Kandy academics including some who actively supported President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the last Presidential election have sent an open letter to warn him that the country is on a path of destruction.
The group says:
“Politics that justify killings, and upholds them as heroism, has condemned the life of the average person - whose only hope is peace and self respect - to one of unending fear and misery.
People are beginning to believe that the government has opted for a military solution to the ethnic conflict. The main cause for this situation is the important place given to the propaganda that simplifies the democratic traditions to “war against terrorism.”
The letter signed by Prof. A.M. Navaratne Banda, Prof. Ranjith Amarasinghe, Dr. Michael Fernando, Lal Wijenayake, Ranjit Wijekoon, Dr. G. Weerasinghe, Dr. Jayampathy Wickremaratne, and N.M. Saifdeen says:
“As a group of individuals including some of’ who actively supported you at the last Presidential elections we decided to submit this memorandum to express our deep concern about the perilous situation prevailing in the country today. We feel that this trend has to he arrested and that it is our duty to assist the process and prevent the country from sliding further by becoming a prey to communalism, terrorism and reaction.
“We do not dispute the need for taking measures to defeat the terrorism of the LTTE. How ever we are disturbed that a media campaign is being carried out to spread the view that it is only through military measures the ethnic conflict could be resolved.“It is regrettable that the “war on terrorism” is being waged at the cost of long cherished democratic traditions of this country and the way life of its people.
“It is the inability of our political leaders to work out just and reasonable norms providing the foundation for a solution for peaceful coexistence between all nations that has compelled those leaders to seek refuge in the slogan. “War against terrorism”. This has been the motto of successive political leaders since 1983 and the same historical mistake is being revived today.
“Our attention has also been drawn to the fact that Sri Lanka with a history of commitment to democratic freedom and human rights has now come to he criticized by the international community on account of her recent record of human rights protection. We foresee the danger of the developing dispute with the UN bodies on the issues of disappearances, abductions and the war-displaced, leading to Sri Lanka being isolated within the international community,
“We firmly believe that the development of a democratic power sharing arrangement that could make all ethnic groups full partners of’ this state can only be achieved through a dialogue within the political arena, I this cannot he realized, your promises of “solving the ethnic conflict through maximum evolution” will no more than a mere dream. If this cannot be achieved your cherished idea of “solution of the ethnic conflict through maximum devolution of power” will be no more than just a dream.