Features
Village school reaches internet heaven and its irrigation tank gets new sluice gates
Experiences with dedicated officials worth commenting on
by Lokubanda Tillakaratne
My village Maradankalla is located six kilometres south off Anuradhapura-Trincomalee Road (A12) above Mahakanadarawa wewa, near Mihintale, in the North Central Province. But I have lived in Los Angeles for the past 43 years. During all these years, this village is where my heart has been.
Although the history of Maradankalla spans centuries, it was not on the map of the country until 1947 when its elders built the one-room school hoping the government would hear about it and step into support. Soon after it was built, the small wattle and daub schoolhouse got space for the village on the maps that came out later. In the same year, the Anuradhapura Madya Maha Vidyalaya was started 10 kilometres south of the Sacred City, under the Central College concept of the C.W. W. Kannangara era. It remains the jewel and the axis mundi of the provincial education. But as time passed, villagers realized this well-thought of Kannangara idea helped create an educational tribal system. That’s a story for another day.
The two tales I write about say how this small village in the backwoods of Anuradhapura District got connected to telephone landlines and internet to its school, got two new sluice gates and a new spillway for its irrigation tank which irrigates 60 acres of paddy lands. This is an ode to all those involved in these projects discussed here.
For A/GB/Maradankalla school, the telephone line is the instant highway to communication and the internet heaven which most city folks take for granted. The two new sluice gates will replace leaky sluices built probably in the dinosaur age.
Disparate and Separate,Supposedly Equal
Sadly, though, over the last few decades, some schools, a few kilometres from Maradankalla, lost their map space and disappeared into the hereafter. One such school is A/GB/Ihalagama, above Mahakanadarawa wewa. It is deserted now. Its crumbling buildings occupy an eerie landscape overgrown with brush. Now only the families of elephants come there daily for night classes!
Nevertheless, thanks to the untiring dedication of the teaching staff and resilience of parents, Maradankalla school still survives, like similar schools threatened with lack of modern facilities and difficulties, to keep up with well-equipped schools elsewhere. This school is still a magnet to 180 students from a few villages around it. Like its sister schools in similarly remote areas, it has precious talent and hidden gems. Every year, it sends a couple of students to city schools on 5th grade scholarship examination results. One such student, a resident of Maradankalla itself, just graduated from the Peradeniya Medical School. Another is a Law College graduate. Few more attend universities still as I write this. So, any epithet that the village school students lack potential is a myth and an outright insult.
This shows what failure and shame rural education had been on the part of all of us. In my reckoning, this misfortune was due to lukewarm Interest from the education authorities to highlight and address the systemic decay in education equality in village schools, and failure to provide an environment with new pedagogical ideas and improvements to arrest the degeneration and make these schools attractive and competitive. Retooling them to fight the draw of urban sprawl and slow down students from migrating to the city schools never found a footing here. This put parents at greater disadvantage and pressure, appallingly first with pervasive national disgrace of payoffs to school officials to get the child’s place in the city school, and other related costs.
On the other hand, Madya Maya Vidyalaya, of the same age as Maradankalla school, has over 4000 students, and is crowded to suffocation. As expected, it sends many scores of students every year to universities for higher studies. It is in the class of education royalty with the designation of ‘National School’ which is generally rewarded with, among other perks, a computer room of substantial size with internet facilities. A NASA regional Control Room comes to my mind.
But no one should get lulled into thinking that students in the schools in run-down sections of the cities get the short end of educational opportunities and second-hand treatment, too, and use it as defence to rationalize inequities students in village schools receive. Less than exemplary treatment of schools in poorer sections of the city is an injustice beyond comparison, and unacceptable. But in the village, I might add, patronized by herds of wild elephants on a nightly basis and staffed by stellar teachers, the level of educational assistance the kids there get is so bad, it is an unspeakable travesty and tragedy. One should not tell me otherwise. I know. Because I once lived through it!
Until a few weeks ago, Maradankalla school had no phone landlines, therefore it was locked out of the Internet. But it has two working computers sitting in a converted classroom. Computer facilities elsewhere with every unit connected to the Internet and usually declared opened with pageantry by VIPs of the Machiavellian political nobility, in a room bristling with air-conditioning and so much care, to enter them one must remove shoes to prevent dust and detritus desecrating their holy environment.
Meanwhile, the principal of the village school sends his mandatory reports to the Kalaape (Zonal) office through his handphone, or while Gedara Yana Gaman through a copy. And faxing store in the town.For the principal in the city, it is so quotidian, it only takes him few keystrokes on his desktop computer: Disparate and separate but supposedly equal.
Homework or Looking for Landmines?
According to the Computer Literacy Survey for 2021 by the Department of Census and Statistics, North Central Province scored the lowest computer literacy rate in the country at 24.8% while the highest was reported, no surprise there, in the Western Province at 47.1%. Maradankalla feels the heat of this alarming disparity. It sits in the dead centre of the North Central Province.
When education policymakers send out fiat asking students to do homework using Internet on their handphones, they give little thought to these survey results. For convenience, these experts who devise education policies take them out of the equation. For them, the homework is for all students across the board, without caste or creed, in well-equipped schools and in schools with one or two working computers in a converted classroom.
Without land phone lines, a village school student has no access to the Internet, even if one is lucky enough to have a computer at home. These students use their parents’ flip phones, not the cool Samsung type others carry around with conceit. When the Education Lords ask these students to do homework and ZOOM classes by phone or at home at Maradankalla, it is akin to Marie Antoinette telling her subjects “Let them eat cake.”
During the COVID times, well, those few students who managed to have the out-of-production phones climbed the rocky outcrop by their village temple to do homework. They pointed the phones literally in all directions looking for good reception. The sad irony of this is that anyone who saw them would have mistaken them for looking for landmines using metal detectors! Meanwhile, our own Antoinettes and Antons of the policymaking fellowship carry beauties in the Rs. 200,000 range talking to their children attending foreign universities or working in embassies and consulates overseas. This is not hearsay or imagination. This is the reality.
After the Internet crept in as an educational tool, and not having it in Maradankalla school, for a long time I wanted to do something to mollify the burden dumped on its students and teachers by this ‘fair and modern educational atrocity.’ I spoke to the principal and decided to write to government officials and the private phone companies to see if they could help us to build the road to the Internet here. Sadly, after introducing Internet-based pedagogical practices, the education authorities seem to have not made any coordinated efforts to get village schools like Maradankalla connected to the wired telephone world.
In response to our appeals, the DIALOG phone company showed its heart and worth and stepped in. A couple of years ago, they built a giant tower about 400 metres from the school, hoping reception signals would improve. But the school was still out of luck as for some unknown reason, the signals were not strong enough to have a reliable and viable Internet connection to the school.
A Pensioner’s Crusade
Then, in 2018, I and my brother T. A. M. B. Thilakarathna, a retired special education teacher, took it upon us and wrote to SLT-MOBITEL in Anuradhapura for help to get a landline rolled out to the village. We knew it was a gargantuan task, probably a request that would easily end up in the waste-paper basket. That year when I came home on vacation, I also went to the Telecom office and repeated our request.
We knew the thought of rolling out six kilometres of coir rope was irrational and testing enough, thinking of a fibre-optic phone line even half that length connecting us to satellites many stratospheres above was beyond insane. But my brother, amiable, persistent and with an infectious smile at every turn, began to visit government offices in Anuradhapura looking for a solution to this problem. His milk-white fluffy beard resembling that of a Himalayan Rishi and matching moustache of a Ravana mirrored his determination for success. The unkept white band of hair in the back of his bald head danced like tail feathers of a messenger pigeon in flight.
Sure enough, as weeks and months passed behind him, the message he carried resonated enough, this unassuming retiree’s frequent visits to the telecom offices must have made its administrators’ hearts soften. They listened and decided to do something about his plight. Soon, the machinery of the bureaucracy came to life, loosened their joints and Maradankalla got the ticket to its wish – a phone landline to join the Internet.
(I must note with appreciation that our efforts on this project were boosted by the encouragement, advice and inordinate support we received from Themiya Hurulle, a patron with deep ancestral roots and affinity to the region.)
For a span of three weeks last month, the SLT-MOBITEL technicians and engineers worked on the construction of the phone lines. Showing his own hospitality and dedication, my brother spent a good portion of his monthly retirement deposit to buy food packets daily for about half a dozen workers.
Finally, the parents, their children and teachers got their desideratum granted. The school is now in the Internet brotherhood. I am paying its monthly Internet bills and my wife Niranjala, and daughter Mihiri have teamed up to design some ZOOM activities with the students. These gestures are not as grandiose as a parent buying a bus for a school, a new cricket pitch in the playground, all embarrassing and shameful but commonplace now in most schools in populous areas. But at least on paper, this school seems like it is on a level playing field on the Internet. A round-the-clock air-conditioned room with new computers will complete the curve. That is another educational infrastructure matter the school must work on.
Finally, my brother successfully persuaded 20 households out of 53 in the village to have landphone connections! He even paid half of some villagers’ application fees. That is evidence of how much interest these villagers have given a chance to better their lives.
Last month, when I came home with my family to Maradankalla on vacation, I found myself having to deal with another pressing problem in the village. This time it was another arm of the government bureaucracy.
Every time I come home on vacation, early in the next morning usually, almost as a ritual, we take a stroll on the tank bund in front of our home to listen to the songs of water birds, feel the warmth of the cold air blowing across the tank bed and watch the breathtaking sight of the morning sun radiating off dewy rice paddies spotted with peacocks pacing with glitter and swank.
However, on this day what we saw on the bund dampened our spirits. The two sluice gates, (horowwa) were mournfully open to the dry tank bed where sandbags covered their openings. They were cracked, and chunks of concrete were falling apart. Then at the end of Medieval-like Sluice gate. Note the cracks and sandbag used to open and close it.
The bund, the spillway had fallen apart due to shoddy construction and being part of an elephant crossing. I took 27 photos and decided to go and meet someone at the Provincial Irrigation Office about this potential calamity looming ahead in the coming Maha season.
Medieval-Age Sluice Gates Replaced
It is not an embellishment to say that villagers treat water in their irrigation tank as thicker than blood. How could one not agree?
Paddy cultivation is the only source of living for nearly all of these villagers.
So, I spoke to the village Govi Sanvidhana members, wrote a letter about this issue and with them went to Anuradhapura to meet the Provincial Irrigation Director Jayantha Herath and his area Engineering staff. I had little hope that day of turning the wheels of bureaucracy.
But the magnanimous response of the Director and his office was instant and remarkable. It proved their worth and being. The Provincial Irrigation leadership worked hard to get the sluice gates and spillway repaired. It went further and determined that the Provincial RDA with its expertise, ready machinery and labour would expeditiously finish the project before the Maha rains. They are working on the sluices and the spillway as I write this.
Other Attempts in the Past
In order to draw the attention of the government to the needs of the community, this is not the first time I have written to government officials.
In the early 1990s, President Premadasa decided to have an Udagama to be held in Mihintale. Immediately, word got out that villages in the vicinity of Mihintale were going to be linked to the electrical grid of the country as part of the celebrations. This news electrified the villagers in Maradankalla. Immediately, I wrote a letter to the then President and posted it hoping we might hit the jackpot. ‘What is there to lose,’ I thought at the time.
By writing the letter, I wanted to feel good about doing something, but never expected it would get anywhere. That is how these things usually work in big offices – if the letter didn’t get lost in transmission, there is a better chance it will get lost in translation. But the Good President made sure my letter ended up on the desk of the Electrical Engineering folks in Anuradhapura. Surprisingly, within weeks they came to Maradankalla looking for me. My brother met them, and the Engineer gave an update about the project that was going to follow. I won’t deny it, I was surprised and equally exhilarated to hear of this development.
Consequently, the villagers in and around Maradankalla got their illuminating moment. To optimize dwindling funding resources, we banded together to help out and cut trees along the route to clear space for the power lines. Although Maradankalla is eight kilometres from Udagama, now the home to the bustling Raja Rata University, it now has electricity. Life there with oil lamps and kerosene carts is long gone history. Unfortunately, President Premadasa’s untimely death prevented him from enjoying the Udagama and consequential fruits it brought to the area.
Allegory of the Stories
The allegory of these pleasant stories is if someone writes to the bureaucracy asking for help, not for personal but about an issue in your community, hold on to some hope. A godly person, and a mighty unusual one you didn’t know that existed sitting somewhere behind a desk in an office would read it. I am not naïve here to give a pass to all bureaucrats. But this official you write to is different – utterly decent, courteous and if you go to meet that person, he or she will shake your hand or close the palms together and say “Ayubowan,” offer you a seat and listen to your problem eagerly and earnestly as if it is that person’s own. He or she is sure to treat you like an equal and a friend, and in the middle of the conversation even offer you a cup of tea. That person is honourable and good, lives up to his or her responsibility and is kind enough to take up the issue and do something in their power.
Then villagers may not have to worry about Maha season water, thanks, in this case, to the Provincial Irrigation folks and Provincial RDA and its technicians and Engineer, or the folks who brought the Internet to their village school.
With the new sluice gates and the spillway, thankful Maradankalla villagers will be eager to start the Maha season work and look forward to the Yala season with water saved with air-tight sluice gates. With the Internet, village school students will have more ways to learn about homework assignments. Villagers will have the opportunity to listen to ubiquitous religious talks on YouTube and keep up with the Teledrama parade. These stories perhaps will no doubt become yesterday’s newspaper to many. But in my village, these are tales of life-changing moments, which they will talk about for many years to come. Each time the story is told, they will solemnly reminisce about the experience and thank those who made it happen.
Despite the prevalence of double standards in international practice, it remains in Sri Lanka’s national interest to support the principles and implementation of international law. The existence of international law, however weak, offers some level of protection that smaller countries have when faced with the predatory behaviour of more powerful states. For this reason, the Sri Lankan government must do all it can to uphold its prior commitments to the UN Human Rights Council and implement the promises it has made to the fullest extent possible.
The visit of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, later this month may possibly be overshadowed by the eruption of hostilities in the Middle East following Israel’s attack on Iran. The High Commissioner’s visit to Sri Lanka relates to the series of resolutions passed by the UN Human Rights Council over the past sixteen years since the end of the war. It will highlight the contradiction in the rules-based international order when geopolitical interests override legal commitments. These resolutions highlight the importance of protecting human rights during times of conflict and ensuring accountability for war crimes. They are part of the enduring legacy of international human rights and humanitarian law, as exemplified by the Geneva Conventions and the global post-war consensus that atrocity crimes should not go unpunished.
The High Commissioner’s visit is likely to provoke criticism that the United Nations is pursuing Sri Lanka’s adherence to international norms with greater zeal than it shows toward violations by more powerful countries. There appears to be acquiescence, indeed even tacit approval, by influential states in response to Israel’s military actions in both Iran and Gaza on the grounds of existential threats to Israel. Similar military actions were taken in 2003 by the US and the UK governments, among other international powers, to destroy weapons of mass destruction alleged to be in Iraq. One of the central arguments made by critics of the UN’s engagement in Sri Lanka is that double standards are at play. These critics contend that the United Nations disproportionately targets weaker countries, thereby reinforcing an international system that turns a blind eye to powerful countries and, in doing so, undermines the credibility and coherence of global human rights standards.
The arrival of the High Commissioner is also likely to reignite internal debate in Sri Lanka about the purpose and legitimacy of UN involvement in the country. The question is whether international standards effectively contribute to national transformation, or do they risk being reduced to symbolic gestures that satisfy external scrutiny without generating substantive change. There will be those who regard international engagement as a necessary corrective to domestic failings, and others who see it as an infringement on national sovereignty. The question of accountability for war crimes committed during the three-decade-long civil war remains a deeply divisive and sensitive issue. Sri Lanka, with its own complex and painful history, has the opportunity to lead by example by reckoning with the past unlike many other countries who justify their atrocities under the veil of national security.
International Breakdown
The modern international system emerged in the wake of two catastrophic world wars and the recognised failure of early twentieth-century diplomacy to prevent mass violence. At its core was a collective pledge to establish a rules-based international order that could maintain peace through law, institutional cooperation, and multilateral governance. The development of international human rights and humanitarian law was most pronounced in the aftermath of the mass atrocities and immense human suffering of World War II. The powerful nations of the time resolved to lead a new global order in which such horrors would never be repeated.
This vision of a rules-based international order as a safeguard against a return to the law of the jungle, where power alone determined justice was institutionalised through the United Nations, the Geneva Conventions, and the establishment of international courts such as the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. However, this international system has come under increasing strain in recent decades. Recent events show that it no longer functions as originally envisioned. In practice, the consistent application of international law, regardless of the status or power of a state, is frequently compromised. The selective enforcement of legal norms, particularly by powerful countries, has eroded the legitimacy of the system and calls into question the universalism at the heart of international law.
At present, at least three major international conflicts taking place in Ukraine, Gaza, and now the confrontation between Israel and Iran, illustrate a sustained breakdown in the enforcement of international legal norms. These conflicts involve powerful states that openly defy legal obligations, with the international community, especially its more influential members, often remaining conspicuously silent. Only a handful of countries, such as South Africa, have chosen to raise issues of international law violations in these conflicts. The broader silence or selective rationalisation by powerful countries has only reinforced the perception that international law is subject to political convenience, and that its authority can be subordinated to geopolitical calculation. Earlier examples would include the ruination of prosperous countries such as Iraq, Libya and Syria.
Uphold Consistency
The Sri Lankan situation illustrates the importance of preserving an international legal system with mechanisms for credible and impartial accountability. Sri Lanka, so far, has been unable to address the issues of accountability for serious war-time human rights violations through internal mechanisms. However, the broader lesson from Sri Lanka’s experience is that international norms ought not to be applied selectively. If global institutions aspire to uphold justice by holding smaller or less powerful countries accountable, they must apply the same standards to powerful states, including Israel, Russia, and the United States. Failing to do so risks creating the perception that the international legal system is an instrument of coercion and selective punishment rather than a foundation for equitable global justice.
Despite the prevalence of double standards in international practice, it remains in Sri Lanka’s national interest to support the principles and implementation of international law. The existence of international law, however weak, offers some level of protection that smaller countries have when faced with the predatory behaviour of more powerful states. For this reason, the Sri Lankan government must do all it can to uphold its prior commitments to the UN Human Rights Council and implement the promises it has made to the fullest extent possible. In multilateral forums, including the UN, Sri Lanka must reassert these commitments as strategic assets that help to defend its sovereignty and legitimacy. At the same time, Sri Lanka needs to take up the challenge of using these international platforms to highlight the problem of selective enforcement. Sri Lanka can contribute to the broader call for a more principled and consistent application of international law by demonstrating its seriousness in protecting vulnerable populations and position itself as a responsible and principled actor in the international community.
Engaging with the past in accordance with international standards is also essential for Sri Lanka’s internal reconciliation and social cohesion. The principles of transitional justice—truth, accountability, reparations, and institutional reform—are not only universally applicable but also critical to the long-term development of any post-conflict society. These principles apply across all contexts and periods. If Sri Lanka is to evolve into a united, stable, and prosperous country, it must undertake this process, regardless of what other countries do or fail to do. Only by acknowledging and addressing its own past can Sri Lanka build a future in which its multi-ethnic and multi-religious character becomes a source of strength rather than weakness.
by Jehan Perera
Conciliation between parties to a conflict involves two basic processes. The common factor to both is identifying the perpetrators associated with the conflict and holding them accountable for their actions, because of the belief that atonement for the violations committed help the aggrieved survivors to ease their pain without which reconciliation is not possible. One process involves Voluntary Admission of the TRUTH to the point of admitting guilt on the part of the perpetrators for the violations committed and Forgiveness on the part of the victims. Another process is to establish the TRUTH through mechanisms set up to investigate the scope and extent of the violations committed and identification of the perpetrators responsible, so that they could be punished to the extent of the law, thus assuaging the pain of the aggrieved. This is Retributive Justice.
The features common to both processes are that violations committed are in the PAST, which, in the case of Sri Lanka span, over a period of 16 to 30 years. Under such circumstances, ONLY Voluntary Admission would identify the perpetrators, while in the case of Retributive Justice, the credibility of the investigations to establish the TRUTH, based on which perpetrators are identified, would vary from questionable to inadmissible after the lapse of 16 to 30 years.
The first process cited above, namely Voluntary Admission followed by Forgiveness, was adopted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. This attempt failed to meet expectations because one of the parties, who was to participate and make Reconciliation meaningful, refused to participate in the exercise. Furthermore, others see such processes as too idealistic because outcomes of the Reconciliation process require the full participation and genuine commitment of the parties to the conflict. Consequently, most countries opt for the second process, which is Reconciliation through Retributive Justice despite the fact that it is dependent on the credibility of the evidence gathered over decades and, therefore, has the potential to be flawed.
ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES
TO RECONCILIATION
If admission of Guilt and Forgiveness is realistically not an option, or the limitations of mechanisms to establish credible evidence is also not a dependable option, the only alternative most countries adopt is for time to heal the grievances between parties to the conflict in a manner that best suits their respective social and civilisational values Since such an alternative leaves grievances that initiated the conflict to resolve itself on its own accord, the inevitable outcome is for societies to stay divided and frustrated thus making them fertile grounds for conflicts to recur.
The primary reason for the failure of the options hitherto pursued is that it limits the process of Reconciliation ONLY to violations associated with the Conflict. It does not factor in the grievances that initiated the conflict. This aspect is completely overlooked in the processes that involve admission of guilt followed by forgiveness or in Retributive Justice. Consequently, accountability based on Retributive Justice, advocated by the UNHRC and recommended by some in Sri Lanka, remains far from what is needed for meaningful Reconciliation.
It is, therefore, imperative that Sri Lanka presents a viable alternative that is NOT rooted in PAST actions but in the PRESENT because it is in the PRESENT that the livelihoods of those affected by the conflict have to be restored and their sense of hopelessness healed. Furthermore, Reconciliation, based on the PRESENT is recognized as the principal pillar in meditation as being the most rewarding to contribute to overall human wellbeing.
THE ALTERNATIVE
The approaches pursued by Sri Lanka were to appoint Presidential Commissions of Inquiry, Presidential Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, Task Forces to investigate and gather evidence with Foreign participation and the ongoing Evidence Gathering Mechanisms of the UNHRC, to name a few. In the midst of these attempts, Sri Lanka also set up the “Office for Reparations” (OR) under Act, No. 34 of 2018 and the Office on Missing Persons (OMP).
The stated Objective of OR was the recognition given by the Act to “a comprehensive reparations scheme anchored in the rights of all Sri Lankans to an effective remedy will contribute to the promotion of reconciliation for the wellbeing and security of all Lankans, including future generations”. Whether these Offices were set up with the conscious intention of focusing on the PRESENT while continuing to engage with Retributive Justice mechanisms that focus on the PAST, is not known.
The title of the 2018 Act states:
“AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE OFFICE FOR
REPARATIONS; TO IDENTIFY AGGRIEVED PERSONS ELIGIBLE FOR
REPARATIONS, AND TO PROVIDE FOR THE PROVISION OF INDIVIDUAL
AND COLLECTIVE REPARATIONS TO SUCH PERSONS…”;
Its Vision is: “To create Reconciliation among Nationalities and ensure Human Rights through Economic and Social Prosperity”.
Its Objectives are:
1. To formulate and recommend to the Cabinet of Ministers, policies on reparations to grant individual and collective reparations to aggrieved persons.
2. To facilitate and implement such policies on reparations as approved by the Cabinet of Ministers, by the office for Reparations, including specialised policies on public education, memorialisation and on children, youths, women and victims of sexual violence and persons with disabilities.
3. To establish links to ensure the compatibility of the office for reparations with other mechanisms aimed at reconciliation.
4. To monitor and evaluate the progress of delivery of reparations to eligible aggrieved persons
GRANTS TO FAMILIES OF MISSING PERSONS
“The (OR) makes monetary grants to victims of conflict as a form of reparations. The focus of the OR is to assist aggrieved persons (victims) in ways that will provide meaningful assistance that is sustainable. Hence, the grant is not intended to serve as compensation but is given as a form of monetary relief. Families of missing persons are included in Livelihood development programmes, with particular focus on women who are heads of households”.
“Families of missing persons are among those to whom monetary grants are made by the OR on receipt of confirmation from the Office on Missing Persons (OMP) that the person is in fact missing. In terms of section 11(a) of the OR Act No. 34 of 2018, the OR is empowered to “receive recommendations with regard to reparations to be made to aggrieved persons, from the Office on Missing Persons.”
“Since the year 2022, the OR has received recommendations from the OMP to make payments to claimants in respect of a family member who they confirm are missing, after the conduct of an inquiry by the OMP into complaints made to the OMP by the family member (a claimant). The sum granted is Rs. 200,000/= per missing person, and is the same as the sum granted to applicants who make direct requests to the OR for monetary relief on the basis of the death of a family member”.
The three-step procedure followed by the OR on receiving the recommendation from the OMP is as follows-
STEP 1- OBTAINING INFORMATION FROM FAMILY:
“The letter received from the OMP confirms that the person named therein is reported missing, based on documents produced to the OMP, and recommends that a payment be made to the complainant named therein.
The information in the letter is sometimes inadequate to affirm the identity of the missing person and ascertain whether any previous grants have already been made to the family of that person on a direct application made to the OR. Hence the OR proceeds to obtain necessary information from the OMP and/or the complainant regarding – (1) the identity of the claimant and the missing person (Name, address, NIC number if available), to check from the OR information system whether a payment has been made previously and (2) the Bank Account to which the grant money should be remitted.
Where appropriate, the OR requests an affidavit from the claimant to state that no member of the family has previously received any payment on account of the death of that family member. A template of the Affidavit is provided by the OR”.
STEP 2 –
Processing the claim on receiving information.
STEP 3 –
Remittance of grant money to claimant.
CONCLUSION
With the conclusion of the Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka in May 2009, the approach to Reconciliation recommended Internationally, by the UNHRC, and by some Sri Lankans, was to address accountability for violations committed during and after the conflict through mechanisms of Retributive Justice that involve investigations, evidence gathering followed by prosecution. Over the years, Sri Lanka has laboured under these pressures without any meaningful outcomes as far as Reconciliation is concerned. This has been the experience with other countries as well.
The primary reason for this being the inability to gather credible evidence associated with violations committed over the PAST 16 to 30 years for Reconciliation to be meaningful. Furthermore, since the process is time consuming, the impression created is that no Government is serious about Reconciliation. This has left the survivors of all communities frustrated and disappointed in respect of their emotional and physical aspects of living in the PRESENT.
In the meantime, Sri Lanka set up the Office for Reparations (OR) and Office on Missing Persons (OMP) in 2018. Over the last seven years, these Offices have been working in the shadows, focusing on the physical needs and priorities of the survivors with a focus on the PRESENT and not on the PAST. This enables visible and tangible benefits to the survivors which is far more meaningful to their daily physical living with feedbacks to their emotional wellbeing, as well, than attempting to uncover the TRUTH of what took place decades ago. However, the need to expand the mandate of the OR to cover the development of Policies that address the causes that initiated the conflict is imperative.
Hence, the present Government should make the expanded Objectives of the OR the theme of their model for Reconciliation because the relevance of the PRESENT has its roots in meditation that promotes living in the PRESENT as being the most rewarding for human wellbeing. This model should first be discussed with a representative group of communities in Sri Lanka followed by first presenting it to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, during his visit to Sri Lanka, and then to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as a Resolution for acceptance.
by Neville Ladduwahetty
Mayuka Aparnatha may not be seen and heard in all parts of the country, performing live on stage, but he is certainly a star on social media, and has done modelling, as well – both ramp and photographic.
His preference, at the moment, he says, is to work on cover songs, adding that he does his covers with a touch of his own.
His latest song is titled ‘Asai Mannam’ and it has just been released. It is his fourth cover and also marks his first-ever mashup.
According to Mayuka, ‘Asai Mannam’ is a unique Sinhalese interpretation of the South Indian hit ‘Asa Kooda’ by Sai Abhyankkar and Sai Smriti.
“I consider this cover special because it’s a mashup with the song ‘Ma Diha’ by Dilu Beats. To my knowledge, this is the first-ever Sinhala cover of ‘Asa Kooda.’”
Mayuka’s musical journey began when he was very young.
Mayuka in action in the ‘Asai Mannam’ video
“Coming from a musical family, where my grandparents were involved in stage and drama, I naturally gravitated toward singing. I took part in inter-school competitions, as a child, and was fortunate to win a few. It has always been my dream to become a singer.”
Mayuka says he received formal training at KK Music, adding that he began making his music by starting with cover songs on YouTube.
Prior to ‘Asai Mannam,’ he has released three other covers, which are also available on his YouTube channel – MAYUKA.
Of course, one would say that the turning point in his musical career was when he participated in The Voice Sri Lanka, aired on Sirasa TV, and competed under Coach Raini’s team. He progressed until the battle rounds.
“Being a part of that show was a dream come true and something I can proudly tick off my bucket list.”
Mayuka went on to say that creating this official cover and music video of ‘Asai Mannam’ has been a rewarding experience.
“Music has always helped me through emotional and mental challenges, and I sincerely hope my songs can do the same for others, whether by healing, comforting, or simply bringing joy.”
Says Mayuka: “I’m deeply grateful to everyone who has supported me so far. I hope those who resonate with my style will continue to listen, and I look forward to sharing more music with you in the future.
“I’m also incredibly grateful to be featured in The Island newspaper. Thank you so much for the support.”
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Cabinet green light to establish the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau of Sri Lanka (AAIBSL)
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