Speed on with normalization

It is gladdening to note that Sri Lanka is gearing to face all possible criticisms and queries that are likely to be unleashed on it at the UNHRC sessions that are due to begin in Geneva today, by some skeptical sections of the international community on issues arising from the final stages of the humanitarian operation in the North. Our state delegation to the sessions is packed with the required expertise to take on these critical and hostile sections of the world community but the most resounding rebuttal of their charges would be an exceptionally successful normalization process in particularly Northern Sri Lanka.

Our picture on page one last Saturday of rehabilitated former LTTE cadres being greeted joyously by some Southern citizens at the end of a Friendship Train journey from North to South, spoke volumes for the success registered in bringing normalcy to Northern Sri Lanka. In the days ahead, this process should be speeded-up and taken to its logical conclusion. What we mean by logical conclusion is a decisive and just solution to the conflict which would pave the way for every citizen and community in this country to live with dignity and honour.

The Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) proposal holds out the possibility of the Lankan political community arriving at a joint decision on how the conflict could be resolved justly and we urge that this path be explored effectively and fully. However, the PSC should be required to deliver the desired outcome in double quick time and a short time frame for deliberations should be agreed upon by the PSC before business proper begins.

Meanwhile, rehabilitation and resettlement in the North should be persisted with and taken to new heights as it were. A few days back our Permanent Representative to the UN Dr. Palitha Kohonna made the pertinent point in a rebuttal to the contents of Channel 4 videos which are damnatory of Sri Lanka that, besides there being people-to-people contact between North and South, the democratic process in the North has been accelerated. He would have specifically had in mind the recent Local Government polls in the North at which the TNA emerged the main victor and these results spoke volumes for the democratic health of the North.

These conditions should be stabilized in the once conflict hit areas and made permanent features of their socio-political landscape. There has been a meeting of minds between President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the main Tamil parties on how the uncertainty in the minds of some in the North could be defused and such collaboration should be continued into the future too.

However, it is particularly important that people-to-people contact between North and South is not only continued but speeded-up. Our front page picture of Saturday portrayed a meeting of happy faces between North and South. This should be the tone in affairs concerning the citizenry of the North and South and such happy interaction should be a permanent feature of our social life. Our state agencies should continue this effort of bringing the communities together in a spirit of amity.

It is successful state efforts to make every community in this country feel at home here that could help cement unity and oneness in Sri Lanka. This could come about only if it is believed that equality of condition and opportunity exists for everyone in Sri Lanka. Thus, the young in particular should believe that they are vying for the good things in life on an even playing field and are not being discriminated against on any basis.

Fostering this belief on a wide scale in this country is nation-building proper. To be sure, we are forging ahead on the path of modernization on a number of fronts. Among other things, we are now a Middle Income Country which is not doing badly for itself on the economic front. Bur economic modernization needs to go hand- in-hand with egalitarianism and equality in every conceivable way.

This will bring to a high point Sri Lanka’s socio-political modernization. These aspects of our development, we hope, would be addressed by the proposed PSC. To be specific, the path must be paved for an equal state which would promise and make real progress for everyone, regardless of man-made differences.