‘Seize this moment to build a pluralist Lanka’: CBK

• Delivers 30th S.J.V. Chelvanayakam Memorial Lecture with honest look back at what went so badly wrong in Sri Lanka’s ethnic relations

By Dharisha Bastians Former President Chandrika Kumaratunga, the Government’s focal point on reconciliation, delivered the 30th S.J.V. Chelvanayakam Memorial Lecture last weekend, offering a frank look back at the roots of Sri Lanka’s minorities question and expressing hope that the country would seize an unprecedented moment to create a more inclusive society. Addressing a large crowd at the Kathiresan Hall in Bambalapitiya on Saturday (25), the former Head of State prefaced her lecture by fondly recalling being patted on the head by the Federal Party or Ilankai Tamil ArasuKatchchi (ITAK) Founder Chelvanayakam when she was a little girl. “Mr.Chelvanayakam left no stone unturned in his attempts to arrive at a political settlement of the minorities question,” Kumaratunga noted during her lecture, entitled ‘The Absence of War is Not Peace’. The former President said that the consistent rejection by the State of the demand of the Tamil movements for language parity, had led to increased demands for power sharing through Federalism, and finally the demand for a separate State. “Low levels of development of infrastructure, relatively little opportunity to access quality education and employment, political marginalisation with minimal opportunity to participate in decision-making processes in the political and administrative superstructure, are undoubtedly the root causes that gave rise to the terribly violent conflict,” President Kumaratunga argued. Tracing the history of countless political pacts to address the grievances of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka – manyof them negotiated by Chelvanayakam in the decades after independence, Kumaratunga recalled that every attempt to resolve the question through non-violent means had been thwarted by what she called the “extreme opportunism” of the two major political parties. In that context, Sri Lanka was living through a unique moment, the former President explained. “Today, with the end of the war, as well as the convincing defeat of terrorist politics in our country, we have an opportunity as never before to do what is required to resolve the minorities question, especially the Tamil people’s problems. For the first time since Independence we have the two major parties participating in Government together,” she asserted. Kumaratunga explained that the silence of the guns alone does not bring peace. Peace, she said, entails much more than just victory in a war. “The victor of many wars may not possess the vision nor the ability to build peace. Peace requires strong, committed and visionary political leadership; it requires the will to comprehend and accept the root causes of a conflict and seek solutions to them,” the former President noted. “We have today, won the war. But we have not yet won the peace,” she said. President Kumaratunga said she was confident that the majority of Sri Lankans would support the Government’s enterprise to transform a divided and violent nation into a united, free and prosperous Sri Lanka. “Our efforts to build a democratic, pluralist state, which is the only magic potion I know that can bind together diverse peoples of our multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, multi-religious country and transform it into one undivided and strong nation,” she asserted. To achieve this, the deeply-entrenched fears and attitudes of the people had to be changed, the former President urged. “We cannot continue to dwell on history, chanting forever who did what wrong. We have to rise above hatred, anger, fear to reach out to our primordial humanity. We must start writing on a fresh page, if we are to seize the unprecedented opportunity history has today presented to us,” Kumaratunga called. The daughter of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, whose Government enacted the disastrous Sinhala Only Act in 1956, acknowledged that she was especially honoured to have been invited to deliver the Chelvanayakam lecture, when she hailed from a family with what she called a ‘chequered history’ on Sri Lanka’s minorities question. She defended her father’s legislation however, saying it was not, as many believed, an affirmation of Sinhala supremacy. She said that the SLFP Founder believed that granting the Sinhala language its due place after nearly five centuries of colonial suppression of the Sri Lankan identity and bringing back the official use of Sinhala was seen as the driving force for the regaining of a National Lankan identity. “The mistake made may be said to be that the language of the other two major minorities was not given its due place at the same time and that a third language was not brought in as a link language, as was done in India,” she acknowledged. There were protests from the Tamil diaspora and local groups for inviting former President Kumaratunga to deliver the Chelvanayakam lecture, ITAK representatives introducing the speaker explained. ITAK General Secretary MarvaiSenathirajah, in an emotionally-charged introductory speech, said there was no better advocate than President Kumaratunga today, as Sri Lankan Tamils continue to struggle to win their rights. TNA Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran translated President Kumaratunga’s speech into Tamil soon after her delivery in English. Before the lecture, the former President garlanded a picture of S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, considered the father figure of the Tamil political movement, together with TNA Leader and elder statesman, R. Sampanthan.