"Sri Lanka’s disgrace" Brian Senewiratne

The New UN Secretary General – Sri Lanka’s disgrace

By: Brian Senewiratne

A note to add “Good Cheer” to a worried Tamil community about the possibility of Jayantha Dhanapala, Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese nominee, getting the post of UN Secretary General. At the first round of voting, Dhanapala went down fighting like a true son of Sri Lanka, getting all of 4, yes FOUR, votes. There are 192 members in the UN.

The news has, of course, been censored in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. Hopefully Sri Lankans can still access the net and get the good news from us, whom Rajapakse is still unable to censor or control, the impending Patriotic Act not withstanding.

President Rajapakse appointed Dhanapala as the Secretary General of the Secretariat Coordinating the Peace Process (2004-2005), and he is currently a Special Adviser to him. The Island newspaper in the completely free (!) Press in Sri Lanka (read His Master’s Voice), claimed, as recently as 5 September 2006, ”Jayantha Dhanapala was instrumental in taking the peace process where no Sri Lankan had taken it before”. In a perverse way, The Island has got it ‘right’.

Excuse me, while I laugh.

President Rajapakse has clearly lost the plot, that is, if he ever had it. He has now nominated Niranjan Deva-Aditya as Sri Lanka’s candidate to succeed Kofi Annan. His nomination has been backed by the holy monks in yellow-robes who were recently seen physically disrupting a Peace Meeting addressed by politicians from across the political spectrum, and an array of representatives from civic society in Colombo. Athuraliya Rathana Thero, of the extreme anti-Tamil JHU of politically-active Buddhist clergy, backs the new UN nomination. Venerable Sir, this is for the UN, not the local Buddhist temple.

‘Niraj Deva’, with an unrecognizable name, is a Sinhalese, who is a Member of the European Union (EU) Parliament. He was born in Colombo but brought up in the UK. He is one of 28 Conservative UK MPs of some 233 from 15 member countries in the EU Parliament.

A few months ago, I was in Brussels to address members of the EU Parliament on the crisis in Sri Lanka. When my hosts realised that I was a Sinhalese, they asked me whether I would like to meet my ‘distinguished’ fellow Sinhalese countryman. I said I had better things to do. I might have to eat my words – just might , since he could, just could , with a stroke of luck and much prayer, especially from the Buddhist monks who strongly support him, be the next UN Secretary General. I am not sure what the astrologers in Colombo predict, but this is quite important since everything happens as predicted by them.

The Honourable Niranjan Deva-Aditya was recently in Colombo to see the President about the possibility of nominating him. The latter raised this, I gather, with Prime Minister Tony Blair when he recently made a hurried dash to London. I am told that there were roars of laughter coming from the meeting. Those who specialize in laughter-identification, tell me that it was not Sri Lankan laughter which, I gather, is characteristic (rather like fingerprints). Could someone whisper in Rajapakse’s ear that Tony Blair is from the Labour Party, which is different (admittedly marginally), from the Conservative Party to which Hon.Niraj Deva belongs? However, one cannot be sure of anything where politicians are concerned. Prime Minister Blair has just taken a British comedian to Brussels for a ‘pod cast’, whatever that may be. Lest there be confusion, the comedian was Eddie Izzard who is not in the running for the UN post.

Sri Lanka can, of course, nominate any number of people for the position of UN Secretary General. Chandrika Kumaratunga, currently languishing without a job and posing a threat to Rajapakse with a possible ‘come-back’, may be considered as a nominee, even, or especially, by Rajapakse. When I qualified in Medicine some 50 years ago, there was, (and still is), a medical condition characterized by ‘Delusions of Grandeur”. As a Physician, may I suggest, in the interests of the future of Sri Lanka, to say nothing of the international disgrace to which this country is being subjected, that these people and their advisers, be properly checked out, medically, I mean.

Some months ago, puzzled and worried about what has happened to the Sinhalese leadership, I was glancing through Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Man. There it was in Epistle 1, verse 95. Pope must surely have been thinking of the Sinhalese Lion from Weeraketiya (Hambantota), or the Lioness from Veyangoda, when he wrote:

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man (or woman) never is, but always to be blest,( As President, one can always ‘bless’ oneself in any number of ways, being freed from prosecution by the1978 Constitution “….immune from legal action for anything done or omitted to be done by him in his official or private capacity”. The soul ,uneasy, and confined from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! (I think he meant Sri Lankan) whose untutored mind (tutoring is not the problem, the mind is)

Sees God in the clouds, (Dhanapala or, God help us, Deva-Aditya, as the UN Secretary General),

or hears him in the wind;

His soul proud science (or, in this case, law) never taught to stray

Far as the solar walk or milky way (not even as far as the Vanni, to see what has been achieved there despite every possible obstruction from the Sinhala State):

Yet simple nature (how on earth did Pope know this?) to his hope has giv’n, Behind the cloud-topped hill, an humbler heav’n. (in Hambantota or Veyangoda)

It is not for nothing that Alexander Pope (1688-1744), is generally regarded as the greatest English poet of the early 18th Century, He is not only a poet, but a prophet.

Meanwhile the Tamils can relax and breathe normally. Dhanapala it is not going to be the next UN Secretary General. Nor will it be Deva-Aditya who might not even get 4 votes.

Brian Senewiratne

MA (Cantab), MD, FRCP, FRACP

Australia.

Published: Sep 09, 2006 14:34:16 GMT

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