EDITORIAL : THE DAILY MIRROR, SRILANKA

Liberty, where are thy friends   A strong school of thought is emerging in Mother Lanka as to where our country is heading and whether there are trends towards militarization. The presence of the Army and Police in large numbers on the streets of Colombo gives red light signals. Recently Prof. Jeevan Hoole who was invited by the President to return to his country to live and work has gone public with his fear. Dr. Hoole has stated that at the last meeting of the Friends of the Jaffna Library held in Jaffna, an Army Officer had walked in, had continued to stay there and had told those present they could not in any way remember Velupillai Prabhakaran and the LTTE. This happened soon after the week when the government remembered May 19, 2009.The recent tragic death of the Katunayake Free Trade Zone worker also added to the fear. There is an International Law which prohibits police  from using live bullets to handle a trade union or other democratic protests. Moreover there was a court order concerning the funeral of the victim and the security forces were prominently present at the funeral. We also heard a note of unprophetic compromise in the sermon. This trend swept the highest seats of learning with some 10,000 new entrants to universities being compelled to undergo military-style training. Contrary to the thinking of the revered Sir Ivor Jennings on the concept of the principles of university education, the Higher Education Ministry is now telling the universities what to do and what to teach. The syllabus raises questions as to whether we are building a new Sri Lanka on the vision of multi racial, multi religious and multi cultural unity in diversity. One cannot link these and other developments with the noble mission of reconciliation and many independent analysts are raising questions as to whether the work of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission will also end in some archives like the reports of so many commissions and committees. The revered civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr was right when he said that the sin of our times is the silence of the majority. If liberty could speak it would cry out that what hurts more is not the sword of the enemy but the silence of the friend.