• Rock's report that rocked Sri Lanka now bound to rock Rock himself

• School Canteen Policy Act: ban artificial food sales from next year

• The monk who thinks out of the box

• Teaching Sinhala and Tamil

Rock's report that rocked Sri Lanka now bound to rock Rock himself

United Nations Special Ambassador to Sri Lanka Allan Rock and a former Canadian Cabinet Minister and until recently, the country's Ambassador to the United Nations made an incredible observation that the Sri Lankan Armed Forces were helping the TMVP led by Karuna, to enlist child soldiers in its armed cadres.

Allan Rock was appointed by the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy who herself is a Sri Lankan, to investigate and report on the situation in Sri Lanka in respect of children enlisted as child soldiers.

During a whirlwind ten day investigation visit, he was assigned the task of reporting on the allegations of child soldier conscription in the country, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) being the principal and sustained violators of children's rights.

In the first place, the choice of Allan Rock was a wrong one. As a member of the Liberal Government of Canada since 1994 and a Government known to be favourable to the LTTE, he has without doubt had a partisan sympathy for the Tigers.

When he served as Minister of Justice, he was believed to have been soft on the LTTE in Canada and its leaders who were involved in many illegal activities including drugs and gangsterism and even ignored the recommendation of the CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) to ban it.

His government gave off millions of dollars to pro-LTTE organisations and among them was the Tamil Eelam Society. Several efforts made by the concerned Tamil Canadians hardly made any impact on the Government.

In fact, former Prime Minister Paul Martin while he was his fellow Finance Minister in the Jean Chretien Cabinet participated in a dinner as the Guest of Honour organised by a Canadian LTTE federation, Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils (FACT).

This created quite a storm among the Tamils opposed to the LTTE that damage control was done by stating that Mr. Martin was not aware that it was an LTTE organisation and that he was misled.

There are quite a few Liberal Party Members of Parliament in the Greater Toronto area who valued the support of the Tamils concentrated in Scarborough, East York and North York areas.

Among them, one is Jim Karigiannis, the Member of Parliament for Scarborough-Agincourt who while speaking at an LTTE meeting turned around, bared his lower back to the assemblage and said that was for the Government of Sri Lanka.

However, when Allan Rock was named to inquire into the problem of child soldiers, there were expectations he would be fair and just and honour the fact that President Mahinda Rajapaksa gave him all the assistance and freedom for him to go wherever he wanted and meet anyone to get to the core of the problem.

It was immense trust that was placed on him. Ten days certainly were too short for such a study especially having to travel great distances and also to some areas that were considered risky.

What was not known was that he was accompanied by certain people who had already done some groundwork to mislead him determined to embarrass the Government and take the focus off the Tiger recruitment of children and that too over a long period of time!

Among those who accompanied him were a couple of Europeans, who would have given him the impression that their knowledge of the local situation was thorough and would be useful to him.

It was thorough no doubt because they also knew how to manipulate some local people to express themselves certain views that were necessary to mislead an inquirer and in this at least two members of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, very friendly with

These people overplayed their enthusiasm to discredit the Government of Sri Lanka by accusing the Armed Forces as responsible for capturing children and young people to be enlisted in the TMVP cadres.

It is evident Allan Rock simply believed them. After all one white person was communicating with another white person about a ground situation that was totally Sri Lankan ignoring the currents and cross-currents of the ongoing ethnic chaos in Sri Lanka.

Allan Rock should have checked thoroughly these aspects with Government officials before he released any of his impressions and observations to the press that literally rocked the country.

His report was also weak when it came to the LTTE. It appeared that this terror group was not as bad as it was thought to be when it came to child conscription in Allan Rock's views.

Was he aware that the LTTE terr orists set up orphanages merely to feed their fighting forces no matter whether they were kids or not? Was he aware that it was an LTTE terror training camp that was bombed and where school children were forced to undergo long periods of training ignoring their school obligations?

Was he aware that the UNICEF was repeatedly asked to take a convoy of coaches to the Vanni and liberate all the children there? Was he also aware it was the TMVP that liberated hundreds of children from the LTTE cadres but unfortunately, the LTTE recaptured many of them and those who managed to escape were shot?

How could Allan Rock have covered all these areas during a period within a matter of ten days and that too with the kind of people who were with him when he travelled from place to place or those who met him in various towns and villages?

In submitting this report, Allan Rock rocked the Sri Lankans but not for long as details of his journey of inquiry came to be known and the apathetic and lackadaisical manner in which he prepared his report.

He did himself a great deal of discredit and even more to the organisation that sent him on this mission but much, much more to the people of Sri Lanka - Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims.

He was certainly misled and those who were responsible for it had conspired in advance to be involved in such a shameful and loathsome deed.

This is very sad indeed because Allan Rock, will have to live with a terrible ghost for the rest of his life with the conviction that he misled a nation; perhaps even cheated it.

DURGA VELAUTHAN - via email
 

School Canteen Policy Act: ban artificial food sales from next year

It's about time that the Government implemented such a policy banning artificial 'food'. Indeed good news!

Manufacturers and importers are the only people benefiting with millions of rupees (and dollars) going into their pockets at the expense of the unsuspecting children and general public who consume these so-called foods.

Not to mention the burden on tax payers' money which the Government uses to treat the diseases caused by artificial ingredients in foods.

The public needs to be exposed to much more nutrition information and ingredients list in foods sold, not only in school canteens, but on every label of each product sold in the market.

L. BASNAYAKE
 

The monk who thinks out of the box

One day my sister said, "Nangi, I met a very peculiar monk. He teaches an even peculiar method of meditation, which when practised, makes one new' and she forced down the meditation method down my throat, to my utter dismay, for I was one who had been frustrated by practising the various methods of meditation which the modern meditation masters of the country proclaim to be leading to Nibbana.

With the greatest reluctance I started practising this 'peculiar' method of meditation of this peculiar monk. For sure, after every hour of meditation I became new and new and new. So, after nine hours of meditation, I thought of actually seeing this monk with my own eyes.

So I made the trip to Malabe with my sister and brother-in-law, for a meditation session with this monk. We reached no. 479, Bodhiya Road, Talahena, Malabe, by 8 O' clock. After signing the register we sat on the mats on the floor, cross legged.

There he sat, Sri Lankapura Sariputta Thera. He is a very unassuming monk with an air of light-heartedness and strength. He teaches this peculiar method of meditation after paying obeisance to the three Jewels.

He makes the devotees practise this method of meditation for one hour, and then gives a Dhamma talk. What fascinated me was the originality and the truth embedded in the Dhamma talk. After the Dhamma talk everyone gets a cup of 'plain' tea, and again the Dhamma talk continues.

At 12 noon, its time for 'dane'. Everyone partakes of a delicious meal distributed free of charge and at 1 O' clock the Dhamma discussion begins. After the Dhamma discussion, there is another hour of meditation and at 3 O' clock everyone gets the afternoon cup of tea, free of course.

After tea some of the devotees leave and some stay on for further clarification of the Dhamma. He is a very unorthodox monk who gives the key to Nibbana right away. you only have to practise diligently.

K. SUGATHADASA
 

Teaching Sinhala and Tamil

I have written to the papers sometime ago about this. (Reference DN Nov. 28) We should change our education system.

Today English is the world language. Every child should be given the opportunity to study in English and should make compulsory for every child to learn Sinhala and Tamil till up to Grade 6 or 7 and even later if they wish to. That will make us true Sri Lankans.

OLGA MENDIS - Australia - via email