelled. Mr. Sivasithamparam, without a word of murmur of expression of disappointment or anger, went to the Education Office and got the transfer cancelled. The words of Mr. Vimalarajah are not flattery: they photograph the vivid expostulation of the character of Mr. Sivasithamparam. He is so noble and possesses a conscience of human kindness. I have seen him allowing very raw juniors, when they so desire, to conduct complicated murder cases. Many seniors may consider such conduct as indocile and impudence. Mr. Vimalarajah also states in his Message that `Mr. Sivasithamparam would have been a billionaire by now if he had continued his legal practice'. Here, I disagree with him: not that Mr. Sivasithamparam enjoyed any lucrative practice but that he never charged a fee commensurating with his seniority at the Bar.I know him as a practitioner in Colombo Courts. He enjoyed a very lucrative practice at the Bar. He appeared free in many cases. He never refused a brief on the ground that no fee was paid or less fee, from what he had quoted, was paid. I too remember an incident how he charged his fee for his appearance. This incident is good enough to show that Mr. Sivasithamparam could not have become a billionaire by his legal practice. It was in the year 1971. A wealthy businessman retained me in a case. He, on his own accord, paid me a sum of rupees one hundred for a call date. It was a big sum at that time. For the trial, he wanted to retain Mr. Sivasithamparam and wanted to know his fee. I was unaware: anyhow, I told him that he might charge more than rupees three hundred. He was willing to pay upto rupees five hundred. We had a consultation with Mr. Sivasithamparam. During the course of the consultation, the client boasted of his wealth and indicated that he could pay rupees five hundred for a date. Mr. Sivasithamparam told very calmly that his fee for the consultation and for the date of trial was five guineas. When the client heard the words. `five guineas' he thought it was five hundred rupees and he was ready to pay. I told the client that the fee was rupees fifty-two and cents fifty. The client was shaken: I was dismayed for my fee fell down relatively. That is `Siva Annan'. His lofty mind and his humane approach did not permit him to mint money by his profession. He is sincere to himself. In politics, he never suspects deceit in others. He is never guided by narrowness of political ambition. He will not prosecute his political stability by any means whatever. His nobility of character may fail him to lead the Tamil Nation to its goal: but he is always noble and he does no harm to none but he is good to all. Let me quote Shakespeare from Julius Caesar, with little change of
words:"His life is gentle, and the elementsSo mix'd in him, that
Nature will stand up And say to all the world, this is a man". How I wish that the Sri Lankan bureaucrats would take an example of the Lord Jeffery Archer being treated by the British Judicial system. Lord Archer the prolific writer, Conservative party secretary, MP and finally a Lord was brought to his knees due to him trying to pervert the course of justice during an earlier trial he was involved in. Lord Archer is now in prison being treated just like other ordinary prisoners. No preferential treatment for him while he is languishing in prison. He even has to muck in and do his share of prison work be it kitchen duties, gardening and cleaning the toilets. Now contrast this situation to Anuruddha Ratwatte and his children. They are still being treated like demy gods much to the chagrin of many Sri Lankans. Ratwatte is enjoying all the material comforts that can be given to him. His wife is at hand to attend to all his needs. He has the finest food sent to him. His sons also enjoy similar treatment. Take prisoner X for example he is in remand for suspected murder, he is kept in a small cell with five other prisoners, uses a bucket for a lavatory and has to eat the normal prison food. if he says he is sick he would be lucky to get a disprin let alone a hospital bed. Just because the Ratwatte belong to the landed gentry of Sri Lanka they should not be treated with kid gloves. If the Ratwatte clan claim to be suffering form chest pains and various other ailments why cannot they be treated like other remand prisoners in the prison hospital? The Ratwattes are making a mockery of the Sri Lankan justice system due to the preferential treatment that is being given to them. Irrespective of the fact that Ratwatte Snr was a minister in the previous regime he should be treated like any other ordinary Sri Lankan. Why can't Ratwatte be ferried to the court in a normal prison lorry with other prisoners? Why the need of a helicopter? By this behaviour they are displaying a blatant disregard to their fellow Sri Lankans who have to abide by the laws of the land. It would indeed be a feather in the cap of the present administration of Ranil Wickrewmesinghe et al if the Ratwatte's are brought to reality by taking them out of their luxury hospital accommodation and putting them in to the sanatorium of the prison in Welikada or better still Bogambara. If the UNF has the gumption to treat the Ratwatte's like the other
thousands of Sri Lankan prisoners languishing in jails without
preferential treatment then the government would be more respected and
people will really believe that the winds of change are definitely in
play. There is no doubt that the 'officials' who have not returned the vehicle are not public servants but political appointees to Ministries, Government Departments and Corporations. It is they who monopolise and misuse State vehicles, mostly. It could also be presumed that the vehicles not returned are those used by political henchmen for political activities during the last elections. Political appointees, who are near and dear, especially to Ministers and Deputy Ministers, turn up to be so powerful as a result of political patronage, so much so that Ministry Secretaries and Heads of Departments have been compelled to meet their 'demands' for vehicles even by restricting the needs of the Departments and Ministries and that too often without proper approval. Ministry Secretaries need to maintain a list of vehicles assigned to officials showing the authority obtained for the purpose which records have to be subjected to audit inspection annually. Whether such procedure is being followed is another matter! Political appointees - Private, Personal, Co-ordinating, Public Relations Trade Union, Press, etc. Secretaries are not entitled to be assigned state vehicles at personal level. Nevertheless vehicles are released personally to them even without Treasury or Cabinet approval. Vehicles are used to travel to office and back even beyond the limits certain staff grades in the public service are entitled to, for private travel and to engage in political activities. The vehicles are kept overnight in their homes. Using state vehicles for official travel is understandable but most of the time they are used for purposes anything other than official. Vehicle No. GG 9393 issued to a "Private Secretary' of a Deputy Minister of the previous Government being returned belatedly, not to the Ministry but to the Kegalle Police on February 18th as reported in the Press, throws light on the seriousness of the situation. The vehicle had been used by a political appointees for private purposes, when the appointee was not entitled to do so and had been returned at her leisure. That is not a stray case. There is a talk of 21 vehicles released to the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications by Sri Lanka Telecom with six million rupees a year for their maintenance being given from Telecom funds some years back. The Telecom authorities subsequently withdrew the maintenance grant but allowed the vehicles to be in the Ministry. If that be true, it will be interesting to find out as to what happened to the vehicles and whether the Ministry maintained a list of the vehicles with information as to how they were issued and utilised and where the vehicles are at present. An investigation may reveal interesting information. The present Government may now be eager to put an end to the misuse of state vehicles. The previous governments too, in the first few months in office attempted to do so. But with the political appointees entrenching themselves and wielding power sometimes even over their political masters the will to do so waned and progressively faded away. The State officials and the political appointees thereafter scratched
each others back. Even as at today if one lingers around the big schools
in the mornings or stands near well-known clubs in the evenings, the
misuse of State vehicles could be assessed. A quotation from an article in the 'Hindu' on the English Language has this to say: "English should be taught from primary classes under expert teachers with specialized knowledge to initiate students to speak the langauge with the correct intonation and pronunciation and also write grammatically correct language. While mother tongue taught should have the first priority, there should be no neglect of English which holds so much of promise for the learners." Another article in the local press states that varieties of English are used in different countries of the world. Of course we have our own, Singlish if you may call it so, where a person thinks in Sinhalese and translates his thought into English. Here are a few examples: "If they cannot give the 'rampe' and 'sera' let them keep and take (thiya gaththaawe). Then there's," Border catch and go. Pavement catch and come. (ayina allagena yanne). And yet another, "To end the war, must kill and put (marala daanna) all the buggers! These sentences do get their messages across, but aren't they quaint? Then there's the question form, "Where went? Colombo went." "When came? Yesterday came." And of course, the use of 'no'. "You ate and came, no?" He went home, no?" Another quotation on the language says: "English is far and away one of the most difficult languages to master as it contains innumerable subtleties and inconstancies that often cause much annoyance to those who have orderly and logical minds." Having been a teacher of English for over thirty years, I would like to
voice the opinion that whatever difficulties one has to face when learning
English, he should stick to standard English - the language that the Queen
'speake' and not take to the English that is 'now break' - broken English:
I refer you once again to the excerpt from the article given at the
beginning of this piece. In the matter of appointing Inland Revenue officers, the Public Service Commission in collaboration with the Inland Revenue Department, has deliberately violated the percentage requirement granted to the minority Communities and appointed 100 Sinhalese, 2 Tamils and 1 Muslim. This is highly irregular and a negation of fundermental rights of the
Minority Communities. The accepted ratio should be around 80:12:08. Please
Take immediate and efficacious action to ensure justice and fairplay, to
all, who passed this competitive Exam held in 2000 and faced interview in
October 2001. Appointments have been made with effect from 01.03.2002. The rate-payers of Kandawalawatta in Ratmalana are stranded due to the negligence of the Dehiwala - Mt. Lavinia Municipal Council. There are about 35 families belonging to all communities living in this prestigious residential area of about four acres in extent. Kandawalawatta which was earlier owned by late Sir John Kotelawala is presently occupied by residents in allotments of various status. Therefore it is an established common residential area and not a private property. But according to the Mayor's letter (20/01/2001 - WC - 683) this particular residential area is still a private property. Because of this the whole area has been neglected and the worst affected are the roads, drains and collecting of garbage. Residents have to walk more than 200 yards to dump their garbage thereby wasting valuable time. Due to these factors the residents are in a pitiful state and are
miserably awaiting satisfactory solution. Therefore we hope the
authorities will take serious note of this and take steps to alleviate the
sufferings of the residents by vesting this area under the purview of the
Dehiwala - Mt. Lavinia Municipal Council. Reference letter of TV of Nugegoda (DN, Mar. 7), on the above subject, apart from the shortcomings referred to therein, I write to spotlight the shameless and repulsive resort of the teleactors to the use of mongrel Sinhala. They hardly use a sentence without using an English word or phrase. Thereby they reduce the Sinhalese to a people of a low culture with a slave mentality. They set his trend as a mark of modernity and urbanity. Only a people without self-respect suffering from an inferiority complex can do this. Schoolchildren and rural people listen to them and come to think that this is the modern fashionable way of speaking Sinhalese. Alas, it is a matter for regret that patriots and lovers of the Sinhala language such as the Hela-Hawala do not oppose or lodge a protest to stop this rot. It is true the Sinhalese have borrowed words from Tamil, Portuguese, Dutch, and English to our language, where Sinhala words are not available. This happens all over the world and there is nothing wrong with thus. But the shameful display of slave mentality comes when good Sinhala words are avoided and an English word or expression is used. This ugly practise is spreading fast, and everybody takes it for granted, that this is the modern colloquial Sinhalese. The self-respecting people of other nationalities will surely notice this inferiority complex and servitude as a badge of a degenerate race slipping towards mongrelism. Munidasa Cumaratunga in one of his essays wrote of the
"Monkey-nature of the Sinhalese". (Sihalayage Wandurugatiya). He
decried and called for self-respect and love of our language. Should not
the teledramas act with more dignity and responsibility? The General Manager, Mr. Y. G. Wijeratne's letter (DN, Feb 26) has avoided answering many matters, I raised in (D.N. Feb 18). He has carefully avoided the question of providing sub-standard nursery plants to be issued to cultivators at Rs. 12.50 where it costs only Rs. 4 to raise a plant. Is 300% profit not a huge profit? I have papers with me to prove he has suppressed written complaints to him about those issues of sub-standard plants. Subsidy scheme was introduced to help small farmers of lands up to 10 acres. Now, it has been increased up to 50 acres at subsidy payment of Rs. 9,000 per Acre. Obviously this scheme will help big companies which do not need subsidy payment. Initially the subsidy scheme was only Rs. 600 per acre due to poor cultivators. Cashew trees are now destroyed by the hundreds by a dreadful disease. With the import of cashew G. M., has drawn a Red Herring across the trail by sponsoring import of seed cashew for big mudalalies by comparing statistics of export and local consumption. Cashew exporting countries will export sub standard cashew after grading and will include diseases prone nuts. He is assuring this is a temporary measure till local production increases, is but a dream. In conclusion, it must be said it will be the Parthian shot dealt at
the Corporation for its destruction for the benefit of a few, at the
expense of the industry and the poor cultivators. I have been reading with surprise and, at times with dismay, how some contributors to this column seek to justify meat eating by quoting chapter and verse from the scriptures to show that even the Buddha had permitted meat eating under specific circumstances. This is nothing but a feeble attempt to console oneself that no sin would be committed, as long as one eats meat in the manner specified by the Buddha. But, notwithstanding this pseudo self-consolation, how could one be oblivious to the grim reality of being a party to the horrendous acts of torture inflicted on hapless animals at the slaughterhouse, as long as one partakes of such meat? Why don't we treat this as a human problem, without dragging in the teachings of religious leaders? To my mind, it is only a question of whether we, as rational human beings, could turn a blind eye to the atrocities perpetrated on innocent animals, or whether we could contribute in whatever way to alleviate their suffering. Although I do not wish to drag in religion to this problem, I would like to remind our readers that, although the Buddha may have permitted meat eating under specific conditions, the central theme of Buddhism is loving kindness (Metta) towards all beings, and the Buddha has exhorted, quite categorically, that one should never kill nor cause to kill any being, by comparing oneself with others. When vegetarianism is being acclaimed the world over as a healthy and
practicable alternative to meat eating, it is surprising that some people
continue to crave for the flesh of dead animals, which they would consider
utterly loathsome if seen elsewhere, outside the butcher's stall. |
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