A NOBEL FOR OUR TROOPS – YES!

Two things had to be written about in the media last week, and this week – but there is no sign that anybody is doing the honours which is why this newspaper steps into fill the void. The two issues are the Ranaviru week, and our good relations with the African country by the name of Uganda.

Last week was dedicated to the war heroes who constitute another group that has been un-peopled by Sri Lanka’s so called liberal intellectuals who are calling for post war reconciliation. In the book of Mr. Tissa Jayatilleke and other Jayatillekas and the Paikiasothys etc., the war heroes do not exist. If you ask any of these people what role our gallant soldiers should play in the reconciliation process, they would look at you askance. Foreign policy experts of all varieties including the self-appointed sort, would react identically if you ask them about an African country by the name of Uganda.

Uganda has stood by this country, but it is as if an African country does not count in the larger scheme of things. This is why the liberal intellectuals would give you the ‘look’ when you ask them about Uganda in the same way that they would give you the same ‘look’ when you ask them what role our soldiers have to play in the reconciliation process.

This is why it had to be dinned in these people’s ears that the Sri Lankan troops should be nominated for the Nobel Prize for peace. It is not as if in these pages we are saying this for the first time, because perhaps the Ranaviru week called for an extraordinary reaction that would reflect the triumph of our forces. No, the issue of a Nobel nomination and eventually the Peace Prize for the Sri Lankan troops was brought up in these editorial columns several months back - under the headline, ‘a Nobel for the Sri Lankan troops.’

For the most part, our troops deserve a Nobel due to the largest hostage rescue operation in history, which ended in Puthukkudiyiruppu. But, also they deserve it for the selflessness shown in battle and in the aftermath.

When spurious war crimes charges are made against the troops, the army continued its good work in Jaffna and the Northern Province and there was no venom aimed at the ingrates of the Colombo liberal intellectual set who were basically baying for their blood. This remarkable selflessness has been displayed during the entire length of the war, and never once have there been calls for the heads of those who in the air-conditioned comfort of their Colombo homes took cudgels against the forces for their attempt to keep the country terror free.

Today, as the reconciliation debate progresses, there is hardly a mention of the troops, and those who say that the nation should basically tango to the tune to the Tiger rump, do not spare a thought for the hundreds of thousands of armed men and women that died or were maimed as a result of hostilities. But they do sometimes catch themselves and say ‘we are mindful of our troops.’

If they are indeed, they have a funny way of showing it. The Colombo intelligentsia would probably blanch at the call for a Nobel for the Sri Lankan Forces. It goes against their pseudo-intellectual liberal grain to consider the proposition as a statement of intent, even though it is fairly certain that the Western liberal Nobel committee would not consider the Sri Lankan troops for such an honour for the simple reason that for them the operative word dinned in to their ears is ‘excesses.’

The reaction to the President’s visit to Uganda on the other hand, shows the other side of the same coin. There is a silence that speaks a million words that greets the Uganda tour and this is on the part of the analysts, the chroniclers of the transient and the mundane, and the self-important opinion makers. They cannot expose their prejudices by condemning the visit, but their silence speaks volumes. The good thing is that Colombo elite do not decide what the country wants to hear and know. This is why the Ranaviru week is important to those who matter in this country – as much as the Ugandan visit is something they will consider as being pivotal.