An Attempt to guess the LTTE’s new strategy for peace..
Why has the LTTE called for unconditional peace talks so suddenly whereas they were demanding that the Govt should withdraw its forces from Sampur for any peace talks, just a week back? It is not a difficult theory to understand that it is not easy for a rebel movement waging war against a state to call for peace talks when it is in a weak position.
To me it seems to be part of a larger plan to weaken the international community’s confidence on the Government as a genuine party to the peace process. The govt is confused and is struggling to respond to this unexpected call for peace talks. At a moment where the President has left the country to attend two important international meetings and with the Co-Chairs meeting around the corner it perhaps is/was the most appropriate time for the LTTE to call for the Govt to peace talks. The Govt seems to be in a militarily stronger position and it is difficult obviously for any warring party which has just tasted victory to say immediately ‘yes’ to peace talks. That’s why Rambukkuwela has responded strongly that there will be conditions on the govts part. The govts confusion is made evident in the recent press release that the peace secretariat put out on the matter saying that they are ready for peace but will have to negotiate the modalities and logistics of the peace talks. This is victory for the LTTE, as the international community is likely to ‘understand’ this as the govt’s unpreparedness for a negotiated settlement to the conflict. It is also positive propaganda for the LTTE which is largely portrayed as the party not interested in the peace talks. A very clever way to bring international pressure on the Government indeed.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
On 'Check Point'
(Reproduction of a comment that i made at at http://stagestheatregroup.wordpress.com/2006/09/05/comments/)
A good concept forum theatre is… Have been part of one and have also discussed with a few in the field about the uses of this form of theatre. I do not claim to know the in and out of the theatre and must concede that I have very minimal exposure. But one question that bothers me after seeing ‘checkpoint’ yesterday was about taking and discussing issues to an ‘appropriate’ audience. The question always remains about what an appropriate audience is. But I was disheartened to see many members of the audience being insensitive to issues, issues which are for most of our people of direct relevance to their existence. I was frustrated by the insensitive applauses and laughter that erupted from some quarters of the audience when some very sensitive issues were portrayed and depicted. The type of audience ‘Check point’ was able to attract were not possibly a group who are very much affected by these issues or probably to better word it people who do not care much even if affected. Though the issue was a general one, there hovers a question as to whether forum theatres can be for people who are not necessarily the people who are involved in the issue in some way or the other? Is it not that forum theatres are for particular ‘target groups’? I acknowledge that forum theatres are at the same time (though I felt that Adam did not adequately stress this) for people not to find resolutions but to provoke thinking and to leave at a heightened state of emotion so that they would be provoked to take action.. Was this achieved?
The forum theatre was also a good opportunity to adequately understand the different mood and temperament of our society and may be that was the objective of the forum theatre and its organisers. I thought the audience was a good sample of the larger Colombo elite and of course our expats. (All people who spoke during the forum theatre except for a few had accents!!)And it is this elite society which is active in our social, political and communication sphere not to mention that they are the cream of our so called ‘civil society’. (I also need to do justice to all those who remained silent ..May be they did the right thing.. may be they didn’t want to get ‘identified’.. I don’t know why i was silent .. May be some of us didn’t because it wasn’t worthy of us contributing
I wish to echo what someone else has already said. To take the theatre out of Colombo in the vernacular languages. I liked it where the organisers had somewhere mentioned that they are exploring opportunities to work with the vernacular theatres.
I liked Gehan de Chickera’s acting .. a beautiful mono acting performance.. Hats off to Gehan.. 24 hours.. hmmm. Nothing newly learnt through both of them but was able to witness an artistic expression of what I have been personally reflecting on. In that sense I really appreciate the performances. Must also mention that Dylan’s acting was marvellous.. He definitely did realistically portray an average Colombo based Tamil. Niran’s wit was excellent as well. The character that he played and some of the comments he made are ones that I have heard from him and do a lot of justice to who as a person he is.
Overall it was a thought provoking evening and I salute the organisers for the effort, time and intellect that they had put in for the purpose.
(Reproduction of a comment that i made at at http://stagestheatregroup.wordpress.com/2006/09/05/comments/)
A good concept forum theatre is… Have been part of one and have also discussed with a few in the field about the uses of this form of theatre. I do not claim to know the in and out of the theatre and must concede that I have very minimal exposure. But one question that bothers me after seeing ‘checkpoint’ yesterday was about taking and discussing issues to an ‘appropriate’ audience. The question always remains about what an appropriate audience is. But I was disheartened to see many members of the audience being insensitive to issues, issues which are for most of our people of direct relevance to their existence. I was frustrated by the insensitive applauses and laughter that erupted from some quarters of the audience when some very sensitive issues were portrayed and depicted. The type of audience ‘Check point’ was able to attract were not possibly a group who are very much affected by these issues or probably to better word it people who do not care much even if affected. Though the issue was a general one, there hovers a question as to whether forum theatres can be for people who are not necessarily the people who are involved in the issue in some way or the other? Is it not that forum theatres are for particular ‘target groups’? I acknowledge that forum theatres are at the same time (though I felt that Adam did not adequately stress this) for people not to find resolutions but to provoke thinking and to leave at a heightened state of emotion so that they would be provoked to take action.. Was this achieved?
The forum theatre was also a good opportunity to adequately understand the different mood and temperament of our society and may be that was the objective of the forum theatre and its organisers. I thought the audience was a good sample of the larger Colombo elite and of course our expats. (All people who spoke during the forum theatre except for a few had accents!!)And it is this elite society which is active in our social, political and communication sphere not to mention that they are the cream of our so called ‘civil society’. (I also need to do justice to all those who remained silent ..May be they did the right thing.. may be they didn’t want to get ‘identified’.. I don’t know why i was silent .. May be some of us didn’t because it wasn’t worthy of us contributing
I wish to echo what someone else has already said. To take the theatre out of Colombo in the vernacular languages. I liked it where the organisers had somewhere mentioned that they are exploring opportunities to work with the vernacular theatres.
I liked Gehan de Chickera’s acting .. a beautiful mono acting performance.. Hats off to Gehan.. 24 hours.. hmmm. Nothing newly learnt through both of them but was able to witness an artistic expression of what I have been personally reflecting on. In that sense I really appreciate the performances. Must also mention that Dylan’s acting was marvellous.. He definitely did realistically portray an average Colombo based Tamil. Niran’s wit was excellent as well. The character that he played and some of the comments he made are ones that I have heard from him and do a lot of justice to who as a person he is.
Overall it was a thought provoking evening and I salute the organisers for the effort, time and intellect that they had put in for the purpose.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Prepare to pay for five more ministers!!
Two more ministries to the ever swelling number of ministries of the Sri Lankan Government. Arumugam Thondaman and Chandrasekeran and three of their followers have been given ministerial and deputy ministerial portfolios. It is very difficult to digest the public face the President wishes to portray by showing off that he is against unnecessary governmental expenditure (for example the restriction the president has placed on the number of foreign travels that a Govt minister can undertake) but the same smiling face giving oaths to at least two new ministers every month. All his hoo hah is negated when it comes to satisfying political parties who accept the offer to join the govt for strengthening the numerical strength of the Govt. He is no different to his predecessors in this and many other regards. There are number of negative repercussions of this approach that one can point out, other than the cost factor. I make mention of two of them here. One is the argument that the excessive number of ministers and deputy ministers would mean that a significant portion of the legislature is drawn within the executive system and that this affects the separation and balance of powers between the legislature and the executive. The already eroded status of the legislature in the 1978 constitutional system is further degraded. I will not elaborate on this here.
The second effect that I want to deal with more detail here is about how multiple ministries dealing with one subject of governance can undermine the effectiveness of policy formulation, programming and implementation. This is something that I have experienced first hand through my involvement with the National Task Force on Youth Employment as a member of the task force, representing youth interests. At these meetings I have seen how more than half a dozen number of ministries to do with Youth Employment make the task of cohesive policy formulation difficult. At one such meeting of this taskforce the secretary of a ministry proposed the need for taking entrepreneurship to the school curriculum. In response the ILO Director present there responded that such a proposal had already been given effect to and that ILO had supported a proposal of another ministry in this regard and trained the National Institute of Education staff on the same matter. The subject is being included as part of the revision to be effected to the National school curriculum next year. Such is the level of confusion and resulting duplication of work within our government ministries. A great deal of time and money is being spent and has to be spent on brain storming and working a coordinating mechanism between these ministries. What also is affected is uniformity in policy making and working on a common agenda on important issues such as youth employment.
The Ministries that have been given to Mr. Arumugam Thondaman has been titled Youth Empowerment and Socio-Economic Development. Chandrasekeran’s Ministry is the Socio-Development and Development of Socio-Equality. One wonders what these mean. What difference in work is there going to be between the Youth Affairs ministry and the Youth Empowerment Ministry. The youth affairs and sports ministry is more of a sports ministry than a youth affairs ministry and does very little on the youth affairs subject area. They have been working on a National Youth Policy for the past several years. What is this new ministry going to do then? One just feels that they just come up with random names when they induct new ministers. This is a country which has multiple ministries for railways with a separate ministry even for rail track development!! When will our political leaders take bold decisions for the sake of this country?
Two more ministries to the ever swelling number of ministries of the Sri Lankan Government. Arumugam Thondaman and Chandrasekeran and three of their followers have been given ministerial and deputy ministerial portfolios. It is very difficult to digest the public face the President wishes to portray by showing off that he is against unnecessary governmental expenditure (for example the restriction the president has placed on the number of foreign travels that a Govt minister can undertake) but the same smiling face giving oaths to at least two new ministers every month. All his hoo hah is negated when it comes to satisfying political parties who accept the offer to join the govt for strengthening the numerical strength of the Govt. He is no different to his predecessors in this and many other regards. There are number of negative repercussions of this approach that one can point out, other than the cost factor. I make mention of two of them here. One is the argument that the excessive number of ministers and deputy ministers would mean that a significant portion of the legislature is drawn within the executive system and that this affects the separation and balance of powers between the legislature and the executive. The already eroded status of the legislature in the 1978 constitutional system is further degraded. I will not elaborate on this here.
The second effect that I want to deal with more detail here is about how multiple ministries dealing with one subject of governance can undermine the effectiveness of policy formulation, programming and implementation. This is something that I have experienced first hand through my involvement with the National Task Force on Youth Employment as a member of the task force, representing youth interests. At these meetings I have seen how more than half a dozen number of ministries to do with Youth Employment make the task of cohesive policy formulation difficult. At one such meeting of this taskforce the secretary of a ministry proposed the need for taking entrepreneurship to the school curriculum. In response the ILO Director present there responded that such a proposal had already been given effect to and that ILO had supported a proposal of another ministry in this regard and trained the National Institute of Education staff on the same matter. The subject is being included as part of the revision to be effected to the National school curriculum next year. Such is the level of confusion and resulting duplication of work within our government ministries. A great deal of time and money is being spent and has to be spent on brain storming and working a coordinating mechanism between these ministries. What also is affected is uniformity in policy making and working on a common agenda on important issues such as youth employment.
The Ministries that have been given to Mr. Arumugam Thondaman has been titled Youth Empowerment and Socio-Economic Development. Chandrasekeran’s Ministry is the Socio-Development and Development of Socio-Equality. One wonders what these mean. What difference in work is there going to be between the Youth Affairs ministry and the Youth Empowerment Ministry. The youth affairs and sports ministry is more of a sports ministry than a youth affairs ministry and does very little on the youth affairs subject area. They have been working on a National Youth Policy for the past several years. What is this new ministry going to do then? One just feels that they just come up with random names when they induct new ministers. This is a country which has multiple ministries for railways with a separate ministry even for rail track development!! When will our political leaders take bold decisions for the sake of this country?
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
On the All Party Conference and Panel of Experts appointed by the President
What this Panel of Experts will manage to produce, which would less likely to be endorsed by an ‘all’ party conference, will merely add to the existing 1997 and 2000 proposals: of value only to legal academics and political historians. Have the panel of experts been mandated to work on a policy document or on a new draft constitution? Will they be able to surpass and go beyond what has been stated in the Mahinda Chinthana, given that their mandate has been solemnized under the latter? Much will depend on the integrity and independence of the members of this panel. One also wonders whether this effort is initiated under the ‘Southern Consensus’ process? If so is it the Southern parties’ views that will be given prominence in the process? Can a government representing the state ever seek to produce a document that will be reflective of only one side of the divide? According to Minister Rambukkuella there is no time line for the panel of experts to finish their work. Again one is naturally inclined to ask the question what the strategy or the road map that the government has for the peace process?
One note about the debate on the label – federal or unitary? The argument to retain the unitary label is based on the theory that the majority community is afraid that any solution other than one based on a unitary Sri Lanka will lead to the division of the country. But we have heard the Mahinda camp say that the government is prepared for maximum devolution within a unitary form of government. Is this the people’s understanding of ‘unitary’, based on which Mahinda was voted into power? What is this maximum devolution? Can it go beyond what has been given through the 13th amendment within a unitary form of govt? The Hela Urumayas even cited the Banda Ache agreement as a successful example where power was shared within a unitary model of government. One constitutional expert actually said that if the Hela Urumayas had actually taken the time to read through the agreement then they would have found that the power sharing was extensive enough to compare it with a federal model of government or even more! I recollect CBK claiming that 70% of the country is prepared for a federal solution! Just that Mahinda won the elections on a ‘unitary position’ we are now told that the people are for a solution based on a unitary system. This leads us to certain fundamental questions about our democratic systems. What is the value that our politicians give to public opinions? Who makes these decisions on what the public opinion is on the question or for the matter on any question? How much does the common man give thought to questions of this nature? And how informed is he to make well informed decisions? Do we allow politicians who are victorious at elections to decide on what the public opinion on a matter is? Any average Sri Lankan will tell us that we cannot leave it to our democratic process to produce the ‘ideal’ leader. We have well witnessed after the 1970and 1977 elections. With a sweeping majority the parties in power interpreted the ‘mandate’ from the people to suit their own whims and fancies. What Neelan Thiruchelvan termed, using constitution making for ‘instrumental’ purposes. All these questions might sound like undergraduate political science exam questions but for me they are very valid ones to our discourse. This is the exact problem that we face in our democracies. Self-declared political pragmatists might suggest that this is a deficiency that comes with democracy and we cannot really do anything about it.
The only check and balances that can apply here is strong people based civil society based initiatives which will keep the people informed and the politicians on their toes. But the usual lamenting has to be recorded here one more time: How effective and people-based is our civil society to play this role?
What this Panel of Experts will manage to produce, which would less likely to be endorsed by an ‘all’ party conference, will merely add to the existing 1997 and 2000 proposals: of value only to legal academics and political historians. Have the panel of experts been mandated to work on a policy document or on a new draft constitution? Will they be able to surpass and go beyond what has been stated in the Mahinda Chinthana, given that their mandate has been solemnized under the latter? Much will depend on the integrity and independence of the members of this panel. One also wonders whether this effort is initiated under the ‘Southern Consensus’ process? If so is it the Southern parties’ views that will be given prominence in the process? Can a government representing the state ever seek to produce a document that will be reflective of only one side of the divide? According to Minister Rambukkuella there is no time line for the panel of experts to finish their work. Again one is naturally inclined to ask the question what the strategy or the road map that the government has for the peace process?
One note about the debate on the label – federal or unitary? The argument to retain the unitary label is based on the theory that the majority community is afraid that any solution other than one based on a unitary Sri Lanka will lead to the division of the country. But we have heard the Mahinda camp say that the government is prepared for maximum devolution within a unitary form of government. Is this the people’s understanding of ‘unitary’, based on which Mahinda was voted into power? What is this maximum devolution? Can it go beyond what has been given through the 13th amendment within a unitary form of govt? The Hela Urumayas even cited the Banda Ache agreement as a successful example where power was shared within a unitary model of government. One constitutional expert actually said that if the Hela Urumayas had actually taken the time to read through the agreement then they would have found that the power sharing was extensive enough to compare it with a federal model of government or even more! I recollect CBK claiming that 70% of the country is prepared for a federal solution! Just that Mahinda won the elections on a ‘unitary position’ we are now told that the people are for a solution based on a unitary system. This leads us to certain fundamental questions about our democratic systems. What is the value that our politicians give to public opinions? Who makes these decisions on what the public opinion is on the question or for the matter on any question? How much does the common man give thought to questions of this nature? And how informed is he to make well informed decisions? Do we allow politicians who are victorious at elections to decide on what the public opinion on a matter is? Any average Sri Lankan will tell us that we cannot leave it to our democratic process to produce the ‘ideal’ leader. We have well witnessed after the 1970and 1977 elections. With a sweeping majority the parties in power interpreted the ‘mandate’ from the people to suit their own whims and fancies. What Neelan Thiruchelvan termed, using constitution making for ‘instrumental’ purposes. All these questions might sound like undergraduate political science exam questions but for me they are very valid ones to our discourse. This is the exact problem that we face in our democracies. Self-declared political pragmatists might suggest that this is a deficiency that comes with democracy and we cannot really do anything about it.
The only check and balances that can apply here is strong people based civil society based initiatives which will keep the people informed and the politicians on their toes. But the usual lamenting has to be recorded here one more time: How effective and people-based is our civil society to play this role?
Saturday, October 22, 2005
More on the Trincomalee visit
The Transitional Shelter Phase of Tsunami Reconstruction
The transitional shelter phase of tsunami reconstruction is almost over, but not without issues. Poor site selection is hampering efforts to upgrade water and sanitation facilities that are presently underway in the transitional shelters. According to an INGO representative in Trincomalee it is feared that the transitional shelters will be flooded during the monsoon season again as a result of poor site selection. She further said that nobody has taken into account the need for a proper drainage system in the transitional shelters. Furthermore she lamented that when it comes to sanitation related facilities for the people, it is generally limited to an understanding that it only involves building toilets.
Water container vehicles are providing water to the families living in the transitional shelters, funded by various NGOs. But most of them work under a very strict financial time restriction and one wonders as to whether these NGOs will continue providing this service, say in one years time. If this is going to be the same manner in which water is going to be supplied to the permanent housing schemes one can assess the quality of thought and planning that is being given to these vital issues affecting the Tsunami hit people.
Permanent housing phase
Finding lands for permanent housing has been a problem in many of the Tsunami hit districts, where there are not enough state lands to provide to the people. Even where lands are being found there has been complaint of proper consultation with the people not being done resulting in poor site selection. The Urban Development authority (UDA) functioning from Colombo has no local knowledge of the situation in the districts and makes arbitrary decisions with regard to all these issues. The GAs in the district have a better understanding of the situation, but mostly they are voiceless in the dominating presence of the UDA backed by the Government in Colombo.
During the early days of the Post-tsunami period the government and the UDA did a lot of ‘fancy’ planning, producing colourful handbooks and power point presentations at conferences and seminars. But no proper assessment was done before these plans were formulated and one wonders where these plans are lying now. According to people involved in Tsunami reconstruction efforts there is very little planning that has gone into as to how the Government should respond to these issues.
Tsunami Politics
In Trincomalee a Task Force on Tsunami Reconstruction was set up soon after the Tsunami, the same way it happened in all the tsunami affected districts. But the taskforce was shifted to Colombo soon after the first (or the first couple of meetings). The Secretary of the SLFP (Mr. Maithripla Srisena) was appointed Chairman of this task force. The task force was obviously, because of its lack of presence in the district, very slow in responding to the Post-Tsunami issues which needed immediate attention and needless to say it cut-off or made any kind of consultation that the Govt had with the people worthless. Even for the civil society groups or NGOs to get permission to work with the tsunami affected people they had to go to Colombo to get permission. Some of the local Community Based Organisations (CBOs) found this entirely impossible to comply with because of the bureaucracy that was involved in getting the permission.
One local NGO that we met in Tricomalee said that they had problems with the SL Army in transporting construction materials to LTTE controlled - Tsunami affected areas. The Army did not directly ban them from taking the materials but made it difficult for them and prolonged the process of taking it to the affected areas. The general procedure is that the GA when giving permission for these NGO’s to carry out relief work in LTTE controlled areas gives them a letter which is copied to six people including the NGO and the Brigadier of the Army in charge of that area. When this particular NGO took this letter that was copied to them to the army check point along with the construction materials they were turned back for not bringing the original copy of the letter. It took that NGO two more weeks to sort this issue and get the materials across for work to start in those LTTE controlled areas.
The Transitional Shelter Phase of Tsunami Reconstruction
The transitional shelter phase of tsunami reconstruction is almost over, but not without issues. Poor site selection is hampering efforts to upgrade water and sanitation facilities that are presently underway in the transitional shelters. According to an INGO representative in Trincomalee it is feared that the transitional shelters will be flooded during the monsoon season again as a result of poor site selection. She further said that nobody has taken into account the need for a proper drainage system in the transitional shelters. Furthermore she lamented that when it comes to sanitation related facilities for the people, it is generally limited to an understanding that it only involves building toilets.
Water container vehicles are providing water to the families living in the transitional shelters, funded by various NGOs. But most of them work under a very strict financial time restriction and one wonders as to whether these NGOs will continue providing this service, say in one years time. If this is going to be the same manner in which water is going to be supplied to the permanent housing schemes one can assess the quality of thought and planning that is being given to these vital issues affecting the Tsunami hit people.
Permanent housing phase
Finding lands for permanent housing has been a problem in many of the Tsunami hit districts, where there are not enough state lands to provide to the people. Even where lands are being found there has been complaint of proper consultation with the people not being done resulting in poor site selection. The Urban Development authority (UDA) functioning from Colombo has no local knowledge of the situation in the districts and makes arbitrary decisions with regard to all these issues. The GAs in the district have a better understanding of the situation, but mostly they are voiceless in the dominating presence of the UDA backed by the Government in Colombo.
During the early days of the Post-tsunami period the government and the UDA did a lot of ‘fancy’ planning, producing colourful handbooks and power point presentations at conferences and seminars. But no proper assessment was done before these plans were formulated and one wonders where these plans are lying now. According to people involved in Tsunami reconstruction efforts there is very little planning that has gone into as to how the Government should respond to these issues.
Tsunami Politics
In Trincomalee a Task Force on Tsunami Reconstruction was set up soon after the Tsunami, the same way it happened in all the tsunami affected districts. But the taskforce was shifted to Colombo soon after the first (or the first couple of meetings). The Secretary of the SLFP (Mr. Maithripla Srisena) was appointed Chairman of this task force. The task force was obviously, because of its lack of presence in the district, very slow in responding to the Post-Tsunami issues which needed immediate attention and needless to say it cut-off or made any kind of consultation that the Govt had with the people worthless. Even for the civil society groups or NGOs to get permission to work with the tsunami affected people they had to go to Colombo to get permission. Some of the local Community Based Organisations (CBOs) found this entirely impossible to comply with because of the bureaucracy that was involved in getting the permission.
One local NGO that we met in Tricomalee said that they had problems with the SL Army in transporting construction materials to LTTE controlled - Tsunami affected areas. The Army did not directly ban them from taking the materials but made it difficult for them and prolonged the process of taking it to the affected areas. The general procedure is that the GA when giving permission for these NGO’s to carry out relief work in LTTE controlled areas gives them a letter which is copied to six people including the NGO and the Brigadier of the Army in charge of that area. When this particular NGO took this letter that was copied to them to the army check point along with the construction materials they were turned back for not bringing the original copy of the letter. It took that NGO two more weeks to sort this issue and get the materials across for work to start in those LTTE controlled areas.
Press release on the Peace Walk, held on 22 October 2005 organized by Voice for Peace (A Youth led National Peace Movement) and the Interact Club of St. Thomas College, Mt.Lavinia.
Voice for Peace
The dilemma of nation building has been something that we have been struggling with, since independence.
Efforts to resolve the ethnic conflict in this country have failed time and again mainly because of lack of political commitment and because of a non-concentrated civil society effort with poor people’s participation in the peace processes that this country has experimented with.
The youth have been both used as fodder for the war and have suffered immensely from the consequences of the war, many of us loosing our childhood, youth life and education in the process.
Today we organize this walk asking for an end to the war and requesting all stakeholders to initiate a more concentrated effort towards resolving the ethnic conflict through an inclusive, pluralistic peace process.
Politics of convergence on the national issue, across the wide spectrum of our polity is vital in achieving lasting peace.
Hence, we send out a message on behalf of the youth in this country to the presidential candidates, to engage in a constructive national debate on how to resolve the ethnic conflict and to unite in vision and commitment to find an answer to the national question.
To the civil society in this country we request for a more focused and coordinated effort in involving the people in the process, in achieving durable peace.
As youth we are committed in working for peace. We believe in working for peace rather than just hoping for peace.
Voice for Peace
The dilemma of nation building has been something that we have been struggling with, since independence.
Efforts to resolve the ethnic conflict in this country have failed time and again mainly because of lack of political commitment and because of a non-concentrated civil society effort with poor people’s participation in the peace processes that this country has experimented with.
The youth have been both used as fodder for the war and have suffered immensely from the consequences of the war, many of us loosing our childhood, youth life and education in the process.
Today we organize this walk asking for an end to the war and requesting all stakeholders to initiate a more concentrated effort towards resolving the ethnic conflict through an inclusive, pluralistic peace process.
Politics of convergence on the national issue, across the wide spectrum of our polity is vital in achieving lasting peace.
Hence, we send out a message on behalf of the youth in this country to the presidential candidates, to engage in a constructive national debate on how to resolve the ethnic conflict and to unite in vision and commitment to find an answer to the national question.
To the civil society in this country we request for a more focused and coordinated effort in involving the people in the process, in achieving durable peace.
As youth we are committed in working for peace. We believe in working for peace rather than just hoping for peace.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
OUR FUTURE LAWYERS
I was pulled by one of my friends into a batch meeting at the Faculty (Law faculty, University of Colombo) today after classes. I was reluctant in attending primarily because of my non-familiarity with the language of the meeting and secondly because of my disinterest in the topic of the meeting - Elections to the Student Union Council. What brought to me into the meeting was my friend's insistence and secondly my inquisitiveness.
As i walked into the meeting the first thing that stuck me was that the meeting was closed to girls. First years are offered three positions in the council. and here we are to decide who should file nominations to represent us in the council without the girls who formed 70% of the student population. Talk about gender represenataion...and these people are going to be the future generation of lawyers....some of them also might get into politics... I was shattered. When i asked one of the organisers for the reason i was told that this is how the seniors did it and that we are merely following their footsteps..Nothing but herd instinct...
Another aspect that i noted was that none of the Tamil medium students were in attanedance at the meeting. When i raised this with one of the organisers he didnt provide me with a proper response.. he seemed to mumble something to the effect that...' we have only three positions...we dont have enough fo the tamil medium students' I was rudely taken back.
When i asked one of my friends he told me that they will be coming a bit late. They never turned up. At the meeting, though i couldnt follow the proceedings properly, i managed to understand that they were talking about unity, despite the medium divides that we have.This opinion would have been appreciated if it had come from a meeting where all the medium students had been present. ...
I am not a pessimist but if my colleagues happen to represent in general the attitude that our generation has towards issues of representation...the future does not offer much for us. The silence into which we are deeply embossed should be broken!!! If not the destruction of the essence of our societal existence will continue to take place.
I was pulled by one of my friends into a batch meeting at the Faculty (Law faculty, University of Colombo) today after classes. I was reluctant in attending primarily because of my non-familiarity with the language of the meeting and secondly because of my disinterest in the topic of the meeting - Elections to the Student Union Council. What brought to me into the meeting was my friend's insistence and secondly my inquisitiveness.
As i walked into the meeting the first thing that stuck me was that the meeting was closed to girls. First years are offered three positions in the council. and here we are to decide who should file nominations to represent us in the council without the girls who formed 70% of the student population. Talk about gender represenataion...and these people are going to be the future generation of lawyers....some of them also might get into politics... I was shattered. When i asked one of the organisers for the reason i was told that this is how the seniors did it and that we are merely following their footsteps..Nothing but herd instinct...
Another aspect that i noted was that none of the Tamil medium students were in attanedance at the meeting. When i raised this with one of the organisers he didnt provide me with a proper response.. he seemed to mumble something to the effect that...' we have only three positions...we dont have enough fo the tamil medium students' I was rudely taken back.
When i asked one of my friends he told me that they will be coming a bit late. They never turned up. At the meeting, though i couldnt follow the proceedings properly, i managed to understand that they were talking about unity, despite the medium divides that we have.This opinion would have been appreciated if it had come from a meeting where all the medium students had been present. ...
I am not a pessimist but if my colleagues happen to represent in general the attitude that our generation has towards issues of representation...the future does not offer much for us. The silence into which we are deeply embossed should be broken!!! If not the destruction of the essence of our societal existence will continue to take place.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Trincomalee visit - Religion, Politics, Issue of Religious Conversion etc.
I was in Trincomalee recently on a field research mission as part of a civil society group research team. I was able to witness heavy military presence in the city, with security personnel deployed almost at every junction in the city. The presence is much stronger than what it was in 2004 when I was at Trincomalee the last time. This signifies, perhaps the political developments in the district, which nevertheless has been a high conflict density zone, through out the history of the ethnic conflict.
The Buddha statue and the surrounding barbed wire has taken a lot of space of the Bus stand and one wonders with the heavily barbed wire around the place whether one can actually enter the premises and even atleast offer flowers to Lord Buddha. It is a sorry state of affairs in this country that religion has been pulled in to the whim of political arrogance that our politicians are famous for. The same can be said of how the Anti-conversion Bill is being dealt with. Whilst agreeing to the fact that there are certain religious groups in this country that take advantage of the economic status of people to convert them to their religions (only God knows why they do this.. And I wonder whether any religion actually thinks that by increasing the number of followers in their religion, the objectives of the religion being practiced can be met!!!). But these are matters that society should deal with and should not be pulled into politics thus violating the individual autonomous space of decision making that any person has entitlement to. As President Kumaratunge once noted (one of her sensible comments, I must say!) if Buddhism and Hinduism are to prosper the people who profess the religion should take the religious to the laymen and assist them in their social and economic development. I cannot but agree with her on this.
I was in Trincomalee recently on a field research mission as part of a civil society group research team. I was able to witness heavy military presence in the city, with security personnel deployed almost at every junction in the city. The presence is much stronger than what it was in 2004 when I was at Trincomalee the last time. This signifies, perhaps the political developments in the district, which nevertheless has been a high conflict density zone, through out the history of the ethnic conflict.
The Buddha statue and the surrounding barbed wire has taken a lot of space of the Bus stand and one wonders with the heavily barbed wire around the place whether one can actually enter the premises and even atleast offer flowers to Lord Buddha. It is a sorry state of affairs in this country that religion has been pulled in to the whim of political arrogance that our politicians are famous for. The same can be said of how the Anti-conversion Bill is being dealt with. Whilst agreeing to the fact that there are certain religious groups in this country that take advantage of the economic status of people to convert them to their religions (only God knows why they do this.. And I wonder whether any religion actually thinks that by increasing the number of followers in their religion, the objectives of the religion being practiced can be met!!!). But these are matters that society should deal with and should not be pulled into politics thus violating the individual autonomous space of decision making that any person has entitlement to. As President Kumaratunge once noted (one of her sensible comments, I must say!) if Buddhism and Hinduism are to prosper the people who profess the religion should take the religious to the laymen and assist them in their social and economic development. I cannot but agree with her on this.
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