Letters to the Editor

Land grab and leaving room for neo-colonialism
It was recently reported that the Cabinet had decided to impose a levy of 100% on the real value of lands sold to foreigners. The previous government was blamed for violating this condition and selling land to foreigners at a low percentage.

Both positions: the previous government's position of selling lands to foreigners cheaply and the present government's stance of continuing the same practice with a surcharge of 100% of the land value are wrong.

What the present or any future government must do is to abolish the whole system of selling lands to foreigners. We, as a nation living in a tiny island, can't afford to sell a single inch of land. Maintaining a patriotic position, almost every country with a proud legacy and a significant place in the history of civilization, takes measures to safeguard its land rights. This is to ensure a firm foothold for future generations.

However, countries which were discovered a century or two ago are in the course of absorbing immigrants from other countries mainly, trained, skilled labour and professionals/experts in various fields. The purpose of such a scheme is the overall development of that nation with the participation of such individuals who are finally offered citizenship.

Sri Lanka, which has a history of nearly 2600 years, is a tiny island in the Indian Ocean, with its mild weather conditions, natural resources, varied traditions and cultures and minimum exposure to natural disasters such as volcanoes and storms.

However, its economic progress is at a low achievement rate while the population growth rate keeps moving ahead. The limited land extent will further diminish as it is subject to constant sea erosion. The land never grows parallel to population growth. Hence our responsibility is to leave enough space for the unborn.

When advertised, there will be long queues of rich foreigners to buy Sri Lankan lands not just at the 100% value rate but even as high as 1000% or 10,000%. There may be clients who can buy not just a plot of land but the whole country, if sold.

Some of the potential clients could be pirates, drug traffickers, arms dealers, spies of terrorist organizations, criminals of international fame etc. If another category appears it may be with a different purpose - not to settle down here and contribute to our development but to dislocate this nation and grab our material and human resources for the development of their own countries as the colonial period proved.

This is another stage of facilitation for a neo-colonial era. With full commitment to its promises, the present government has a greater responsibility to abolish the laws which make way for this practice.

Christopher Columbus: Putting together the missing pieces
With reference to the article published in The Sunday Times of May 30, I also totally agree with Peter Dickson of Arlington who is striving his best to explode the myth of Christoper Columbus.

Columbus was not the first one to discover America. Corteral of Portugal (1477), the Scot, Prince Henry Sinclair and the Zeno brothers of Venice (1395), the Norseman Paul Knutson (1355), Prince Madoc of Wales (1171), Bishop Eric Gnupsson, despatched by the Vatican (1121), Thorfinn Karlesffini, an Icelander (1010), the Viking Leif (1003) and Thovald Ericsson (1007) were the other Translantic travellers.

Sadly their travels were less documented. However, until the present there has been little possibility of establishing the credibility of pre-Columbian voyages and even less the probability of Translantic or Inter- Atlantic contacts in ancient times.

I remember while I was a student at St. Joseph's College, I was able to digest all the novels of Rafael Sabatini and was lucky enough to read a fictitious story based on Christopher Columbus's life.

The story fascinated me and unknowingly it made me also interested in old maps and cartography. Definitely, a politically well connected ambiguous Genoan would like to recreate history. Like the interest youngsters have for present day computers, maps and cartography were the main tool for the discovery of the New World. In other words Columbus would have predesigned what he should do as he had at his disposal maps or copies of maps used by navigators of classical antiquity, the Minoans, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks and by people who preceded them as world travellers.

These maps were apparently used and copied by succeeding generations of mariners and used as maritime route maps. They were able to map the coastlines of the Americas, mountains of South America and the coasts of Antarctica centuries before either was officially discovered.

Notably on the Piri Reis map from Istanbul dated 1513, the topographical features of the Antarctic Continent are correctly shown although they are now under thousands of feet of ice and have presumably been so covered for many thousands of years.

The Piri Reis map of 1513 according to its cartographer Piri Reis, a former Turkish pirate who became an admiral is apparently only a part of a world map made by him and based on maps going back hundreds of years before Ptolemy.

Here the plot thickens as it said, in part referring to the Caribbean Islands ".... It is reported thus: that a Genoese infidel, his name was Colombo, he it was who discovered these places.

For instances, a book fell into the hands of said Colombo, and he found it said in this book that at the end of the western side, there were coasts and islands and all kinds of metals and also precious stones...”

This forms a part of the jigsaw puzzle of the historical context of Christopher Columbus and which I hope Peter Dickson will be eager to trace.

Endless wait for the last bus home
Every night, at 10.15, a CTB bus makes its final scheduled journey from Borella to Kottawa. This last bus on route 174 is vital for many who have to work till late and are dependent on the bus service. For them, most of whom earn salaries below Rs. 3,000, trishaw fare is a luxury they can ill-afford.

On the night of June 7, there was a long queue for bus 174 leaving Borella at 10.15. Some people had been in the queue from 9.00 p.m. on this gloomy Monday. By half-past nine, a cheer went up... yes, there was a bus. But it was only going to Thalawathugoda, just half-way from Kottawa. At a quarter to ten, a private bus came along, with the board unreadable. That too was going only to Thalawathugoda.

The people waited, they had faith in the CTB.
By 10.45 p.m., there was still no sign of the bus. Desperate and angry, about 35 commuters marched to the Borella Police Station adjoining the bus stand. Polite policemen assured the commuters that they would call and check with the depot. Fifteen minutes passed with no information. Finally, the commuters were informed that there were only security guards at the depot. "If you want, you can file a case against the CTB," an inspector suggested. "You are also welcome to use any of our telephones. Call a Minister or someone if you can," he added before returning to his work.

Four of us were fortunate. Together, we scraped up Rs. 350 and managed to persuade a trishaw driver to take us home. When we passed the bus-stand, squeezed into the trishaw, it was 11.35 p.m. and tired and weary people were still awaiting a bus to take them home.

For them it would have been a long night and a long day ahead, as they would have had to get up early morning whatever time they reached home and come back to work before the red line was drawn.

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