An Immoral Report by Six Sinhala Colombo Lawyers

C. Wijeyawickrema, B.A (Hons.), LL.B., M.A., Ph.D.
cwije7@yahoo.com

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
William Shakespeare

Question: Can six Sinhala "legal luminaries" or constitutional "experts" act immorally?
Answer: Yes, read the majority report of the panel on constitutional reform.

Resurrection of Neelan-GL package

The "majority report" of the panel on constitutional reform by six Sinhala lawyers (SSL) is a sneak attempt to reactivate the rejected Neelan-GL package of 1997. It is an addendum to the infamous ISGA and PTOMS of the CBK era. SSL tried to delver to Prabakaran what he has failed to achieve with cyanide pills and suicide bombs for decades. Six Colombo lawyers have taken the villagers for a ride!

What could have been the mental framework of SSL? Do they accept the AnuraB-RanilW-CBK theory of the war is not winnable and therefore allowed the terrorists to have guns placed south side of the Trincomalee harbor? Do they accept the NGO-INGO propaganda of Sri Lanka a failed (or failing) state? Do they favor bringing UN forces to the island which will be a disaster? Do they accept the humiliation theory of some retired CAS guys? These born-again experts think that the 1956 Sinhala Official Language Act humiliated Tamils. How about the Hindi Official Language Act in India? There is no doubt that they were influenced by the two nation theory which began in India in the 1920s and the myth of a traditional Tamil homeland in the Eastern Province which the late SJVChelvanayagam invented in the 1950s.

SSL forgot about the malaria mosquito. It was malaria mosquito which prevented a Tamil homeland. There were repeated efforts by the colonial master to create Tamil settlements in the Wanni or in the East. They failed. They succeeded in building a railway line so that South Indian coolies could come to the tea region to toil under a semi-slavery system of exploitation. London newspapers suddenly became interested in the welfare of these coolies after the nationalization of British-owned tea estates!

Brand name - Sinhala

For the international crowd the most important aspect of SSL is that it has been signed by six Sinhala lawyers. In the past when S.J. Tambiah wrote his Buddhism Betrayed book (1992) with money provided by Lal Jayawardena's Wider Organization in Norway and a picture of Ven. Maduluwave Sobitha suppied by Kumari Jayawardena there was protest in Sri Lanka condemning it. A white American anthropology professor, Steven Kemper of Bates College wrote a review in 2003 on a book written by Tambiah's disciple H. L. Seneviratne, The Work of Kings (1999). Kemper argued that the attack on Tambiah because he is a Tamil was no longer valid because Seneviratne, a Sinhala person has supported Tambiah's thesis. I am using this Kemper logic to isolate the majority report as a six Sinhala report (SSL). Besides no Tamil or Muslim on earth will refuse to sign a document if that gives them a separate piece of land!

No moral justification

There is no moral justification for what Prabakaran has been doing even though he started as one of the "Boys" of TULF and a "fifth column" fighter trained by Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. There is no one supporting him except some NGO mudalalis, Norway and Vaiko. Others talk of aspirations of all communities. This is a politically correct fluid path with or without hidden agenda. For example, Turkey has an aspiration to become part of Europe but the Pope said EU is for countries with a European culture. Later on a trip to Turkey with unprecedented level of security for his life (was he waring a bullet proof vest?) he said that he supports Turkey's application. There was no moral justification for the Colombo black white Tamils to demand fifty-fifty in the 1920s or in 1927 or in 1944. There was no moral justification for SJVC to form a Tamil state party in 1949. There was no moral justification for the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement or for the CFA of 2002 or for the ISGA or PTOMS. All those were aimed at giving an "F" solution. Because SSL for an "F" solution rejected by the people of Sri Lanka (not the Colombo politicians) SSL is immoral.

The Mud ball - Sinhala Buddhist Chauvinists

SBC mud ball was a creation by the Colombo black whites who wanted to continue their hold on people with NGO mudalalis behind them. It began with a booklet written by a woman who grew up in London with her English mother (Ethnic and Class Conflicts in Sri Lanka, Vishaka Kumari Jayawardena (nee Soyza), 1985). A person with such background cannot understand that a Buddhist villager cannot discriminate against minorities because Buddhism is based on Anichcha or impermanence. Just like the eye cannot see the eye such Colombo black whites cannot see that it was the Colombo black whites who created discrimination as a beggar's wound.

The Middle Path in Buddhism is what we call compromise in modern democracy or the doctrine of reasonableness in western jurisprudence. Each village temple priest is a sovereign entity unlike a Catholic parish church. If the separation of powers doctrine of Montesquieu meant the distribution of sum total of power to as many units as possible, rather than a strict compartmentalization of legislative, executive and judicial powers then that doctrine was in practice in Sri Lankan temples for thousands of years.

This was the reason why in the last century when Christian priests went to remote villages on head hunting-looking for possible converts-often times they spend the night as guests of the village temple priest who gave them dinner and lodging. This was the reason why when the Math Professor Sunderalingam was playing havoc on human pollution of kovils, the Buddhist monks did not try to covert the hari janas in Jaffna-originally Sinhala people?-into Buddhism. In Maharastra, fifty years ago, when the Dalits led by the late Dr. Ambedkar decided to embrace Buddhism by the millions they followed Ehi Passiko-come and examine, not come and believe-and Buddhist monks did not try to convert him (the self-conversion of black in USA to Islam is another such example). Did Kumari J, RanilW, CBK or SSL know this?

Anti-Mahavamsa movement

SSL is the latest stage of the AMM. In a landmark book, Susantha Goonatilake opened our eyes to the nature and the level of anti-Mahavamsa activities taking place at international level operated by a network of professors-a Colombo-Boston axis?-who in the process were scratching each others back (Anthropologizing Sri Lanka: A Eurocentric Misadventure, 2001). In reality the now-you-see-now-you-don't anti-Mahavamsa movement started with the Portuguese looting and burning the Buddhist temples and pirivenas in the coastal zone of Sri Lanka. It was only in the 1970s a group of professors began converting it to a paradigm that could be called "Blame the Sinhala Buddhist" paradigm. AMM became exposed during the formation of JHU. A short history of the anti-M action is given below:

1883- Kotahena Riots
1885 -Vesak should not be a public holiday
(Sinhala representative A. L. de Alwis)
Kotahena riots
1940s- King Dutugemunu was a fool of bricks (some Marxists)
1960s- Tambiah, a Tamil Christian went to Thailand to
Do research on the Theravada Buddhism
1970- G.Obeyesekere's "Protestant Buddhism" idea (step 1)
Marga Institute of Godfrey G formed
1979- Fooling Massachusetts Legislature (the Boston Cell)
1980- AJ Wilson - The Gaulist system in Asia
1985- Vishaka Kumari J - Ethnic and Class Conflicts in SL (step 1B)
1986- Tambiah - Sri Lanka Ethnic Fracticide
1988- Hellman-Rasanayagam..
Obeyesekere & Gombrich - Buddhism Transformed
(Buddhist Fundamentalism) (step 2)
1992- Tambiah - Buddhism Betrayed (step 3)
1997- D. Nesiah - (Tambiah's student) - Discrimination
1998- Tessa B and CRde Silva - Buddhist Fundamentalism (step 4)
Marga Institute Booklet
1999- HL Seneviratna - the Work of Kings (step 5)
2002- G. Obeysekera -Sri Lankan history belongs primarily
To Veddas
2003- Steven Kemper -Book review of the work of kings
2003- HLS Seminar on the topic "Nationalist thought and
identity politics: the Jatika Chintanaya movement of
Sri Lanka and its antecedents," given at the University
of Texas, Austin (September 26)
2004- Sasanka Perera of ICES - Buddhist Theocracy (step 6)
2004- Wikremabahu - Pol Pot & Idi Amin (Island, March 5)
2004- Tisaranee G - the Saffron slate
(Lanka Academic (March 7)
2004- J Uyangoda, an elitist group of monks (step 6B)
(Daily Mirror, Feb 26)
2006- Work of six Sinhala lawyers (step 7)

The unusual anger directed against the formation of JHU-rightful heir to Ven. Soma's life-sacrificing work-showed one aspect AMM, shedding all kinds of crocodile tears to help "preserve" Buddhism in Sri Lanka (Wikremabahu- Sri Lanka will be a country of Idi Amin or pol pot [Island, March 5]; Tisaranee Gunasekera- The Saffron Slate will help Prabakaran to get his country soon [Lanka Academic, March 7]). But the most unfortunate one was by professor Sasanka who also works for the NGO-funded international center for ethnic studies (ICES). Sasanka objected to JHU based on what Bikku Nagasena told the King Milinda as recorded in an ancient Indian Buddhist text, "the Milinda Panna." He said that a Buddhist theocracy would come out of the path taken by JHU!

Thus, Sasanka Perera took this paradigm to its zenith. He became an agent of a Boston-Colombo axis. This group living in and around Boston once tricked the Massachusetts Legislature to pass a resolution: Massachusetts House Journal for 1979, page 977 reads:
"Resolution memorializing the President and the Congress to protest and utilize the powers of their offices to rectify the gross injustices which have been inhumanely inflicted on the Tamils of Sri Lanka."

This was when Amirthalingam was the Leader of the Opposition. The son-in-law of SJV Chelvanayagam, the late A. J. Wilson (Christian) was a leader of this group and S. J Tambiah (Christian) of the Buddhism Betrayed fame must be still an active living member. H. L. Seneviratne (HLS) dedicated his masterpiece, the Work of Kings, to Tambiah and G. Obeysekera.

I consider them as a group of "naked professors" because they follow a strategy of not responding to the e-mails sent to them. For example, I asked Tambiah why he did not mention the 1958 JRJ march against concessions to Tamils or the 1962 Coup in his book while he mentioned the 1966 false coup attributed to a Buddhist monk. Similarly, I did not hear from Steven Kemper of Bates University (near Boston) who gave a certificate of exoneration to Tambiah's Buddhism Betrayed because HLS, a Sinhala Buddhist, in his book "the Work of Kings" had endorsed Tambiah's thesis.

In "the work of kings" (1999), HLS alleged that problems of Sri Lanka today, especially Tamil terrorism, was a result of the "bad behavior" of two monks, Vens. Yakkaduwe Pragnarama and Walpola Rahula. I asked HLS by e-mail, whether he gave an opportunity to Ven. Rahula to explain or answer his allegation because in his book HLS thanked Ven. Rahula for helping him with documents and ideas! I never heard from him. I asked this question especially because, I heard a story that Ven. Rahula told both Mrs. B and JRJ at a public meeting that the UNP and the SLFP ruined the country.

The history of this paradigm shows a cruel pattern of evolution based on back scratching and the kissing of rings. For example, in step 4, step 1 is given side-support. In my view this book could be called the work of queens, because its aim is worse than the aim of the work of kings. In step 5, all the previous steps culminated with Vens. Walpola Rahula and Yakkaduwe Pragnarama getting the blame!

Jathika versus Arthika president

H. L. Seneviratne described the 2005 presidential election as a contest between a nationalist and an economist candidate (Island, November 9 & 12, 2005). The non-nationalist candidate however, wrote a book on Buddhism and promised the world's largest dagoba. He even promised a new capital city near the present capitol at Kotte. The nationalist forces had a narrow escape despite all kinds of NGO-INGO gimmicks. In 1956 the Pancha Maha Balavegaya did not have to face what it faced in 2005. Because of the life sacrificing work of the late Ven. Gangodawila Soma there was a resurrection of the PMB. But the anti-Mahavamsa group will not give up that easily. They are now busily trying to convert the Jathika president into an anti-jathika president! The power of the black white lobby is both open and hidden. This majority report is an example of that lobby.

Black white rule in (Ceylon) Sri Lanka

The history of human society is a history of a minute group of people controlling 90-95% of others using law as the vehicle of oppression. In the former British colonies this small group is called the black whites (in former Spanish colonies they are called coconuts-brown outside, white inside).

Under foreign control people who acted as spies, suppliers and servants received favors. Such native agents moving in the shadows of white masters grew up with inferiority complexes. Thus, when the Legislative Council debated the motion presented by a Hindu Tamil (P. Ramanathan) to make Vesak a public holiday in the colonial Ceylon (1885), with the backing of an American Olcott, the Sinhala representative A. L. de Alwis, a Christian, opposed it. The Governor Gordon who was for the motion said he was embarrassed by de Alwis' behavior.

In the early1900s these black white locals asked for a share in the professions and the civil service and to make a long story short, what we see today are the later generations of those black white lackeys. With the exception of A. E. Gunasinghe these so-called leaders protested against adult universal suffrage or any other welfare measures that would benefit masses. Liam-Fox agreement, Mano-Malik talks, worshipping Norway's Eric Sloheim and go begging before foreign embassies has been part of this black white survival strategy. Yet, there was always a minor fraction of leaders who were anti-black white in mind and in action.

The majority expert panel report is a product of six Sinhala lawyers (SSL) with a black white mindset. This report is similar to the sinister agreement Sinhala black whites made with Tamil black whites in 1923 to nullify the democratic effects of replacing hundred-year old communal representation (divide-and rule colonial policy) with territorial representation. The black whites in Colombo agreed to a fifty-fifty (balanced representation) formula behind the back of long-suffering Sinhala-Tamil-Muslim poor people.

Experts or political stooges?

The majority panel has taken a political decision (item 6.10). Therefore, they are politicians. An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less. Yes, the world needs brain surgeons and expert cooks. But world cannot run without the generalists. The SSL is a group of Neelan-GL connected lawyers who cannot take a holistic approach to an anto jata bahi jata problem. They cannot comprehend the Pancha Maha Balavegaya philosophy. There is no proposed home grown solution on this report. Because they are "experts" they do not need 700 or so people's suggestions?

Empowerment of people or politicians?

If the desire is to empower people and remove the Colombo crowd acting as owners of Sri Lanka then devolution must start from the village. This is what the Indian Panchyat system is trying to do after forty years of failure of that idea in India. Sri Lanka has our own village community concept based on Gama-Vawa-Dagoba (Village-water tank and temple/kovil/mosque). We must develop a system not from law books but from our people's historical storehouse of knowledge. Villagers may not have London degrees or thick law books in their living rooms but they have generations of collective wisdom.

We must also think of global warming and the disasters of land slides, flooding, soil erosion, deforestation and droughts. Therefore, we must try to link the age-old village unit concept with the river basin management concept. This is what a tiny country like ours, New Zealand, has done. Why did SSL ignore this approach? As shown later in this essay the distribution of ethnic minorities in the island requires a village level approach and not a half-baked, piece meal re-introduction of Neelan-GL package of the CBK era.

The Indian "F" trap

This report takes the Nehru path of linguistic boundaries which brought disaster to India. It was like feeding a cancer to cure it. In order to justify a homeland for Tamils SSL goes in circles talking about ethnic enclaves. Even their political and theoretical guru the late Neelan Thiruchelvam did not want the Pondicherry method to upset the "Tamil homeland." Can this report prevent Catholics in Negombo or Muslims in Beruwala or Tamils in Wellawatta asking a Pondicherry type enclave?

Forgetting what JRJ said about temporary merger which was temporary for 20 years the report tells us that a little bit of flirting is OK. It wants another 10-year merger. Flirting will reach the point of no return because Tamil Nad and the World Tamil Movement want a separate Tamil country. Sri Lanka is the best hope. How could SSL ignore such geopolitical realities?

The six Sinhala reporters (SSL) are blind observers of the white elephant called PCs. What a waste of money and labor with this joke. Sri Lanka is too small to have such layers of government. Each GSN unit (we have 15,000 of them) has 3-5 government officers. Each AGA division has about 100-150 officers (excluding teachers). What are they doing and why do we want a layer of corrupt politicians because Rajiv G humiliated JRJ? Reporters only concern is how to deliver a "homeland" to Tamils, because reporters found that the security of Tamils is threatened.

The SSL think that words in a constitution bring magic. In the USA it was the national guards and federal highways, not the courts which silenced rebellious and discriminatory state politicians. Why do SSL think that their proposed document will discourage secessionist tendencies?

The report is blind to the plight of the Kandyan peasantry who to this day did not receive fair treatment for what was done to them under the land grabbing laws of colonial masters. The Mahaveli Ganga is brown in color because plantations removed forest cover and the top soil was lost for decades. The report wants a special unit for the Indian Tamils as if the Sinhalaese villagers in the area are out of misery and poverty.

The report talks about the high security zones but not a word about the ancient ruins in the North and East or what is happening to the land belonging to the Muhudu Maha Viharaya. SSL, therefore, did not think of aspirations of all communities.

Democracy in a Dharmista Samajaya

Sri Lanka has an Anto-Jata-Bahi-Jata problem. This is due to 50 years of mismanagement by UNP, SLFP, LSSP, CP, FP (Tamil state party) and TULF Colombo politicians. They killed "structural" democracy and after 1978 the "territorial" democracy. The entire country has become a huge corruption bin. People grow marijuana inside the parliamentary complex. The Sinhala six reporters should read their friend A.T. Ariayaratne's 1988 book, "The Power Pyramid and the Dharmic Cycle" to get an idea of what had happened to the "Dharmista Samajaya."

The separation of powers, independence of the judiciary, the second chamber and the rule of law are examples of structural democratic elements removed. The parliamentary and local government electoral methods removed territorial democracy. The voter was removed from his representative. MP candidates are selected by interview boards in Colombo. Party bosses control MPs votes. Thugs and only those who can generate huge sums of money could become MPs. Respectable, dedicated people cannot become MPs. The president of the country is a prisoner to a system (bahubootha vyavastava?) that he has to bribe MPs with minister jobs to keep the parliament running. All the politicians are prisoners to a CFA-backed terrorists group unable to live a normal life. Any constitutional reform panel serious in finding a home grown solution must think of overhauling the system and not a band aid solution.

"Educating the Experts"

Since we are supposed to learn until our death I undertook a grade 12-level map project to help the SSL legal luminaries. One set of maps show them the geographical distribution of Tamil and Buddhist communities at the electorate level (1977 election). Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala people cohabitated this island for thousands of years, before the Colombo black white politicians did everything in their power to create a beggar's wound to stay in control. The other map shows why SSL cannot isolate Sri Lanka's terrorist problem from South Indian Tamil politics. This is even more relevant after the Delhi government lost all its teeth to intervene in Tamil Nad affairs in a new era of coalition governments. It did intervene one last time recently because old and new chief ministers were at each other's throat.

Perhaps Delhi is using other methods to try to control Tamil Nad. The Kundankulam nuclear power plant, Sethu Samuduram Canal Project and the National Water Transfer Project are massive federal intrusions that the anti-Hindi lobby in Tamil Nad cannot sabotage unlike burning the progress reports and circulars and regulations of the Hindi Official Language Department in Delhi (see Map 1 - Ravana's Land).

Map exercise on cohabitation

Source of data

The source of data for the five maps presented in this essay came from G. P. S. H. De Silva's "A Statistical Survey of Elections to the Legislatures of Sri Lanka 1911-1977" (1979). An Excel table was developed using race and religion percentages data of voters in the 1977 General Election (1976 Delimitation Commission). In calculating Tamils per electorate, Ceylon Tamils and Indian Tamils are combined thus giving them an advantage at the electoral level rather than treating them separately. In the case of Sinhalese, rather than race, the religion, Buddhists, was used. This way Christian Sinhalese are separated and any advantage Sinhalese get at the electoral level is removed. When Prabakaran's youngest brother was studying with me in Canada in 1979, he said that the biggest headache they had in Jaffna was the scene of yellow robed monks walking in Jaffna. I used this logic in deciding to use religion instead of race.

Ecological fallacy

Professor Howard Wriggins who was US Ambassador in Sri Lanka during JRJ presidency in his book, Ceylon: Dilemmas of a new nation (1960) produced several maps with 1947, 1952 and 1956 electoral level ethnicity data. Most maps we see are based on administrative district level data. Depending on the spatial unit used maps can give misleading messages. Provincial or District level maps can hide rather than reveal useful information. If race and religion data are available at poling booth level, that will be the ideal spatial unit. But on the other hand it could become so complex making it difficult to recognize useful spatial patterns, if any.

What do maps show?

Map 1 - Tamil majority

This map shows 1977 electorates where Tamils (red), Muslims (green) and Buddhists (blue) are 50 percent or more. If the democratic principle used is territorial representation based on majority only 12 electorates remain empty making them electorates with no ethnic group claiming majority. They were Puttalam, Wennappuwa, Nattandiya, Negombo, Ja Ela, Wattala, Gampola, Nawalapitiya, Colombo North, Colombo Central, Colombo West and Potuvil. If Muslims are added Puttalam, Colombo Central and Nawalapitiya fall into the category of minorities over 50%.

Map 2 - Tamils between 11-49 percent

This map plays a gap filling role for map 1. Those empty electorates on map 1 become areas with significant numbers of Tamils. They form a kind of transitional zone
between Buddhist and Tamil regions. If the World Tamil Federation is determined to have a separate Tamil country in Sri Lanka, then this is the region that will become the zone of conflict.

Map 3 - Tamils between 1-10 percent

This map shows the electorates that the six Sinhala report (SSL) wants to provide Tamil police stations or Tamil police officers! This is because SSL wants to use the 1983 government-sponsored attack on the Colombo Tamils as an excuse to justify that Tamils have a security problem in living with the Sinhalese. How many Tamils have been killed in these areas, except in the areas of conflict or the frontier region? How many killings took place after 1983?

Map 4 - Christian influence

This map shows the Catholic Belt in Sri Lanka. Red color indicates electorates with Christian over 30%. Between 10-29 is in green and 1-9 is in blue. Not a single church was attacked during the past 100 years until the unethical conversion workers abused religious tolerance and started smashing Buddha statutes and urinating on broken pieces.

 

Map 5- Buddhist minority

What is the protection SSL has proposed for this group? The numbers are small but there are ancient Buddhist ruins in these areas. Actually all the areas of major Buddhist religious sites have significant numbers of minority groups living in harmony like they did before the arrival of colonial masters to fulfill the "white man's burden."

"You cannot legislate against geography"

"We are helping Tamilnadu to achieve self-rule"
V. Balakumaran, Advisor to Prabakaran, (Jan. 2006)

The lesson from these maps is that one cannot go against geography and history (history is past geography) of a country or people. There is also another lesson.That lesson comes from the Ravanaland map of South India and Sri Lanka.

No responsible group could suggest any language and/or race-based geographical unit for this tiny island because there is a gorilla next door. Not only Tamils in South India wanted a separate country out of the Hindi India since the early 1920s, but they had a continuous connection with the Colombo black white Tamils who jealously fought to protect the privileged status given to them by the colonial master under a divide-and-rule policy. If a Tamil learns Sinhala, he or she can get a job in the south and it is not going to help the Sinhalese. To prevent learning Sinhala was a foolish decision of Tamil politicians just like it was a foolish decision to feed young serpents with milk calling them our "Boys." "Boys" killed everybody and today Anandasangaree is in the company of Aerial Sharon who created Jews settlements in the Palestine land, but had to be protected from the settlers wanting to kill him!

The two separatist rivers which began in Tamil Nad in 1917 and in Ceylon during1921-23, ran parallel mingling with each other until 1963 when an amendment to the Indian constitution made it a criminal act to talk about separatism by politicians. Then the poison water was transferred to Lanka and after 1978 (beginning of JRJ-IndiraG family feud) it was the Lankan river that rejuvenated the Tamilnadu river. In the late 1950s the poison water in Tamilnadu was sprayed on the walls of Madras streets with Dravida Kazagham proverbs such as, "When you meet a Brahmin and a snake, kill the Brahmin first."

For the Lankan river and the Tamilnadu masses, the Tamil separatist master E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker twisted the Rama-Ravana story in the Hindu epic Maha Bharatha so that Shivaji Ganeshan and MG Ramachandran (born in Kandy) acted as a folk hero-Tamil Ravana in cheap movies watched in Madras as well as in Indian estate worker lines in Hatton. Naicker concluded, "Rama and Sita were despicable characters…Ravana, on the other hand, was a Dravidian of excellent character." The "boys" in Sri Lanka (of Chelvanayagam, Amrithalingam and A. J. Wilson) with their Chola empire symbols are thus good Ravanas in the eyes of an average Tamilnadu Tamil. Ravana Eliya or Seetha Eliya are Tamil places of interest.

In the 1970s the late professor Tennakoon Vimalananda (TV) was a lonely voice fighting against Tamil separatism (Dravida Munethra Kasagam Movement and the future of the Sinhalayas, Anula Press, Colombo 10). There was not a single sentence in his booklet which can be identified as anti-Tamil. He even dealt with the exploitation of Tamils and Sinhalayas by the ruling class of Colombo families. TV predicted so accurately the predicament that Sri Lanka has fallen into in 2006. The then PM Dudley Senanayake ignored his warnings about DMK and instead decide to change from Saturday-Sunday to Poya-pre-Poya weekend holidays.

For the World Tamil Movement or for people like Vaiko or Nedumaran or the relative of Tamil Nadu chief ministers, Sri Lanka is a fertile valley to conquer relatively easily. Tamil Nadu politics is a story of sex and marriages of its chief ministers. They have Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi pressing them from the north. The shallow sea in the south is nothing compared to the rugged mountains in the north. The sea has been a barrier and a high way in human history. It is true the Galapagos Islands remained isolated but the Polynesian Islands in the Pacific were not isolated spots.

If anything even remotely closer to an "F" solution is created the danger is very real that the Sinhala people in Sri Lanka will face extinction sooner or later. The prevention of such an eventuality is not discrimination. What is needed is to provide equal opportunities to each person whether Tamil, Muslim or Sinhala and the best way to begin this is by developing a home grown solution where ethnic groups could enjoy maximum public recognition possible at the village level.

The Kamatha Test

I think the problem with the six Sinhala report (SSL) is that they did not take the Kamatha Test of the late President Premadasa. The story was that before appointing people to high posts PP asked the prospective candidate one last qualifying question, "Have you ever stepped into a Kamatha?" I doubt if the Harvard-Oxford trained Neelan-GL couple had ever took this test under the CBK rule.

In the past Sir D. B. Jayatileke, who was called abittaya (temple servant) by the Marxists in the State Council, passed the kamatha test and was later "deported" to India. As the late Ven. Balangoda AnandaMaitreeya Maha Thera had said, Sri Lanka would have been different if DBJ became the first prime minister of Ceylon. The reason must be that DBJ was not a black white with an inferiority complex.

SSL cannot understand what their former colonial master Tony Blair or France, Spain or Australia say so clearly because they probably missed the Kamatha test. What is the value of Tisa Vawa or Thuparamaya to a black white? Blair said as recently as on December 9, 2006, "The right to be in a multicultural society was always implicitly balanced by a duty to integrate, to be part of Britain." How could one apply this Blair standard to an island which is the only place on earth for a 2500-year old ancient Sinhala Buddhist heritage?

Long time ago the late Professor G. P. Malalasekera gave us the parameters of a multi-cultural society. When the Dutch was killing the Portuguese-converted Catholics in the coastal areas it was the Buddhist kings in the Kanda Udarata who allowed multiculturalism to thrive just like the kings before them for 2000 years.

"The Buddhists wish-and quite rightly-that in this country where they form 70 percent of the population, Buddhism should be recognized as the predominant religion of the people. In the rest of the world, Ceylon is regarded as essentially a Buddhist country, and they want this claim established here as well…They will not be content to remain in the position of inferiority to which they have been reduced by 450 years of foreign occupation… They have no desire to make Buddhism the State religion-in spite of the cry raised by self-seeking politicians- but they want the State to help them rehabilitate themselves and undo some, at least, of the injustices perpetrated against them during the days of their subjection."

(quoted from a speech by Professor Gunapala Malalasekera, President of ACBC reproduced in Times of Ceylon, January 15, 1956, and referenced on page 196 of the book, "Ceylon: Dilemmas of a New Nation," by W. H. Wriggins, Princeton Univ. Press, 1960)