A glimmer of Hope

The waiting is over, the news from Wanni has arrived - there will be talks.

After weeks of bloodshed, doubt and fear finally there is a cause for celebration and a reason for hope. Hope that whatever happened during the past weeks, months and indeed yesterday will be behind us and a path to a more resilient peace will be before us.

So let us first wish the current administration of the Government of Sri Lanka, all the very best and god’s good graces in perhaps their greatest undertaking yet. Let us hope with all their inadequacies of appropriate leadership and skill, they will somehow be able to pull it off. Equally importantly Let us also be thankful to the man they call the ‘white tiger’, for this particular mission, nobody else could have done. Let us also be thankful to that other man they called the ‘traitor’ the ‘don juan’ and so many other horrible things, for what he has practiced and preached for years has been realized today.

When the man signed the agreement of the ceasefire, they said he was giving away the country; today they are desperate to implement it. When his delegation started the negotiations, they said the terrorists must first lay down arms; today they just want them to stop using arms. When the talks were held in Oslo and Bangkok, they said he was touring with the terrorists and talks must be held within the ‘motherland’, today they have agreed to hold talks in Geneva, no, not part of the ‘motherland’. When the man lost the reins of power, he asked them to engage in dialogue irrespective of its basis; they said the dialogue must be based on a final solution, today there is no basis mentioned. He said the country would slip into war if the talks didn’t resume. They said no. but he was right and ‘they’ were wrong. Lives could have been spared, time could have been saved, and things would have looked brighter. Yes, it’s a shame he’s not leading this country, but that’s our loss, not his own.

Despite this bit of good news, in the current way of things it is easy to justify war; it is easy to condemn terrorism, and condemn the terrorists, it is easy to say that to attain an ‘honorable peace’ we must first wage war. But that’s the easy thing to do. We need leaders today who can do the difficult things, the difficult thing as of this moment would be the commitment for peace, it is difficult because of all it’s complex underpinnings, because of it’s history and because all those who dared to tread the path of peace have failed to date, the only person to have tasted partial success could last long enough in the temple trees to attain his goal. That indeed is one of the hurdles; the path of peace and dialogue would not only require the resolve to tame the warmongers of the north, but also the resolve to tame the warmongers of the south, armed with their words of hate, which at times are more efficient than bullets and bombs.

Come what may, let the middle minded Sri Lankan know that this conflict can only really end by way of dialogue and diplomacy and not through claymore mines and paramilitaries. For those who think that permanent peace can only be achieved by dialogue there is no other way, for those who question, rightly, about the sincerity and the commitment of the ‘rebels’ then all I can say is that the best trap that we can lay for them is that of peace and not that of war. May that be realized.

Deane.

p.s – on a total different topic, today also saw the crossing over of two ‘ dissidents ‘ from the ‘green party’ to the government, reports say there is more to come. The reason given is that the MPs need to ‘offer their skills’ to the serve the people and country rather than wasting them in the opposition. Cutely put. But I strongly believe sirs that the right to serve your country and your people must be won, not surrendered. Ideals and beliefs cannot be traded, bought or exchanged.

Oh and yea.. about the whole post .. I was kinda feelin a little speechy :)

Cheers
~CC~ AKA Deane J