Friday, November 15, 2013

Colombo summit overshadowed by rights row

Sri Lanka government criticised over alleged war crimes against ethnic Tamils as Commonwealth leaders meet.

15 Nov 2013

Sri Lanka has opened a Commonwealth summit amid criticism over its human-rights record and alleged war crimes committed against the country's ethnic Tamil minority during a 27-year civil war that ended in 2009.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse said on Friday the Commonwealth must not be a "judgmental body" as he continued to defend his government against the allegations.

"If the Commonwealth is to remain relevant to its member countries, the association must respond to the needs of its people and not turn into a punitive or judgmental body," Rajapakse said in a speech before the formal opening of the summit by Britain's Prince Charles.

The Commonwealth has been criticised for holding its biennial summit on the Indian Ocean island despite its questionable human rights record.

Three world leaders have boycotted the meetings over Sri Lanka's continued refusal to allow independent investigations into the alleged crimes.

At least 100,000 people lost their lives in Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict between government forces and Tamil fighters. There are allegations that up to 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the final weeks of the war in 2009.

Power and influence

The Commonwealth of mostly former British colonies, comprising 53 countries, has little power, but wields some influence in mediating disputes between members.

The agenda for the three-day Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) includes sessions on debt restructuring and climate change.

The government of Sri Lanka "wants to show that Sri Lanka is open for business, that this is a place that Commonwealth countries and indeed countries around the world can invest," Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab reported from Colombo.

"But again, those allegations of human rights violations [are] consistently dogging the government's attempts to redefine itself."

During a press conference on the summit's eve, Rajapakse said his administration deserved credit for managing to bring an end to the conflict. Rajapakse, 67, has controlled the Buddhist Sinhalese-majority nation since 2005.

"People were getting killed for 30 years, at least after 2009 we have stopped it," he said.

"There is no killing in Sri Lanka today."

The northern Jaffna peninsula, home to around 800,000 Tamils, was the main battlefield in the decades-long conflict.

Before the war, Jaffna had a flourishing economy that was second only to Colombo in terms of wealth.

But its towns and villages are now littered with shelled-out buildings, farmland is abandoned and some 30,000 people still live in refugee camps.

Prominent absentees

Stephen Harper, Canadian prime minister, was the first to boycott the summit after his government said attending was akin to "accommodating evil".

Navin Chandra Ramgoolam, Mauritian prime minister, who is set to host the next summit, also refused to attend.

Manmohan Singh, Indian prime minister, is not attending, seemingly to avoid offending Tamil voters in the run-up to next year's elections. His foreign minister is taking part instead.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has been criticised for not boycotting the conference, but he promised Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese Nobel laureate, this month that he would see the situation in Jaffna fate first hand.

He will become the first foreign leader to visit Jaffna since the former British colony gained independence in 1948 as he is expected to meet with survivors of the conflict there Friday afternoon.

Hundreds of ethnic Tamils protested in Jaffna before Cameron's arrival, demanding answers about the thousands who went missing near the war's end in 2009. Protests have been banned in Colombo during the conference.

Cameron has said he would have some "tough conversations" with Rajapakse upon his return to the summit.

Charter of common values

Speaking during a stopover in India, Cameron reiterated his calls for an international investigation into war crimes allegations, which has also been a demand of several UN bodies.

"There needs to be proper inquiries into what happened at the end of the war, there needs to be proper human rights, democracy for the Tamil minority in that country," Cameron said.

At the last summit in 2011 in Australia, Commonwealth leaders drew up a charter of common values which committed members to respecting human rights.

But Human Rights Watch said the Commonwealth "risks its credibility ... if it doesn't publicly press Sri Lanka on its rights record and the lack of accountability for wartime atrocities".

Kamalesh Sharma, Commonwealth secretary-general, denied the organisation had turned a deaf ear to the allegations against the hosts and insisted it had made progress by engaging with Rajapakse's regime.

"It is not making a mockery. It is showing the Commonwealth in action," he said.

Mahinda’s marrow!

Hits back at critics alleging HR violations

Pledges to act against abuses; Urges faith in legal system, HR institutions
Says assessors of Sri Lanka’s HR record must also consult with Govt.
Sharma says holding CHOGM in Colombo does not make a mockery of grouping’s Charter but is showing C’wealth in action

By Dharisha Bastians-November 15, 2013
President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday hit back at critics of Sri Lanka’s human rights record, saying his Government would not tolerate abuses and urging faith in the country’s legal system to deal with the allegations.
Addressing a rare media briefing at Committee Room A of the BMICH ahead of the CHOGM 2013 opening ceremony, President Rajapaksa, who dealt impressively with tough questions from the press, said people had been getting killed in Sri Lanka for 30 years.
“Today, no one is getting killed. We have ended that war,” the President said, taking a question from a foreign journalist at the very end of the briefing.

The President said there were mechanisms in place to deal with allegations of human rights abuse, whether it was “torture or rape”. “If anyone wants to complain about human rights, we have a system. There is a Human Rights Commission. We have a legal system,” he told reporters.
He pledged that if there were violations committed, his Government was ready to look into it. “If there are violations, we will take action against anybody, no matter who they are,” he said.

Mahinda’s…
“Respect our country’s legal system, respect our culture,” he said, questioned on whether he would promise to investigate allegations of major rights abuses during the war when he shakes hands with Prince Charles today at the summit.
“Whether it is a king or prince or beggar, the traditional Sri Lankan greeting is Ayubowan (long life), so that is how I will greet Prince Charles,” President Rajapaksa chided the journalist posing the question.
Sri Lanka has nothing to hide, President Rajapaksa added, urging critics to speak with Ministers in his Government to learn the true picture. The President also invited the Tamil diaspora for a dialogue, saying he was willing to give them an ear.
“They must also listen to us,” he emphasised. “We are willing to try to win them over – even the terrorists, so we are ready to talk. But we will never permit this country to be divided,” the President said.
All those seeking to assess Sri Lanka’s human rights record are welcome to do so, the President said. “But they must have a dialogue with us too. Not just the sympathisers of the LTTE or the proxies of the LTTE,” he added.
President Rajapaksa called on journalists covering the CHOGM to ensure fair coverage of the flagship event. “CHOGM returns to Asia after 25 years,” he said. “I hope the media will give it fair coverage, in a balanced and professional manner,” the President said, concluding his remarks at the beginning of the briefing.
The briefing followed a day of controversy, with the Government deciding to turn back buses carrying families of the disappeared to Colombo and mobs preventing British broadcaster Channel 4 from travelling to the north.
Secretary General of the Commonwealth Kamalesh Sharma, who was asked if holding CHOGM in Sri Lanka was making a mockery of the Commonwealth in light of the country’s rights record and the events of the past day, strongly denied the charge.
“No, it does not make a mockery of the Commonwealth Charter. The Commonwealth Secretariat has been engaging with an open attitude with Sri Lanka on issues of human rights, democracy and rule of law,” he said. Sharma said holding CHOGM in Colombo was in fact showing the Commonwealth in action.

ORSD calls on UK to take leading role in preventing genocide of

Tamil Guardian 15 November 2013 In a statement released Friday, the Organization of Relatives of Surrendees and the Disappeared (ORSD), called on the British government to take a leading role in preventing the destruction of the Tamil Nation in the North-East.

In a written statement the ORSD Chair Person, Ananthy Sasitharan, also a member of the Northern Provincial Council who received the second highest number of votes, outlined the on-going destruction of the Tamil Nation.

Highlighting that the problems affecting the Tamils in the North-East were not just a lack of ‘accountability and reconciliation’, the statement identified the problem as,

“a program of Sinhalization with intent to destroy the identity of Tamils existing as a distinct nation.”

See full statement here. Extracts from the statement reproduced below:

“Our organization wishes to stress the fact that the violations of Human Rights that our members face should not be seen as mere violations of individual Human Rights, but a far deeper systematic plan that targets the national identity.”

“The Tamil homeland in the North and East of Sri Lanka has been, interalia, despite the UNHRC Resolution of March 2012 and 2013 been subjected to:

1.    The State sponsored Sinhala settlements with the intention of making the Tamil people a minority in their own homeland.
2.    Confiscation of privately owned property of Tamil people.
3.    Military Occupation.
4.    Forcible Sinhala-Bhuddhisation with the intent of changing cultural identity.
5.    The systematic undermining of the indigenous economy of the Tamil people.
6.    The complete absence of the Rule of Law and systematic impunity for offences committed by the Sri Lanka Military (Re sexual violence/abuse of Tamil woman; disappearances; harassments; illegal arrests, torture in custody; the severe harassment of former LTTE members (even those who have gone through a process of GoSL’s own so called rehabilitation; etc.) “

“Political expediency on the part of the UN and the international community in wanting to see the defeat of the LTTE in the Name of eradicating “terrorism” resulted in the Tamil Nation having to pay the ultimate price of a genocidal war. However, four years since the end of the war, the Tamil people continue to face the onslaught in the form of structural genocide of their Nation.”

“Accordingly our organisation reiterates its call to Her Majesty’s Governmentfor an independent and credible international investigation regarding the breach of international law, including the crime of genocide.”

“Our organization calls upon the United Kingdom to take the lead in invoking the doctrine of R2P to the Tamil nation and to set up a transitional administration in the Tamil homeland comprising of the North-East provinces in Sri Lanka, as a matter of urgency. Such a step is vital to not only stop further dismantling of the existence of the Tamil nation, but also to safeguard any future prospects of finding a negotiated solution to the Tamil national question.”

A Loud CHOGM & A Fragile Opposition For Rajapaksa’s Arrogance

By Kusal Perera -November 15, 2013

Kusal Perera

“Sri Lanka has a strong government and a fragile Opposition”, said Leader of the House, minister of Irrigation Nimal Siripala Silva, addressing the Commonwealth Business Forum on 13 November at Cinnamon Grand. He was for once, saying a truth. What is very naked in Sri Lankan mainstream politics is the fragility of the total Opposition in the Sinhala South. Neither the main Opposition UNP, nor the JVP now in the opposition has been able to hold the Rajapaksa government under check. Rajapaksa seems too tall for the opposition.

The conflict in the UNP too makes Rajapaksa strong and unbeatable. The utterly racist rebels in UNP who quarrel with no answers in how to challenge this R regime, helps the government to ridicule the UNP leadership that does not know what conflict management and resolving a conflict is. In short, neither the rebelling few nor the leading heads in the UNP have common sense to understand, conflicts in a political party are in-house businesses and not public fun. They simply do not know, letting out their grievances in public provides no answers. One of the feuding sides has to win the support of their rank and file with a clear programme that could challenge this regime to force the other to fall in line. To win the support of the rank and file is to democratise party structures and that remains one of the core issues in the UNP. It is a wholly undemocratic party, despite the holly scriptures on rights and accountability read out for media consumption. Read More

A Yellow Clad Monk Brays

By Basil Fernando -November 15, 2013 |

Basil Fernando

A yellow clad monk brays -

A hired hooligan -

What a disgrace!

Unleashing mobs

A ruler reins!

An august assembly of the Commonwealth

At its head a prince,

Is entertained

By mobs stopping trains.

Displays of disdain go as fun,

In every corner a hired clown.

For democracy,

The sun goes down.

David Cameron's car surrounded by Sri Lankan protesters

Tamil people try to hand over pictures of loved ones still missing after civil war, during prime minister's tour of north

Rowena Mason in Jaffna-Friday 15 November 2013

Link to video: Sri Lanka visit 'the right thing to do', says David Cameron

David Cameron's car was surrounded by hundreds of Tamil protesters, who were held back by the military when they tried to hand him pictures of their missing loved ones, as he visited Sri Lanka's war-scarred north.

David Cameron talks to residents at a camp for internally displaced people in Chunnakam, Jaffna. Photograph: Eranga Jayawardena/AP

Cameron at the Sabapathi Pillay welfare centre in Jaffna. Photograph: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP/Getty Images

David Cameron's Car Surrounded by Sri Lankan Protesters by nelvely

Why Sri Lanka's bloody history is threatening to overshadow CHOGM talks

Updated 10 hours 17 minutes ago

VIDEO: Michael Edwards reports from Colombo on Sri Lanka's human rights record (ABC News)

Why Sri Lanka's bloody history is threatening to overshadow CHOGM talks

www.abc.net.au

As the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) gets underway in Sri Lanka, a heavy cloud hangs over the event in the form of continued concerns about the country's human rights record.

Sri Lanka's president Mahinda Rajapakse says he is looking forward to highlighting his country's "tremendous transformation" after decades of civil war, which ended in 2009.

But while Prime Minister Tony Abbott will join British PM David Cameron and other leaders in Colombo, others are staying away.

Canada's prime minister Stephen Harper and Indian PM Manmohan Singh are both boycotting the biennial talks, as is the prime minister of Mauritius, Navin Chandra Ramgoolam.

Find out more about Sri Lanka's recent history, and why this year's CHOGM meeting there is so controversial. Read More

CHOGM 2013 /Sri Lanka: HR festival participant arrested

Friday, November 15, 2013

Participants at the Festival

A youth from Mullaitivu who had attended the Human Rights Festival at the UNP Sirikotha headquarters has been arrested by security forces this afternoon. (Nov. 14).
The youth, named Sudharshan was arrested by Mirihana police OIC and a group of TID officers, reports say.

Speaking to ‘Sri Lanka Mirror’, organizing committee member – activist Freddy Gamage said that the youth had attended the Human Rights Festival to speak on behalf of his disappeared brother. The youth has been arrested while he was leaving the Sirikotha to go home, he added.

Mirihana police has informed that all persons who arrived at the HR fest from the Northern region should be searched and their personal details and ID should be reported immediately, Mr. Gamage added.

At the present, security around the UNP headquarters has been beefed up and all persons arriving and leaving the premises are being searched.

Mr. Gamage further added that around 50 mothers who had arrived at the event from the North region are stuck in ‘Sirikotha’

SLM

Tamils held by police at Sirikotha released

DIG Anura Senanayake has ordered the release of the Tamil people being held by police at the UNP headquarters, reports say.

Personnel from the TID and Mirihana Police kept the participants from the north at the human rights festival at Sirikoth under house arrest, saying they should be investigated, a coordinator of the festival Freddie Gamage told ‘Sri Lanka Mirror.

A little while ago, another coordinator of the event Britto Fernando received a phone call from DIG Senanayake, saying the Tamil people could return to their homes without any disruption.

Channel-4 journalists who had been present at the location had asked police about this change of decision, but were not given any answer.

Pictures below show the Tamil people preparing to leave

David Cameron Mobbed By Protester On Sri Lanka Trip

November 15, 2013 |

Protesters in Sri Lanka on Friday tried to interrupt a visit by British Prime Minister David Cameron to northern areas that saw the worst of the war between soldiers and ethnic Tamils rebels fighting for a homeland.

Crude Triumphalism

By Lewis Garland -November 15, 2013

Lewis Garland

In May 2009, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa greeted his victory over the Tamil Tigers with the chilling announcement: ‘We have removed the word “minorities” from our vocabulary.’ This statement has proved something of a blueprint for Rajapaksa’s post-war presidency, which has heralded an era of rampant ethnic-chauvinism.

Sri Lanka’s minority communities have seen political power and rights systematically removed, and none more so than the defeated Tamils.

Human rights violations and ethnic discrimination are rife. The mistreatment and torture of returned Tamil asylum seekers, the destruction of Tamil memorials and graveyards and the rise of Sinhalese-nationalist vigilante groups have all received attention in the international press.

But perhaps the most damaging of trends has passed all but unremarked: the insidious disempowerment of the Tamil community in their historic homelands, the Northern and Eastern Provinces.

Government-sponsored initiatives to alter the demographic composition of this region have seen a major uptick in recent years. The state has annexed and placed under military control vast areas of land under the shady premise of ‘national security’. These land grabs have displaced longstanding Tamil communities. Scarcely any compensation or resettlement options have been offered, which has seriously undermined livelihoods and food security.

The land seizures have gone hand in hand with a process known as ‘Sinhalization’ – the state-facilitated settlement of Sinhalese people and imposition of Sinhalese culture in traditional Tamil areas. Thousands of Sinhalese are reported to have been settled in the North and Eastern Provinces in 2013 alone and there is evidence of the regime using employment and housing opportunities to incentivize these moves. This has been accompanied by changing the names of streets and villages and the destruction of Hindu temples and shrines where Tamils worshipped – as well as churches and mosques. The government is erecting Buddhist temples and monuments in their place.

Parallel to this ethno-religious colonization, Sri Lanka’s central government has shifted control over policing, land and economics away from the provincial councils. By doing this, it is actively reneging on its constitutional obligation to devolve power to the provinces, and denying Tamils even the slightest autonomy.

Given that Tamil self-determination lay at the very core of Sri Lanka’s quarter-century civil war, the significance of this move cannot be overstated. This is the Rajapaksa regime revelling in the most crude and cruel triumphalism.

*First published in New Internationalist

Sri Lanka’s Climate of Fear

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD-November 13, 2013

Since the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2009, the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has had a record of serious human rights violations and failed to provide accountability for wartime abuses.

In August, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, issued scathing observations on the state of human rights in Sri Lanka after her visit there. Ms. Pillay denounced, in particular, attacks on freedom of expression and a climate of fear that is undermining democracy and eroding the rule of law. She has set a deadline of Marchfor the Sri Lankan government to undertake a credible inquiry into reported human rights violations. The government disputes her findings.

Under the Rajapaksa government, journalists have been systematically threatened, harassed, killed or forced into exile in what amounts to a war on the press. Journalists and news organizations that do not toe the official line have their offices sacked, their staff detained, their equipment destroyed and their lives threatened. According to Amnesty International, government and military control of the news media has increased, and journalists have left the profession in droves. Many who remain have adopted self-censorship to survive.

During elections in September in Northern Province, where much of the country’s ethnic Tamil population lives and where the worst carnage of the civil war took place, the government did everything it could to sabotage a free and fair outcome, including publishing a fake edition of the local newspaper Uthayan. Despite such tactics, the Tamil National Alliance’s decisive victory in the elections demonstrated the strength of the people’s desire for political rights.

Human rights groups have called for a boycott of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting being held in Sri Lanka this week. To their credit, Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada and India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, announced they would not attend.

The British prime minister, David Cameron, on the other hand, rejected calls for a boycott. “I think it’s best to turn up and make your argument,” he said this week, saying the visit would draw attention to human rights issues.

The Rajapaksa government is holding up the meeting as proof that the Commonwealth has no problem with its behavior. As the meeting’s host, Sri Lanka will assume chairmanship of the group for the next two years, a prospect that will make a mockery of Commonwealth values.

Leaders attending the meeting must insist, at the very least, that the Sri Lankan government show meaningful progress in addressing human rights abuses, abiding by international standards and restoring constitutional protection for freedom of expression.

Meet The New York Times’s Editorial Board »

Is it CHOGM or UNHRC summit?

Editorial-November 14, 2013, 8:05 pm

The Commonwealth leaders meet today. Usually, they gather, talk and depart and nothing comes of their summits. But, this time around there is likely to be a difference with some leaders trying to turn the Colombo CHOGM into a UNHRC session of sorts. They are here to haul their host over the coals. This is an interesting development.

Sri Lanka’s human rights record, no doubt, has to improve, as we keep saying in these columns. International pressure is mounting on the incumbent government and it has brought this situation upon itself. But, we hasten to add, in the same breath, that the self-righteous leaders who have taken the trouble of coming all the way here to lecture Sri Lanka must prove that they themselves have impeccable human rights records.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has thrown his weight behind some groups calling for a war crimes probe against Sri Lanka. He is obviously singing for votes back at home, so to speak. Shouldn’t he, before taking up allegations of war crimes against this country, put his own house in order by holding former British PM Tony Blair accountable for killing nearly one million Iraqis in an illegal war?

Interestingly, The Independent newspaper (UK) has exclusively reported that the Cameron government is blocking the publication of the Chilcot report on how Britain went to war with Iraq. It is doing so in view of strong objections from the US to the release of key evidence except in a heavily redacted form, we are told. We thought it was only in Sri Lanka that probe reports were ‘swallowed’. We stand corrected!

The Independent expose could not have come at a worse time for Cameron. He has been left with egg on his face though he is trying to keep a stiff upper lip in typical British style. While urging others to address accountability issues he is sitting on the findings of a high-level inquiry into a war waged on the basis of falsified intelligence reports. What a shame! How would he reconcile these two contradictory positions on ‘war crimes’? We hope our hectoring Channel Four friends covering CHOGM will waylay their Prime Minister and ask him why he is not releasing the Chilcot report.

It is being widely speculated that the British government will either release a ‘neutered’ Chilcot report or a redacted version thereof to appease the US. This is the shameless manner in which the Cameron government has chosen to subjugate its human rights concerns to its ‘special relationship’ with the US. So much for the knights in shining armour defending human rights!

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, too, has asked Sri Lanka to conduct a ‘transparent and independent’ investigation into alleged war crimes. He is trying to build his image as an indefatigable campaigner for human rights. He is free to do so as a politician, but will he set an example to others as regards transparency by urging PM Cameron to release the Chilcot report? Unless he does so, he should stop talking about the so-called Commonwealth values.

Another issue that the Commonwealth Heads of State should take up at the Colombo summit is the dastardly drone attacks the US is carrying out with impunity on Pakistani soil regardless of the staggering civilian death toll. It is unbecoming of them, especially the western leaders crusading for human rights and global democracy, to turn a blind eye to the huge destruction of lives in a Commonwealth country. Amnesty International has called those attacks war crimes. So, they should not avoid addressing this vital issue if they are really concerned about war crimes and other forms of human rights violations.

None could ever do a greater disservice to human rights than the conceited hypocrites who advocate them.

The Sanctity Of Dharma May Be Gambled Away, Only For It To Ultimately Prevail

By Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran -November 15, 2013

PM – TGTE – Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran

Many voices being raised around the world calling for a boycott of theCommonwealth Summit being held in Sri Lanka are a clear declaration that Truth and Justice shall not be compromised under any circumstances.

While the support for holding the Summit in Sri Lanka might have been based on short term political interests of some states, the recent calls for boycott are clearly anchored in justice and Dharma, echoing the words of the great Tamil poet, Subramaniya Bharathy, who wrote “The sanctity of Dharma may be gambled away, only for it to ultimately prevail”!

Among the world-wide calls for a boycott, Tamil Nadu was a beacon and shining example of the unmitigated opposition to the Commonwealth Conference and a historic one. As we have said on many occasions earlier, the foreign policies of a country can and will be influenced by its domestic polity. This has been amply demonstrated by Tamil Nadu in relation to India’s foreign policy. It is only due to the opposition of Tamil Nadu that the Prime Minister of India has chosen not to participate in the Summit.

In the international arena, the position taken by India, as the regional power of South Asia, in relation to neighbours such as Sri Lanka is significant, and one that heavily influences other countries in their relationship with Sri Lanka. The boycott of the Commonwealth Summit by the Mauritius Prime Minister as a condemnation of the human rights violations by the Sri Lankan government is a testimony to the fact that Sri Lanka is being isolated in the international arena. Read More

Nalin Vs Nirmal: Envisioning Real Utopias

By Niranjan Rambukwella -November 15, 2013

A few months ago Nirmal Dewasiri, the FUTA Convenor, history don and former X-Group was pulling out his hair at the ICES. He was trying, rather unsuccessfully, to understand why he, the X-Group and the progressive Left in general failed to beat Nalin De Silva’s racist and regressive ideas in the battle for public opinion.

He couldn’t have picked a better question to soul search on. The failure to discredit and demolish Jathika Chinthanaya explains many of the structural problems Sri Lanka faces today including minority accommodation, issues of justice and democracy.

Prof. Nalin De Silva

Nirmal argued that Jathika Chinthanaya, Nalin De Silva’s worldview, provided the intellectual foundation for the South’s unwillingness to solve the national problem, fight against authoritarianism and approach a more progressive approach towards political and economic development. In a nutshell, he argued that Nalin’s Chinthanaya was necessary for Mahinda’s present chinthanya (as opposed to the 2005Chinthaya) becoming the terrifying reality it is today.

Pradeep Pieris (recently appointed the Social Scientists Association’s treasurer) disagreed. He compared the bloodbath after a platoon of soldiers died in 1983, with the relative calm post the Dalada Maligawa bombings, when Chandrika urged the nation to be calm. Pradeep argued that political leadership and events more generally had a greater role in influencing the collective consciousness or less grandly long-term public opinion.