Return home Mr Mangala Samaraweera and get to brass tacks

[It is apparent both the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are cheating the people of Sri Lanka, and Norway provides an excellent continuing cover for it. However, it is evident to Sri Lankans in the country and overseas that neither the LTTE nor the government wants to solve the ethnic crisis. Every day people are dying, many innocent folks and families brutally massacred. The country’s precious young people are being abused most outrageously and ministers of the state are flying all over the world saying that they are seeking solutions while the answer and the action to achieve what is so urgently needed are in Sri Lanka itself.]

The Silent Majority of the Tamil Diaspora is getting quite irked and irritated at the continuous reports flowing from Sri Lanka about such statements as the country’s “foreign minister on Monday criticized the island nation’s Tamil rebels for spurning peace talks in Oslo last week,” and even worse such threadbare chorus as “Sri Lanka’s civil war between government forces and the Tigers began in 1983, and claimed more than 65,000 lives before the 2002 cease-fire. Peace talks have stalled over the sides blaming each other for increasing violence.”

And we have the report that the Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera met his Norwegian counterpart Jonas Gahr Stoere on Monday (June 12, 2006) and was to meet Aid Minister Erik Solheim, as well as other officials, lawmakers and business leaders. He was also having an audience with King Harald.” Good for him, a man who has probably created a new world record in air miles within a short period of time; and more to go perhaps.

The problem in Sri Lanka is the ethnic crisis and from the time it was shot into the arena of constant contention over the Sinhala Only Act of 1958, fifty years in two years, the country has steadily rolled towards anarchy and in the process helped to breed the world’s most brutal terror outfit. During this period there was also a deadly uprising led by the Jatika Vimukti Peramuna. This was put down by a state machinery that was utterly ruthless helped by some countries that gave immediate support. Thousands of Sinhala young people perished in this horrendous adventure.

These southern insurrectionists and northern terrorists have now together amassed a death toll of thousands of lives aided amply by the state forces with their extra-judicial killings. The southern insurrection was caused by economic factors where successive Sri Lankan governments have failed while the northern terrorism was caused by communal discrimination that has no place in a country watered by four great religions of the world and a rich heritage of Indian origin.

As if human atrocities in Sri Lanka were not enough, nature itself took a terrible toll December 26, 2004. Even when tsunami affected thousands of people showing no favour whatsoever to any particular community, the country could not rise above petty and paltry differences and help those affected by the terror from the oceans. It became evident a few monsters took control and among them corruption, deceit and exploitation of the suffering people were the lead ones.

But for some unsung heroes from the little people, the country was exposed as one without a leader of substantial status. Even with the ethnic crisis, the country has no one to take a firm stand and say, “this far and no further” and get to brass tacks and solve the problem. How would Mangala Samaraweera having audience with a Viking king help our people?

In turns, Erik Solheim is visiting Wanni and Samaraweera is visiting Oslo! What a charade and what an abysmal cheat and sham! And families and individuals are being massacred and often brutally in Sri Lanka. These are Sri Lankan folks who are being killed by Sri Lankan folks and, as if this is not enough, Pakistani weapons are being readied to kill Sri Lankan folks by Sri Lankan folks. How long is this tragedy going to be pursued?

The solution to Sri Lanka’s problems is in the country and there is an element of regional strength with a powerful neighbour like India. India has been very helpful to Sri Lanka in many ways but Sri Lanka has not been sufficiently appreciative of it. It appears the Sri Lankans have not yet shaken off the penchant for the White Man and he seems still a kind of king if not god himself.

While most members of the Tamil Diaspora do not support or subscribe to the LTTE and would love to see this terror outfit crushed – and the Wanni terrorists are aware of it – they cannot understand or discern why Sri Lanka that was quick to pass communal legislation directed against the minority communities especially the Tamils in the style of an AK47 rapid fire, are unable to reach out to one activity that will neutralize the Tamil Tigers once and for all.

There is a fear among the Tamil Diaspora that both the LTTE and the Government of Sri Lanka are some kind of bedfellows and each needs the other. The conclusion indeed is frightening!

The Tamil Tigers do not want a solution to the ethnic crisis; they want a mafia state that could soon envelop the whole country because corruption is so rampant. The Sri Lankan government does not want to solve the ethnic problem and instead ensure that the Tamil community is left to the wills and wiles of the LTTE who will, if not checked, make them become history in the country.

In all these, flirting with Norway will help with the delaying tactics. Norway evidently is a proxy to some force that is outside Sri Lanka and the country has bonded with the LTTE so effectively, Norway will stand firm with the Sri Lankan interests but favouring the interests of the terrorists.

So powerful and confident LTTE is with Norway, the terror outfit makes its demands from Norway and they have their man in Erik Solheim to oblige. Sri Lanka on the other hand, begs from Norway and this is absolutely weird and outlandish. -Satchi Sithananthan

D. S. Senanayake

Under D S Senanayake’s leadership, Sri Lanka’s economy flourished with the power, the glory, the splendor, the greatness and is still known as "The Father of Sri Lanka" -Ray Grairo

Don Stephen Senanayake was born on 20th October 1884, at Botale, a village in the Hapitigame Korale of the Negombo district in the Western Province. The name of the village has nothing to do with the colloquial Sinhalese word, with the same spelling and pronunciation, meaning ‘bottle’ derived from the Dutch ‘bottel’. The village was named after ‘Bodhi-tale’-the place of the Bodhi or Bo tree.

One of Senanayake’s ancestors may have been in the party of Buddhists who in ancient times brought a sapling of the old Bo tree at Mahaiyangana to be planted at the shrine of the good King Sri Sangabo at Attanagalla. On their last stop before reaching Attanagalla, they remained for the night at Botale. In the morning they found that the sapling had taken root in the soil where they had left it. There is of course no evidence to prove that the venerable Bo tree one now sees at Botale was the direct descendant of the tree at Mahaiyangana-traditionally one of the places in Sri Lanka visited by the Buddha. There are many, however, who believe that it was.

Only a few miles from the much larger village of Ambepussa, on the Colombo-Kandy road, Botale, stood on the frontier between the Sinhalese kingdom ruled from Kandy and the maritime districts held by the Portuguese. It was often an outpost of the Portuguese during their battles with the Sinhalese. The Portuguese historian, De Queyroz, in his ‘Conquest of Ceylon’, published in 1688, says that the Portuguese under Captain Francesco Pimental at Attanagalla made themselves dreaded in such a manner that, not having more to do, they went to encamp at Botale, a league further. The Sinhalese, for their part, erected a stronghold at Dedigama. In 1598 the quarters were shifted to "the pagoda at Botale, a place suited for assaults, with great loss to the enemy".

Peasants

The village of Botale seems to have been known for a sturdy breed of peasants. It was said that men from the area had constructed the tunnel through which the Sinhalese Prince Vidiya Bandara, who was a prisoner of the Portuguese, escaped with the help of the Franciscan friars who had their monastery at a spot near Queen’s House in Colombo where the President of the Republic of Sri Lanka now resides.

Stephen Senanayake’s father, Don Spater Senanayake, came of a land-owning family. The prefix ‘Don! had been used, since Portuguese times, by the low country gentry, as it had been in the Iberian Peninsula, where it originated Don Spater’s father, Don Bartholomew, was born in Botale in 1847 where the ancestral house still stands. It was for Don Stephen a hideaway to rest from the burdens of office or think out a solution to some knotty problem. It was here that he mixed freely with the country folk and shared his thoughts and aspirations with them. They brought their problems as well as their disputes to him and it is said that an aggrieved party in the village rarely resorted to a court of law, for Senanayake was judge and arbitrator in all causes which they referred to him.

Don Spater finished his schooling at St Thomas’ College, Matale. He married a Miss Senanayake (no relation) from Kehelella which was in the same district as Botale. They had three sons, of whom Stephen was the youngest, and a daughter. After the father’s death the four children remained close to their mother who was a deeply religious woman.

The Senanayakes of Botale were rooted to the land but Don Spater saw possibilities in mining plumbago (graphite) for which there was a growing demand in Europe, the United States and Japan. Ceylon plumbago was regarded by experts as "so much superior to any other turned out". It was mined in many parts of the island but chiefly in the Kurunegala district, where the Dodangaslande, Ragedera and Maduragoda mines were situated, and in the Kelani Valley where the Bogala mine was the largest. Don Spater’s contemporaries and rivals in the plumbago business included such well known merchants as Jacob de Mel. Mudaliyar D. C. Attygalle, N. D. P. Silva, D. D. Pedris, H. J. Peiris, M. A. Fernando, John Clovin de Silva, U. D. S. Gunasekera and H. Bastian Fernando, all of whom left considerable fortunes. Stephen grew to manhood when the plumbago trade was booming and even as a school boy he knew a great deal about the ‘black gold’ and the men who dug it from his father’s mines.

The massive volume entitled Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon, published in 1907 by Arnold Wright for Lloyds’ Greater Publishing Company of London, has the following reference to Don Spater Senanayake: "After being educated at various schools in Ceylon, he started business on his own account in the plumbago-mining line at the early age of eighteen years. He now carries on business as a plumbagominer, merchant, estate proprietor and general planter. His offices are situated at Siri Medura, Castle Street, Cinnamon Gardens, and his stores are located at Kitulwatte, Kanatte, Colombo."

The article refers to the modern machinery installed in Don Spater’s mines and estates and states that the graphite extracted the refrom is collected at Ambepussa and forwarded to Colombo. It also lists the names of his mines and coconut estates. Two pages of pictures go with the article, including the family group with the striking figure of Don Spater, in Mudaliyar’s dress, with the three sons standing behind their seated parents and sister, Mrs. F. H. Dias Bandaranaike. Don Spater Senanayake was given the rank of Mudaliyar, not as a Government official but as "a worthy citizen", by Governor Sir Joseph West Ridgeway.

At the end of the nineteenth century, many Sinhalese families interested themselves in the public life of the country. Seats in the Legislative Council were filled by nomination by the Governor. In 1839, the only Sinhalese member was G. Phillipse Panditaratna. He was succeeded by his kinsman J. G. Dias, the eldest brother of Sir Harry Dias who succeeded him in his turn. On Sir Harry’s retirement, James Dehigama, a Kandyan lawyer, was nominated. The seat went back to the family circle with the nomination of James D’Alwis, whose daughters married Christoffel Obeyesekere and Felix R. Dias. He was followed by J. P. Obeyesekere and Albert de Alwis, in turn. The succession was broken by the nomination of A. de A. Seneviratne, but restored by the entry of Christoffel Obeyesekere in 1889. In that year an additional seat was provided to represent the Kandyan Sinhalese and T. B. Panabokke, who had been Obeyesekere’s classmate in the Colombo Academy (later the Royal College), was nominated. It was not uncommon for a Kandyan in Government service or one who had retired as a Ratemahatmaya (chief headman) to be selected, as was the case with Hulugalle Adigar, who was succeeded by his kinsman, T. B. L. Moonemalle. When the pattern was about to be broken, Mr. (later Sir) Christoffel Obeyesekere, no doubt irked by the new spirit of nationalism, said on a well known occasion that much of the trouble in the country was due to "nobodies" trying to become "somebodies".

D. S. Senanayake was the first member of the Senanayake family of Botale to enter the Legislative Council though his older brother, ‘F. R.’, could have at any time won a seat by election and was always a powerful influence behind the scenes until his premature death.

Family influence was also an important factor in the choice of Tamil members. The first Tamil to be nominated to the Legislative Council was A. Coomaraswamy Pulle. He was followed by Simon Casie Chitty. Governor Stuart Mackenzie spoke of "his extra-ordinary, perfect attainment by a foreigner of the English language so difficult to all foreigners". The nomination of Edirimanasinghe Mudaliyar in 1850 gave a long run to a single family with its roots in Manipay. His brother-in-law Ponnambalam Mudaliyar was the father of P. Coomaraswamy, P. Ramanathan and P. Arunachalam, all three of whom were nominated members of the Legislative Council at various times. Edirimanasinghe Mudaliyar had been succeeded by Sir Muttu Coomaraswamy, another uncle of the three Ponnambalam brothers, J. R. Weinman, the witty chronicler of this period said that "the major aim of every Councillor is to keep the thing going in the family".

With the introduction of the electoral system of representation, many descendants of the above-named found their way into the legislature through the front door. This is, of course, not surprising. As a recent writer has said, "a democratic political system cannot make elites superfluous, though it may ensure their rapid and regular circulation". -The Island – 22 Oct 2000