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Editorial12th April 1998 |
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47, W. A. D. Ramanayake Mawatha Colombo 2. P.O. Box: 1136, Colombo 2.
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We shall overcomeIt has been a week of unprecedented spiritual significance for Sri Lanka — Haj last Wednesday, Good Friday, yesterday was Bak full moon Poya Day (When Lord Buddha visited this our island to prevent a battle between two rival kings), Easter today and the national New Year on Tuesday. The New Year especially is a wonderful opportunity for deep unity in diversity among the people of the Sinhala, Tamil and other communities. Yet Sri Lankan hearts are heavy while Irish eyes are all smiling for Easter after a historic deal was worked out yesterday to end almost seven decades of bitter and bloody sectarian conflict. The whole world has hailed the accord for choosing hope over hatred and the promise of the future over the poison of the past. For Sri Lanka, there is no greater issue of importance today than the civil war now raging in its sixteenth year. While some say the World War lasted only six years, we must not forget that today's internal conflicts are far more complex than conventional wars fought by the formal declarations of war and under Geneva conventions. The war in Sri Lanka has few if any rules. Little is sacred or sacrosanct — as are many such internal wars today. In Columbia, for instance, the battle between drug cartels and the State is going on to its 40th year. The Irish problem is in its 30th year. It is in this backdrop that a majority of the people of the country — the Sinhalese and Tamils — celebrate their traditional New Year during the next few days. We believe it is significant to quote an extract of a little speech made by a little girl at a Seva Vanitha function recently to provide scholarships to the children of dead or wounded soldiers in battle. She said: "We hope and pray that other children be spared the rigours and hazards that this war brings in its wake and that they be not made to weep and mourn the ravages of such unfortunate incidents." Heartbreaking indeed to hear such a plea, but the cold, brutal reality is otherwise. At least for quite some time to come, the war in all its monstrosity might go on to its logical conclusion till terrorism and fascism are defeated. Children the flower of youth on both sides of the ethnic divide are probably the biggest sufferers of this bloody war. In the South they lose their young father and very soon become disadvantaged and run the risk of becoming destitute. In the North, young Tamil boys are conscripted by force, or lured into the battlefield. The dead bodies of boys and even girls as young as 10 years have been found at Weli Oya and during Operation Jaya Sikurui. And what of the peripheral issues — such as devolution of power, healing the ethnic wounds, rehabilitating the wounded and rehousing the displaced? The task ahead is monumental. But we all need to commit ourselves on the conviction that we shall overcome. There is a duty cast upon any incumbent Government to galvanize the Nation for this ultimate goal. What we have seen instead is infighting for spoils in the south and dissipation of human resources on personal or party benefits. How can a divided country fight a guerrilla force that has acquired for itself the label of "one of the five most dangerous guerrilla organisations in the World." To explode the truck or bus bomb amidst innocent and defenceless people is not an act of courage but of cowardice. What takes courage is to compete in the area of democracy and dialogue by using not bombs and bullets but persuasion, fair play and common sense. While the brave troops carry out their mission of weakening or defeating terrorism, all parties elsewhere need to reflect during this New Year season on a change of attitude and approach to settle this agonising conflict.
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