Opinion:

WYC delegates impressed by country's development

by K.M.H.C.B. Kulatunga

The recent World Youth Conference enabled Sri Lanka to showcase its developments after the dawn of peace, a few months after the successful staging of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) last year.

It was heartening to see participants from around 170 countries making their presence felt at the World Youth Forum which showcased Sri Lanka to the world.

United Nations General Assembly President Dr. John W. Ashe who attended the inauguration of the 15th World Youth Conference, met President Mahinda Rajapaksa at Temple Trees and acknowledged the progress Sri Lanka had made in the recent past.

“We have seen the development that has taken place”, Dr. Ashe had told President Rajapaksa and said he appreciated the speech made by the President at the inauguration of the World Youth Conference in Hambantota. He has been briefed about the progress that Sri Lanka has made after suffering from nearly 30 years of terrorism.

Remarkable development

As President Rajapaksa told Dr. Ashe, nearly 12,000 former combatants had been rehabilitated and reintegrated into society. All child soldiers were handed over to their parents. A remarkable development has been achieved in infrastructure facilities such as roads, railways and irrigation and in areas of health and education.

At present the highest numbers of students who qualify for higher education come from the Jaffna district. The country's computer literacy which was only 3% of the population in 2005 has now reached 50%, thus increasing the living standards of the people.

The visiting foreign delegates had been impressed to find such details which they had never heard before, apart from the dismal picture that had been painted by the LTTE rump.

Meanwhile, Australia’s Defence Minister Senator David Johnston had expressed appreciation of the role played by Sri Lanka in combating people smuggling and other illegal activities and underlined Australia’s resolve to work closely with Sri Lanka in this area.

Eye opener

At a meeting with the Australian Defence Minister in Canberra, Minister of External Affairs Professor G. L. Peiris, had explained the government’s plans to develop Sri Lanka as a hub for shipping and aviation, and gave an account of developments in the country after the establishment of peace and stability.

The commendations by the United Nations General Assembly President and the Australian Defence Minister last week should be an eye opener to all those Western politicians who look at Sri Lanka through tinted glasses.

The leaders of Canada and the UK have always seen one side of the story to please the expatriate Tamils in their countries. They often make statements and conduct themselves in a manner to satisfy their Tamil Diaspora vote base. Especially several British leaders have become puppets of their Tamil voters, making sweeping statements against Sri Lanka.

The Britain said last week that it continues to urge the Sri Lanka Government to co-operate with the UN resolution.

“We will continue to fully support and work with the UNHRC and international partners to ensure proper implementation of this resolution. The OHCHR will lead an independent investigation into alleged violations. We continue to urge the Sri Lankan Government to co-operate with the UN resolution,” Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Hugo Swire told UK Parliament.

He also said that his officials in Geneva continue to discuss the March 2014 UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Illusion

Why should Britain worry about our problems? They British Parliament discuss matters pertaining to Sri Lanka on a regular basis as if it is another county of the UK. Perhaps, they must still be under an illusion that Sri Lanka is still a British colony.

Undue external pressures on Sri Lanka were having adverse effects that could hurt the country's progress.

As President Mahinda Rajapaksa had pointed out at the World Youth Forum in Hambantota, the minds of youth are extremely sensitive to influence and can be easily misguided. This is the attraction for terrorist groups, to recruit youth combatants to their cadres often ending as cannon fodder, a traumatized and scarred generation, if they survived.

Sri Lanka faced this phenomenon when challenged by a terrorist group, described by the FBI, as the most ruthless in the world. In Sri Lanka, former youth combatants were treated as victims of terrorism and not perpetrators, and were all rehabilitated and reintegrated to society, for a better future.

As the President had quite rightly pointed out, we strongly believe that it is the society that can rehabilitate and reintegrate these misguided youth, rather than any State apparatus.

At the end of the menace of terrorism, hopes among our youth for a secure, better and more progressive Sri Lanka, had been renewed. And, at the global level, the world has seen the largest generation of youth ever.

Burden

The increasingly large youth population, who live in the global South, makes it impossible to discuss any follow-up to Rio+20 and the Post-2015 development Agenda, without considering their needs and challenges. The Youth of today face an enhanced burden. They need to find a living for themselves, as well as, increasingly care for an ageing population. To ignore this growing trend would entail unmanageable problems for policy makers, national leaders, and the global community alike.

The Government is making every effort to provide equal opportunities to youth both in the South as well as in the North. Nine could dispute the fact that the youth in the North and the East have got preferential treatment over their counterparts in other seven provinces in infrastructure development.

The countries which point an accusing finger on Sri Lanka have gone that extra mile in the guise of terrorism. Though they now pontificate us on human rights of the LTTE terrorists killed in action, these countries have taken maximum possible steps even outside the legal framework to destroy terrorists not only in their own countries but outside their territory too. The US drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which had killed hundreds of innocent people, including children, are classic examples.

US enacted laws to indefinitely detain citizens under military without trial. The US set a precedent for other nations that face terrorist threats, internally or externally, letting the government indefinitely detain people - under military custody - it deems to have “substantially supported” al Qaeda, the Taliban or “associated forces.”

This provision was declared consistent with the constitution by the US Supreme Court on 28 April by declining to hear a challenge to the law. The provision is part of the National Defence Authorization Act, which the US Congress passes annually to authorize programs of the Defence Department.

Last December President Barrack Obama signed the National Defence Authorization Act for 2014 which contained the clause that authorized the American administration to indefinitely detain citizens with no trial.

The NDAA provision first signed into law in 2012, which permits the military to detain individuals indefinitely without trial, remains on the books for 2014. Efforts to quash or reform the provision - especially with regard to the indefinite detention of US citizens, have failed and have been fiercely fought by the Obama administration.

Rich culture

While practicing something totally different from what they preach to countries such as Sri Lanka, the self same countries try to teach us on good governance and human rights. Sri Lanka has a rich culture which is over 2,600 years old and the people in the West need not teach us on human rights because our society cares for human rights much more than any of the countries in the West.

The LTTE rump has always come out with concocted stories on the presence of the Security Forces in the North and the East, which is a right of the Government to ensure national security and protection to all its citizens.

But it has now been proved beyond reasonable doubt that the Security Forces are doing a thankless job to improve the day to day life of the people living in the two provinces. This is a classic example, contrary to the stories spread by the Tiger rump.

The educational sector has seen an unprecedented growth since the end of LTTE terror and public exam statistics reflect this growing trend. The security forces played a large part in reviving the Northern education sector during the last few years.

The students in the North were able to record one of the highest success rates at exams in recent times. There is no truth whatsoever in the allegations of military interventions hindering educational activities in Northern schools.

When going through the entrance statistics, most schools show increased number of children entering schools in the North. For an example, there were 370 students in Murippu Vidyalayam in 2013 which increased to 448 this year (2014). This was the same with Akkarayan Maha Vidyalayam which had 724 students in 2013 and saw an increase up to 792 this year (2014).

In fact, Principal of Puthumurippu Vigneswara Vidyalayam in Kilinochchi had said that regardless of baseless allegations of harassment by security forces personnel made by quarters with vested interests, elucidations by educational authorities in the North have proven them otherwise.

Denying allegations of a surge in school dropout rates owing to sexual harassments committed by security forces personnel, T. Kanapiran, Principal of the school has categorically denied any such harassment made by security forces on students and goes on to note that the army does not in any way cause harm to any of the children.

He says that if there is any harassment on them their parents will not continue to send them to school. Moreover, the children take part in events organised by the army and since resettlement in the area the army had been quite helpful to them. The letter also requests others from spreading rumours that will be detrimental to the school. These are good eye-openers to countries such as Canada and the UK.