Of cabbages and kings:

Things better not done Walrus and the Carpenter

Our mail these days is inundated with appreciations of the role of the Security Forces and the fine leadership given by the President and the Defence Secretary in the historic task of defeating terrorism from our soil. Most of our columns are also spent on the same subject.

However, what we hope to discuss in this irregular column is something entirely different, though of much interest to our readers and the welfare of the country. It is about three matters better not done. We would like to refer to instances of three phenomena not so rare in contemporary society, viz., corruption, fraud an discrimination while the first two have to be eliminated the third has to be fought to the end.

Unfortunately, corruption we are going to cite now is something quite close to us. It is corruption in the media or to be exact in the free media. Free media as you know is a deception like the free market. Just as nothing is free in the free market nothing is free in the free media too. An interesting letter circulated among the members of the Free Media Movement by its Convener the affable Uvindu Kurukulasuriya raises many allegations against the former Convener and spokesperson Sunanda Deshapriya who has now taken upon the cause of the Western anti-Sri Lanka lobby. From duplicating petty cash vouchers to inflating printing bills and doctoring accounts and finally to robbing from the anti-corruption program, it is a complete scandal. As long as the media fails to clean its own stables it cannot command respect from society. High time the media excommunicate such culprits from its ranks.

Everyone loves war heroes. Culprits seem to cash on the patriotic fervour of the public. Ultimately the Defence Ministry had to stop the rascals making bogus collections ostensibly for War Heroes' welfare. Quite rightly, the Defence Ministry issued a warning to the public not to be misled. The Government through its agencies, the Api Wenuwen Api Fund, the Ranaviru Seva Authority and others are looking after the war heroes and their families quite well. Anyone wanting to help could do so through these agencies of state.

The last but not the least topic of our discussion today is discrimination. It is an act of discrimination on all of us, Sri Lankans.

Lotteries, Green Cards and discrimination

To get a Green Card to live in the wealthiest nation on the planet is a dream of many Third World citizens. These citizens are not distracted by any nostalgia for their Motherland or any feelings for their kith and kin. In fact, many argue that is for the sake of their kith and kin they wish to migrate to the distant land. May be or may be not, but we have no quarrel with them.

Our quarrel is with those authorities here in Colombo, who have added a specific additional condition for Sri Lankan lottery winners, for Green Card is a lottery under the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program of the United States of America. The Program offers US residence visas to winners of a lottery. Once the lottery is won they are informed to contact the US Embassy with required documents belonging to 10 categories.

That is all. However, the US Embassy in Colombo has made it mandatory for all lottery winners to submit a sponsor letter containing the sponsor's complete address and telephone number. Our query is how could a Sri Lankan lottery winner without any prior contacts in the US provide such sponsorship letters? As this condition is not imposed in other countries, isn't this discrimination against Sri Lankans? Or is it a ruse to get bogus sponsorship letters and grant approval to those who could oil palms? Or is it a ruse to reduce Sri Lankan recipients of Diversity visas to accommodate some from other countries that 'tow' the US line or play the role of an obedient servant?