Author Archive
October 15, 2008 at 11:11 am · Categories: Colombo, English, Human Security, IDPs and Refugees, Peace and Conflict, Trincomalee, Vavuniya | by Somapala Gunadheera
I wish to draw wider public attention to the following extract appearing in “A short note from the Vanni” written by “Witness” and appearing in the Groundviews on September 30, 2008:
“The people now staying at Vattakachi and Tharmapuram areas are requesting to announce these areas as “safe zones” for the civilians. Food and shelter are desperately needed, as people are suffering without anything to eat and nowhere to rest.”
I can visualize the pathetic situation vividly as I personally watched a similar scene in 1996 when refugees marched back to Jaffna from Kilinochchi. Unfortunately, the above revelation has failed to attract sympathetic attention to the miserable plight of the refugees in Vanni today. Instead a barrage of comments …
October 2, 2008 at 7:00 am · Categories: Colombo, Constitutional Reform, English, Peace and Conflict | by Somapala Gunadheera
For all intents and purposes, the All Party Conference (APC), has been a waste of time by playing for time, all the time. Periodic boycotts and exits of parties based on their factional agendas have indirectly helped the procrastination, supported by the lack of political will and courage on the part of those in authority.
Now at last there appears to be a ray of hope arising from the emerging political climate based on the state of the war and the performance of the respective political parties at the recent provincial council elections, not to mention international pressure.
It was reported in the papers recently that the APC had made up its mind to implement the Thirteenth Amendment and was writing to …
August 18, 2008 at 8:20 am · Categories: Colombo, Constitutional Reform, English, Politics | by Somapala Gunadheera
When we were being initiated to English under the Free Education Scheme, our teacher used to ask us to, “Hurry up and go slowly.” This command made us laugh, for by then we knew enough English to see the seeming paradox.
Sixty years later, I do not laugh at the words any more. I see their wisdom particularly in relation to the resolution of our ethnic conflict. They seem to indicate the way to put an end to this cancerous problem.
“Hurry up” implies urgency, commitment and absence of prevarication. The ethnic problem has dragged on for 60 years after independence and there has never been a dedicated commitment to resolve it. Dilly dallying has always been the order of the day. …
August 12, 2008 at 7:00 am · Categories: Peace and Conflict | by Somapala Gunadheera
Now that the government appears to be fighting the war to a finish, it behoves concerned members of our civil society to put their heads together to evolve an optimum Peace Package that could win over as many contenders as possible in our ethnic dispute.
Once I blamed a Tamil friend of mine who is a leading professional, for not taking an active part in the search for a solution to the ethnic impasse. He was despondent and thought it a waste of time to get involved with a problem that no government after independence has had the guts to get to grips with. According to him, all of them have been intimidated by the threat of a highly inflated vociferous …
August 1, 2008 at 7:30 am · Categories: Colombo, English, Jaffna, Peace and Conflict | by Somapala Gunadheera
It would be short-sighted to dismiss out of hand, the current offer of the LTTE of a ‘cease-fire’.
Apart from anything else, it will create the impression that we were hell bent on the war regardless of its pathetic consequences to human life and rights - an impression that would further erode our standing internationally. On the other hand accepting the offer would infuriate the proponents of ‘fight to a finish’, who appear to be the mainstay of a government in crisis. This dilemma calls for an ingenious response that neither rejects nor accepts the offer.
To ‘cease’ is to ‘stop’ but to ‘hold’ is to ‘pause’. Pausing the on-going battles for a brief period of a month cannot harm the …
July 28, 2008 at 12:00 pm · Categories: Colombo, English, Human Rights, Human Security, IDPs and Refugees, Peace and Conflict, Politics | by Somapala Gunadheera
by Somapala Gunadheera
Off and on, I write short stories, never anecdotes. But now I have to oblige Sanjana. He wants stories about our ethnic riots, the one that raged before he was born and the other when he was at school. Therapists say that anecdotes have a healing effect on ethnic wounds.
My experience about the 1983 riot was brief. Then I was the Chairman of the Ceylon Steel Corporation at Athurugiriya. Towards mid-day, I heard that Tigers had invaded Colombo and people were running away helter-skelter. The Aturugiriya Police had blocked the road opposite their station and were in battle array.
Later it transpired that the beginning of the turmoil was the sighting of a Tamil victim of the riot hiding …
May 23, 2008 at 8:54 am · Categories: English, Human Rights, Human Security, Jaffna, Peace and Conflict, Politics | by Somapala Gunadheera
Most of what I reveal below has been lying concealed in my notes and diaries deposited in the Government Achieves. I have decided to focus on them out of my belief that they may throw some light as we grope through the darkness covering our arduous trek towards national reconciliation. Read between the lines with insight, they may perhaps point the way to peace and prosperity.
I started my career in the then Ceylon Civil Service in 1957 as a Cadet in the Jaffna Kachcheri. My thoughts of Jaffna are nostalgic, prompted by the happy life I led among a hospitable, and peace-loving people, nurtured in the best traditions of a noble culture. I always looked forward to returning the ample …
