Comments on: A Tribute to our Unsung Heroes

By: RAJATHA PIYATISSAS

RAJATHA PIYATISSAS — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 11:31:37 +0000

Hi Lefti,
Good work fellow Homosapien. I strongly feel the day, we majority realizes the needs and desires of our fellow minority countrymen need not be necessarily as same as ours the trust will be bridged between all communities and ethnic harmony will prevail in the true spirit of “Live & Let Live”. My Very Best Wishes for your future humanatarien work. I too will contribute with word & deed to bring hrmony to our beautiful “Thambapani”.

Rajatha Piyatissa

By: Nimal

Nimal — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 05:53:34 +0000

Dear Lalith,
Thank you foran excellent, unbiased article. As a ‘Sinhalese’ I look forward to the day when our Tamil brothers will look for a bright future in Sri Lanka alongside all of us.

By: Vino Gamage

Vino Gamage — Mon, 31 May 2010 06:54:36 +0000

A. http://www.groundviews.org/2010/05/26/vanni-in-the-year-after-war-tears-of-despair-and-fear/

B. http://www.peace-srilanka.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=1&Itemid=121
1 WINNING HEARTS AND MINDS IN JAFFNA Monday, 31 May 2010 Dr. Jehan Perera
2 INDIGENOUS REALITY AND THE PROSPECT OF RECONCILIATION WITHOUT DEVOLUTION Tuesday, 18 May 2010 Dr. Jehan Perera
3 STRENGTHENING THE CULTURE OF FEAR OR DEMOCRATIC PROBLEM SOLVING Monday, 10 May 2010 Dr. Jehan Perera

By: Chandra Fernando

Chandra Fernando — Sat, 29 May 2010 18:10:54 +0000

Lalith’s article is very much like the e-mail I sent to my three children brought up in the West after I visited one of the two rehab centers for ex-child combatants in Sri Lanka. I was extremely impressed by the way Sri Lanka has handled the rehabilitation of these children. I found most of them to be victims of horror who had been forcibly removed from their homes and schools.

I had the privilege of spending some time with the children on two different days. I had a chance to listen to their stories and play games with them. I donated basket balls and several sets of scrabble for their English classes. I am grateful to the Montessori principal who was kind enough to arrange my visit to this center and giving me the chance to meet these beautiful children.

I was able to read my book, “A Little Book of Peace” to them. After I had read it to them, even the 17 and 18 year old boys wanted to hold the book and look at the beautiful water color illustrations . Even though it is a very basic children’s book, they passed the book from one to another and both boys and girls wanted to check it out for themselves. Later, the scout master who was present, remarked, ” Did you see the anticipation on their faces when you were just about to turn a page?”

Army personnel in civilian clothes and police men and women looked after these children as if they were their own. I can’t praise them enough. As a peace advocate for children who travels to many countries each year I have to say that the rehabilitation of these children is a huge success story. With the help of UNICEF, the military, police personnel, counselors and volunteers, Sri Lanka should be proud of this great humanitarian effort.

If I have one criticism, it is that the story was not shared with the rest of the world. Sri Lanka lost a golden opportunity.

By: Aloy Perera

Aloy Perera — Sat, 29 May 2010 13:09:31 +0000

My Dear Lalith,

Your article and insights are illuminating, yet excruciatingly disturbing when one factors in the contradictions and complexities of a group of our contry’s fellow citizens have to contend with for having perpetrated the most heinous collective crime of allowing the LTTE to grow up to be the monster that it turned out to be.
Living here in Toronto as I do, I have seen first hand how the LTTE trough their surrogates in the Tamil diaspora under different facades here still contnue the process of abomination of the tender minds of impetuous Tamil Youths here with impunity often helped by greedy Canadian politicians who depend on the Tamil diaspora votes to get elected to representative legislatures or Councils and Boards at Federal, Provincial and Municipal levels. The situation with reards to politicians is not very different from that of Sri Laanka where corrupt practices are tolerated country wide and people get used to a certain lackdaisical way of living amid the mire of corruption. But your article with its brilliant insights shows there’s hope for the future of our beloved country..Kudos to those decent and caring men and women in the Army, Navy, Air Force and the Police and in the administration who care enough to recognize the common humanity we all share. Their example and their compassionate work will not be in vain!

Your article ought to receive widest circulation among the international Tamil Diaspora and I’ll be copying it to as many as I can here in Toronto.

More importantly, the initiative you have taken should result in a concentrated youth focussed international campaign to enlighten the world of the realities of the post war Sri Lankan society and the prevailing peace throughout the nation – indeed a rare happening that provides a most wonderful environment and an opportunity to restore sanguine virtues of human unerstanding, respect and for fellow beings and respecting the dignity and worth of every individual.

By: Venura Dias Ariyaratne

Venura Dias Ariyaratne — Fri, 28 May 2010 08:38:27 +0000

A tribute to unsung heroes – is an eyeopener to the whole world. It tells of the most human way, the Sri Lanka government and the armed forces acted. LTTE and the Tamil Tiger brutality cannot be described in words. The amount of misery and havoc they inflicted upon Sri Lanka, its nation and especially their own Tamils is enormous. Even they shot their own Tamil people when fleeing to the govt controlled areas at the last moment. Now here many LTTE supporters, using Sinhala names as pseudonyms, have made comments criticising govt. helping Tamil child soldiers. We are not fooled by those Tiger terrorist comments.
- Venura Dias

By: billy

billy — Tue, 25 May 2010 13:32:56 +0000

a refreshing article with all the anti srilankan NGO and tamil racist jargon that promote by this site!

By: Vino Gamage

Vino Gamage — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:20:58 +0000

”why are a chosen bunch of children trained as Guides?”

Showcase as reason why GSP+ should be granted by EU.

By: ampanai

ampanai — Tue, 25 May 2010 10:33:25 +0000

The Tamil youth that lives in the west is angry at Sri Lankan Sinhala leaders for not treating Tamils as humans and as equals with freedom and dignity. The Tamil youth in Sri Lanka have long been denied those and those were the reasons their parents left their lost homeland.

By: davidson panabokke

davidson panabokke — Tue, 25 May 2010 09:11:01 +0000

When tens of thousands are languishing in camps and open prisons, when Northeast is getting more militarised,when journalists are still incarcerated for dissent, when abductions, disappearances and murders are still going on, schools are prevented from being opened by army presence, when UN aid agents are prevented from helping the destitute, when journalists are prevented from going freely, when Hindus and Christians are forced to celebrate Buddhist functions, when people battered by loss of kith and kin are forced to celebrate ”heroes”, when many children are even unable to go to schools for basic education because they are in the camps or because the schools are occupied by the army or by IDPs,
why are a chosen bunch of children trained as Guides?

By: Vino Gamage

Vino Gamage — Tue, 25 May 2010 08:54:10 +0000

1.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGhMIgnwZuA
The Changing face of Wesak in Colombo and Militarizing Sri Lanka, 15 May 2009

2.Respect for Diversity in Educational Publication – The Sri Lankan Experience, Ariya Wickrema and Peter Colenso, 2003:
â€˜’It is necessary to trace briefly the historical links between the development of the education system and the development of an ethnic -based politics, leading to armed conflict. ….
Tamils not involved in writing the textbooks – Textbooks written in Sinhala, and then translated into Tamil ….
the textbooks encourage children to develop “apartheid attitudes” ….
in studying art, the Tamil student only studies Sinhalese Buddhist aspects of art ….
the history of Sri Lanka is confined to a few selected Sinhala kings….
Tamils are portrayed as “aggressors”; forces of the Tamil kings are “mercenaries’ , whereas forces of the Sinhala kings are “soldiers”
the majority of Sinhala medium textbooks emphasize Sinhalese Buddhist attitudes; distorted maps under-represent North and Eastern Provinces;
War is shown as patriotic while peace is portrayed as cowardice”

3.The Two Faces of Education in Ethnic Conflict: Towards a Peacebuilding Education for Children â€“ Kenneth D Bush and Diana Saltarelli(2000) – published by Innocenti Research Centre, UNICEF:

”…. A review of the textbooks used in the segregated schools of Sri Lanka in the 1970s and 1980s, for example, found Sinhalese textbooks scattered with images of Tamils as the historical enemies of the Sinhalese, while celebrating ethnic heroes who had vanquished Tamils in ethnic wars. Ignoring historical fact, these textbooks tended to portray Sinhalese Buddhists as the only true Sri Lankans, with Tamils, Muslims and Christians as non- indigenous and extraneous to Sri Lankan history. This version of national history according to one commentator, has been deeply divisive in the context of the wider state.”