We are all Sri Lankans

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The following is an interview with a group of Sri Lankan Diaspora community who are currently in the country to witness the reconstruction process in the North and East and to look into the condition of the IDPs

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The country is undergoing a healing process after being gripped by a three-decade long war. Promoting harmony and mutual understanding between the communities may lay a firm foundation to build the country, the members remarked.

“We want to be welcomed as Sri Lankans. I hope we can do that as fast as possible. There is no question that I want to be a Tamil, but I want to be a Tamil Sri Lankan, not a Sri Lankan Tamil. We are all Sri Lankans. I learn your language. You learn mine. I visit your temple. You come to my temple.

“We want to be welcomed as Sri Lankans. I hope we can do that as fast as possible. I want to be a Tamil Sri Lankan, not a Sri Lankan Tamil” Dr. Rajasingham Narendran

We have a lot in common and we should enjoy our commonness rather than the differences,” said an intellectual from Saudi Arabia Dr. Rajasingham Narendran. The other three members are a writer from the U.K, Rajeswary Balasubramaniam, a veterinarian Dr. Noel Nadesan, and an engineer cum businessman Rajaratnam Sivanathan, both from Australia.

“We are working with the Justice Ministry to set up a Trust Fund to attract the money from the Diaspora and specifically the Tamil Diaspora to invest in various projects,” Dr. Narendran said. “We want to attract money for development that is going to the militancy.

The Tamils are now in a depressed state and there is a void in leadership,” he pointed out. “Once they come out, they need an organized structure. People have got used to the habit of giving money. It is not difficult now to say ‘give the money for a better cause’.

It may be a little money at first but when they see that this money is being used properly, more money will come. Billions of dollars are going to the LTTE and our group is trying to get a part of it to for development.

The Government knows about it and it will be under strict control, monitored and managed by an equitable Board of Trustees. This is what we are hoping to set up,” he observed. Any projects proposed by people will be funded through such money, he added. The group previously visited Sri Lanka in March.

“We believe in national unity. We also like to see what kind of political packages the Government will offer” Dr. Noel Nadesan

It also has members in Canada and various parts of Europe. “We came to see the situation and resettlement of the Internally Displaced People (IDPs),” said Balasubramaniam. “We also wanted to see what kind of programs are there to rehabilitate the 10,000 LTTE cadres who have been identified. There are about 20,000 cadres.”

“We believe in national unity,” said Dr. Nadesan. “We also like to see what kind of political packages the Government will offer.” The group will contribute as a set of people who think differently away from the conventional thinking that dominated for the past 30 years.

The group still has not seen the ground situation in the North and the East in actuality. “But from what we have heard and seen pictorially, there has been a tremendous progress,” said Dr. Nadesan. Calling it a healing process in which resettlement of IDPs, de-mining and other issues were all part of healing, the NGOs and international NGOs have been assigned specific tasks both within the camps and outside.

Dr. Narendran pointed out that apart from the physical needs, there are political needs as well which flared up tensions between ethnic communities. The group questioned whether the electoral process started in Vavuniya and Jaffna is too early as people have still not recovered from the trauma of war.

“Our main concerns are how the political aspect is going to evolve,” Dr. Narendran said. “On physical needs, the Government is on the right track. The Ministers we have met are very dedicated and they have a vision. Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for the political evolution that is taking place now.

“There is a negative feedback from our expatriates that the money is not going where it should be and I want to do a fact finding” Rajaratnam Sivanathan

Either it is too slow or striking the wrong note. If you are proved wrong, thank God. If you are proved right, it is going to be a tragedy,” he added. The group has requested visits to Batticaloa and Jaffna. Dr. Nadesan said they met the National Integration Minister D.E.W. Gunasekera and proposed a national integration process with intellectuals from different universities in different parts of Sri Lanka.

“We want to make a blue print for the national integration that is taking place. This blueprint needs to be adopted to the Eastern Province which is really a laboratory with all three communities there. We requested Minister Vinayagamurti Muralidharan to place it as a manifesto for the next election.”

Dr. Narendran said the Government is well on the way to recovery with road networks, bridges and electrification of areas that never had those facilities.

“MP Basil Rajapaksa assured us that he has discussed on the dismantling of high security zones and shrinking it to a small area. What the Government has done is to identify the projects that need to be carried out and get the NGOs and INGOs to execute the projects. The Government is doing recovery work in a very sensitive manner. For example, actions such as relocating a bus stand

“Hotels in Jaffna need to be vacated by the Army and opened to expatriates visiting the areas. Reconciliation has to come at politician level” Rajeswary Balasubramaniam

needs to be done in a manner that might not be misunderstood by people in the area.”

Sivanathan said he lived in Australia for the past 23 years and his first visit was aimed at helping the IDPs. “There is a negative feedback from our expatriates that money is not going where it should be and I want to do a fact finding.”

Balasubramaniam said the group is trying to set up an organizational structure. Each country would have its own Diaspora which will come together to form a global organization.

The organization in Sri Lanka will manage the Trust Fund on behalf of the Diaspora.

The group also emphasized that hotels in Jaffna need to be vacated by the Army and open to expatriates visiting the areas. “Reconciliation has to come at the politician level,” it pointed out. “There are no problems at the bottom line and as people, we have never been enemies.”

Chaminda Perera

Just two months after the LTTE was completely eradicated from the country, the Sri Lankan professionals who prefer themselves to be identified as Tamil Diaspora members has called for the Government to implement a comprehensive national integration drive.

They said the people of all communities had been bearing the brunt of terrorism unleashed by the LTTE and the protracted conflict wearied the people of all walks of life in these communities.

These members praised the Government’s untiring effort to rebuild the war ravaged Northern Province. They lauded the Government for providing all basic facilities to the displaced people in the welfare camps.

Dr. Noel Nadeshan, a Sri Lankan veterinarian domiciled Down Under said they have been told that a mega development drive is in progress in the Province.

It was reported that certain villages in the North which had no access to electricity since independence have been provided electricity by the Government. “We are fully satisfied with what the Government is doing for the displaced in the North and expect to visit the welfare camps in Vavuniya during out stay,” he said.

He said the educated in all parts of the island should get together to devise a comprehensive national integration mechanism.

We met National Integration Minister DEW Gunasekera and Minister Vinayagamurthi Muralitharan and stressed the need of having a well planned integration mechanism to heal the wounds of the people of all communities.

Dr. Nadeshan who is the Editor of Uthayan a Tamil tabloid published in Melbourne said the members of the Sri Lankan academia should get involved in evolving a blueprint for national integration.

”This national integration stratagem should effectively be adopted in the country from a younger age.”

Prof. Rajasingham Narendran, a member of the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in Middle East said the Government has identified what needs to be done first and acquire the support of the NGOs and the Foreign Governments to execute it.

“Instead of what the NGOs are dictating to be done, the Government has clearly identified what needs to be done and get the NGOs and foreign Government to execute it,” he said.

He said the Government is seriously concerned over the ordinary Tamil citizens. The empathy and sympathetic thinking I found in the Government where they don’t give even something that is right fearing that people may be in trouble.

Dr. Narendran said the Government is acting with a lot of care and caution. “Even a bus stand is not shifted fearing that the people may not like it,” he said. He said the country does not have a proper mechanism to secure the services of Sri Lankan professionals overseas. “There are many Tamil Diaspora members who could assist the students in the North and promote their education,” he said.

He said professionals in the Tamil Diaspora could help in the education of Sri Lankan students specially in the Northern region in a comprehensive way. There are teachers , professors and doctors involved in teaching at foreign universities and their expertise could effectively be used for the development of North if a proper mechanism evolves, he said.

Dr. Narendran stressed that the expatriate Diaspora members are eager to visit their native places in Jaffna and meet their relatives and friends.

He said the Government should grant compensation to the hotel management. This type of compensation will help the management to modernize these hotels, he said.

There should be more sanitary facilities in the peninsula specially in the Jaffna town, he said.

Dr. Narendran said the Tamil and Sinhalese people at grassroot level have reconciled for centuries but the politicians in both sides should also reconcile.

“The politicians in both sides should be educated on reconciliation. I went to a village in the deep down South during the tsunami. They were quite excited and went out of their way to provide a meal for me.

He said thousands of people from South went Nainathivu to worship the Nagadeepa Viharaya during the ceasefire and enjoyed visiting Jaffna after a lapse of nearly two decades. Checkpoints and various illegal institutions such as customs and police stations set up by the LTTE created wrong impression among the people in the South. They returned home with a wrong impression, he said.

He said reconciliation should come from the top levels and there is no problem with the people at grassroot level.

The people in the country will fall in line very quickly if the politicians of both sides are thinking right.

Dr. Narendran said the Ranil Wickremesinghe Government did not resist when the LTTE was violating the Ceasefire Agreement. The LTTE violated the CFA more than 10,000 times but the Government led by Wickremesinghe did not take any action against them.

They had defacto control over the Northern and the Eastern regions and started setting up customs offices, police stations after the CFA was signed.

The Government mandated by the majority of people showed reluctance to deal with them, he said.

If the UNF Government attempted to send the military to Jaffna via A9 road when the CFA was in force, the world would have got the message that the Northern region was also under the command of the Government.