What Really is the Point Pedro Institute of Development ? Is it a registered Association ?
Posted on May 10th, 2010
Charles.S.Perera
My friend Athulathmudaly, drew my attention to a rather ambiguous website http://pointpedro.org . I hope every body, including the Secretary of Defence takes a look at it.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The government is doing its best to develop the North and East, expecting the people there to understand that the efforts being made by government are in fact the respect given to the wishes of the majority Sinhala and other communities in the south, expressed by their vote, to get closer to the Tamil people and build a true and a sincere union of the communities, to make a united attempt to develop our motherland and bring in prosperity.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ While the Government and the Sinhala people and the other communities are thus engaged in the greater task of building a Nation, some Tamil groups in the North and East apparently helped by the Norwegians, the British and the other Western Governments, with the support of the Tamil Expatriate Community, are busy setting up their own agenda, preparing for a different kind of a Nation building, organising the Tamil community in the North and East, and distancing them further and further away from the Government and their Sinhala and Muslim compatriots.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The website http://pointpedro.org , in question is titled the Point Pedro Institute of Development (PPID). Its primary objective it says is, ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- to empower the people of Eastern and Northern Provinces to emerge out of serfdom towards freedomƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦..The primary focus area of PPID is the Eastern and Northern Provinces of Sri Lanka. In addition, research studies focused nationally and regionally (South Asia) would also be undertakenƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The organisers forget that the Tamils of the North and East have already been taken out of their serfdom, before the advertised advent of the PPID into the scene, from a ruthless group of terrorists, and the further involvement with this type of liberation proposed by the PPID may be going back to an unknown serfdom worse than that from which they had been saved by the Government of Sri Lanka.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The PPID describes it self as a local institution with global reach. The Founder and Principal Researcher of PPID Muttukrishna Saravanthan with a impressive curriculum vitae of foreign qualifications and employments, is said to be a member of the British Association for South Asian Studies, among many other associations.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ He is presented as a Sri Lanka Analyst by the BBC, which apparently sponsors him as one of its favoured consultants. He pretends to be a voice out side the terrorists and the Tamil expatriates, and not all together favourable to the government of which he says, he doubts the political will to address itself to the legitimate grievances of the Tamil people.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The PPID is definitely sponsored by the West, and its founder cannot be completely cleared of Tamil Expatriate and International Community connections. What is troublesome is its object of resurrecting the knowledge and intellectual bases of the Northern and Eastern provinces, is the map of Sri Lanka it presents (which I have copied below), showing its project of resurrecting the knowledge and intellectual bases of North and East, which incidentally is almost the same Eelam Map of Prbhakaran !
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- EMPOWERING THE PEOPLE TO EMERGE OUT OF SERFDOM TOWARDS FREEDOM !
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The Jaffna peninsula can be claimed as the seat of knowledge and learning of the Eastern and Northern Provinces of Sri Lanka. The Jaffna peninsula is divided into three geographical zones; namely Thenmarachchi, Vadamarachchi, and Valikamam. The main town of Vadamarachchi is Point Pedro, which is also the northern-most town of Sri Lanka. The hallmark of Vadamarachchi is its learned citizens. Historically, Vadamarachchi had produced some of the best brains of Sri Lanka. However, due to the quarter century of civil war, almost all the learned persons have deserted to other parts of the country or abroad. This is not a tragic experience of Jaffna alone, but of the entire Eastern and Northen Provinces.
It is in this background, an independent private social science research institution in the name of Point Pedro Institute of Development (PPID) was established in 2004, in order to resurrect the knowledge and intellectual bases of the Eastern and Northern Provinces. ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-
The government should investigate into this, as PPIDƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s bona fides is doubtful. This may possibly be an invisible arm of the expatriate terrorist sympathisers. In view of this type of developments one wonders whether the relaxing of emergency regulations and the withdrawal of the Army Camps from the high security zones in the North and the East are wise decisions.
The Government should wary about these mushrooming associations in the North and the East, and make it a legal requirement to register all Associations in the North and the East, perhaps under the emergency regulations.
May 11th, 2010 at 12:14 am
This is an eye opener for the SL Govt. and all citizen. Thank you Charles. We have to be cautious especially with people who are self-proclaimed experts and when dispensation of their proficiency and capability is limited to the BBC.
May 11th, 2010 at 4:10 am
Dr. Muthukrishna Sarvanathan – see the following article for his views on the LTTE and Prabhakaran who he considers to be a “psychopath” In fairness to him, he is obviously faithful to the Tamil community but definitely rejects the LTTE and its leader’s philosophy of violence and techniques.
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GROUNDVIEWS.
Enigma of Prabhakaran and the Tamil Tigers
June 15, 2009 at 6:35 am · Categories: Colombo, Media and Communications, Peace and Conflict, Post-War | by Muttukrishna Sarvananthan
Both in life and death, Veluppillai Prabhakaran divides rather than unites the Tamils in particular, Sri Lankans as a whole. Therein lie the enigma of Prabhakaran (Thambi Anna to me), whom I first met almost thirty years ago in August 1979, and the Tamil Tigers.
“Assuming the LTTE finished is fantasy masquerading as fact”, exclaimed a self-styled ‘leftist’ academic (Sri Lankan born American), namely Qadri Ismail, on March 1, 2009. Qadri Ismail is not alone in fantasizing about Prabhakaran and the Tamil Tigers. Anita Pratap, a veteran Indian journalist, too fantasized about the invincibility and immortality of Prabhakaran and the Tamil Tigers in an article published on May 03, 2009 claiming that the Tiger is just “crouching”, not dying. Both Qadri Ismail and Anita Pratap are journalists by profession, though the former is a journalist turned academic lately; most journalists are very good at writing sensationalism and romanticism of the ‘other’ or the underdog.
Anita Pratap also tosses some contradictory claims in her writings for The Week dated May 03rd and 31st. She claims that Prabhakaran has told her that he never launches any attack on a date that add up to number eight (08, 17 or 26) because he believed it to be unlucky. As a matter of fact, LTTE launched its first ever air raid in Colombo on March 26, 2007. Further, she claims that, because Prabhakaran’s son Charles Anthony does not believe in his father’s superstition he had sent a suicide bomber to kill Sri Lanka’s Army Commander on April 26, 2006 in Colombo. Again she was wrong; in fact the attempted assassination of the Army Commander took place on April 25, 2006. I hope by now the righteous ‘leftist’ and the adulatory journalist would have realised who really have been romanticizing about Prabhakaran and the Tamil Tigers.
“Strangely”, Prabhakaran’s death had left Vasuki Nesiah, a Sri Lankan born Tamil American academic, “numb”. Whilst concurring with her that death cannot be celebrated or glorified, I am immensely relieved that a psychopath and his army have been vanquished. Prabhakaran and the Tigers were cancer in the body politic of the Tamil community. To me, removing the cancerous cells in the body politic of the Tamil community is neither ‘poetic justice’ nor glorification of death, rather a necessity to preserve and protect life within and beyond our Tamil community. Vasuki, when a cobra or viper attempts to bite you, would you allow yourself to be bitten to death?
The enigma of Prabhakaran and the Tamil Tigers pricks the conscience of not only a few academics and journalists, but one of my siblings too who is a medical scientist. But, ironically, none of the foregoing persons have been uncritical of Prabhakaran and the Tigers in the past and present. Following is my sibling’s indictment of myself just past week.
“I am very sad that at a time of sorrow and hardship for fellow human beings of our race in SL you are writing such unwarranted matters that are published! I think we were brought up by our parents to have solidarity and unity. I wish you shut up and stop writing; it is unwarranted when the wounds are very sore. Everyone/organisation has mistakes and problems, so nit picking doesn’t help.”
“Please keep your mouth shut, and keep your opinions to yourself… because your judgements are very very poor.” warned a person from the Tamil diaspora in March 2009 and goes on to issue a fatawa against me, “You are an unwanted human in this world.” I hope this righteous person would have realised by now whose judgement was false.
However, I received a rare solace in March 2009 from a reader of one of my recent writings – “I am completely speechless. This would be the first time I have heard an ethnic Tamil known to me take a stand on facts, without justifying or demonising one ‘side’ or the other.” wrote a recent acquaintance.
Prabhakaran is dead! Long live the enigma of Prabhakaran and the Tamil Tigers!! May the souls of thousands of soldiers of the security forces and Tamil armed groups, dissidents and politicians of all ethnicities, Veluppillai Prabhakaran and his family, thousands of fellow Tigers and Tigresses, and above all countless civilians from all ethnicities (overwhelmingly Tamils) rest in peace!
Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, Ph.D. (Wales), M.Sc. (Bristol), M.Sc. (Salford), B.A. (Hons) (Delhi), is the Principal Researcher of the Point Pedro Institute of Development, Point Pedro, Northern Sri Lanka and Fulbright Visiting Research Scholar at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University 2008-2009. He is the author of From Liberation to Terrorism: The Rise and Demise of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka (forthcoming).
May 11th, 2010 at 4:17 am
Dr. Muthukrishna Sarvanathan – please check with Sri Lanka Embassy in Washington DC for Dr. Sarvanathan’s credentials etc. as he was at George Washington University (GWU_, Washington DC ISA.
May 11th, 2010 at 6:53 am
(a) Dr MS says: “Long live the enigma of Prabhakaran and the Tamil Tigers!!” . A learned person like Dr MS should not find Prabhakaran & the ltte ‘enigmatic’. Also, why the ‘long live’ part, if he calls it an ‘enigma’ ?
(b) Also, Dr MS’s PPID ideal is to remove ‘Serfdom’ for the N&E. “Serfdom’ is defined as :
“It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe. Serfdom was the enforced labour of serfs on the fields of landowners, in return for protection and the right to work on their leased fields”.
All people in Lanka are free to move out of Dr MS’s ‘Serfdom’ as he calls it, if such a condition exists in the N&E of Lanka. If a land worker moves out of such work in the N&E, would he or she be penalised by anyone ? Not to my knowledge of matters in Lanka. Traditionally, Serfs were not free to move around. In Lanka all the people, including Tamils (except ltte cadre under re-hab), are now free to move around. If anyone does not like his or her job, that person is perfectly free to move out.
Therefore, there are no ‘Serfs’ in Lanka.
Strange play of words by Dr MS ! Meant to rouse passions ?
May 11th, 2010 at 8:39 am
There is a simple two-part test to decide on this website.
1. Is it promoting the mythical Tamil homeland idea? If yes it is dangerous
2. Is it promoting Tamils learning Sinhala and Sinhala learning Tamil? If no it is dangerous.
wije
May 11th, 2010 at 10:54 am
Actually it is a three-aprt test. I missed one which is (3) Is it embrasing the Jana saba-level of empowerment of people?
wije