| Sept 12 (CG) British Deputy High Commissioner Laura Davies had talks with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in Batticaloa today, the TNA said. The talks had focused on the political environment, particularly in the East, and other related issues including the UN led investigations on Sri Lanka. The TNA called on Britain to impress upon the Govern,About a week ago I read another news item saying the British Ambassador had discussions with the TNA and some anti government elements in JaffnaI have two pertinent questions in this regard.First, what is the legitimate mandate of a diplomatic officer who is representing his country in another?Second, why does the Government of Sri Lanka keep silent and blind on this type of repeated violations and abuses of diplomatic norms and privileges by the British or any other representative who had no business engage in this type of discussions and interfere in the internal matters of this country Isn’t this tantamount to blatant violation of their mandateOne need not be a political scientist or a historian to know the devastation done by the British to this country from1797 up to 1948 and what they continue to do to even today to destroy and destabilize this Island nation. Even a tiny tot on the street is aware of the destructions and crimes they have done to this nation over the years. Look at the millions of South Indians whom they have planted right at the center of the country in the hill country to work on their plantations, not to enrich Sri Lanka but Great Briton and left them behind creating an eternal headache to this country; the nurturing of Jaffna Tamils against the Sinhalese; the destruction they did to the primeval forest, the water resources and the land of this country on the central hill country by destroying nearly 6oo,ooo acres of virgin forest in the Hill country; the murdering of thousands of patriotic people in the wake of the 1818 and 1848 freedom struggles; destruction and neglect of the Irrigation works and institutional heritage of the Sinhala society; plundering of billions worth of archaeological and epigraphic material and other assets and destroying our language, religion and culture. we must alsoIn the light of what they have done and continue to do even today. Beside chasing them out from this country, at least now we must claim compensation from these colonial rouges for the devastations and crimes they have committed against its people, particularly the Kandyans, the crimes against whom even their own people like John Davy have recorded in the following manner.the history of British rule in Sri Lanka after the 1818 rebellion cannot be related without shame. None of the members of the leading families in the Kandyan country have survived. Small pox and privation have destroyed those spared by the gun and the sword.’ John Davy 1821 An Account of the Interior of Ceylon.It is also said that all males over 16 years of age were slaughtered by them and only those few who found refuge in the eastern coastal lowlands survived. Who were left were massacred in the 1848 Matale rebellion.We would like to remind the present British diplomat in Colombo that this is how even her ancestors have acted in the past. Therefore they should stop interfering in our domestic matters at least now. |
