As a follower of Buddhist principles, I personally think that the Buddha never visited Sri Lanka. If he did, and if he in fact was able to resolve the conflict between the Naghas and Yakshas, what was the message that he preached to these warring factions? There is no such sutra in the Buddhist teachings. If there was, it would have been an excellent teaching that could be applied today to solve the current conflict in this country!

What I believe is that during the time of the Buddha, our people in Sri Lanka were so primitive and the Buddha knew that we were not ready to comprehend his teachings! Some 500 years later we were more civilized and were able to comprehend His teachings.

Unfortunately though, up to now, no politician in this country has had the will or conviction to implement this profound teaching of non-violence in to practice.
As a positive thinker, I think that there will come a day in the near future when Sri Lanka will have a leader who will have the courage to take this country on a path of true peace.

When we look back in history, Sri Lankans have been a violent lot. I remember learning in school, about the various forms of torture that were used during the times of the ancient kings. One was, tying two coconut trees together, then tying the left arm and left leg of the "prisoner" to one tree, the right arm and right leg to the other, and then cutting the ropes that tie the trees together!

I guess Buddhism has had a calming effect on our people, without which we would have been more or less like the natives of Papua New Guinea (where canibalism was practiced up to the 1970's).

From time to time though we have seen the gory side of our people emerging. This was evident during the 1983 "riots" when innocent Tamil civilians were butchered by Sinhalese mobs, and again in the late 1980's when the JVP "liberators" shot people at point blank range for the "crimes" of not obeying their "curfew" or for voting during elections!

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There is an old saying: If your only tool is a hammer, then all your problems look like nails. In the ‘Aluth Sri Lanka’ that we live in today, our tools for problem solving consist of multi-barrel rocket launchers, migs, kafirs, white vans, goon squads and rigged elections. And the Tamils in the north and east and other parts of the country including journalists and the general public at large are the nails that are bombed into submission, abducted, beaten, killed and terrorized!
The ‘Maanushika Meheuma’ or ‘Humanitarian Operation,’ an euphemism for the ongoing war is fought today as a scared and justifiable war! A war of good against evil, black versus white! But let us not forget the many shades of grey in between!

‘Fighting for peace is like copulating for virginity,’ is a pithy saying attributed to an American GI during the Vietnam war. This saying describes Sri Lanka’s predicament in a nutshell! Using military might to settle a dispute might seem logical in the short term, taking the peoples minds off the rising cost of living, but in the long term we are all losers!

Maximum devolution of power is the only way forward. In Sri Lanka’s 60 year history, agreements were made but not implemented! Pacts were signed and abrogated! This time around, if the majority community does not agree to devolution, the country’s future will be quite bleak, and it will not be the beginning of the end, but the end of the end, and Sri Lanka will meander along as ‘A can’t be developed country,’ the ‘Sick man of Asia.’

Genocide intent can never be kept secret.

Radovan Karadzic, while addressing the Bosnian Parliament said that the independence bid would take Bosnia “to hell and Muslim people to extermination”. He carried on with the brutal war in Bosnia and caused genocide of Bosnians.

This inhuman attitude of Karadzic “qualified” him for indictment for war crimes committed in Bosnia.

When Dayan Jayatilaka, a Sinhalese, a former representative of the UN Human Rights Council, Kicked out from it with disgrace, writes “take it and kill it”, refering to the Tamils and freedom fighters who are in an independence bid for Tamil Eelam, it has exactly the same intent as Kardzic and deserves arrest and a trial in the Hague.

Colin Powell might have said as Chief of Staff or the head of the US Military to “take it and kill it” but as Secretary of State in September 2004 he also told a senate hearing that genocide has been committed in Darfur and might still be occuring there.

He recognised unequivocally that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed militias were “taking and killing” the people of Darfur. This genocide is exactly waht Dayan and the Government of Sri Lanka(GOSL) desire the Sinhalese soldiers to do in Kilinochchi. Dayan is expresing in clear terms the genocidal policy of the GOSL.

The Sinhalese now realise that the claim of the GOSL about “liberating the East” was nothing but a sham to initiate genocide by boosting the ego of the Sinhalese. Combats between soldiers and the LTTE combatants are almost a daily occurence there now, with the soldiers shamefully on the losing side.

Kilinichchi will definitely not be different, even if the hearts of “patriots” are warmed up, if and when the soldiers capture it.

One thing is very clear and that is; the GOSL wants to tell the world by its defiant actions that NE will be ruled by it with violence, Human Rights abuses and genocide and not by anything else. The GOSL challenges even the UN and the International Community on this matter.

If a person tries to break a hard rock with his head, it is the head that will break. Never the rock. It is the foolish who resort to such stupidity

From 1956 the Sinhalese had a moral and spiritual decay culminating in what the writer of this article has expressed. It will worsen more rapidly.

Recently, a Buddhist monk failed to follow a court order about loud speaker usage. He was disturbing the neighbourhood. When he was arrested and refused bail by the judges, came in more than 20 of them, clad similarly to the court room. When the judges came in the 20 monks refused to stand up and honour the position. When asked to go out for contempt of court they refused.

Funnily enough, the judges were trying to compromise. They asked them to just go out and come in. Still there was defiance !!!!

How could these guys who are given the duty to preach Dhamma preach the right thing?

There are soldiers fighting in the North. When they come back to the South, one can witness more violence, gangsterism, rape, murder and mayhem.

One has to reap what one sows. You sowed violence and will reap much violence. Wait for the coming days.

Details of Lalith can be found here – http://www.sagetraining.org/team-sage.php

Some choice quotes from the Dhammapada that I wish Buddhists (especially the Sangha) would practice:
Verse 5. For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love, this is an old rule.
Verse 129. All tremble at violence; all fear death. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.
Verse 201. Victory begets enmity; the defeated dwell in pain. Happily the peaceful live, discarding both victory and defeat.