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| Monday, 15 March 2004 |
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Letters | |
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Please forward your letters to editor@dailynews.lk in plain text format within the e-mail message, since as a policy we do not open any attachments.
As former Minister D. M. Jayaratne pointed out in the Daily News of 28.2.2004, Regaining Sri Lanka is a myth. Offering 50,000 acres in the Sacred City of Anuradhapura, earmarking historic Sigiriya; the Galle Face Green and the Dutch Fort in Galle and 300 acres from Sinharaja forest - amounts to defrauding Sri Lanka. I repeat the words of Arahath Maha Mahinda to King Devanampiyatissa, a head anointed king "Oh Great King, the birds of the air and the beasts have an equal right to live and move about in any part of this land as thou. The land belongs to the people, and all other beings, and thou art only the Guardian of it." This admonition was given to a head anointed king and therefore, what right have the present day representatives of the people, who come and go, to irretrievably change the natural face of the country. If this is to be done in the name of globalisation, I would say with gusto - "to hell with globalisation" and quote with approval the words of Lord Macaulay, from "Horatius": "To every man, upon this earth Death cometh soon or late, And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the Temples of his Gods." J. C. BOANGE - Rajagiriya The most often flouted election law is the garish display of posters and banners of candidates in public places. As can be seen all over at present, walls, lamp posts and whatever other prominent places along main roads are covered with posters of candidates of many political parties. This ugly pre-election poster war is usually waged on by party henchmen from the lowest stratum of society who have no ethics. They often paste posters over those of their rivals, thus sparking off unnecessary flare-ups, many of which led to murder. It is simple logic that whoever candidate responsible for putting up posters in public places is flagrantly and consciously flouting an election law, and if such happens at the initial stage, what can be expected from them at a later stage when they get elected and assume power? People should have the faculty of assessing this situation without being blindly adherent to a particular political faith. As it is, people who have the choice of electing candidates to the Parliament, they should be sensible enough to make the best use of their franchise in the forthcoming elections not to let law-breakers represent them in the next government. MANIL GUNAWARDENE - Talangama The present ruling government has ignored some government servants. All the government servants have got salary increment of Rs. 1,200 except some government teachers. I was appointed as an Advance Level town schoolteacher in 2000.01.01. I have finished teaching difficult areas in 2004.01.01. I am a permanent teacher now. But I did not get the recent salary increment of Rs. 1,200. It is very unfair for ignoring these poor teachers. I hope the government will take quick action to solve this salary problem. USHA BALENDRAN - Kandy It is really painful to see a sovereign and independent country like Iraq becoming a victim of a naked aggression. This attack was conducted by none of its neighbours but by the only superpower located thousands of miles away. The reason behind this aggression was simple. Mr. Bush could not tolerate ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein because he had once insulted his father. No country not even the UN came forward to condemn or even protest this aggression. If the destruction of a nation is so easy, the same will be done to Syria, Libya, Pakistan or North Korea and the whole world will be a spectator only. This "Might is Right" theory is successful because the world is now passing through a unipolar phase. The destruction of Soviet Russia came as a blessing to the Americans. However, I feel that we have not yet seen the end of it. The thrashing received by the American in Vietnam, and for that matter by the Russians in Afghanistan, is still fresh in our memories. The Iraqi freedom fighters are becoming active day by day which is manifested by the coffins of the Yankees arriving at American bases every day. What I am surprised to see is that the Arab Nations or Muslim Ummah (community) are keeping a questionable silence over this tragedy. I don't know why they have adopted such a passive stance. A. ABDUL AZIZ - Negombo If the three wheelers, or Autos as they are commonly referred to, are a source of annoyance to the rest of vehicular traffic on the roads, because of their erratic movements, the drivers of these mini-monsters are a menace to decent members of the society. This view cannot be gainsaid if you read the following: In one instance, an expatriate Sri Lankan on a holiday engaged an Auto for travelling within the city. When he got down at a destination and wanted to dispose of after paying the hire charges, the driver kicked up a row. He demanded extra payment for forgoing the return trip. He almost went to manhandle the passenger during the course of the argument but was fortunately saved by security guard. In the second instance one day two Autos entered the bottleneck on the marine drive behind Wellawatte railway station from one end. A car and a van had come from the other end to almost three-quarters of that single file lane. The Auto drivers refused to budge and demanded the car and van to reverse so that Autos could go through first. This they achieved by threatening the car driver with fisticuffs. In a third instance, at a petrol filling station a three-wheel driver was inordinately dallying and was not moving his vehicle after he finished filling fuel. The driver of the car next in the queue sounded the horn to indicate the Auto to move on so that he could bring his car nearer the pump. This polite act brought forth hell. The driver of the Auto was wild with rage and he came gesticulating his fists at the car driver! O'temporal O'mores! CR - Wattala Causes for the armed conflicts It is indeed heartening to note that the Prime Minister recognizes the necessity to identify the causes of the armed conflicts rather than merely trying to treat the symptoms. The main reason that has delayed arriving at an eventual solution acceptable to the country has been the failure to recognize that there have been two armed conflicts and three parties to the conflicts rather than two. The three parties were the non-English speaking and other underprivileged section of the two communities represented by the JVP and the LTTE, both of which had justifiable grievances, and the third party was the Central Government primarily representing the English educated people and the wealthy and other privileged sections of the whole country, who continue to use English as a vehicle of oppression. In fact the unity and harmony between such privileged sections of the Sinhalese and Tamil communities have been strong and widespread. While they were continuing to strengthen their united action they ensured that the underprivileged sections of the Sinhalese and Tamil communities were kept divided as far as possible on the basis of the proven strategy of DIVIDE and RULE. It is in pursuance of this objective that the UNP under the late J. R. Jayewardene and his successors have been taking every possible step to create and perpetuate conflicts between the Sinhalese and Tamil people. JRJ's first step was pushing through a resolution in the UNP to adopt a policy of Sinhala only, which the late SWRD Bandaranaike was compelled to adopt in the light of political realities. The next policy which the UNP adopted was using blatant thuggery to sabotage the implementation the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam Pact. JRJ clearly adopted such a policy because of the justifiable fear that the B-C Pact would bring the underprivileged Sinhalese and Tamils closer to each other. They felt that such a trend would undermine the divide and rule policies of the ruling class. JRJ's next significant contribution towards creating a desperate situation for the underprivileged sections in the North was permitting, and in fact encouraging, the import of various items of food stuff that thousands of people in the North were engaged in growing. JRJ's next calculated step to create dissension between the Sinhalese and Tamils was the policy of preventing the Diversion of the Mahaveli to the North, which had been provided for in the overall project. Another trecherous act of JRJ to create divisions amongst the catchments of the JVP and the LTTE was using a member of his own Cabinet to plan and implement a massacre of a large number of Tamils. This was clearly what broke the camel's back and planted seeds for the movement for a separate state. While JR laid a solid foundation for a separate state, the Prime Minister has certainly been building on it very effectively, both to serve the privileged sections of society and the foreign vested interests which have now clearly begun to call the shots in the policy making process of the UNF Government. One of the PM's acts to prevent arriving at a national consensus on the various issues causing the conflicts was sabotaging the proposals made by the PA Government to address the issues. The most recent attempt by the Prime Minister to avoid arriving at a consensus and to thereby ensure a division of the country was his refusal to consult and obtain the approval of the Cabinet or even the President prior to agreeing to various declared and secret arrangements with Norway and the LTTE. The UNP and the LTTE now have common catchments in the form of local and Foreign vested interests. They are accordingly having a common agenda and are both clearly striving to set up a separate state, primarily for the benefit of their benefactors. BERNARD WIJEDORU - via email I'm concerned about my daughter My eldest daughter is due to cast her maiden vote at the coming general election. She wants my advice in this regard: to whom or to which party to vote. I am confused for the first time during my political life, though I'm not an activist, but have heard the saying "every man is a political man". I, as a grade 7 student had the memory of 1965 general election. I have used (misused in a process where wrong people in wrong parties were selected?) my voting power since 1977. Still I am confused. How can I guide my daughter to cast her vote? I know very well about her knowledge in politics. As a girl who has followed AL bio stream syllabus, her sensitivity to the political world is very low. Further she will not be guided by various political discussions that are going on in various TV channels, uttering and emphasizing other parties' wrongdoings but not the faults/mistakes/autocracies etc. of themselves, and not seeing any positive aspects of other parties. How can she attend political rallies alone, since I'm not interested in such uneducative events, where male dominance is the rule? A reputed Commissioner of Elections retiring about 30 years ago said that the practice of using ink at polling booths to identify the people who cast vote should be abandoned as the people of Sri Lanka are used to proper practice of franchise at that time and prevalence of such a practice is a black mark to the democratic process. Are we in a position to do away with this practice? I wonder whether the ink, a black mark, will spoil my daughter's finger. The ink may emboss another wrongdoer's finger preventing my daughter's voting right. Even if she is lucky enough to vote, the daughter's finger as well her mind will be spoiled. She may think: Did I do a wrong thing? I cast my vote to a party, (whichever party may be), which devastates the country and will do the same in the future, according to our own leaders' (I don't know whether these three words are suitable or not) opinions aired on TV discussions/programmes. GODWIN KODITUWAKKU - Katugastota I refer to the headline in the Daily News "Heavy foreign loans, a burden on the future". A foreign loan has conditions and the lender is only too willing to pay a commission to the Ministers, who borrows the money. These loans are arranged, also without the knowledge of Parliament. Therefore any loan from anywhere, which is subject to high interest, and a long term, should have the sanction of Parliament, and at least a second Minister also signing. HAMA DIAS - Moratuwa |
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