A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Wednesday, April 26, 2017
SRI LANKA: Meethotamulla tragedy to be duplicated at Muthurajawela?
Dealing with the Meethotamulla waste dump has now become a
major national problem for Sri Lanka. At least 30 persons have lost
their lives due to the collapse of the waste dump. Many others might
have died or suffered serious diseases due to the existence of this
waste dump polluting the entire environment over a long period of time.
The problem now, is where to dump this mountain of waste. It was not
long ago that people in the Ja-Ela Negombo area organised protests to
prevent a waste dump being created in their area. Realising early on
what could be brought into their midst, the people had sufficient sense
to come together and prevent a disaster in their vicinity.
The next location suggested for the waste appears to be the unfortunate
Muthurajawela area, which was once one of Sri Lanka’s greatest paddy
fields, yielding the best of rice to feed the population. The area is
now a waste land, due to the Hamilton Canal, which while built to
provide water for the paddy fields, did not take into account the tides
bringing in salt water from the sea at times. Over a long period of
time, the salt water destroyed one of the best paddy fields in the
country.
Subsequently, there was a discussion of creating gas from whatever has
become of this paddy field, but nothing ever materialised towards this
end. Since then, there have been many misadventures attempted in this
area, the latest being a waste dump.
Muthurajawela villagers and community leaders, including Catholic
priests in the area, have come forward to protest so the creation of a
waste mountain within their vicinity. What is alarming however, is the
attempt to use national security laws against those trying to protest
against the waste dump in the area. The use of national security laws
means suspension of ordinary laws that prevail in the country,
particularly regarding arrest and detention. This means that persons
protesting against their environment being polluted will be punished by
arrest and long detention under special laws in order to quell the
protests.
This demonstrates the abnormal mentality of Sri Lankan administrators,
who easily decide that what cannot be done under normal laws should be
done under special laws. Thus, environmental pollution, considered a
crime against the community by civilised society, is seen in Sri Lanka
as a normal matter. Furthermore, the extraordinary powers of national
security laws are to be used to ensure that this routine matter is
settled as per government wishes. It is clear that Sri Lanka’s very
reasoning process is being perverted. Perverted laws are only inevitable
then.
Why is reason being treated so lightly in this country now? Has the
political system gone so wrong that it cannot do anything in a rational
manner?
An enormous disaster looms ahead of Sri Lanka if this process of
abandoning the law and reason continues, and if the butt of a gun is
used for everything. Placing the power of the gun in place of reason can
only bring about disaster, from which the people may not be able to
walk out.
In these tragic times, some force must arise to defend the reason and
wisdom of the people against the irresponsibility of administrators and
politicians.