ruwanda in sri lanka?

god! will we ever learn? another horrendous killing. what makes this one chilling is that it is allegedly done by those sworn to protect the innocent. 'nuff said. these are dangerous times. the beast, it seems, nears bethlehem.

check out the story here.

knots

"we should wipe them out" said my good friend r, his eyes red, his frame trembling with rage. it was 9.30 am on thursday and he stopped by to ask if i heard about the carnage in kebithigollewa. r is a mild guy, head of a very profitable series of businesses and does a lot of charity work. he looks after a family close to the site of the doomed bus. " this is nonsense. why should we talk peace when at every turn they kill and murder? the buggers are living peacefully among us and then they kill our women and kids? "

"we should wipe them out" he said again.

"don't you think" i say as gently as i can after some more minutes of r's rage, " that your reaction is part of what the bomb was aimed at?"

a little later i called b in trinco and the phone spat and crackled. "yeah, it's bad but how do you know it's the ltte? where were you when that family was massacred in mannar? or those kids were murdered in jaffna? or those youth were abducted in batticola? or that village was bombed in sampur? are we forgotten?".

"but you had a chance to vote for peace and did otherwise" i said.

"what vote, machan." he was shouting, " these buggers don't know us. how can they represent us?"

somewhere in sri lanka there is a lad playing cricket on a dusty paddy field who dreams of a time when his father will return home from the battlefield. this lad is the captain of his team and he has a thing about unraveling knots.

rage, rage.......

64 civilians are confirmed dead with 50 odd injured when a land mine blew up a crowded bus in kepitigollawa this morning. government accused the tamil tigers of the act and the latter bizarrely accused the government.

read the story on the new york times here

among the dead are many women and children who did not go gently into that good night.

watch the sun go down on guantanamo bay

i have referred in past blogs to the blot on american claims to democracy and individual freedom that is guantanamo bay. on saturday three inmates committed suicide at the facility and i watched in horror ( and that's a mild word for it) as not one but two american officials tried to spin the story. first there was rear adm. harry harris commander of the joint task force in charge of the prison saying that the deaths were "an act of asymmetric war fare". then, collen graffy, u.s. deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy ( an oxymoron of a title) come on bbc to blithely say that deaths were good pr to draw attention.

where do these people come from? do they go home at night and look themselves in the mirror? do they swallow the bilge that they spew? their statements reflect american arrogance and further erosion of cherished ideals. the detainees ( 460 of them including some kids) have been held for over four years without charge or legal address in conditions that are not subject to any system of checks and balance.

check the story on the cnn web site here.

america must be held accountable for guantanamo bay and the world must see this torture chamber closed.

the oslo debacle

broadly speaking, many in sri lanka are pleased with the failure of the oslo talks. the man in the street is glad that the international yahoos and the sri lankan government are giving the ltte and norway a tough time. the sri lankan government is glad that things seem to be going their way. the arms dealers and middle men are glad that more business is in the making. no doubt the ltte itself is glad that they have once again shot themselves in the foot.

this morning security has been quietly beefed up in the city of colombo. the daily noise has a banner head line in today's edition;

" ltte hacks to death family of four in mannar"

a quick check on the bbc news web site ( check here) seems to suggest an alternate, horrendous, possibility. matters seem to be spinning towards one inevitable focal point. presumably the people who are happy are tripping the light fantastic.

only the dead (and that includes yesterdays 9 and 7 year old kids and a raped murdered woman) remain skeptical. yeah, lets be pleased.

udurawana

no sri lankan blog is truly complete without reference to one of it's famous sons, udurawana. the easiest way to explain the remarkable dude is the fact that in his previous birth he was a blond. here's a sampling of his antics as sent in by junior.

* * *

Udurawana comes back to his car and finds a note saying "Parking Fine". He writes a note and sticks it on a pole "Thanks for the compliment, Machan"
* * *
How do you recognize Udurawana in School? He is the one who erases the notes from the book when the teacher erases the board.
* * *
Once Udurawana was walking and he had a glove on one hand and not on other. So the man asked him why this was so. He replied that the weather forecaster announced that on one hand it would be cold and on the other hand it would be hot.

* * *

Udurawana is in a bar and his cellular phone rings. He picks it up and says"Hello, how did you know I was here?"

* * *
Udurawana bought a brand new Maruti and decided to drive down from Kandy, where he lived, to Colombo to meet his friend. He reached there in a few hours. After spending a few days there, he decided to return, and called up his mother to expect him in the evening. But he didn't reach in the evening and not the next day either.When he finally reached home on the third day, his distraught mother ran and asked him "What happened, my son?" Udurawana got out, obviously very tired from the long journey, and said, "These Maruti car people are crazy!They have four gears for going forward, but only one for going back!”

* * *
Udurawana –“Why are all these people running?”
Man- “This is a race, the winner will get the cup.”Udurawana –“If only the winner will get the cup, why are the others running?”

* * *

Udurawana told his servant: “Go and water the plants.”Servant: “It's already raining.”Udurawana: “So what? Take an umbrella and go.”