Daily News Online
http://www.liyathabara.com/   KRRISH SQUARE - Luxury Real Estate  

Thursday, 13 December 2012

Home

 | SHARE MARKET  | EXCHANGE RATE  | TRADING  | OTHER PUBLICATIONS   | ARCHIVES | 

dailynews
 ONLINE


OTHER PUBLICATIONS


OTHER LINKS

Marriage Proposals
Classified
Government Gazette

 

NO NARRATIVES ON DEMAND

Churlishly, Dr Wickremebahu Karunaratne has written against the recent move to induct Tamil youth in the former Northern theatre of war into the Armed Forces. Nobody takes the likes of Dr. Bahu seriously any more, but his type of cynical and unproductive views are a source of welcome comic relief as they come from a standpoint so out of touch with reality, from a man so markedly spent.

For instance, he sees some sort of gender based discrimination in the move to impeach the Chief Justice, which is so utterly ridiculous in the first place -- but then he caps it all by saying that this is similar to the forced recruitment of Tamil women by the Sri Lankan army. Such women he says learnt that they are being inducted into the army after they reached the recruiting venue.

He would have probably wanted underage girls to be taken at gunpoint the way Prabhakaran had these things done, and then forced to carry weapons that they could hardly wield, but let that pass...

He sees a demon in every policy decision taken by the government, but to make trite noises about gender based discrimination when none exists, and decry recruitment by the Sri Lankan army of girls who used to be forced to fight by the fascist Prabhakaran - - why, that kind of reaction can only be called alarmingly pathological.

In a recent newspaper exchange Dr. Bahu took umbrage over the description of Prabhakaran as a fascist. It is strange that the man who sees Prabhakaran as a benign force for good, also sees recruitment by the Sri Lankan army as some sort of a bayonet-point pogrom.

It is difficult to find out whether these types of people are being deliberately irrelevant, or whether they are plain eccentric, but that too is largely academic. What's more important is to talk about the issues that interest the ordinary people, which those such as Dr. Bahu see with perpetually blinkered glasses, to be charitable about his mental assessment of current issues.

Take the resettlement programme undertaken by the Sri Lankan government for instance. This was near perfect under trying circumstances, but now there are INGO operatives who are writing papers to say that the INGOs should have walked out when the Sri Lankan government did not agree to their conditionalities about post-war detainees and refugees.

This type of retrospective mischief is absolutely ghoulish. Despite the predictions of most hard-boiled cynics, the Sri Lankan refugee resettlement operation went so well that those who made noises about internment camps etc., have had to shut up, put up and hold their peace.

Only those who have absolutely no place to go, remain in some of the camps, but there is hardly anybody in the international community that talks about this good work done by the Sri Lankan government. They would rather say that recruitment by the Sri Lankan army of Tamil youth, is something of an occupational exercise, much the same way that they look at each and every army skirmish with civilians in the North as some kind of hegemonic move to maintain armed dominance.

None of those recruited by the army or police have been forced to join however, but those such as Wickremebahu Karunaratne do desperately want the narrative to fit into their preconceived idea that no Tamil would join the Sri Lankan Armed Forces voluntarily!

It is time that those who insist on this occupation narrative gave up the idea, because Northern youth have seen opportunity, and they have grabbed it with both hands. Perhaps not everybody wants to join the army, but for the young men and women who want to, it is abundantly clear that this is not some exercise in indoctrination, or being commandeered at gunpoint.

The women for instance know that gender is not material to their advancement in the army, just as much as every sane person is aware that there is no gender bias in the Chief Justice's impeachment. All that can be said is that even the eccentrics have to be more realistic and imaginative when they conjure up bogeys.

Lesser known facts about the impeachment saga

The now concluded impeachment trial of the Chief Justice (CJ) was remarkable for the ridiculous nature of the theatrics staged by the defendant and her legal advisors. It also stood out for the more significant reason of typifying and demonstrating the key elements of a widely used template devised by Western intelligence agencies to create unrest in post-colonial countries. Though the operation failed, they tried.

Full Story

Ravi Shankar: ‘The Godfather of World Music’

Ravi Shankar, who died on Wednesday aged 92, was the world’s most famous sitar player, who popularised classical Indian music abroad largely through his work with The Beatles’ George Harrison.

Full Story

‘CJ has committed blunders unbecoming of an high official’

Our legal fraternity has to realize that the CJ as the Head of the Judiciary is an employee of the Executive arm of the government. While her judgments have to conform to laws, her interpretations of Laws, inclusive of the interpretation of the Constitution, must be in public interest to promote the programmes of the government. We cannot forget that it is the government that is eventually responsible to the people as it has to seek a fresh mandate at any election under the democratic process. The checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution are sacrosanct and apply to CJ as well Reply to SL Gunasekera’s letter to BASL:

Full Story

 

EMAIL |   PRINTABLE VIEW | FEEDBACK |

Destiny Mall & Residency
Casons Rent-A-Car
www.news.lk
www.defence.lk
Donate Now | defence.lk
www.apiwenuwenapi.co.uk
LANKAPUVATH - National News Agency of Sri Lanka
www.army.lk
Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL)

| News | Editorial | Business | Features | Political | Security | Sport | World | Letters | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House Copyright © 2012 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.

Comments and suggestions to : Web Editor