{"id":28803,"date":"2014-03-14T17:37:08","date_gmt":"2014-03-14T21:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=28803"},"modified":"2014-03-14T17:37:33","modified_gmt":"2014-03-14T21:37:33","slug":"fernandoshaminesbandarasmenikessomasundaramsparvathis-and-mohammeds-are-all-travelling-on-the-same-highway-towards-the-light-of-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=28803","title":{"rendered":"Fernandos,Hamines,Bandaras,Menikes,Somasundarams,Parvathis and Mohammeds are all Travelling on the same Highway Towards the Light of Development."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By<\/p>\n<p>K.K. Chandrasiri De Silva<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There was a thirty-year conflict and four years have lapsed since the end of the conflict. One has to reflect on what has been achieved on the ground within those four years, and assess if that progress is reasonable. Nobody is saying that the situation is perfect. Still there are things to be done.<\/p>\n<p>Since May 2009. there has not been a single act of terrorism in this country. It is the normal pattern to witness violent incidents spurring later on either sporadically or frequently even after arriving at political solutions.<\/p>\n<p>By concluding the conflict what has been achieved by the government of Sri Lanka is the growth of harmony and trust among the Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities within the country. What followed was the bringing of peace and stability back to the island nation.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Benefits spurred as results of the prevalent communal harmony and trust, and peace and stability are numerous:<br \/>\n<em><br \/>\n1. The government has resettled 297,000 Internally Displaced Persons.<\/p>\n<p>2. Demining which is a very complex thing has been quite successful in the North.<\/p>\n<p>3. The government re-integrated the ex-combatants into the mainstream society.<\/p>\n<p>4. The government has taken steps to resettle them in their villages.<\/p>\n<p>5. The economic progress which has taken place in the Northern Province of the country in the last four years, where the economy is growing at 22% when the overall national growth is around 6%.<\/p>\n<p>6. Community life has been normalised in that part of the country where there was so much of chaos during the time of terrorism.<\/p>\n<p>7. The economic growth in the region has been restored. But during the time of terrorism, there was nothing to look forward to; there were only emptiness and darkness.<\/p>\n<p>8. Fishing, Agriculture and a multitude of other industries have been given renewed life.<\/p>\n<p>9. The social well-being, in terms of education, healthcare and all other facets have been looked into and are developed on par with the rest of the country.<\/p>\n<p>10. In the field of political empowerment, the Provincial Council elections have been held and after a lapse of so many years there is a functioning provincial council. Vast resources were able to be deployed for the development of the Northern Province.<\/p>\n<p>11. The vicious element of separatism has stopped raising its head.<\/p>\n<p>12. Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities are working in conformity with each other for the betterment of the country.<br \/>\n<\/em><br \/>\nIt is well aware that at the current session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, (UNHRC) a resolution is to be passed to set up an International Committee of Inquiry to probe into post war matters in Sri Lanka. Raking up the past at an inquiry will lead to the breaking down of the communal harmony which is very much needed for the development of the country. This will in turn hamper the peace and stability of the country.<\/p>\n<p>As for us, we vehemently oppose an inquiry to investigate into the atrocities committed by the Tamil Tigers, as it too will bring out turmoil in the country, disturbing the peaceful environment.<\/p>\n<p>We humbly and earnestly appeal to the international community to make use of the influence you command, to intervene and urge the governments of the United States of America, United Kingdom, Canada, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Mauritius, the co-sponsors of the Draft Resolution HRC25\/1 &#8220;Promoting reconciliation, accountability, and human rights in Sri Lanka&#8221; to withdraw the same, as passing it at the UNHRC and subsequently implementing it would be harmful to the communal harmony being established, and the peace and stability process taking root in Sri Lanka. Also, it clearly hinders the post &#8211; war reconciliation process currently underway in the country, which is based on Restorative Justice, rather than Retributive Justice<\/p>\n<p>The causes for the unproductive relationship among communities was the physical distance and existence of economic disparities prevailing among the regions.<\/p>\n<p>Any native person from Jaffna had to undertake a tedious and lengthy journey of at least 18 hours to come to the south of the country.<\/p>\n<p>The government of Sri Lanka has realized that the best way to do away with the physical distance among ethnic entities is to construct a highway from Matara to Jaffna and extend the same to reach Kandy, later. It is a happy thing to note that this is being made a reality now. This facilitates the strengthening of inter-community relationship and prospers cordiality among them. It is unbelievable that the international community fails to perceive this situation in its reality. The resolution to be tabled and passed at Geneva will lead to the sad ending of the cordial relation we want to preserve in earnest.<\/p>\n<p>We appeal to you with utmost confidence to make the international community understand in the very near future that Fernandos and Hamines from Matara, Bandaras and Menikes from Kandy, Somasundarams and Parvathis from Jaffna and Mohammeds from Batticaloa will be traveling on the same highway towards the light of development.<\/p>\n<p><em>(H. K. Chandrasiri De Silva (L.L.M. Wales) is an Attorney- at-law. This appeal appears in &#8220;The Island&#8221;of March 15th 2014)<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton28803\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D28803&amp;text=Fernandos%2CHamines%2CBandaras%2CMenikes%2CSomasundarams%2CParvathis%20and%20Mohammeds%20are%20all%20Travelling%20on%20the%20same...%20&amp;related=&amp;lang=en&amp;count=horizontal\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  style=\"width:55px;height:22px;background:transparent url('https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-tweet-button\/tweetn.png') no-repeat  0 0;text-align:left;text-indent:-9999px;display:block;\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By K.K. Chandrasiri De Silva There was a thirty-year conflict and four years have lapsed since the end of the conflict. One has to reflect on what has been achieved on the ground within those four years, and assess if that progress is reasonable. Nobody is saying that the situation is perfect. Still there are &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=28803\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;Fernandos,Hamines,Bandaras,Menikes,Somasundarams,Parvathis and Mohammeds are all Travelling on the same Highway Towards the Light of Development.&rsquo; &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28803"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28803"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28805,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28803\/revisions\/28805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}