• Peace negotiations

• Inadequate facilities for persons waiting at Katunayake Airport

• An open letter to Tissa Attanayake, M.P., General Secretary, UNP

• No one lives forever!

• 16,000 Norwegian passports sold to LTTE

• Underground tunnel for Sri Lanka

• University education
  
  
  
  Peace negotiations

It is an understatement to say that the country is at crossroads. We have been at crossroads for sometime now. The difficulty is in comprehending the reason for the lethargy in addressing the terrorist issue.

Both the international community and our locals have clearly articulated the fact that negotiating with terrorists is unbelievably naive and ineffective. The only outcome in the past several years was the loss of thousands of innocent lives including that of many brilliant political leaders.

The media has given wide exposure to strategies for resolution. The latest being that of Malin Abeytunge (DN Dec. 6). As Malin has clearly pointed out we need to ban and defeat the LTTE and negotiate with the Tamil moderates for a sustainable peace solution.

In order to negotiate we need to earn the trust of the moderate Tamils not only by rhetoric but also by deed. We need to have at least a draft proposal for the ethnic solution by now. How can there be negotiations with the moderates without a proposal? It is like inviting someone to dinner with no food on the table. No wonder they get drunk on the wine and the nibbles!

The APRC has been meeting for several months now and the members had the opportunity of visiting India to gain an insight into the Indian Federal System. When are we likely to see the draft proposal?

Whether we like it or not we are already in a form of a Federated State with the current Provincial Council System. Commonsense dictates that we need to build on the current system and accommodate the ethnic issues. Peace loving Mr. Anandasangaree and the moderate Tamils appear to favour the Indian system.

One would think that this would be a firm base for APRC deliberations. There is no doubt that the ruling parties would have evaluated the preferred solution many times in the recent past.

In the interest of the country the APRC has no time to waste. It should come up with a practical proposition sooner than later.

I agree that formulating a proposal for negotiation is not an easy task. But dithering with no discernible outcome is not the solution. Sadly the country is burning at both ends (politically and economically) and cannot afford to lose the great leaders and the brave soldiers any more.

Delays can also cause undue embarrassment and question the genuineness of the Government peace agenda. It is imperative that APRC inform the people where they are at with the peace proposal for it is only after this outcome we can genuinely say that we have taken a step towards peaceful negotiations.

JANAKI WIJEGUNASEKERA, Australia, via email

Inadequate facilities for persons waiting at Katunayake Airport

The facilities for persons waiting for arriving passengers at the Bandaranaike International Airport are very poor.

The persons who pay Rs. 130 per ticket can go a little distance in, but then have to stand and wait. There is not even one seat although there is room to provide a row of chairs but this seems to have been overlooked. Alternatively a space should be created where seating is possible.

The people who decide not to pay Rs. 130 (quite rightly for no facility) are treated like dirt. They stay outside and are continuously pushed and shouted at by security personnel. In addition the security personnel all of a sudden decide to push the barriers back. Then they push the people like cattle.

The people have no choice but to endure this rough treatment. This kind of degrading treatment occurs at our international airport.

The Airport and Aviation Services must expedite the renovation work and meanwhile improve the facilities to the people who come to receive their loved ones coming from abroad.

Nimala Jayasuriya, Rajagiriya

An open letter to Tissa Attanayake, M.P., General Secretary, UNP

I write as someone who has been a member of the UNP probably longer than you have been on this earth. I am also a Committee Member of the London Branch of the party but I suspect that that will soon end at your instigation after you've read this.

The BBC Sinhala Channel here in the UK reported on December 2 that you have said that -

a) the Sri Lankan government 'has not been able to effectively carry forward the ceasefire agreement signed by the UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe with the Tigers',

b) '...a peaceful solution to the ethnic problem has been undermined by the politics that evolved after the Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa took power', and,

c) 'this has created an atmosphere of mistrust and the LTTE to resort to violence again.'

Perhaps, in time-honoured fashion, you will be telling the BBC (and us) that you have been unfairly 'misquoted' by a mischievous press! On the other hand, you may have meant everything you are reported to have said. Which is it to be? If it is the latter, then I have to question your judgment.

I am appalled that at a sensitive time like this in our history, you have resorted to the very thing which we very nobly said we wouldn't do when we signed the MoU with the Government of President Rajapaksa, i.e., indulge in petty point-scoring when the nation is in peril. I think you should seriously re-consider your position.

You seem to be suggesting that if the so-called ceasefire negotiated by Ranil Wickremesinghe had been allowed to develop in the way he intended (whatever that may mean), there would be total sweetness and light, not tension, in the island today.

We now have it on the authority not of a competing politician but of the impartial Army Commander himself that the LTTE terrorists used the ceasefire to re-group and systematically replenish their deadly arsenal of murderous weapons. What do you think they were acquiring them for - as Christmas presents for their boy-soldiers? How naive can you be?

This may have escaped your politically-blind notice, but, from where I stand, the whole world applauds the patient, restrained, measured, intelligent and focused - and, ultimately effective - way in which the President is dealing with the treacherous LTTE.

In that particular respect, he is, in my opinion, without equal on our political stage today. Whether we like it or not, he beat our man fairly and squarely at the Presidential elections. He is not a political foe any more, he is our President and, as such, deserves to be loyally supported, not undermined, at a time like this.

If you cannot rise above sectarian politics at such a critical time, I cannot see what real use you are to our party.

TONY DE ALWIS (Revd.), UK, via email

No one lives forever!

One mad man, a killer of human race died recently in South America.

Another killer of the human race killed himself in international prison in Europe a few years ago. Another one was found hiding like a rat in a hole. One of the killers of Sri Lankans is now dying in England.

Its said that life is God given and no human has the right to take it away. Some think that they can take God's will. God's wrath will strike the killers from the Vanni in the most hardest way.

Wish all strength to our armed forces!

May God keep them safe!

ARIYA, via email

16,000 Norwegian passports sold to LTTE

16,000 Norwegian passports were sold to LTTE terrorists and registered as lost.

But one Tiger was arrested with 900 passports in Thailand.

Norway is trying to hide this from the media and the authorities should contact the Thai Police for further clarification.

SENAKA KARIYAWASAM, via email

Underground tunnel for Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is not safe enough to have underground tunnels. The Tigers will easily use tunnels for mass destruction.

Better use that $ 500 million to make sky ways. If they make tunnels, it will be like 'Nikam Anina Ashvayata An dunna Vage'.

M. D. SIRI, via email

University education

This is exactly what is needed and what is lacking in our country. (Reference DN Dec. 8). At the moment I am residing in UK. There are so many colleges in UK in addition to Universities. In these colleges they develop student skills for them to get employment in relevant fields.

Also one good thing about it is they always have hands on training sessions attached to their relevant courses. So immediately after the training programme they get employment. It need not be engineering, medicine and so on. It can be any thing like stitching, farming methods, traditional beeralu etc which are sold at very high costs for foreigners etc.

This is just a few but when you sit and start doing it there may be hundreds of courses you can think of.

In UK, at most of those colleges they get volunteers to help in teaching. What I have seen in my country is, most of us are not devoted teachers. Here when they are at work they really work. May be university lecturers can help in this aspect.

There are lots and lots of evening and night classes even in winter. Schools can definitely be used as evening and night classes. If the higher authorities pay a visit to one of those colleges you may get a better idea of things which can be done.

K. RAJAPAKSE, via email