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Hello Louis, look around in your own back yard. You will see who is
torturing who.
You will see who is violating whose rights. The fact that you dictate
terms to the Sri Lankan Government directly means you dictate to the
people of Sri Lanka.
You know ours is a small poor nation of about 20 million people.
But we have dignity. You are basically fishing in troubled waters for
whatever reasons rather than helping it. We understand that you are
frustrated because the UN Human Rights Office could not be set up as you
wished.
And, therefore, you are forced to justify your own mind and stand by
accusing us in the same way your Government had wrongly accused the
people of Iraq of having weapons of mass destruction.
Perhaps, a few swords or two shown in the Western media was seen as
weapons of mass destruction to you and your people at that time.
This is the truth. You believe that your people are the good people
and the people of Asia are the bad people. And, therefore for you, bad
people should not have any kind of power.
So, for you, it is ok for your people to have nuclear bombs and other
weapons to control others, and for us it is not okay.
For you, it is not okay for us to live free of international
interferences.
You are directly violating the human rights of the people of Sri
Lanka by interfering in our own affairs.
Perhaps you are trying to justify your own job for personal
satisfaction and professional advancements in an environment that is
conducive to the abuse of Western powers to other small nations such as
ours.
You failed to be outspoken about our Government not having any
policies to abduct people or torture prisoners and suspected people by
using the western methods such as stripping them off, depriving them of
sleep, and confining them in dark rooms or in brightly lit rooms and
subjecting prisoners to animals such as fierce dogs who bark at
prisoners constantly.
Yes, we do not have such methods of torture.
Until 1990, people of dark black or yellow skin were not allowed to
marry whites by the laws of Alabama State.
At least we did not have such laws even a thousand years ago.
True, there are abductions, murders and other unacceptable things
happening here. But tell me which country does not have these things?
Perhaps it is happening here openly unlike in your own country.
First, you please put a stop to these things happening in your own
country and then preach to us what you teach.
Have talks with Bin Laden before you ask us to have talks with
Prabhakaran.
You define the meaning of terrorists to fit your culture and also
reserve the authority to do so. How can we respect such people?
JAY DESHABANDU
It behoves me to express my views about the contents of the said
article, which will trigger a host of disputable arguments by several
doctors in particular, making use of their priceless time and expertise
in support of meat eating by citing remarkable paradigms from medical
and religious perspectives.
Would they be having the same level of concern on other cultural,
social and national issues I wonder.
I have some appalling experiences with several Buddhist monks who
were either supportive of this issue or rather indifferent to the same,
taking the stand that the Buddha also was not a pure vegetarian.
Some Pundits even cite the last meal of the Buddha as pork offered by
Chunda Karmara Putra. They also cite one of the ‘infamous’ demands of
Devadatta - that monks should totally refrain from meat consumption,
which they blissfully and cynically affirm as the Buddha had cast this
off stating whoever wants to consume meat may do so and the rest may do
otherwise.
Once a Bhikku argued with me that fish do not have a complex nervous
system so eating fish could be justified as fish endure less pain when
being killed.
I personally believe that these are made up stories to shield our own
culinary pleasures.
I live in a country where Christianity and Islam occupy pivotal roles
in the field of federal and State politics.
Nevertheless nobody endeavors to rationalise killing of innocent
animals for their own gastronomical contentment.
In one television programme titled ‘Animal cruelty’, it was shown how
chickens were kept alive in order to save refrigeration costs even after
being de-beaked. These and other nightmarish scenes from the meat
industry have been reproduced on scores of television programmes and in
articles requesting people to desist from eating meat.
Nobody was agitated or infuriated by these programmes and never
talked about the value of eating meat.
We human beings think that we own the whole world and the animals.
There is a growing concern that many heart attacks have a direct link to
meat consumption and reading the arguments of these particular doctors
supporting the cause of eating meat appalls me.
Some are interested in eating ‘humanely killed’ animal flesh. Some
are interested in humanely raised meat. Killing an animal even under the
auspices of humane treatment is a contradiction of terms that we can’t
get beyond. Meat is still meat. When we buy meat, we support the cause.
My questions are: Do we have a right to take anybody’s life? I mean
to deprive the right of living in this world? Would we allow carnivorous
animals, who are also God’s creations, to stray around our streets and
eat human beings as they wish?
God, if he ever existed, did not create us (homo sapiens) as food for
these beasts. Did He?
Come on! Lets fight for everyone’s’ right to live and not for our
gastronomical rights.
Oh Anagarika Dharmapala thou should’st be living at this hour!
HIRAN KULATILAKE
Australia
The worst inconvenience suffered by the public is that they do not
get replies to their letters from Government Departments, local
authorities, Statutory Boards and other Government sponsored
institutions, nay even an acknowledgement.
Discipline has gone to dogs and the staff officers, in fear of Trade
Unions make excuses for their miscreant subordinates instead of giving
them deterrent punishment and the rot goes on till thy kingdom come.
The ribbons in computers are worked to death and some letters and
statements come in such faint ink that elders and those who have weak
eyesight have to struggle to read them.
I wish to tell the newspaper editors not to resort to smaller types
when they do not find sufficient space in newspapers, but rather omit
uninteresting articles instead.
In many teledramas, the acoustics are so bad, we cannot understand
what the actors speak about and it is all the more worse when the music
and other sounds like the chirping of birds are not stopped while the
actors speak.
The prices of goods are rising to dizzy heights day by day. The
manufacturers and traders do not show the prices in their advertisements
in the press and the electronic media in many cases. Why doesn’t the
Consumer Affairs Authorities prosecute them?
These are only some of the deficiencies, irregularities and mistakes
through which the public suffer.
W.L.S.
Ratmalana
The above programme telecast daily on a private TV Channel leaves
much to be desired. Somebody who knows his or her English (A teacher of
English would be best) should go through these ‘English Classes’ before
they are beamed.
I had noted down so many mistakes in these ‘English Classes’, but
unfortunately I cannot trace the list just now. Anyway I watched the
programme on December 7 and I was appalled to see the word ‘forest’
being spelt as ‘Forrest’.
Even in their theme song there is a shot of the Sun, and the song
goes on ‘there is a sun’, as if there are so many of them.
RANJITH GAMINI PERERA
Panadura
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