Comments on: Chandrika Kumaratunga’s Morning After Thoughts and The Local Authorities’ Elections in Sri Lanka

By: Jayalath

Jayalath — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:26:19 +0000

Dear. Dayan

I’m very impressed with your artical and it’s given all the necessary evidences and facts to undestand any one ,who even not much aware of this conflict . Also well zipped ex – rubbish president .
Thank you. Jayalath from London .

By: Dr Dayan Jayatilleka

Dr Dayan Jayatilleka — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 07:42:14 +0000

In reply to Cas Shivas.

Cas, where and how have I changed my position about the TNA? I have always been for political dialogue with it, at least since the 1980s ( the TULF), while I have urged it since ’87, to accept the 13th amendment, and continue to caution it that pushing beyond will only cause the someone to petition the supreme Court which will refer it to a referendum at which it will be scrapped!

As for CBK, the laudable things she has said about the need for greater equity in Sri Lanka, were fought for and came closest to achievemnt during the tenure of President Premadasa, whom she bitterly opposed and denounced!

Therefore I do not need her to draw up a shopping list of desirable attributes for a future Sri Lanka.

By: Cas Shivas

Cas Shivas — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 16:32:10 +0000

Dear Dayan,
Again you are using the same diversionary tactics.Without meeting the contents of my comment,you are still talking about the person who made the original speech.This if I remember correctly is one of the tactics mentioned in the famous book, ‘Straight and Crooked Thinking’.A person who does bad things normally can do a good thing later and/or in a different occasion. Should I still call it a bad thing. A person who had been telling wrong things can change his stance,like what you have done recently about the position occupied by TNA amongst Tamils. Should I say it is wrong because You have said it. Each case has to be treated on its own merit.Please meet the arguments directly.

By: Dr Dayan Jayatilleka

Dr Dayan Jayatilleka — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 09:31:12 +0000

In reply to Sarath Fernando.

The blinkered fanaticism of ‘Sarath Fernando’ is best evidenced by contrasting his take with the bottom line of an article on the LG elections by a rational critic of the regime, human rights activist Ahilan Kadirgamar, who concludes thus : ‘ If there is a larger lesson to be learned from the local government elections in the North, it is that there are limits to the political muscle of party machines and patronage. And this indeed is a victory for democracy in the country’.
(Sunday Island, July 31)

By: Dr Dayan Jayatilleka

Dr Dayan Jayatilleka — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 09:27:19 +0000

In reply to Cas Shivas. Dear Cas, If it were only what is said and not who is doing the saying that is important, we wouldn't have the expression 'the Devil quoting the Scriptures' would we now?

By: Sarath Fernando

Sarath Fernando — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 18:46:18 +0000

In reply to Sri.

It is not surprising that Dayan would rise with his pseudo-academic analysis to conclude that the defeat of the regime in the North is proof of a functioning democracy. Had the regime won instead, there is no doubt he would have rushed to argue that the Tamils in the country are fully supportive of the regime contrary to what the Diaspora seem to suggest. In Dayan’s apple-polishing world, it is “heads I win – tails you lose”!

Dayan has proved time and again that his purportedly academic, “objective” analysis is nothing but servile propaganda to the regime, making the best that meets his own ends, never mind the truth, integrity and the near-term/long-term consequences to the country.

By: Cas Shivas

Cas Shivas — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 11:05:03 +0000

It is what is said that is important and not who said it or what mistakes s/he committed in the past.By discrediting the author one can not erase off credible contents. Dayan by citing the Kurdish example keeps saying that they have several Kurdish Language Radio stations and T:V: Channels and all this the Tamil people and TNA have now. It is not Radio and T.V. Channels that the Tamil peoples want but it is their basic rights. They have had radio and T.V.Channels for long. Autonomy may be good but even 13A less Police and Land powers in demerged North and East is nothing after so long.As Mr.S.Nadesan,Q.C. said in 1958 in the Senate after the riots against the Tamils by the Sinhalese whilst the Police was looking on,” We want the freedom to walk on the streets in our areas unmolested.”( add in the present context, disappeared-Patani Razeek-tortured,raped,killed).
As for the media is Dayan not aware of what happens to Uthayan Sr. News Editor,Kuganathan only a few days ago and MTV TV station many times in the past.- as one time Representative of the S.L. Government @ the UN Human Rights Council he should pay attention to thease matters as well without running out of the country all the time seeking green pastures.
What was the earthly reason for doing away with the 17th Amt.? When the Constitution Council was in place under 17A(with Srimega Wijeratna, Attorney Karunakaran et.al)with the Police Commission under the Chairmanship of Ranjit Abeysuriya,P.C., one could see some order and discipline in the Police Force as they were afraid to transgress their limits. Compare that with what now happens under 18A. I suggest Dayan reads the Article by Professor Rajan Hoole, in ‘Transcurrents’, to which he also contributes regularly, to find out what he (Prof.Hoole) and Prof.Sivachandran saw Police doing on the day of the Local Authorities Election day in Kayts in the North.

By: Sri

Sri — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 04:14:34 +0000

Dr Dayan, a refreshing change.

May I quote from your article the following eloquent para?

“Any illusions of imposing silence on the Tamils and eliminating their cultural and political resolve have been dispelled by the electoral map that has unrolled with the parliamentary and local government elections.
Both communities have thrown their best or worst at each other and both are still standing. What resilience and resolve!
Both the Sinhalese and Tamils should not only be proud of themselves but of each other, because we are inhabitants of one island, and share the same DNA:
we are brothers and sisters.
What we could achieve together!
I am glad we won the war, but sorry we ever had to fight one. Now, we have attained some kind of balance”

Well said Dayan!,
I endorse every word, but will the country as a whole approve and move forward rather than your words remaining as rhetoric!

Again you assert innocently “Sri Lanka remains a functioning, competitive, multiparty democracy”

Do you seriously believe in this claim especially when influential senior ruling party circles regret for the space allowed to Tamil nationalism due to bad judgment on their part and wish to reverse the results and to complete their victory over Tamils so that Tamils will always remain as a dependent community and accept gratefully any handouts like Douglus and Karuna – the expected ideal leaders for Tamils.

Again “An election however flawed is still democratic”

I strongly disagree.

Democracy is not merely elections but what happens in between elections.

There is a downward trend as far as democracy is concerned.
Chandirica’s period was more democratic than the present despite the presence of an autocratic LTTE.

1978 Constitution before 18A is liberal when compared with the 1978 constitution after the 18A

But a prerequisite for genuine peace is the existence of independent democratic institutions, oversight committees, rule of law- in fact good governance and participatory democracy.

It should not be is not patronage politics.

These are all only dreams!

By: Dessert Fox

Dessert Fox — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 03:57:34 +0000

Finaly a readable treatise by Dr Jayatilleke. As a GV subscriber I welcome his own paradigm shift from polemics to true realism