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Who wouldn't have fallen in love with Sri Lanka 40 years ago? Well Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer did even as a 4-year old and old loves never die it appears. Both at Mr. Downer's remarks in Colombo on Thursday at the media conference and the official banquet in his honour what was most appealing was the fact that it was informed by his nostalgia for a country that was at the time he visited it at peace. Last Thursday, he unhesitatingly condemned the LTTE atrocities that continues to tear our nation apart and called for democratic forces "not to cave in" to those who want to bring in changes through militant force. This certainly is a welcome change from the attitudes and approaches of the foreign community of nations who have carped on the fact that peace somehow is only the responsibility of the government.
Once upon a time India with its hegemonistic attitude of a greater Indian Empire that included Sri Lanka felt Sri Lanka was one of its fiefdoms and believed she had every right to interfere in the course of events in this nation. This week incidentally marks the 10th anniversary of the infamous Indo-Lanka Accord that was virtually forced down the collective throats of the nation.
A little after this, Western nations and Australia began sermonising about what is right and wrong and what should be done and what not done in little Sri Lanka. When they did this they had obviously forgotten their own violent pasts and perhaps even their violent presents. What was most refreshing about the Australian Minister's remarks was that he did not pontificate and underlined the fact that Australia does not in any way wish to play hero and only that his country supports all moves towards peace in Sri Lanka.
Mr. Downer recalled the horrendous pictures he saw on TV of the Central Bank bombings last year. Then he also spoke of how he had told the Sri Lankan expatriate Tamil groups who had tried to lobby him that they should first renounce violence before coming to see him. He was quite right. The time surely is not long away before terrorist related crime - which even today erupts from time to time in those countries inspired by these very Satanic organisations - take hold. Canada, Switzerland and France have recently had a taste of it.
Apart from taking steps in their own interests to ensure a peaceful polity within their nations they have as powerful nations with the political and economic muscle on the global scenario, a moral and international obligation to stamp out terrorism before terrorism stamps them out. What they would surely like and what we in little Sri Lanka direly want is a reign not of violence and horror but one of peace and prosperity.
Just when it seemed that President Ku maratunga had bowed to public opin ion and suspended work on the 1.7 billion rupee Presidential Palace in the old Kingdom of Kotte, we have another announcement now that the project has not been abandoned exactly but only temporarily shelved to be reviewed when the President returns from wherever she is.
The problem is a thorny one. While traffic snarls and fortress like security around Temple Trees provoke demands from some for the President to move out of Colombo, those in Kotte are not all too happy about her coming near them having fears for the same reasons. It must be awful for a President to feel she is not wanted near her own subjects when in ordinary circumstances one would have loved to be in the neighbourhood of the Presidential Palace.
Of course there is talk of security considerations being one of the overriding reasons for the shift. But that speaks little for the defence establishment which has confidently predicted a very early end to the war.
The palace should take at least three years to complete but hopefully with the optimistic predictions that the war would have ended or peace ushered in through the package by then. So why a new costly palace on security grounds? The idea of making available prime land in Colombo for commercial exploitation sounds reasonable but places like Kotte are also residential areas. Possibly Sri Lanka will have to think in terms of a "Forbidden City" still further away from Colombo on some huge rubber plantation maybe near Avissawella to house the VVIPs and the military top brass and leave lesser mortals to live their lives where they do.
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