Once I got late to be at a deathbed as a result of the confusion caused by these buses. I have seen ambulances behind vehicles moving on Elvitigala Road being blocked at the turn off to Kirimandala Mawatha. These ambulances carry patients.

All these take place because drivers — especially private bus drivers — do not keep to the lanes despite reminders in big letters.

The police must do something about this. They must insist that vehicles should stick to lanes. Can something be done, please?

Political parties by their narrow policies have made this island a fools’ paradise, now on the brink of a failed state. The UNP passed the Citizenship Act No. 18 of 1948 depriving 60 lakhs of Tamil people their fundamental rights. Succeeding governments dragged their feet in rectifying this grave injustice and it took 40 years.

The SLFP passed the Sinhala Only Act No. 33 of 1956 denying the Tamil speaking people the right to their language. In 1957 their Leader S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike signed a pact with the Tamil leader S.J.V. Chelvanayagam, referred to as the B-C pact. UNP Leader J.R.Jayewardene led a protest march to Kandy in mid 1957. Bhikkus performed satyagraha at S.W.R.D’s private residence in May 1958. In 1959 S.W.R.D was assassinated, masterminded by two venerated bhikkus. To rectify the injustice done to the Tamil-speaking people it took 32 years. With the passage of the 16th Amendment to the constitution on December 17, 1988, Tamil language is enshrined in the constitution, but for the past 19 years governments are dragging their feet in its implementation.

Over the years from small bickering, issues have snowballed into major conflicts and a civil war for want of trust, understanding and compromise.

Every political party has been primarily concerned with its own survival, and politicians with amassing wealth. Politics in this country is the most prolific business, and the underworld the politicians’ grand alliance. The likes of Lal Bahadur Shastri, Gulzarilal Nanda and Kamraj Nadar of Bharat are hard to find in Sri Lanka.

Day in and day out there is only lip service paid to a political solution but no action. Red herrings are brought in to postpone this anxiously awaited finality. A political solution is only a mirage in Sri Lanka.

S.Thambyrajah
Colombo 3

Laughing at people is not very funny, but laughing at politicians is thought to be legitimate and funny. The reasoning is simple. They are a bunch of jokers anyway and should be able to take a joke! It is said that the British survived the Great War by laughing at Hitler, especially his silly mustache. We need to have some humour, political or otherwise, to tide us over these tragic times, these murderous times, this winter of our discontent. Otherwise we will all go mad.

Recently, the President, keeping to his style led a jumbo delegation of 260 plus hand picked people including some Buddhist monks to China. It was supposed to be a love feast: The celebration of a 50-year love affair.

But things did not begin too well. All the Chinese big shots had made themselves scarce and sent in only a deputy minister — a podian — to welcome our Head of State. Sad. So sad. How can you blame them, really? The Chinese — one and a half billion of them —had of course heard of George, Tony, Pervez, Manmohan, Kim Jong and even Robert of Zimbabwe. But Mahinda? Who, what, where? Animal, vegetable or mineral? So all the pomp and circumstance and trumpets and fanfare did not appear for our man. On the other hand, who would want to provide gun salutes and honour guards to 260 plus begging bowls in a jumbo jet?

Our famous state media which officially covered the visit did not tell us the whole story of what the jumbo delegation actually did for six long days. It is all out in the open now. It seems that the real reason for the visit was a teach-in on human rights, religious, media and other freedoms on which the Chinese were experts. Once this main event was taken care of, they spent most of the remaining part of the six days admiring the Great Wall from all angles.

The President had secretly wished, we are told, that some kind souls — Chinese perhaps — would help him build one like that here in Sri Lanka. Wouldn’t that be nice to keep some troublesome groups like the independent media permanently out of circulation?

However, there are no reports, official or otherwise, about what the Buddhist monks of the delegation said or did during those six days in China.

With so much time on their hands, someone suggested that they learn something truly Chinese while they are there. How about Chinese cooking? No, no... Colombo is full of too many Chinese cooks...! How about the ancient art of water torture? The defence expert of the group cautioned that that art was old news: that the Sri Lanka Police and the armed forces were quite familiar with the technology — actually very familiar.

They had another bright idea thinking of the population explosion and hunger for land in Sri Lanka — why not learn the Chinese secret of expanding the square-footage of the land? It was very simple, they were told: Just get the army and walk into a small helpless county like Tibet and take it over. Just like that! Then you tell the Tibetans that there never was and never will be a place called Tibet— only another province of a greater China.

They should really be proud about being part of the great Chinese empire. And another thing —forget about this Buddhist business. Henceforth you are communists. Of course they did not mention that the gentle Buddhist Leader, Dalai Lama, escaped to India with his life.

The delegation was sad that we had no small, poor, Tibet near us to do a Tibet like the Chinese. Actually, the only country near us is a Big Brother north of us who is staring down at us. And we had better not talk too loud. Why give ideas to people? What if the Big Brother gets the idea to do a Tibet on us?

But all jolly parties must come to and end. The moment they touched down in Sri Lanka, they heard the bad news that the price of bread (the poor man’s bread) had gone sky high and that the people were restless. The world-travellers were furious. One Minister was particularly angry: "We imported that guy...what’s his name ...yes, yes ...that Bandula Gunawardena fellow. He said he was a genius and would bring down the prices and fix the economy in a flash... what is he doing?" Another Minister, a particularly stout one, was heard to say: "What’s all this fuss about bread... why can’t they eat chicken buryani like us?"

I read with keen interest Upatissa Gamanayake’s letter which appeared in The Morning Leader of March 7.

Human rights violations in foreign missions in Sri Lanka take place in many forms as stated by Gamanayake in his letter. These missions violate labour laws of the host country as well as their own countries. Many missions do not issue appointment letters to their employees which is a basic right of any employee.

Our Foreign Affairs Ministry may say the foreign missions operating here enjoy diplomatic immunity and hence such lapses cannot be challenged. If these missions do not want to follow the laws and regulations of this country, they could at least follow the laws in force in their own countries.

The Sri Lanka government and the LTTE are being portrayed as human rights violators by the international community. However they all are silent when it comes to the infringement of human rights of Sri Lankan employees in foreign missions operating in Sri Lanka. Is it that they are turning a blind eye to the situation or are they genuinely not aware of the human rights violations committed by these missions?

Human right violations are a serious matter and should be viewed by the human rights watchdogs in the same light wherever and in whatever form it occurs.

I appeal to the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry not to give excuses when its citizens in foreign missions undergo numerous hardships but explore the possibility of establishing a complaints unit where the affected persons could lodge complains against such violations. These complaints could then be investigated with a view to obtaining suitable redress to the affected persons. If violations of human rights are clearly proved in the course of the investigations the Sri Lankan Government could take up the matter with the governments of the countries represented by these missions and have the offending head of mission recalled by the government of that country.

Several thousands of ‘brothers’ from all over the world came to Sri Lanka to get the blessings of our spiritual leader in January. We brought a lot of foreign exchange to your country.

Bambalapitiya was a good location. But to send souvenirs to our countries we had to go to Colpetty as there was no post office in this big town. Even to buy stamps it was the same. We had to pay taxi hire to go to Colpetty.

As the new minister in charge of posts and telecommunications please look into this and remedy this shortcoming. It is a big mistake on the part of the former minister and the Postal Department. Please give priority to this.

Khan Boy, India
Anwar Ali, Pakistan
Abdul Ali, Kuwait
Anwar Khan Dubai

Navin Dissanayake has put his foot in his mouth. Navin should get on to the streets to find out as to who has become the laughing stock of the people in Sri Lanka and the entire world. The people cannot cry but laugh at the shameless clowns who have joined the carnival of clowns as quite rightly claimed by the clown himself who keeps shamelessly somersaulting. How true is the adage that birds of a feather flock together.

Had not Ranil signed the CFA, our soldiers would not have had the much needed five years interval to train themselves to be the gallant soldiers they are today. Hurrah to Ranil.

He was a teacher and a man whom I will always remember with affection and gratitude. He was an all-rounder in every respect; teaching not only the academic subjects and supervising the activities on the sports field, but also instructing, inculcating and impressing on every one of us the principles of discipline. A strict disciplinarian who exerted his authority with firmness and gentleness always conscious of the feelings of the individual.

We particularly enjoyed his English class, where he took great pains to teach the correct pronunciation and usage of what he always referred to as the ‘Queen’s English.’ I remember one incident in the English class when he was having trouble with a particular student who did not seem to get it right with regard to pronunciation. He finally in exasperation threw up his hands and shouted out — "Why can’t you get it right? You guys keep saying ball for bowl, and for bowl, you say ball."

He was not the ‘specialist,’ teacher of the type we have today who confines himself to the subject he teaches and the classroom only. You could see Earl Sir, walking all over the school during the breaks and after classes interacting with the students.

Not only with the students, but he made it a point to keep in touch with our parents as most of us lived in Moratuwa and Earl Sir, found the time to drop in occasionally at one of our homes. In this way he was intimately involved with the lives of the boys and a wonderful relationship existed between him and our parents who greatly respected him.

We always had the impression that we were under his watchful eye at all times and this contributed to ensuring good behaviour of the students outside the school.

It was only last week that he was laid to rest not far from college and although we won’t see him out on the streets any longer, his spirit will be felt within the portals of the college he loved so much.

It was so unfortunate that my friend Sisila Rathnayake passed away at a young age of 42 years. He was a fearless ruggerite and a great basketball player representing his alma mater — Royal College — during the early ’80s and winning college colours for both sports. He captained the college senior basketball team in 1981 and represented the Sri Lanka schools basketball team at the Senior Nationals the same year.

After leaving college he found employment in the mercantile sector and met his life’s partner whilst he was employed in the Kurunegala District. They settled down in Kurunegala — his wife’s hometown after marriage to start family life.

Sisi as we used to call him, was a very loving husband to his wife Chithrani and a dutiful and caring father to his two sons Livith and Senel who still weep over the sudden demise of their father.

He touched the hearts of many by his simplicity and unassuming ways and was a dear friend to all of us and a thorough gentleman, who will be remembered for his gentlemanly qualities. He was also an active figure and fitted in very well among any group of friends he met up with.

His untimely death has shocked all of us, but as the saying goes ‘the good die young,’ — Sisila too had to die young.

Good Bye dear friend, yours was an exemplary life to all of us and we will miss you deeply in our lives; but your memories will always linger in our hearts.

May he attain the supreme bliss of nibbana.