May 11, 2013, 6:25 pm

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(Continued from last week)

You had said that "by reconciliation we mean finding a way for all Sri Lankans to live together in peace, harmony and security in a unified country……a country in which democratic space exists for all to be able to express their views freely and for all to share in the prosperity of the country in terms of access to land, employment and education and so forth."

"..all Sri Lankans to live together in peace, harmony and security in a unified country…… " You would see the best example of this in the city of Colombo which was earlier a city gripped by fear of mutual suspicion, explosions, mayhem and check points etc. Now all communities are living there in peace, so are the people of the rest of the country other than in some parts of the Northern Province where some people are bent on reviving the old conflict attitudes, without allowing the embers to die, not for the love of the people, but for the love of themselves. Otherwise there is no reason for such situation to prevail only there, when the rest of the country has settled down to peace. One cannot say that the people there should at least now, be left to live in peace? And why should the government not adequately do so? It will be very much to their advantage.

"…a country in which democratic space exists for all to be able to express their views freely"

Perhaps this may take a little time, judging by the mood of some people to whom, the longer this appear to be not provided, so long they would have a cause to rouse the people to dissatisfaction. It is only four years after the war. We may have to give some more time to achieve this. Rome was not built in one day.

"and for all to share in the prosperity of the country in terms of access to land, employment and education and so forth."

I believe the productivity of the Northern and Eastern Provinces have risen to an all-time high of 22%? If the people did not have access to land and other facilities they could not have achieved this? And if the people were not gainfully employed this productivity level could not have been attained?

Access to education which was denied to the Tamil people in the Northern and Eastern Provinces by LTTE, was resumed from the IDP camps themselves and now students are freely entering Universities. Inter-school cricket matches are resumed between schools in the North, East and South as prevailed before all these was deprived to them by the LTTE. So our achievements here are quite good I believe?

Now to ‘accountability’. Apparently, ‘accountability’ according to you is " identifying those responsible for committing abuses and imposing consequences for these acts or omissions"

I believe a democratically elected government is accountable, primarily to its people who voted them to position of power. If they are not satisfied with their government’s accountability they will suitably deal with them at the hustings or even earlier. But no government will be accountable to some foreigners Ms. Sison? For instance, will the US government be either accountable to Sri Lanka or to the UNHCR or some such agency, on the way US Marines entered another country illegally and committed cold blooded murder of an unarmed Osama-Bin-Laden and his family? Your government will certainly be accountable to your people if yours is a democratically elected government, but not to Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s case is different from Iraq, Libya etc. leaders of which were not democratically elected. They may be perhaps held accountable to world bodies.

As far as Sri Lanka is concerned, our governments’ accountability to its people have been quite good, down history. In regard to credible investigation into ‘war’ crimes allegations referred to by you, we have a fairly good record down the recent history. I recall that several court cases were filed in our criminal courts on the Communal violence cases of 1958 and so many people were, if I remember correct, sentenced to death and imprisonment. Also after the 1971 JVP Revolt, I recall an army colonel and some soldiers were sentenced to imprisonment over rape and murder of a local beauty queen named Manamperi of Kataragama. The colonel died in prison. A sub-inspector of police somewhere in Puttalam District was convicted to jail on the murder of a woman during the 1988 JVP revolt. Again, a soldier and some others were convicted & jailed over the rape and killing of a girl caught at a check point in Jaffna some years ago. So I am sure this government too would do the same if any information with some credible evidence is presented to them instead of producing some dubious films and photographs with the aid of Photoshop and such technology.

Another question. When the JVP revolt of 1988/90 was quelled in this country, the leader of that movement and his top lieutenants disappeared under dubious circumstances. An estimated 60,000 people were also killed by both sides. Despite this, people of this country were greatly relieved as much as now after the annihilation of Prabhakaran and his cohorts in the battle field, are ‘reconciled’ and living at peace since, without rancour. But there was not a whimper from the US or other ‘world community’ for accountability on that occasion! How come?

Next question is, why you speak of some atrocities alleged to have been committed by the SL Army only towards the END of this ‘war’? What is so significant of what happened at the last stages of the ‘war’ as against during the entire ‘war’? Does it mean that the rest of the ‘war’ was all cleanly fought according the book of rules? Why are you selecting the tail end only? I believe, people of this country may welcome a probe into all matters of accountability throughout the 30 years of this ‘war’. In such an event accountability would be due, apart from the GOSL, from authorities who trained and armed our terrorists in their countries and who imparted to them military know how, from those who prevented this ‘war’ from being finished 25years ago, and whose ostensible peacekeeping forces, on the pretext of bringing peace to the country, brought untold misery especially to the Tamil in the Northern and Eastern Provinces. Also from the UN who failed to prevent Prabhakaran from mobilizing child soldiers, from those who openly wrote books boasting that they were responsible for recruiting and training child soldiers to become suicide bombers, from those countries that prevented the quicker ending of this ‘war’ by goading this country into fake Cease Fire Agreements and helping terrorist to acquire high powered communication equipment and from those governments who did their damnest to prevent/delay the end of terrorism in this country by placing all kinds of obstructions, and so on.

Among other things you have said at this press briefing is:"A dialogue between the government and the Tamil National Alliance on devolution was also crucial to achieving real reconciliation." It is certainly so since they are a part of the problem, having been a political front of the Terrorist LTTE, who accepted the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamil people. Now in the absence of the LTTE, it is natural that we have now to deal with its ‘ghost’, sans the weapons and bombs. But the TNA is not the only stakeholder in this matter. There are several others whose country this is. That may be why the government has invited all stakeholders to a Parliamentary Select Committee to discuss this issue. And the TNA seems to be reluctant to attend this meeting of all stakeholders. Something that you could do by way of helping to solve the devolution and other political issues, is to persuade the TNA to participate in these discussions without hidden agendas.

Finally, this must be said since you are still new to Sri Lanka. You will perhaps know that throughout the last 25 years, you and your ‘International Community friends have been saying that this ‘war’ was ‘unwinnable’ and pressurizing Sri Lanka to agree to a peaceful settlement conceding a separate state to the LTTE. Sri Lanka disregarded this ‘advice’ continued the struggle, defeated the terrorists saving nearly 300,000 Tamil people who were held hostage by the LTTE which though you do not acknowledge, is a unique achievement. So this, we have achieved our way. The ‘international community’ said that the IDP camps were virtual prisons and would never end. But they no longer exist. Thousands of combatants have since been rehabilitated and returned to a normal life.

When the tsunami struck this country in 2004, ‘the international community’ said there will be epidemics, dysentery etc. following the disaster. We managed the refugee camps without any epidemics and now everyone is back in their new homes whereas the US was unable for a long time to provide housing to your people who became destitute after the Katrina disaster. And mind you we did all this whilst fighting a ‘war’. So all this would show that we as a nation is capable of handling our problems ‘Our Way’. We are well equipped to do this. The greatest help that US government could do is to leave us alone, without trying to manipulate us through your so called ‘International Community’, to enable us to find our own solutions to the rest of the problems.

Our government may not be squeaky clean. After all which government in the world is? They may be even foolish at times. We will deal with that too in due course, at the right time. You please leave us alone for the moment.

(Concluded)

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