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by Wilfrid Jayasuriya

The panel discussion is a well known method of airing points of view. It allows the panelists to try to persuade the audience to their respective points of view. The views they voice are their own. What I propose to do is to allow writers and speakers on the peace process and allied subjects to air their views by quoting them and by not putting words in their mouths to misrepresent them. This will hopefully enable readers to judge them on their own merits. There is however a compere or mediator in this imaginary dialogue, who will direct the discussion. That will be Socrates, reborn in 2002 in Colombo. Socrates will have the benefit of knowing much more than he knew, when he lived in Athens long ago.

Socrates: Andrew Scott and R.S.V. Poulier tell us about a mythic character of not so long ago. In the middle of the last century Maduwanwela was a wilderness, with the walauwa, standing as a lone sentinel, until the the Walawe irrigation scheme, spread its watery tentacles all over that benighted nindagam. The Sunday Observer February 10, Andrew Scott The Dark Prince of Maduwanwela

The old Sinhala chieftan whose home lay in the roadless forests of Kolonne, Maduwanwela Rate Mahattaya, received his education at St. Thomas College, inherited an incredible eighty two thousand acres in two nindagamas. He was a perfect host and every weekend the planters would ride down to his place for tennis, racing and bibulous merriment. He helped them many a time to open their lands by drafting to their service at sudden notice a labour force of even five hundred men. Dr R.L.Spittel in Far Off Things, published in 1933, describes how he saw the wizened old chief, Maduwanwela, in a recess of the verandah, all huddled up on the antique wooden bed. Cobwebbed bottles of champagne stood on the ground by the wall. He was in high fever and his leg was swollen.

There were heirlooms which were looted from the last king of Kandy, the Tamil tyrant Sri Wickreme Rajasinghe, whom Maduwanwela's great uncle, Ekneligoda, helped the British to capture.

R.S.V. Poulier Government Agent Ratnapura Diary 5.5.1937 (from The British Diaries)

Then walked to Maduwanwela; very hot. Listened in the correct attitude to stories of the old RM some of which I had heard before. Went over the old walauwa which appears to be becoming difficult to maintain. Was told how the headmen had the privilege of being tied to a different tree (kitul) from ordinary folk (mora) when they were whipped.

Socrates: Effective power had passed from the chieftans hands to the British, in the person of the GA. But the chieftan retained his lands and title. Display was his only privilege and a show of authority to the less privileged. We read in Japanese history how the Samurai, a noble clan, when they were deprived of power, could not continue to practise their martial arts, for which they had no scope in war. They turned to sexual arts instead, venting their frustration in safer wars in bed. The last sentence of Pouliers diary entry reminds me of Robert Knoxs account of the Kandyan kingdom in the 17th century. Feudalism didnt die in British times did it? Got the breath of life after independence and is still alive and whipping now? Lets see what Lankapage, who is almost a permanent member of our panel has to report.

Lankapage.

Feb. 15, (REUTERS Photo): A Sri Lankan Tamil man carries a load of tobacco as he walks down the A-9 highway in north-central Sri Lanka February 15, 2002 in Vavuniya. The government and the Tamil Tigers agreed to reopen the highway, the scene of bitter battles in the past, as a confidence-building measure ahead of expected peace talks.

Feb 15th (REUTERS): Women fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) smile as they stand on the rebel side of a border crossing in Omanthai in north-central Sri Lanka. The government and the LTTE reopened the crossing point as a goodwill gesture ahead of expected direct peace talks.

Socrates: Gentlemen, please meet my dear friend Engineer DLO Mendis, former President of the Institute of Engineers. Welcome to our chat room in cyberspace DLO. You have been so eloquent in defending the environment from Eppawela to Pugwash and now you are back on your homepage, the irrigation website. See this picture of women soldiers. Isn't it lovely to see the smile on the face of the tiger? I've forgotten the hoary old limerick, in which this phrase occurs. I heard it in the streets of Athens, so many centuries ago. I only remember the rhyme. So whats new? These are genuine smiles of joy, I have no doubt, that I see in Omanthai. Aren't they cute?

DLO Mendis: Let's talk about the future, about water, soil and eco systems and about the modern Jaffna market garden. We can not only revive the road to Jaffna, the A9, but also conceive A River for Jaffna. This is the brain child of the late S.Arumugam, irrigation engineer, scientist, scholar. We are fairly familiar now with Jaffna place names and I hope our readers will follow my talk without a map. The words in italics are taken from the obituary appreciation of S.Arumugam that appeared in the Tamil Times of 15th May 2000.

The Kanagarayan Aru [river], which flows from the Vanni mainland northwards discharges monsoon flood waters into the Elephant Pass lagoon. And this water flows under the Elephant Pass bridge and westwards into the sea.

Socrates: So instead of allowing the water to flow into the sea it will be taken across to the peninsula? Like Parakramabahu's talk about not allowing a drop of water to flow freely into the sea?

DLO Mendis: A dam and spillway at the Elephant Pass bridge and a 4700 foot long embankment and spillway on the eastern seaside end of the Elephant Pass lagoon, at Chundikulam, would trap this freshwater in the 11,400 acre Elephant Pass lagoon.

Socrates: But wouldn't the water in the lagoon be saline?

DLO Mendis: The sea water will get diluted by the inflow of fresh water and since the sea is sealed off by the embankment the freshwater will take its place. This is a known process of desalination.

A two and a half mile long link channel at Mulliyan, at the northern tip of the Elephant Pass lagoon, has to be constructed to convey this fresh water into the Vadamarachi lagoon at its southern tip.

Socrates: Vadamarachi is a familiar name in recent battle lore. So this Mulliyan channel will be like the Elahera canal or the Jaya Ganga conveying water from one reservoir to another?

DLO Mendis: Yes. The Vadamarachi lagoon is a large inland lake. It has an average width of about a mile and more or less extends through the heart of the Jaffna peninsula. The water in this lake will not be used for surface irrigation but will augment the underground water collection on which the market garden system of Jaffna is based.

Socrates: Is all this something completely new?

DLO Mendis: The Vadamarachi lagoon discharges its water into the sea at Thondamannar. The lagoon also discharges into the sea at Chemmani. There is a barrage at Thondamannar, which was refurbished and the spillway at Chemmani was constructed in the 1950s. These structures brought immediate improvements to the well water quality in many parts of Jaffna, which the older generation will no doubt recall. In the 1960s work commenced on the Chundikulam bund, the spillway at Elephant Pass bridge and the Mulliyan channel.

The Chundikulam bund was constructed but subsequently breached. The spillway at Elephant Pass bridge was completed, but the Mulliyan channel which was to lead the fresh water from the Elephant Pass lagoon to the Vadamarachi lagoon was never completed. It was Arumugams hope that one day this scheme would be completed because the benefits that it will bring to Jaffna peninsula are immeasurable.

Socrates: Ananthai! Apramanai! As they say in Sinhala. Eternal and immeasurable. A poetic way of expressing the time space continuum in which we live and die. I was struck by the thought of how differently, fate treated these two heroes of the past, Maduwanwela and Arumugam. Of Maduwanwela can one say, as Samuel Johnson, in his didactic poem, The Vanity of Human Wishes, says of Jenghis Khan, the Mongol who overran most of medieval Christendom

He left a name, at which the world grew pale

To point a moral or adorn a tale.

In other words did Maduwanwela leave no impact or memory at all except that of fear? The fear of the whip?

DLO Mendis: Arumugams studies on groundwater cannot be improved upon even today, said Dr C.R. Panabokke, the soil scientist. My view is that Arumugams project is a superior option to the Morahgahakele canal, which was designed to take water from the Mahaveli at Matale to Vauvuniya, a very long canal project. That project to take water to the deficit areas of the north was shelved in the 1970s. Arumugams project is much more cost effective. The market garden economy of Jaffna is a great agricultural or horticultural resource of our country. If I had time, I would say more about how the underground aquifers, which will be replenished by the fresh water brought to Jaffna, could be tapped more efficiently, through the same shallow wells that charaterise the Jaffna landscape. But lets leave that for another day.

Socrates: So Arumugam left a legacy, not of fear but of hope? The intellect is worthier than the sword? You know, way back in those days, in Athens, I had a wife and children. But I spent a lot of time on the streets, chatting with anyone who was willing to talk with me. Largely because my wife would never leave me alone, at home. Nag! Nag! Nag! One day she made such a big noise, shouting at me, I left the house and sat under a tree close by, where I was joined by some friends, including Aescapulius, the physician. And my wife came there and threw a bucket of water on my head. What a public humiliation! I had no reply. I merely told my friends gathered round, After the thunder and lightening comes the rain.

Now lets scan the Sunday papers for the love episodes of peace and war. As always we are confused arent we by the mixed signals? Here are some of them.

Sunday Times 17/02

The President also wanted to know why the Police even after knowing the nature of the operations the Athurugiriya men were involved in, acted in a manner that harmed national security.

Sunday Times 17/02

Norwegians preparing their own draft. The draft agreement which provided for a detailed truce as a precursor to starting peace talks, attracted wide spread criticism by nationalist groups such as the National Joint Committee, a federation of Sinhala and Buddhist organizations.

Socrates: Children, ladies and gentlemen, aunties, sisters and dear brethren have you seen or heard this widespread criticism? The claims to be national and joint and to represent the mulu mahath janatawa through a federation of Sinhala and Buddhist organizations has been made by whom? And wasn't national security the reason why we had to spend seven years going round in circles on the Colombo roads, trying to prove my friend Euclids theorem that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. National security thought otherwise?

One aspect of this national business, which is such a common con trick, (in logic it is known as the bogus collective) is to call any organization that you start--like a society of authors in Sinhala and English-- the Sri Lanka society of authors in Sinhala and English. Do you become instantly national thereby? Are the English Association of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka English Language Teachers Association in any sense representative of the people who know English or teach English? Yet dont they claim to be by assuming that title? The registrar apparently bestows it to them by merely registering it. So do newspapers by bestowing words like national, joint federation and so on. Is it a possible task to make a draft of anything with words used like that?

Sunday Times 17th Feb

Hopes never so high. On the road to peace? Civilians from uncleared areas at the Omanthai LTTE checkpoint. The opening of the road has inspired confidence among the people that the country was well on the road to lasting peace. They said that hopes had never been so high.

Socrates: Hope springs eternal, you know where, said my friend Aescapulius to a young flat chested lady patient, as he examined her. We all hope it wont fall flat.

Sunday Times 17th Feb

Iqbal Athas-Situation report

Tigers smuggle in supplies while Navy is busy with parades.

Pictures released last month by the LTTE show female cadres undergoing training with mortar launchers and Black Tigers presenting arms. Note the new weapons with grenade launchers.

Socrates: The band plays while the ship slowly goes down? The image of the Titanic with Celine Dion singing plaintively on the deck, in a white gown, comes to our minds. How does one place it in the hotch potch of hopes and fears? Arent the LTTE people also hopeful and fearful like us? Are they trying to reassure themselves that they are not being taken for a ride? Hope and fear is the natural human condition. At times like these they are intensified, arent they?

Sunday Times 17th Feb

Editorial

Democratising the North

It is curious why the Tamil parties want to eschew the democratic process. One thing is certain that the LTTE or Tamil National alliance candidates are not a shoo in at any of these polls. It is known that PLOTE candidates for instance have a good chance of being elected in Vavuniya. The EPDP candidates are also in with a chance.

Socrates: Wasn't there a general election just a couple of months ago at which some people were elected? Isn't this mini poll or local government election a way of ousting the PA from the local bodies? How does one establish a stable democracy by sponsoring elections every two months?

Well it is an exciting time isn't it? Thank you Andrew Scott, R.S.V. Poulier, Iqbal Athas, DLO Mendis, Lankapage, the leader writer and other esteemed writers in the Sunday Times.

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