Asoka Weerasinghe (Mr) 2066 Kings Grove Crescent . Ottawa . Ontario ,  K1J 6G1 .Canada

12 December 2024

OPEN LETTER

Rt. Hon. Anura Kumara Dissanayake

Leader of the National People’s Power (NPP)

President of Sri Lanka

.President’s Secretariat

Colombo 1

Sri Lanka

Dear President Dissanayake:

 It’s with utmost honesty that I say Congratulations”

that Sri Lankans of all colours voted you in to

take over the reins and govern Sri Lanka for all its peoples,

of colour and creed.   Jayawewa…Jayawewa…Jayawewa.

While congratulating, I also want you to be aware of the Greeks

who will come to you Bearing Gifts.  Be Careful as you are precious

to the people at home and abroad, like myself who left Ceylon (Sri Lanka)

on 3 December 1956, and still call Sri Lanka MY HOME.  And a member

of the small Voluntary army platoon fighting from the trenches in Canada to uphold the good name of our Mother Lanka from the nasty, lying Tamils

since August 4, 1983.

Your win underscores in red that Sri Lanka has entered a new chapter

 in its history with the tectonic shifts that its peoples have gifted you with  –

159 seats out of 225 in Parliament.  And it is for you to exercise that gift

Judiciously to make your beautiful island prosper, destroying in particular the 20% parliamentary Kappan Culture which has become your island’s political and business culture, and ethnic divisive politics. With your visionary leadership

 it is doable to wipe out that disgusting, disingenuous culture.

President Anura I was a bit taken back when I read that the

2.

Canadian Tamil Congress congratulates AKD on electoral victory asks for a new Constitution”  I was surprised! What roguish uncouth nonsense, as it was merely a Chelva-Ponnambalam’s kanji-washed reflection of the past, I said

under my breath.  They enjoyed themselves as the 10% privileged minority-Tamils” for 131 colonial years, compared to the 75% wronged majority Sinhalese”.  I pray, let’s not have this stupidity again. Here are the reasons:

President Anura: I thought when the CTC Tamils flew out of their Jaffna-Kilinochchi, Vaddukoddai-Velvettithurai Koha nests in the North, when Canada opened its floodgates in July 1983, almost inviting the separatists running away-Tamils, on a lie saying that they were being persecuted and discriminated, and we are your future Bloc voters”. 

I thought they left for good in search of their fortunes in a glossy Tourist Brochure land of green  pastures, and golden-fields of wind-swaying Summer corn-fields.   And these Tamils thought that the Canadian roads were paved in gold so they came claiming to be refugees, in the hundreds, in the thousands.

 If indeed it was so, they should concentrate their energies to make 

Canada their adopted Home-sweet-home – and make the City of 

 Markham, their City of EeelamMakkam;  their Godfather Mayor Patrick

 Brown’s Brampton, their Eelam City of Bramp-tons of Lies,  and the City 

 of Scarborough, their Eelam City of Tamil-Tiger Scars-Borrow, in the

 Greater Toronto Area.  President Anura, that is where thousands and

  thousands of Tamils have made their Home- in their KandaEelam.    They 

  got their new country, where a lucky few have become millionaires within a 

  few years which they couldn’t have dreamt of becoming in a lifetime back

  in Sri Lanka.

  Like the a young 24-year old Tamil whom I had to deal with in1992 when I was

  employed by President Premadasa, at the Sri Lankan High Commission in 

  Ottawa as a (Head-hunted) Senior Staff Officer (not a Machan Diplomat as I

  never knew President Premadasa) to look after the Communications-Desk  

 3.

 which needed major surgery for donkey’s years.  It was the pits.  I was also asked by High Commissioner Walter Rupesinghe to help him by backing up  

other areas like interviewing applicants for Passports when K.B. Fernando, First Secretary (career diplomat) was not available. Trade and Pension files which had gone into three months-arrears and he was receiving letters from lawyers for their Tamil clients demanding they be paid the arrears immediately.  High Commissioner Walter Rupesinghe who was appointed by President Premadasa, and I worked as a team like a charm.  

A 24-year old Tamil refugee came with his uncle to apply for his third passport in three months. He claimed he lost his other two in two consecutive months.

How much did they go for, was it 20 or 25 thousand?” 25-Thousand , Sir.”   We were talking in Canadian dollars. His Uncle butted in.

Sir, I think he misunderstood your question”.

Not at all.  He is smart…smart enough to sell Sri  Lankan Government Passports, which he was the temporary custodian of Sri Lankan Government property.  With those sales, this 24-year member of your family converting these Canadian dollars into rupees,  you now have a 24-year old millionaire in your family.

Sorry,  I cannot issue him another passport to make him a multi-millionaire, unless I get a directive from the Controller of Immigration in Colombo.  I will telex him and you will have an answer in two days.  Phone me in two days and I will tell you what the Controller of Immigration has decided.”

This young 24-year old Tamil-millionaire who had flown out of a Valvettithurai Koha’s nest in a Toddy-palm tree was penalized.  I was asked not to issue him a passport for six-months.

 President Anura: There is no doubt that you will be Judge and Jury of  these  CTC Tamils who have the gall and temerity to think that you are a PUPPET-ON-A-STRING.

4.

That they could manipulate You to satisfy themselves and revert to their 131 Colonial Years of being the Privileged minority,  and cunning by wanting a Constitution as  proposed in 1948,  by Chelvanayakam and Ponnambalam so that the 10%  Privileged Tamil minority could Govern the 75%   Wronged Sinhalese majority at some point!.”  And of course, the puppet strings were too long, 8,707miles in fact, from Toronto to Colombo,  a suicidal length to pull over the hills and valleys, drumlins and mountains, the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.  Thanks to Lord Soulbury who saw their Tamil cunning and put a stop to that insipid divisive Constitutional rot.

President Anura, let them know in simple English or Tamil (in case you 

are fluent in) to forget it as you have to satisfy the Tamils who voted for you 

who did not fly away from their Koha’s nests in the North, who understood Your thesis of democracy of coexistence and introduced its elements for national harmony as your election mandate.

But I pray, President Anura, that in your proposed new Constitution, that the unity and territorial integrity of your island nation that was protected and preserved for posterity by your valiant Security Forces,

‘Who lost their brothers and sisters in khaki and blue serge should never, ever be compromised…. Never. There was a reason why they shed blood and lost their arms and limbs and some, like my Hero Hasalaka Veeraya sacrificed his young life.

 And your democratic thesis called for sharing Sri Lanka’s rich-land of

 red-kabook earth from North to South and from East to West by all ethnic 

 communities. Where from the planted Seeds-of-Fortune grew Colombo’s 

 Millionaire’s Business Row, the Main Street in Pettah,  where every third 

 shop had a Tamil Family Lingam name -such as SivaLingam Spices; 

 JyothiLingam Jewellers; RajaLingam Pharmacy; AmirthaLingam Notary Public; 

 PanchaLingam Thosai Boutique;  GaneshaLingam SariEmporium; and that your Democratic People’s Power, Sri Lanka will provide spaces for a reciprocal 

5.

Millionaire’s  Business Row along the Main Street of Jaffna with Sinhala Family Sinha names like; JayaSinha Doctor; WeeraSinha Kopi Kade; DhanuSinha 

Pharmacy;  SamaraSinha Taylors; AmaraSinha Diamond Jewellers; WickramaSinha SinhalaCurry Hut; EdiriSinha Bakers; BulathSinhaTemple flower Stall, and so forth.  There shouldn’t be any if’s and but’s, that is how it will be your formula for reconciliation and not for a case for a RE-CON-SILLY-A-SHUN.

The CTC Tamils ought to know that your knife cuts both ways and not one way, and that their knives should cut both ways too, to realize the dream of coexistence.  And I hope that you will not bend your back to say Sorry” for our past divisive sins of Sinhala politicians and politics until the cunning Tamils introduce the word Sorry” to their lexicon and say Sorry”  for the sins of Tamil ‘Homeland’ politics, as they are not innocent babes in the Vaddukoddai woods in this coexistence drama.

President Anura,  I am ready to join your National People’s Power choir

to sing your Anthem:

This land is my land 

as much as this land is your land,

from Valvettithurai in the North

to DondraHead in the South

          from the green tea gardens

          grown with Mahaweli waters

to the Elephant Pass salterns

         and swaying toddy palm trees, 

this land is made for You and Me….”:

President Anura, if the present is a creation by the blue-prints of the past, then let me remind you what the past did was to hand over to you, on November 14, 2024 the keys to the doors of Sri Lanka’s sanctuary of Ethnic harmony. I understand that the task will be Himalayan,  but it is doable with a visionary like You leading.

6.

But the fact is a super-majority of Sri Lankans in the island believed in you. That’s what matters and not what the Canadian-Tamils who flew away want, most of whom will never want to live in Sri Lanka again, other than  visiting  their cancer-stricken Mums and Dads every October, November, December and January each year.

This strange phenomena it’s only theTamil parents in Sri Lanka that contract the Cancer pandemic virus. During 1990-91-92 and 93, they all came to the High Commission in Ottawa with telegrams from home  wanting a travel document. All what the telegrams said was. MOTHER VERY SICK WITH CANCER COME HOME IMMEDIATELY;  FATHER HAS FEW DAYS TO LIVE WITH CANCER COME HOME IMMEDIATELY. 

In 1992, 2637 Tamils came to the Sri Lanka High Commission in Ottawa, with telegrams wanting travel documents to take off immediately to be with one of their parents who was dying of cancer;

In  1993, 1428 Tamil parents timed their  Cancer sickness during their sons and

daughters Christmas Holiday season and applied for a travel document to be with the dying parent between October, November and December.  Although it’s a cruel pandemic, the God of Sickness has been considerate to inflict cancer on the parents when their refugee children would be able to travel to Sri Lanka during their Christmas holidays without any hassle from work.  That’s how the cookie crumbled.

 So on humanitarian grounds temporary travel documents were issued.

The key to the doors of the sanctuary on ethnic-harmony of the present peoples of Sri Lanka were given to You and NOT to Ranil nor Sajith.

Be humble and accept the keys with gratitude. 

Let me whisper a secret to you, President Anura. Unknown to you, You

have become the jewel on the crown of every Farmer and Fisher folk and 

their families in the border-villages of the North and East who were terrorized by the Tamil Eelam terrorists, the kith and kin of the CTC, who are domiciled almost 8,000 miles away who want a new Constitution for Sri Lanka.  I suspect it’s a cunning Chelva-Ponna trap. 

7.

Open Sri Lanka’s  unitary Sanctuary State with the keys, given to you by the masses, based on equality, inclusion, peace and harmony,.and take a gentle walk down its path of honesty and sanity, sans the previous Governments Kappan Culture.   May you walk gently through your world of ethnic-harmony you are creating, and let the soles of your feet kiss Mother Lanka’s Earth in reverence, and breathe its fragrance and feel its  beauty every minute of your life from this very moment on.

         Sadhu…sadhu…sadhu.

*President Anura  if your present was created by the past of sordid ethnic cleansing by Tamil Intimidation and Murderous-Thuggery, it was between 1971 and 1981, a thorough and vicious ethnic cleansing of the Jaffna Peninsula that was carried out by extremists Tamils, kicked-out 27,000 Sinhalese by killing and terrorizing them. These Sinhalese people had lived there for generations.  Invite them back and let them continue with their lives closing the hiatus of their temporary rejection and ejection from their generational-homes of hundreds of years by these marchetti twirling, and AK47 bullet popping separatist Northern-Tamils.Those sordid acts have no place in Sri Lanka any more…. 

         Sadhu…Hallelujah…Haro Hara….Allah!.

PRESIDENT ANURA:   SO THESE NORTHERN  SEPARATIST TAMILS CLEANSED CLAIMING THEIR SUPPOSED  EELAM NORTH, AND THEN RAN AND FLEW AWAY TO ANOTHER LAND.  I HAVE DIFFICULTY TO UNDERSTAND THEIR LOGIC!

The eventful past of Sri Lanka was in the 1970s onwards that the Tamil separatists cleansed their North saying  that it was theirs.  That was gunny

bags full of mouldy  Hocus-pocus punnakku cattle fodder.

**The Gal Oya colonisation scheme was a contention of the Tamils saying that it was prominently in Tamil areas.  I say to you, President  Anura, its buckets full of Vaddukoddai Hogs-wash.

8.

          President Anura,  you should roll back to the pre-Gal Oya development 

          areas of these colonization schemes to unravel the charge of these

          Hallucinating  separatist-Tamils, and tell them phooey You!” 

          You know that the Gal- Oya project was the innovation of our first Prime 

           Minister of Sri ’Lanka after Independence, the Rt. Hon. D.S. Senanayake.

         The 62-miles long Gal Oya rising from the Badulla range in the

Central Province was dammed in 1949 for the welfare and prosperity of all Sri Lankans….I repeat for all Sri Lankans   The repository of water after 

damming formed the life blood of the peasant farmers of the historical region of Digamadulla.

Prior to this project,the separatist Tamils would like us to believe that it was predominantly a Tamil area”. But the truth is that on either side of the Gal Oya grew relentless jungle,  The actual denizens were a few Veddhas, blood sucking mosquitoes and wild animals.

It was recalled by a few of the older Veddhas during my visit to Dambana on 3rd January 2003, how once-upon-a-time they, as kids, joined the old-folk to trek a few miles along the jungle trail to visit the dam site overlooking the Iginiyagala Rock which stood as a giant sentinel.

Those days only footpaths and animal tracks criss-crossed that vast amphitheatre which was entwined by dense jungle and they were mindful of the wild animals  that lived there. I wonder where the heck were these Tamils as the Vedda kids didn’t see any of them…not even one of their ghosts in Halloween costumes  No one but publicists for the Eelam days would come to the egregious nonsense such as this.

The Gal Oya project refers to the process by which largely unoccupied and unutilized land belonging to the state owned by all peoples, the elephants,

the sloth-bears, the leopards, the monkeys, the deer, jackals and mosquitoes.

9.

The separatist Tamils, who flew out of their Toddy-palms  koha nests, will claim that…” it is our land.”  What piffle President Anura….that’s loads of scorching sun dried Vaddukoddai cow-dung patties.

          PRESIDENT ANURA: SO THESE NORTHERN SEPARATIST TAMILS

          CLEANSED THE NORTH FROM OTHER ETHNIC GROUPS SAYING

             THAT IT WAS THEIR EELAM.  BUT THEN RAN AND FLEW AWAY TO

   ANOTHER LAND 8000 MILES AWAY.  I HAVE DIFFICULTY TO 

   UNDERSTAND THEIR LOGIC!

   President Anura, the Murderous -Thuggish-kanjiwashing of other 

   non-Tamils continued unabated in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.The past we

   cannot forget, as we know it well, of the Tamil cleansing process in the 

   North, when their brethren in the South were intermarrying, sharing a 

   plate of rice and curry as members of a harmonious unitary Fairy Tale

   state., living Happily ever After!

         ***On 13th August 1977, Tamil extremists attacked the Government 

         buildings in Jaffna and Sinhalese owned shops, 

        There were around 400 Sinhalese lecturers and undergraduates at the

        Jaffna University.  The Vice Chancellor on hearing of the anti-Sinhalese

        disturbances closed the University.  While the Tamil students went to their 

        homes, the Sinhalse students had no place to go. The staff decided to move

        them to the 3rd Floor of the Main Building.  While some Tamil staff went to 

        their homes a few who had a conscience stayed back to protect the 

        Sinhalese colleagues and students.  I take  my hat off to them. That act 

        needed guts and courage, and they had it in loads in fishing trawlers.

       Around 2 o’clock in the afternoon an armed gang of Tamil Tigers, the

      buddies of the CTC, and soul-mates of Patrick Brown, the Mayor of Brampton

      in Canada, forged their way into the Main building.   The Tamil Lecturers 

      again didn’t  allow them to go up to the third floor. By then, a Tamil professor

     had informed the Government Agent of the situation.

      10.

      By 5 o’clock the Government Agent brought food for the Sinhalese lecturers 

      and undergraduates since they hadn’t eaten since morning.  By 7:00 in the 

      evening the GA had arranged for the army and police escorts to transport the 

      400 Sinhalese in buses and driven South in Jaffna’s ugly dark, in a storm of 

      pelting meteorites of rocks and stones, as they laid shivering on the floor with 

     fright.

       And so, President Anura, these Tamils think they had cleansed the Jaffna

      Peninsula of the Sinhalese through unconscionable thuggery and they now 

      owned the Peninsula.  And so these Tamils were spoiling for a fight with the 

      Government armed forces who were trained to safeguard the island’s 

      Territory from marauding armies like the separatist- Tamils who wanted to 

       dissect the island into two to have their own mono-ethnic, separate, racist  

      Tamil state, Eelam. It took the Sri Lankan armed forces 30-bloody years

       to whip their behinds and forced-watch them fly 8000 miles like crying

        man-and women-babies seeking refuge in Canada.

       PRESIDENT ANURA, THE NORTHERN SEPARATIST’S LOGIC IS 

       ASININE. SAW 100,000 INNOCENT PEOPLE KILLED INCLUDING

      THEIR TAMIL CHILD SOLDIERS. WHEN THEY WERE WHIPPED,

      THEY RAN AND FLEW AWAY TO A FOREIGN LAND 8000 MILES AWAY 

      WHEN THEY COULD HAVE HAD REFUGE JUST 18 MILES AWAY IN 

      INDIA THEIR MOTHER COUNTRY ACROSS THE PALK STRAIT. 

       President Anura, and so the ethnic cleansing continued in the North, and

       this time the Tamil ethnic cleansing consecrated Uganda’s Idi Amin as a

       Saint, for giving the Indian-Ugandans three months to leave Uganda where 

       they had made their homes for thousands of years

       ****The mass forcible expulsion of the Muslims in the North and East of 

       Sri Lanka by the separatist Tamil Tiger terrorists in October 1990, started

       with the expulsion of Muslims of Chavacathcheri on 15 October.  They were

       given 24-hour to Get out..  It was a cruel, inhuman and a beastly episode of 

       the Tamil-Muslim relations of Sri Lanka.  Uprooting a people at gunpoint

       from their habitat of scores of thousands of years ago.

      11.

       President Anura, with our past of the Tamil separatist ethnically cleansing 

       the North, to claim that the North of the island belongs to them, my Crystal 

       Ball reading says, Go,tell your new President Anura, to be aware of

       the new minted Tamil-Greeks who will be coming bearing gifts.

       Tell the new President that the power should be decentralized and not

       devolved from the centre to the periphery.  We don’t need another 

       episode to colour Mother Lanka’s kabook and charnockite earth red 

       with Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim blood.”

       President Anura, I will relate to you a strange but a ‘feel good’

      incident that Honoured us Sinhalese as an honest community of Sri 

      Lankans in Canada.

 Let me take you back to the morning of December 5, 1994.  I had just

 finished breakfast and the phone rang. A French accented English speaking

 voice spoke.

 May I please speak with Mr. Asoka Weerasinghe?”

 You are speaking to him”, I said

 I got some sad news and I am seeking your help.”

 What is it?  If I am in a position to help you, I will certainly

  give you a hand.”

  He introduced himself saying that he is a lawyer in Montreal.

  Your good Tamil friend Vinod Ponniah (not real name) the former

   Virologist at Montreal General had a severe heart attack having breakfast

   in a Restaurant with His retired colleagues and died on the spot.  

   I am his lawyer and he has  named you as the executor of his Will.”   I 

   choked and nearly dropped off the chair.

   Why me.  I am a Sinhalese and he had many, many Tamil friends,  In

   fact , he spends every Christmas with a Tamil family in Ottawa.”

    (Vinod was a bachelor,  born at Thattaparai Camp in Tamil Nadu,South 

     India. His Dad was the resident Medical Officer . He was born in 1925

    and an old boy of Kingswood College in Kandy.)

 12.

  I know..I know Mr. Weerasinghe.  We discussed this aspect at length,

He had loads of money and does not seem to have enjoyed life.  He said,
I can only trust Asoka Weerasinghe, a Sinhalse Buddhist,  and not a single

Tamil to disperse my money among my close family.   I know, Asoka is an honest man and the only person that I can trust my life with in Canada.” 

Mr. Weerasinghe, this is an amazing honour. I think it is only fair that you honour him as a true friend with his spirited and heart warming request.”

I saw my wife Jeannie listening to the conversation an addressed me, Asoka,

You should honour Vinod’s request.  You cannot let him down.  Come on Asoka,  You have my blessings.”

So I did.  He had left behind a fortune.  The money was distributed equally among his two sisters. We traced them in Tamil Nadu in India, and traced His nephew in Colombo, and he helped us to find his other nephew in Australia and niece in Surrey, England.

His ashes  were sent to Sri Lanka in an urn as requested by his nephew  in Colombo, to be buried in Kanatta, Colombo.

President Anura Dissanayake.  You might want to know whether I have good memories working for the Sri Lanka Government.

Here is my honest opinion. They have been bitter-sweet memories

I am an old Nalandian,   Never worked in Sri Lanka.  My work ethics and discipline in Communications were acquired in London, England,  and Ottawa, Canada.

My Director of Communications  (Deputy High Commissioner) at the Sri Lanka High Commission in Ottawa (1989-94) started on the wrong footing.  This  was

 13.

embarrassing and annoying.  It was unfortunate.  The Foreign Ministry laid the 

blue-print to sabotage my work who happened to be a  diplomat” from outside their  well guarded Diplomatic kraal”…And so it happened.  But they certainly got the wrong guy for that unethical mitigation of my competence. They got it wrong because I am honest and a hard worker. 

The letter signed With regards, Yours sincerely, Bull” on a  High Commission of The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (letter-head) dated May 26, 1989 was hand carried to my home which said –”Dear Asoka: Further to our telephone conversation yesterday.  I am pleased to enclose herewith a copy of telex message received from the Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Colombo, appointing you as Deputy High Commissioner of the Mission with effect from June 01, 1989.  The formal letter of appointment will be given to you after I receive same from Colombo…….”

Here is where things went wrong.  The formal letter mentioned that my title would be a Clerk, (SABOTAGE) and that I will not be allocated an entertainment allowance and rental allowance as promised.  By abrogating the gentleman’s agreement with President Premadasa”, my pay that I was earning a month as a Canadian Federal Government employee dropped by Cdn$2,200 a month.  I was heading for bankruptcy.

By then I had resigned from the Federal Government as an IS6 after 20-years of service to help President Premadasa (whom I Had never met or spoken to in my life) who quoted correctly that the Communications portfolio at the Ottawa Mission needed some changes to make it effective in the International political arena.  I tend to believe it was Minister Ranjan Wijeratna and  Minister A.J. Ranasinghe who might have thought that I was the suitable person to handle the job and recommended me to  President Premadasa.

I phoned Bernard Thilakaratna, Secretary to Foreign Affairs and this is how

the dialogue went,

Bernard, I received your letter of appointment and you insulted me, and I won’t take it lightly.  I who left a job in the Canadian Federal Government to help President Premadasa and your Ministry after being the Head of 

14.

Thematic Research at the National Museums Corporation in Canada, and supervised 20 multi-disciplined Research scientists in Zoology, Botany, Geology, Ethnology, Archaeology and History and worked on a 6 million dollar project you reduced me to a Clerk in your Ministry.  What’s all this?  Who the hell are you guys and girls at the Ministry think you are to downgrade me to be a clerk to them…Tell me Bernard,,,who the hell are your guys and girls, I want to know.  You owe me an apology!

Give me a break and don’t be such a God damn Fool. Let’s get President Premadasa on this.  Bernard, you have not answered my question, Who the hell are you guys and girls who think you are Tin-Gods and Goddesses to downgrade me in my career?”

By then my appointment was questioned in Parliament by Minister C.V.Gunaratna and defended by Minister John Amaratunga.  It’s all in the Hansard.

President Anura, I could have turned my back on Sri Lanka, but I didn’t.

I was the one on August 4, 1983, with a young Thomian, Asoka Yapa, a gutsy,

talented youngster with a straight spine of steel who picked up our Mother Lanka  who was floored and kicked, bludgeoned, bloodied and spat at with lies by Tamil separatists in every media outlet for 12 days, when we went on National TV on 6 o’clock news.  We were the 8th Sinhalese who were contacted by Television journalists to inform the public the flip side of the Tamil separatist issue.  The other Senior Sinhalese in this community had refused to be interviewed.  And that is me, Asoka Weerasinghe, who would never run away from a crisis. President Anura, Asoka Yapa was my surrogate younger brother who would have been an excellent spokesperson-Diplomat in Ottawa during the time of the ethnic crisis in the 1980s and 90s.  But you all did not seek his services.  Pity. That was foolish!

I thought I was taking on the Canadian Snow Tigers to genuinely uphold the dignity of my Mother Lanka, but I was wrong.,  I not only had to take on the Snow Tigers Head-on, but I also had to take on Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry,  and half 

15.

of the Sinhalese community in Ottawa who had difficulty to see my name printed 

under letters to the Editor of national newspapers, and being interviewed on the crisis on 6 o’clock evening TV news, and not the Sri Lanka High Commissioner, Retired Commander of the Sr iLanka Army, Tissa”Bull”Weeratunga. He was reduced to a  lame-duck by the Tamil separatists. His attack was led by the Roman Catholic Tamil priest Philip Ratnapala garbed in a black cossack and a starched white collar looking towards heaven- the man-of-cloth  That was a tough scenario.

Here’s the discipline that I introduced in the workings on Communications at the Sri Lanka High Commission in Ottawa which were the pits. 

     1.  I requested a typewriter from the Chief Clerk saying that I need one as it is my work-horse and not that I wanted to insult the in-house-stenographer.  I typed my individual letters responding to Amnesty International Lobbyists: 

 235 (1989); 649 (1990); 1223 (1991); 872 (1992); 426 (1993);

257 (1994) = 3,662 letters.

64 letters to Editors of newspapers demanding our right of reply to news items

on Sri Lanka.  Had 56 published on behalf of the High Commissioner. 

     2  .As Diplomatic Public Relations etiquette, I always met my clients sharp at the appointed time; and not one or two hours late and not apologise for that unforgivable diplomatic courtesy (The worst offender,was a First Secretary,a career diplomat);

     3.  .A response to a letter that I receive goes out within three working days, and not 10 days or never;

     4.   A  letter to the Editor of a newspaper on a news item on Sri Lanka goes

out within 36-hours after it appears on behalf of the High Commissioner (I had  56 letters published of a possible 64), in news papers across Canada;

       K.B. Fernando,First Secretary and a Senior career Diplomat, one day told me that it was not necessary to respond to every news item that appears in newspapers on Sri Lanka”  Why not?”, I asked. There is no need to open a dialogue with the Tamils”

    16.

   Come on K.B. that’s exactly what I want is a window to prove that it is a half-truth or a lie. You know me by now, that I am no wimp. I can handle it, you don’t have to worry about it. That is why I was hired by President Premadasa!”

     5.   I was invited by 13 Principals of Primary and  Middle schools in the Capital Region to be a visiting Geography teacher – a show and tell on Sri Lanka.  I requested from the Foreign Ministry 13 large Sri Lanka flags to present to the Principals after my teaching sessions so that they could hang them on Commonwealth Day.  That request was ignored (Sabotage).  I got my sister Sybil, a teacher at Musaeus College to do me that favour.  Go to Laksala, buy me 13 large Sri Lanka flags and send them to me.   She did.  And they were presented to the Principals after describing the colours and symbols in the flag.  Especially  the two coloured stripes  representing the two Tamil and Muslim minority communities of the island.   That was important in my discussions

to counter the comments of discrimination of minority communities in Sri Lanka

    6.    I gave six public lectures pertaining to Sri Lanka like Sri Lanka Healing

Masks: The Delicious Nightmares” at Canadian Museum of Civilization;  Buddhist spirituality in Meditation” at Sai Baba 20th Anniversary Celebration, etc.

I had worked under five employers in my working career, and the worst was at the Sri Lanka Government’s High Commission in Ottawa..  I had two supervisors -H.C. Walter Rupesinghe and H.C. Walter Fernando.  Both were non-career diplomats and Good administrators.  Since I was appointed by President Premadasa, I reported almost all the lack of cooperations by the Foreign Ministry personnel, and of other Departments to him.   I claimed my right to report to him as I gave up a  lucrative, well paid 20-year career in Communications in the  Federal Departments in Canada, to help President Premadasa when he asked for the favour from me..

I always asked him to light a stick of dynamite under the chair of anyone who was not cooperating (Sabotage), and holding back my progress.  He was visibly

angry and I had three letters of apology while in Colombo and on my return

17.

there were three letters of apology from the Higher-ups in Departments on my desk.

 I felt embarrassed not being able to reciprocate the courtesy invitations on my job, since I was not provided an entertainment allowance.  Here’s what I was faced with due to the Foreign Ministry’ SABOTAGE”: cussedness:

Dr. Sharma of the Indian High Commission invited me for lunch at the

Chateau Laurier in Ottawa.  During lunch he tells me, ‘Every time we opened the Ottawa Citizen we read a letter from you for your High Commissioner defending Sri Lanka’s position on the Tamil Eelam crisis. How do you manage it as we have difficulty even getting one letter published.” 

So I walked him through how to do it.  I never reciprocated his diplomatic courtesy to invite him for a meal since I was not given the luxury of an entertainment allowance. It was embarrassing but that is how the cookie crumbled.;

 Mr. Mukundan of the Malaysian High Commission invited me for lunch at the top Indian Restaurant Haveli in Ottawa.  During lunch he tells me,

Asoka, I enjoy watching your TV productions of ‘Songs of Sri Lanka’ on the McLeans Community Channel. You are the only Mission that does it.  I’d love to do it for Malaysia too.  Is it difficult?”

So I walked him through the production stages-Story line –  storyboarding -recording in the Studio – and Editing with the help of their Producer  Sayeed Khan.  I can help you.Oh my God, I don’t think that I have the talent like yours to do it.  I won’t even try to do it.”

It was embarrassing that I couldn’t reciprocate his Diplomatic courtesy as I was not given an entertainment allowance as promised.  That is how the cookie crumbled.

Every time I had a meeting with the Canadian Security officers on their invitation at a private restaurant, they paid for my cup of tea and cookies.  When they wanted to have regular Breakfast meetings, I told them,”Sorry gentlemen, this is not going to work as I am not on an entertainment 

18.

allowance.” Don’t worry, Asoka, we need these meetings and we will pick up your tab.”  So they paid for 39 of my breakfasts.  That was 

embarrassing, a Third World pauper country diplomacy.. So be it.  President Anura, that is how the cookies crumbled due to the Sabotage”: cussedness of the Foreign Ministry..  There is a lesson to be learnt  from my appointment by your Foreign Minister.

***My experience in Communications paid well for the Sri Lanka High Commission in Ottawa which never happened before.

Two students from a High School in British Columbia visited H.C.

Walter Rupesinghe to get a hearing about Sri Lanka as they had been  assigned Sri Lanka to represent it at the Junior Commonwealth Forum in Ottawa,  After spending some time with him, HC W.R handed them to me to provide them with Sri Lanka Tourist brochures,  During our conversation I asked the Teacher whether he liked me to coach his students:   Their eyes lit up and he wanted me to.  They took back the Best Country Presentation Trophy to British Columbia,  To thank me they invited me for dinner at the Chateau Laurier.  They had the trophy on the dining table during dinner.

*** A British female (G.D. initials) Master’s student at Norman Paterson

School of International Affairs (Carleton University) met H C. Walter Rupesinghe as she had intentions to adopt Sri Lanka as her country specific Special study for her Masters degree.  HC  WR passed her on to me after their meeting.

While discussing I asked her whether she would like me to help her with

her thesis. She was overjoyed. Give me abstracts of your chapters, and I will give you information and my writing to help you.” That’s what happened.

At a Seminar which gave her an A++ mark, she started the seminar by saying…”I am Walter Rupesinghe, the High Commissioner for Sri Lanka in  Canada…..”  She played the recorded tape to High Commissioner.  He was astounded,and asked me Asoka, how did you manage this?”

19.

I mentioned both these efforts to President Premadasa and he was extremely happy with my efforts to promote the good name of Sri Lanka.

Let me conclude my case history, which President Premadasa knew at length.

He showed his anger and I told him, Sir, move these people who had the habit of sabotaging my work for you.  This is not good Sir,  and unhealthy to administer Your country.  I made an honest effort to help you.”  

I know…and I appreciate it very much,” he said.

President Anura, by the end of the first year, President Premadasa addressed me every time we spoke with affection as, Kohomathe Ape Asoka?”  I believe it was an extract from a Sunil Santha lyric.”

President Anura, this has been a long narrative, but I hope it would have some value to your Minister of Foreign Affairs.  This narrative goes back

almost 30-years and from an employee who learnt his discipline and Do’s and Don’ts in Communications in England and Canada and not in Sri Lanka.  And there has to be a difference.

To conclude I call  upon the Triple Gem to Bless you and Protect You.

Please take good care of yourself, as I mentioned to you earlier, unknown to you, you are the jewel in every poor person’s crown, and Sri Lanka not being dissected ethnically into two.

Theruwan saranai.

SIncerely,

Asoka Weerasinghe (Mr)