Comments on: THE APRC PROCESS: FROM HOPE TO DESPAIR

By: N. Ethirveerasingam

N. Ethirveerasingam — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:30:43 +0000

Yes ordinary citizen. In school we were taught that speech is silver but silence is golden. It is often repeated by teachers and parents for good reason. In expressing our thoughts and ideas in groundviews I hear only the sound of my keyboard but my mind sees the thoughts and ideas of concerned others. In silence I communicate. I love silence. It gives me time to reflect. Silence is peaceful, so are the chants of the various religions though I do not like to hear it through the loudspeakers on top of places of worship. I hear the sound of shells, the kfirs and the burst of bombs in the Vanni, Jaffna and the South amids the chants. If we remain silent the sounds of explosions will never cease. In Sri Lanka silence is acceptance of the authority of the majority community. In a democracy (not the Sri Lankan kind) speech is golden. I do not like the silence of the morgue.

By: Ordinary Lankan

Ordinary Lankan — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:57:29 +0000

so much words about a non event – WHY?

Cannot silence be a better greeting – a wholly appropriate one for these APRC proposals?

Do you not know the power of silence?

By: Sam Thambipillai

Sam Thambipillai — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:37:51 +0000

Ethnic discrimination is the fundamental reason for the present ethnic conflict. How does the state attempt to undo discrimination and bring about justice is more important than any other adventures.

The existence of extreme discrimination against the Tamils of Sri Lanka, especially in the North East, is denied by some Sinhala extremists in the South. The JVP “fools the foolish in the South” with such a false denial.

The real situation in Sri Lanka is that the attitude and behaviour of any Sinhalese and any government is determined by one factor alone and that is whether you are a Sinhalese or a Tamil.

Those who deny discrimination place the argument that it is not only the Tamils but the Sinhalese are also suffering. This is fundamentally wrong. Even if Tamils and Sinhalese suffer together because of economic factors, there is solace to Sinhalese in specific areas but not to any Tamil.

Any Sinhalese person gets good treatment by the the police and he is PROVIDED with a good education, a job by the state, industrial and farming facilities, fertile state land, better health facilities, an impartial judicial system, economic and development support, export and import preferences, manufacturing and trade licences, better access to consumables, easy travel and communication, security favour and rehabilitation from tsunami, just because he is a Sinhalese.

On the Contrary, any Tamil person is abused by the police
and is DENIED a good education, a job by the state, industrial and farming facilities, fertile state land, better health facilities, an impartial judicial system, economic and development support, export and import preferences, manufacturing and trade licences, better access to consumables, easy travel and communication, security favour and rehabilitation from tsunami, just because he is a Tamil.

This “just because” factor differentiates the attitude and the treatment meted out to any Sinhalese or Tamil by the state in Sri Lanka.

In apartheid South Africa, it was the same “just because” factor that differentiated the attitude and treatment meted out to any black or white person.

Apartheid system was considered oppressive, cruel, wicked and evil. There is no doubt whatsoever that the discriminatory system against the Tamils is equally oppressive, cruel, wicked and evil yet the world is not equally vociferous against it.

By: Saravanamuttu

Saravanamuttu — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:26:34 +0000

I would rather turn G.K.Chesterton’s quotation on its head to read: It’s not that they cannot see the problem. It is that they do not want to see a solution”!
The reasons are obvious enough to those who have followed the contorted course of politics over the past 60 years. In cricket language: 60, not out! After all, it is the stuff that divisive ethnic and religious politics has been made of and cannibalised by the two major political parties in power by playing up to minor parties whichever props them up in power like see-saw politics.

In order to understand the reasons for procrastinating on the Thirteeth Amendment one has to go back to the history (a poor record at that) of constituion making in Ceylon/Sri Lanka. What became of the consensual 1948 constitution? And how was it unceremoniously ditched in 1972 and substituted by a unilateralist one which gave primacy to Sinhala and Buddhism while rejecting the aspirations of cultural minorities. The Thriteenth Amendment which tried to forge power sharing with largely Tamil speaking people of the north east was still born. The All Party Conference tried to revive it under the same kind of process from 1998 to 2000 and failed. With hindsight what has happened to the present one (sans the majority of Tamil speaking MPs from the north and east this time round) is a stilted job which cannot pass muster by any consultative political standard or process.

It has become well known that the present ad hoc document is what the President (and his supporters) want to see for reasons best known to themselves. It is surmised that the objective may be to utilise it to secure aid from the international community apparently for development of the north and east for whatever it is worth. What became of the $4.5 b in aid under the botched 2002 CFA and tsunami foreign aid under the guise of reconstruction of war affected areas are all too fresh in people’s minds.

Nothing is lost by trying . But the APRC document is not going to solve any of the political problems of the affected people or the north and east. It is an artifificial sop at best.

By: N. Ethirveerasingam

N. Ethirveerasingam — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:00:09 +0000

Rohan,
A good legal, academic and moral argument. However, the reality is that no political party in power will want to give up power or be thrown out of power. Though JVP is not in the cabinet, they can throw the Rajapakse administration out of power with the help of UNP who aspire to gain power. Rajapaksa cabinet cannot make any decision that a significant majority of Sinhala voters (including the Rajapaksa administration) will reject. What it convey to us laypeople is that the 13th amendment was still born and, with time, it petrified.

The Sinhala and the Tamil communities are like the right and left half of a brain. They were joined with a connective tissue, the “corpus collosum”. Mr. B and his majority blocked communication between the two brains with the Sinhala Only Act in 1956. Mrs B and her leftists performed the surgery to cut the connective tissue in 1972. It is foolish for the right-half to pronounce that there is no left half and that both are one, the right. It is best not to harm each others independent existence until such time we are creative enough to grow a new connective tissue better than the old one, to make both halves benefit equally from each other.