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by Major General Tilak Jayaweera

We have heard of the famous saying that charity must begin at home. Why should it be only charity? What about peace? Peace also should begin at home. Twenty years of the ethnic conflict has seen many dead, many injured, many missing in action. Peace between the conflicting parties, yes and we are in the correct track of achieving it and definitely could breathe a sigh of relief. But do we have peace amongst us. The answer is a big NO.

This is also an important aspect of peace that we should be really worried about as patriotic citizens. Though no one seems to be interested in, deep within, most of us are really concerned about this sad plight. A failure to achieve this sort of peace is bound to subject us to a destructive self-inflicted divide and rule concept, leading to the gradual extinct of own nation on long-term basis.

Armed Forces are the guardians of nations both from external and internal threats, a globally accepted principle. In most countries they are a respected lot and in those countries under military rules, a feared lot. Sri Lanka has been no exception, as many a time country was saved from insurrections by the timely intervention of the Armed Forces. Armies during peace times are ceremonial, so was it in Sri Lanka in the good old days.

With the dawn of peace the time is ripe for all those arm-chair critics of the services to stop digging into history about the reasons why a camp fell and due to whose fault, as I am sure most of the readers are not interested in wasting their present in reading about failures of the past except a limited number of service personnel with personal differences amongst themselves with sadistic intentions. Not only the time but also even the space in journals should now be spent on continuing education processes and planned strategies to produce positive synergy in development areas. Today as a routine week-end teledrama serial, the in fighting within the forces are highlighted. Senior service officers are character assassinated. Many a restricted documents is published. We also see in the media the top cops fighting with each other over the most trivial issues. Some srticles have triggered a series of events leading to top Servicemen suing each other.

Service personnel feel proud of the uniform they wear. The nations are proud of their armies as a rule of thumb. Today the respect for the forces is fast diminishing, so is the morale of the men in the forces. The bottom line cause for this has been the role played by interested parties in publicizing the infighting within the forces. It is not only the media that has to be blamed but also those involved in this power struggle. Gone are the days, when appointments were given on merit and seniority. Gone are the days when there were rules and regulations that were adhered to.

This is in a way has precipitated the lack of peace, and the surfacing of the uncertainties amongst the rank and file within the armed forces. It has now become a fight for survival at any cost. It is high time this sad state of affairs is arrested, as in an unfortunate turn of events if a war breaks out, it is only heaven that will help us and nobody else. All decision makers must make very serious not of this and prevent the fast deteriorating esprit de corps and the grandeur of the armed forces. In the interest of the nation at large it is the responsibility of all of us jointly to put our respective houses in order first. When we talk of houses what comes to my mind is the Parliament, which we say at every turn is supreme. What is supreme? Is it the building, I don't think so. If not our honourable members also must be contributing at least to a part of this supremacy. Is there peace in the Parliament? Even this supreme institution has been reduced to a battlefield where members physically fight with each other. These are the men that we elected and wanted to govern us. This shows the low levels that this nation had sunk to. Is it only the Parliament? No, there are isolated incidents of even clergy physically fighting each other.

Today Sri Lankans are famous for conflicts. We are worried about cohabitation between political parties, with little or no regard for cohabitation within parties. Charity should begin at home and so is peace and harmony. What does the country want? I dare say all of us want peace. Whatever the political differences there may be, if you can analyze the underlying intentions of most media men at least the photographers, one is bound to infer that they too would welcome cohabitation between the major political parties.

This is why front pages of most papers carry the smiling faces of the President and the Prime minister. Looking at them one would wonder whether there could be any differences between them or whether they are actors in their political roles. Whatever it may be the message is clear, the whole country wants peace between the President and the Prime Minister obviously because they are the Government. I only hope that the photographers who take the smiling poses of the President and the Prime Minister did not wait hours and hours to catch them in these friendly moods.

However hats off to the LTTE for their dedication to a cause they feel as correct according to their convictions, where at the drop of a pin they could have many a suicidal bomber at their disposal. So far there have been many civilians showing their expertise in battle-craft on paper who would not have seen a battle field except in movies, criticizing the Army for their battle failures, giving the reader an impression that they are exponents of military warfare and battle-craft and are bouncing with patriotism. We are yet to produce someone willing for sacrifice to his life in the calibre of the Hasalaka hero.

With an economic struggle on one side, uncertainties at all levels on the other for this country to restore its original glory and harmony of the pre independent era, the foundation stones would be the cordiality, sense of purpose, and a collective responsibility of all political, military and religious leaders at the same levels as in the past in the days of Sir DB Jayatilaka, Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan, D.S. Senanayake and Mohottiwatte Gunananda Thero and the like.

Living together in multi-national and multicultural societies in harmony is no more a rare commodity. They exist all over the world and if so why not us. It is only a united effort and clear and genuine leadership that can steer countries to prosperity. Leadership should be at all levels and that too by example and preferably be principle centred. We must develop trustworthiness in ourselves and trust amongst us. It was so in South Africa and even in Sri Lanka then.

Enough is enough and it is high time that we stopped our petty differences and childhood behaviour once and for all and behaved in keeping with our respective chronological ages to lift this country from its present doldrums. As Sri Lankans it must be a moral obligation for all of us to ensure a conflict free society and not to restrict the peace only with the LTTE at a negotiation table but to spread to every nook and corner of this beautiful land of ours. Peace should be amongst us, within us and around us to make Sri Lanka a place to live in peace. We should hope and pray for a united Sri Lanka, and not a united North and a divided South. Peace should begin first at home if it is to be maintained in every sense of the word.

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