The Kadirgamar dream and the Kotelawala doctrine

It's three months to date since the sniper's bullet felled Lakshman Kadirgamar creating a huge vacuum in our national leadership. In the midst of the activity of the current hustings his name is being quietly pushed into the background. The UNP especially is decidedly silent about his assassination. It is not even ready to name the LTTE as a possible suspect in the assassination of this larger than life Sri Lankan, who dedicated all his later years to the service of this country.

Keeping his memory alive, is keeping the Kadirgamar dream come true. His dream was of a single Sri Lankan people, rich in their diversity of language and religion, culture and custom, moving together in a peace that is binding because it came from the hearts of the people themselves. His dream was a land where terrorism and separatism had no place. Of particular importance in this dream was the need to save the children of Sri Lanka from being forced to carry arms for anyone.

As the diversions of the Presidential election come to a close, it is time for those who respected the vision and work of Lakshman Kadirgamar to begin the work of making his dream come true. It is time for all who wept at his being so suddenly and brutally taken away from our midst, to take the steps to make that part of the dream closest to his heart come true; the liberation of children being used for war.

A national issue

For far too long public opinion opposed to the LTTE's use of children for military purposes, have felt it a problem for the people of the North to be solved by them alone. Many felt it is enough to complain to international human rights organizations about it.

Many took comfort reading how UNICEF had exposed the LTTE's duplicity about using children for war. Many still believe this is a problem that can be solved by UNICEF alone, or else by the UN Security Council. Such thinking has no place in a genuine effort to liberate the children already carrying arms for the LTTE, and those forced to do so in the future.

It is time we realized this is not a problem of Northern Tamil parents alone. They may be Tamil children of Tamil parents, but they too are the children of Sri Lanka. They are the flowers that should bloom tomorrow in a land of peace and goodwill; the future human assets of Sri Lanka.

Their parents are unable to put up a strong enough fight to save them from the Tiger, because it is an armed claw that takes them away. It is, therefore, the duty of all parents, and all those who consider themselves Sri Lankans, living outside areas of direct LTTE control, to campaign against this gross violation of the rights of children and cry halt to this tragedy of the child soldier.

The strategy

The strategy is to build a network of people's organizations, with their own resources, to campaign in their own areas against this brazen cruelty to Sri Lankan children. It's time to add one's own voice to that of others against this outrageous facet of LTTE terrorism.

The more such voices are heard in unison, from Matara and Galle, Kandy and Kurunegala, Ampara and Alawwa, Maturata and Matale, Negombo and Nuwara Eliya, Deniyaya and Dambulla, it will be heard the world over. The international community and the UN Security Council will be unable to plug their ears to this rising cry of protest to save the children of one's own nation.

Soon there will be increased pressure on the LTTE to abandon this savagery. More importantly, it will give strength to the parents in the North facing the tragedy of losing their children to the clutches of terror, to be bolder in their own protests against the LTTE; like they did after those two brave principals of schools were killed for not sending their children to LTTE Pongu Thamil propaganda circuses. This showed the buried desire for freedom and democracy among the Tamil people.

It is our duty to strengthen it to emerge strong enough to tell the LTTE that enough is enough. That can happen only if we think of the threatened children of the North as our own children, the children of Sri Lanka.

Just beginning to think so will lead you on the path to help make a major part of Lakshman Kadirgamar's Dream come true. Three months since he was snatched away from us, it's time to take that first step.

Kotelawala

Many were shocked to see the Archbishop of Colombo, the Most Revd. Oswald Gomis in a provocative advertisement by an organization upholding "Love and Understanding". The very headline of the ad, "Christians Awake!" was a clear call to arms to all Christians. Carry arms against whom but one's neighbour, who Christ exhorted we should love.

The Archbishop of Colombo lent his apostolic voice to the message of division and provocation this so-called Society for Love and Understanding is propagating today. In its well funded strategy to make Ranil Wickremesinghe Executive President, this organization of Desamanya Lalith Kotelawala does not mind what other divisions it causes in the country.

The Kotelawala Doctrine propagated as "Love and Understanding" in fact sows the seeds of hatred and mistrust. To see the Archbishop of Colombo lend his name and message to such a sinister campaign is shocking to many Catholics and Christians. What is worse is that seeing the most respected figure in the Catholic hierarchy as part of divisive propaganda, can give cause for genuine anger among Sinhala Buddhists, with whom Christians have in large measure been living very peacefully.

Similarly, it will be easy for preachers of Kotelawala Doctrine to cause hatred and violence between Sinhalese Buddhists and Christians today, to come 20 years later as the healers of what can be ghastly wounds of hatred.

A message from Archbishop Gomis would have been carried prominently in any newspaper. He should never have allowed his apostolic image and words to be used as grist for the propaganda mill of the Kotelawala Doctrine of divide and succeed.