1.”… the soldier in charge asked whether he can buy the houses from their owner. I said they want to come back to their houses and when the army vacate their houses. He smiled.”
mhhh… ”He smiled.”

63, going on 64, yrs of ”independence” is in that smile.

2.”I could not even take a picture of the foundation of the hut in which I was born.”

Ethir, were you prevented from photographing?

Or

Didn’t you have a gadget to photograph it?

Or

Was your gadget not in working condition, please?

Plain and simple Sinhala hypocrisy.

1919 Sinhala leaders promised Thamil leader Sir Pon. Arunachalam a seat in colombo for Thamil community and then went back on their promise.

Same with SWRD

Same with Dudley Senanayake

Same with JRJ

Same with Mahendra Rajapakse (Mahinda is not his real name)

this has been the biggest problem for Sri Lanka

What John Locke said is relevant in the current situation in the North.
“17. And hence it is he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him… To be free from such force is the only security of my preservation, and reason bids me look on him as my enemy to my preservation, who would take away that freedom which is the fence to it. So that he who make an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war with me.”
(Locke, in Chapter Three, ‘Of the State of War,’ in ‘The Second Treatise of Government’)
I cannot see Tamil people taking up arms again. But they will also not swallow what the GoSL is trying to shove it down their throat. Such public expression has already started. Sooner the North is de-militarised and power of decision making transferred to the civil administration, sooner the reconciliation can commence.

Sinhala colonisation of Tamil areas from the time of DSSenanayake has been planned and executed to this day just to make any form of devolution of power meaningless – what has happened in the last six years is much more than in the previous 55yrs.

Chapter5: Ethnic Co-operation in Sri Lanka by Norman T.Uphoff in Carrots, Sticks and Ethnic Conflict(Ed MJ Esman and RJ Herring 2003):
”The farmer who objected to this generosity was persuaded to support the plan after a young farmer, Narangoda, took him by bicycle down the long and bumpy canal road to see what conditions were like at the end. The dissenting individual came back quite moved by what he had seen, reporting that the tail-end farmers did not have enough water even for drinking and bathing, let alone for growing a crop of rice. The Gonagolla farmers tried to save donate two and even three days’ of their five days water allotment once they became more conscious of how the drought was affecting othersothers down stream. ……

Several Sinhalese farmer groups told me that they had an informal understanding with Tamil communities downstream: if the tigers were making a raid upstream, Tamils would try to warn Sinhalese communities so that they could try to protect themselves; if the Sri Lankan army was moving downstream, Sinhalese would try to warn the Tamil communities so that they would try to get out of the way…. When I met with Sinhalese farmers in Gonagolla and asked whether the Tamil engineer living among them was safe, Narangoda, the local leader said: ”Yes, I regard him as my brother and if someone comes to get him, they will have to get me first” ……”

If the power-hungry leaders of SLFP and UNP leave the ordinary citizens of the South alone, we can easily find justice and peace for all in no time.

Recently we met up with some new friends in the North..

we ate together – sharing meals was great.

Our knowledge of Tamil is very limited, but we murdered our way through.. they thought it was very funny and we had a really good time.