We need to act ourselves.

Sorry I gave you a minor heart attack.

I can assure you I was already aware of similar incidents like for example this:

“Minister in charge of Human Rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe, said the government should accept the responsibility on abductions and killings in the government-held territory.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sinhala/news/story/2007/02/070214_human_rights.shtml

The enquiry conducted since the above statement was made is considered to be a farce.

So I was aware of the fact that these people speak the speak, but their past record of inaction speaks for itself. I was also well aware of the important role that Dr. Saravanamuttu and people like you played in forcing the government to change it’s stance. Agree with all criticisms made by you and others on the government’s actions to date with regard to this particular matter. I am still compos mentis.

I made the original statement, to remind even just myself, what the ideal situation should have been. Also needed to give them a chance because, I have been drafting a letter to my local federal MP about the state terror unleashed on its citizens. Will be faxing it soon. I would urge other expatriate Sri Lankans who have not already done so to follow suite. Unless we try to do something about it, all signs are pointing to the situation in Sri Lanka that occured in the early 1990s. Im sure the last thing we would want to be doing on out next trip to the motherland is to be tripping over corpses. Please correct me if I have an exaggerated picture of the ground situation.

Regards,

S H

The only solution then is for both to take a long time off or a long time off as well as get the help of a mediator.

I fear that your optimism was even more grossly misplaced than I said it was – http://www.groundviews.org/2007/06/12/we-could-have-put-all-of-them-in-detention/

Best,

Sanjana

you remind me the statement of MLK Jr,’ the crime of our time is not so much the bad deeds of the bad people but the silence of the good….’ I hope your writing goes beyond the ‘Civil Society’ and peace industry of Colombo 3, 5 and 7. Please put them in vernacular so that the need to transform the decomposing (because its already dead) democracy in SL is not a mere elite nostalgia. I embrace your courage. Also please take care as the modern Dharmadeepa is pathologically intolerant of any sense of political justice especially towards the Thamils

Trying encourage them to do the right thing. 😉

I wish I shared with you a sense of optimism. I do not. Tisaranee Gunasekara’s article (http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/6094) quite clearly brings out why this apology, by someone who did not possibly come up with this idea in the first place or gave the order to proceed, is no indication of contrition by this government.

Rather than applaud the PM’s statement one must question the machinations within this government that gave rise to such an apology, whether an apology itself and alone is enough, and what guarantee that we have that we will not have a repeat of this same idiocy manifest in some other way, at some other time?

I do not also share with you the assertion that the present crop of so-called leaders, and especially those in government, have “strength and courage”. They have shrill voices that accuse and deride, they have goons that kill and they have a healthy disdain for even the slightest hint of fundamental rights – they are, increasingly the very same face of terror, intolerance and extremism that is the LTTE. Of these facts we are certain. On the bases of your optimism, we are less so.

I would love to be proved wrong of course, but my submission to you is that I may well be not.

Best,

Sanjana