The JVP was able to send a member to parliament for the first time only in 1994. He was Nihal Galappathy and he is the only JVP member who has served the full term of six years in parliament and qualified for a pension.  In 2000 there were 10 JVP members in parliament but that parliament was dissolved in 2001. 

The new parliament of 2001 had 14 JVP members but was dissolved in 2004.  Therefore of all the JVP parliamentarians only Galappathy was eligible to receive a pension.

In 2004 the JVP was able to send 38 members to parliament having joined the PA to form the UPFA government, but soon broke away and sat in the opposition.  It is this government that has been in existence for three and a half years that they are now trying to protect as shown by the way they abstained from voting at the final vote on the budget.

If the government had been defeated at the budget vote on December 14 and a general election were to be held thereafter the JVP members would lose not only their pensions but will also have to face a hostile electorate where they might not have been able to get even 15 members elected to parliament. 

This is a fact they are well aware of and it is for this reason that they are protecting the government at the expense of the people who are undergoing immense suffering and yearning for a change of government.

The JVP has betrayed the suffering masses they claim to represent after what they did on December 14.  The JVP might think they can prolong the life of this government until 2010 to get over the pension problem even at the expense of the suffering masses. But the longer they help to keep this government in power, the greater will be the suffering of the people and the greater their unpopularity with the people.

The day of reckoning will come very soon when the suffering people will themselves take to the streets with their families to have this government thrown out and the JVP dealt with at the electorate level when it is time for them to face a general election.

R. Senaratne
Moratuwa

Although it is more than 20 years since Tamil was made an official language, a Tamil who addresses a communication to the government in Tamil does not receive a reply in Tamil, which is his birth right. This month I received a printed copy of a life certificate in Sinhala and English but not in Tamil, to be perfected and returned to the Divisional Secretariat which pays my pension.

I complained about it in the press. But who takes any notice of complaints regarding non-implementation of an Act pertaining to the use of Tamil?

This is not a stray case. This is the normal practice in this country and the cause of this war and the resultant suffering. There are many individuals in Sri Lanka including the intelligentsia who foolishly ask whether the Tamils in this country are being discriminated against, and if so what their grievances are. But if any Tamil were to stand up and say what their grievances are and how they are being discriminated against, he would immediately be branded either as an LTTEer, an LTTE sympathiser or a supporter, and perhaps that would be his end, as we have seen in the past.

If eminent persons as Rev. Fr. Tissa  Balasuriya, in a sense of justice and fairplay would speak about this matter with facts and figures, he too will be branded as an LTTE supporter or being in the pay of the LTTE or a traitor.  If a foreigner were to say that there is discrimination against the Tamils in Sri Lanka, he too would be called a terrorist or a person bought over by the LTTE, as we have seen happen recently.

During the latter part of 1999 when Professor Ratnajeevan Hoole said that Tamils were being overlooked by government and professional bodies, Prof. Kalasuriya refuted that statement.  Before Prof. Hoole replied Prof. Kalasuriya, I pointed out that in the matter of promotion of 18 Assistant Superintendents of Police to the rank of Superintendents of Police, the Tamils and Muslims had been discriminated against as out of the 18 promotions given there wasn't a single Tamil or a Muslim.

Many persons including intellectuals objected to my statement and asked dramatically whether the Tamils really had any grievances and if so what those grievances were.  They refuted my arguments citing cases of promotions of Tamils which were few and far between.

The government openly says that it is not against the Tamils and is genuinely trying to save them from the clutches of the LTTE. This is in spite of the government having abundantly made it clear that the President and the government were elected by the Sinhala Buddhists who are the majority in this country and that the President is concerned only about the welfare of that section of the people and no one else.

I have found that it is a futile exercise to try to meet the arguments of these people, because it is not that they do not see the discrimination taking place, but because they refuse to see and understand and are only duping and ridiculing themselves by doing so.

But I must however say, there are right thinking persons in the majority community in this decadent and degenerating society who can see and feel the discrimination taking place against the Tamils, and that fact alone is a matter of consolation to the Tamils in this country.

Arul
Colombo 3

Australia is a great country where more than 190 ethnic groups and multi religious people from other parts of the world live in peace and harmony, speaking 200 languages, including 45 indigenous languages.

Voting at an election is compulsory in Australia.

At the recently concluded federal parliamentary elections more than 13.6 million voters went to the polls to elect their representatives to the Federal Parliament in Canberra.  The polling stations were open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.  There were 1421 candidates and 7723 polling stations around Australia.

Calm and peace prevailed everywhere. There was neither disruption of traffic nor any unruly incidents. People went about their business as on any normal working day.

The results came by 10 p.m and nearly 80% of the results were known by midnight.

Australia's 26th Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had promised he would be prime minister for all Australians. During his election campaign he pledged greater attention and support to the migrant community and fair treatment to everyone under his Labour Government.

Prime Minister Kevin's cabinet of ministers is limited to 40 members.

Sri Lanka has a lot to learn from Australia on how the elections were held in a peaceful manner with absolutely no violence before or after the results were announced.

It would be better if the Sri Lanka government could sent officials from the Elections Department, Police and Rupavahini on a study tour to Australia to learn how the recent elections were conducted in Australia.

In Sri Lanka, it was the taxpayers' money that was wasted by President Mahinda Rajapakse taking jumbo delegations to foreign countries - particular mention has to be made of the trip to China this year with 266 of his close associates. This money could have been put into better use.

Is this not an absolute waste of the taxpayers' money which could have been spent in sending technicians, research professionals and others to countries such as Australia, Britain, Canada France and Germany or even to India, Singapore and Japan for training?  This will enable these officers to learn the techniques of keeping the country clean.

F.A. Rodrigo-Sathianathan
Australia 

"English is our gateway to world culture and world literature. English is absolutely necessary for international communication and it is the medium by which we can acquire scientific knowledge. But all these undeniable facts do not constitute an argument to discard and disregard the national languages or to give them a subordinate place." - Martin Wickramasinghe, Aspects Of Sinhalese Culture, 1952.

British High Commissioner Dominic Chilcott perhaps had not evaluated the underlying reasons for the introduction of Sinhala as the national language and thus provoked divergent thoughts to be expressed in newspapers.

I was two years in employment, serving in an outstation financial institution, 100 miles away from the parental home at the time the new legislation was introduced. Having passed the SSC in the English medium and having read prose and verse of the Shakespearen era and of the subsequent authors and studied economics, Latin and mathematics, many divergent thoughts innately engulfed me.

Among them were the absence, immediately of books in Sinhala for all subjects taught in schools, possibility of translating terms used in science, mathematics and in other subjects, availability of few Sinhala books for general reading other than the books of Martin Wickramasinghe, Piyadasa Sirisena and of others, the ability to correspond and transact business with organisations in foreign countries and the ability of the Tamil and Burgher communities to discharge their responsibilities in Sinhala.

But over the years such fears have been overcome, but the legacy of an ill planed and hasty political blunder is still trailing us.

The author of the Sinhala only concept with his Western education in a prestigious university and with his inherent astute political awareness was conscious and not ignorant of the damage to the educational and social framework of a united nation by introducing a language policy change within 24 hours.

Yet, he sacrificed the harmonious living environment that prevailed among the many nationalities for the personal prestige of becoming the head of state. He was aware that a Sinhala only campaign could win the sympathy, mainly of the rural masses that constituted the majority of the voters.

Sinhalese masses carried away by platform politics, sacrificed the future - especially of their children - by not insisting that English language as a subject should be taught in schools, so that they would be competent to read books written in English, mainly on science and technology and gain knowledge.

But his children were not educated in their mother language, instead he sent them abroad to prestigious universities to study in the English language and compelled the natives to study in Sinhala.

Now there are books written by Sinhalese and Tamil authors and translated books too, but reading in the original language of eminent scientists and philosophers, would unmistakably give a clear insight to the thoughts and analytical conclusions of the authors.

Educating a child in the mother language should be the arrangement, with English as a compulsory subject, which will enable the students to have access to the internet, read books written about scientists, philosophers and of other eminent persons, attend foreign universities for higher studies and be able to participate in conferences and lectures abroad.

Mahatma Gandhi during his visit to Ceylon in November 1927, addressing the students of Mahinda College, Galle, had expressed a cogent view; " I am certain that the children of the nation that receives instruction in a tongue other than their own commit suicide. It robs of their birthright. A foreign medium means an undue strain upon the youngsters, it robs them of all originality."

The father of Sinhala Only would have been aware of this dictum, but for him perhaps political success was the critically important factor and sacrificed the national amity that prevailed.

Amor Patriae

May I be permitted to appeal through the medium of your renowned paper that two testimonial cricket matches be organised and the proceeds be handed over to our dashing veteran cricketer Sanath Jayasuriya. My suggestions are enunciated below:

(a) One testimonial to be organised by the Matara Cricket Club with the help of other clubs in the vicinity to help in this venture. It would be appropriate if all government and private sector organisations would lend a helping hand to bid farewell to this most unassuming cricketer.

(b) A second testimonial to be played at SSC cricket grounds with the help of the clubs in the vicinity to make this match a resounding success.

(c)  One team could be led by Sanath Jayasuriya with the option to choose his players; and the other captained by Marvan Atapattu with the option to choose his players.

I earnestly request all sportsmen in Sri Lanka to write in with their views. Sri Lanka Cricket must be kept out of this venture for obvious reasons.

L.J.E.M. de Silva
Paiyagala