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| Friday, 6 February 2004 |
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Sri Lanka Pugwash Group revived, 2004 The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs started with a meeting of scientists in the little village of Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1957, following the Russell Einstein Manifesto against nuclear war announced in London, in 1955. The origin of the Sri Lanka Pugwash Group was an offer made by a Sri Lanka engineer in Nigeria, V Tharumaratnam, in 1980 to fund an international Pugwash conference in Sri Lanka. This offer had been accepted by the Pugwash Council after a visit to Sri Lanka by Professor Joseph Rotblat, the founding father of Pugwash, in 1981, and an announcement was made in the Pugwash Newsletter that the 1983 conference would be held in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lanka Pugwash Group was therefore set up in April 1981 after advertisement in the newspapers. The original idea was for Professor S. Gnanalingam to be the Chairman, and Dr. Gamani Corea to be Co-Chairman, representing what C P Snow had described as the Two Cultures of the Sciences and the Humanities, in the best Pugwash tradition. D. L. O. Mendis, who had convened the meeting was to be the Secretary. However, some of those present raised objections that Sri Lanka science and scientists were starved for funds, and it was not correct to spend a large amount of money on foreign scientists. Dr. Gnanalingam then declined to be Chairman and suggested that D. L. O. Mendis should function as Secretary/Convenor, and more formal arrangements made later. This was accepted, being similar to the setting up of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs in 1957, when a Continuing Committee had been appointed under which the Pugwash movement functioned for the next 17 years, before a more formal structure was set up. Dr Gamani Corea who was not present at the meeting, agreed with the suggestion on being informed about it. The Sri Lanka Pugwash Group has maintained a low profile, but has nevertheless contributed in various ways both in Sri Lanka and to the parent organisation. For example, the then President of Pugwash Sir Michael Atiyah, the outgoing President of the Royal Society, was the Chief Guest at the Annual Sessions of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science in 1997. A book titled 'Meaningful Development, A Pugwash Perspective' was published to commemorate that visit, the theme of the SLAAS conference selected by the President Eng. A. D. S. Gunawardena, being 'Meaningful Development'. Six books have been published to date by Sri Lanka Pugwash, including a trilogy highlighting the Eppawala phosphate deposit that was once again in the news recently. More than a dozen papers from Sri Lanka have been presented at international Pugwash conferences on scientific topics, including some of the earliest dealing with environmental issues. The 53rd international Pugwash conference was held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, in 2003, and included a visit to Pugwash village a couple of hours drive away, where the first conference had been held in 1957. Jayantha Dhanapala delivered the Keynote Address at this meeting, honouring a former President of Pugwash, Nobel Laureate Dorothy Hodgkin. The Sri Lanka Pugwash Group is now being given a more formal structure with Professor C B Dissanayake, Senior Professor of Geology, University of Peradeniya, as Chairman, and Jayantha Dhanapala as Co-Chairman, while D L O Mendis, remains Secretary / Convenor. One of the important activities that is lined up for future development is the project titled Science and Civilisation in Sri Lanka, that was launched with a Panel Discussion at the Organisation of Professional Associations in Colombo, on October 7, 2003. This has been inspired by Professor Joseph Needhams Science and Civilisation in China at the Needham Research Institute in Cambridge, and will be spearheaded by a galaxy of senior scientists in Sri Lanka and abroad. D. L. O. Mendis ******************* Message from Jayantha Dhanapala Co-Chairman, Sri Lanka Pugwash Group In 1995 when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in equal parts to the Pugwash Conferences of Science and World Affairs and to its founder and then President, Sir Joseph Rotblat, it was 'for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and in the longer run to eliminate such arms'. Those efforts may seem frustratingly Sisyphean to some who have witnessed the steady expansion of the nuclear weapon 'club' from the first use of this terrible weapon in 1945 to five official members and three putative ones; nuclear stockpiles of more than 30,000 warheads today many of them on alert launch-on-warning status and the danger of terrorists using nuclear devices. And yet the record of nuclear disarmament as a result of what Pugwash and other civil society movements have achieved through people's movements has been impressive persuading governments to conclude treaties and agreements to distance the fearful prospect of global or regional conflict using nuclear weapons. I have been privileged to be closely associated with the Pugwash movement and Sri Joseph Rotblat throughout my career in the cause of peace and disarmament. Sir Joseph left the Manhattan Project in 1944 in an act of conscientious objection to its aim of building a nuclear weapon. Later, as Professor of Physics in the University of London, be built on the famous 1955 Russell-Einstein Manifesto issued by Bertraned Russell and Albert Einstein as a co-convenor of the first Pugwash Conference in July 1957. He served on the Canberra Commission for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons with me and has been an inspiration to many of us who work in the field of nuclear disarmament. The Pugwash movement has based its mission on the Russell-Eintsein Manifesto and has united scientists throughout the world to assert their moral integrity in opposition to a weapon that has the potential to destroy humankind and the ecological system that supports life on this planet. The President of Pugwash today is the eminent Indian agricultural scientist Dr. M.S. Swaminathan. Professional scientists in Sri Lanka must be mobilized in the global struggle against nuclear weapons and act in solidarity with their international colleagues to delegitimise nuclear weapons and ensure their total elimination. |
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