Editorial
Massacre of the innocents in Peshawar
View(s):The brutes who gunned down more than 130 children in cold-blood, together with their principal and teachers in a school in Peshawar, Pakistan shocked the world with their senseless action and brought back haunting memories of the equally inhuman massacre of young Buddhist novice monks in Aranthalawa not so long ago.
The Pakistan Taliban proudly accepts the “responsibility” for this dastardly act. They say it is in retaliation for Pakistan’s military strikes against their cadres and their children. They want the Pakistani Army to feel the same pain, they say.
That, as Sri Lanka’s President aptly points out, is sheer “cowardice”. To take it out on innocent schoolchildren in a school run by the military cannot be the work of ideologues. They are simply terrorists as was the LTTE in Sri Lanka. The Taliban are known to be against education for girls. As if that is not archaic enough, this attack did not even have that reason.
It was heartening to note that the Indian Parliament observed a minute’s silence in memory of the school children who perished in this horrific incident that has sent revulsion around the civilised world. Some may ask ‘what is the difference in the death of innocent children due to the numerous drone attacks executed by the US over Afghanistan and Pakistan in the pursuit of the Taliban and al-Qaeda’. As bad as it is, as wicked as it is, the only difference is that in this case in Peshawar, they were deliberately targeted.
Pakistan is now at the crossroads at which Sri Lanka was; should it continue to negotiate with an organisation that uses terror as an instrument to achieve its political objectives, or continue with this half-war, half-negotiate stalemate, all too familiar with the crisis here in the recent past. Pakistan helped Sri Lanka unconditionally in its military campaign against a terrorist organisation branded as the deadliest in the world – even overshadowing the Taliban and al-Qaeda which were in their formative stages however. It is time for reciprocity, if asked for.
The Government and the people of Pakistan will know best how to tackle this menace they are faced with. They have been accused of exporting terrorism and they are bedevilled with it from the Jihadist warriors fighting for a separate Islamic state in Iraq and Syria, the different schools funded by petro dollars of rich West Asian nations competing with one another, the Boko Harams of Africa, all blood-letting in the name of religion, turning the world upside down and inside out.
Sri Lanka is not immune to these ill-winds and must be more than aware, but for now, the Pakistan Taliban deserves the condemnation of the world for their downright despicable act in Peshawar this week.
Ten years after, taking account of tsunami
Sri Lanka and the world next week (December 26) mark the 10th anniversary of the worst natural disaster in recent history. While commemorating the 35,000 and more accounted for as dead and 6,700 officially reported ‘missing’ in this country in the wake of the Poya Day tsunami, striking all ethnic communities alike, the resilience of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children who rose from the debris and the carnage, picked up the pieces and soldiered on amidst the tears and the pain should be commemorated.
How much have we learnt from that devastating lesson? This is a question the people and the country might look at closely particularly in the context of the recent management of the Weerabedde landslide tragedy. Apart from an outpouring of public support and excellent work by the army to search for survivors, preparedness in the wake of repeated warnings by the National Building Research Organisation (NBRO) over shaky hilltops and mountainsides has been virtually zero. Only yesterday, the NBRO issued a landslide warning in Matale, Kandy, Badulla and Nuwara Eliya districts “if the rain continues for another 24 hours”. Beyond that, there seems little to be done.
The early warning systems; the response to such systems; the drills. For, the danger lies in the fact that with the lapse of time, the devastation and ravages of the tsunami would only be a distant memory, bringing about complacency and lethargy. What of the 100-metre mandatory buffer zone along the coastline? Is it being adhered to or flouted when big hoteliers or even smaller businesses wield political influence? Another aspect linked to this issue is the environmental harm that is occurring along the coast as well as inland. This could unleash nature’s fury in the form of cyclones, storms and such.
Ten years on, it may also be important to study the lives of the nearly 4,000 children, who may well be adults now, who lost one parent and 979 who lost both parents. Finding out whether state organisations worked in tandem to prevent them from being abused, misused, dropping out from school or falling through the system will be invaluable, followed up with support for those who need it.
Finally, it is crucial to determine whether all the promises held out to those internally-displaced by the tsunami, more than 500,000, have been fulfilled both by government and non-government agencies, utilising the aid received to the maximum. Nearly 100,000 lost their homes and 150,000 their livelihoods — do these people have a roof above their heads now and reasonable income-generation to live with dignity? There were many land disputes and issues in the construction of tsunami housing and this should have been resolved long ago.
This is why a serious audit, even if it is 10 years later, must be done. It is an essential component to look back at the lessons learnt and build on them in the future. This is an opportune time for that audit.