Need of the hour is peace through a political solution, says Jaffna GA

by Shanika Sriyananda

Jaffna Government Agent K. Ganesh, who is a senior government servant says that national security cannot be compromised for whatever reason although the Jaffna people are suffering due to certain restrictions imposed to prevent LTTE infiltrations and maintain law and order in the district.

In an interview with the Sunday Observer in his office in Jaffna he said that the need of the hour is peace though a political solution where the rights of Tamils were fully guaranteed.

Here are the excerpts of the interview:

Q: People are complaining about high Cost of Living (CoL) and you attributed the cause as the high transportation cost. Are there any plans to import these items from India?

A: According to my experience the cost for transportation which is now more than US $ 75 per metric tonne and that can be brought down. But the decisions have to be taken at the higher level. They have to work out an actual cost of running a ship from there to here. It can not be a profit making venture as so many people are depending on this. My suggestion would be a reasonable transport cost. Yes, importing goods from India is cheaper than bringing stuff from Colombo but we have to see and work out a plan how we could give a reasonable price to these people. Or the government should give a subsidiary. Because my feeling is that we should not be taxing the people too much. People can not afford to pay Rs. 20 to 40 additionally for which is the normal price in Colombo.

Q: Fishermen are badly affected due to restrictions on fishing. Can they have hopes of fishing beyond the given two kilometre limit?

A: No. the situation is not improved yet. There are over 18,000 families involved in fishing activities in Jaffna but unfortunately due to the present situation there are certain constrains are there in fishing. First is the time given to them for fishing, the second is the limited distance and third is the prohibition of using mechanised boats. Banning of night fishing has also affected them a lot. Therefore, naturally their income has come down now but it is unavoidable. Some families are given dry rations but that is not sufficient for more than 10 days. And the other 20 days they find it difficult to live. On the other hand prices of fish is very high in Jaffna. And they are not allowed to do fishing until the situation gets better and no one can compromise national security.

Q: How do you see the situation in Jaffna after signing the CFA?

A: The situation had improved and at that time I was not the Jaffna GA but I know that people of Jaffna thought there would be a durable solution for the conflict. That is what we require. What I think is that peace will not come on its own but everyone of us need to contribute for that. Simply talking about peace will not bring peace. Every citizen of this country should contribute towards peace. According to my view, it is not impossible. Any human being wants to live peacefully, happily and honourably. We must create that situation and we must contribute to that. And work towards that very genuinely.

Q: Do you think the prevailing situation will be changed after the abrogation of the CFA?

A: We have to wait and see. We are not in a position to predict what will happen here in days to come. In any case we have to see how we could live together. That is very important.

Q: It is said that Jaffna people are living in fear of thieves now. So what actions have been taken to bring them before the law?

A: Yes. It is an unfortunate situation. We have taken some action. It is the tendency, that some people are trying to take advantages in certain situations. Here is the same. Here the reason is that there are number of families where only the old parents are living and the members of their families are living abroad or out of the city. They are rich and being rich is a curse here today. There were complaints but it has been reduced with the actions taken by the authorities. We are trying to organise vigilant Committees in Nallur and Jaffna divisions. We have already selected people for these committees. We had a meeting with the Security Forces Commander - DIG and religious leaders including the Bishop of Jaffna. So we are to form vigilant committees to prevent anti-social activities in Jaffna.

Q: There were lots of abductions and disappearances reported in Jaffna and what the situation now?

A: It is better now. Everyone should be answerable for any activity in Jaffna. People in Jaffna should be given the feeling that they are safe. We are duty bound to maintain their trust. They do not want to leave Jaffna as they have their own properties and relations. Any one who is in the administration should give that confidence to these people.

Q: What do you have to say about the co-operation that you are getting from the NGOs and INGOs?

A: There are over 75 organisations which are working for the betterment of the lives of Jaffna people. We follow tough actions when dealing with them. For the project approval they should submit the reports to the District Review Boards, in which I am chairing. We discuss with them and are handling all the activities in a very transparent manner. They coordinate well with us.

Q: As a senior government official what are the steps that the Government should do to win the hearts and minds of the people?

A: Basically it is the peace. Every human being first wants to live peacefully and second he should be able to move around freely and thirdly he wants to do whatever the job and fourth his rights must be respected. One shortcoming is that language rights of Tamils is not guaranteed. Tamils can not make complaints in Tamil. When a Tamil goes and gives a statement in his own language he is confident about his statement but when it is translated, at times there could be misinterpretations. This right has to be respected by fully implementing the language policy. This is one thing I am stressing and even though the Tamil and Sinhala are the official languages I do not think we have made satisfactory arrangements to implement the language policy. That has to be done.

Bringing a durable solution is the need of the hour. It has to be a political solution but nothing else. This is what we have been talking about but we have failed so far. To succeed in that we have to be 100 percent genuine. Need to solve it but just dragging it, wont help us to bring a durable solution. We have to work hard towards that. There is no point of preaching anything without practising them. Whatever the party that we belong to we have to give the feeling that we are genuine in solving the problems.

Q: How do you see the LTTE activities during the CFA?

A: That is a political issue which I can not comment. But my opinion is that when parties entered an agreement it should be honoured by both parties. Unless you are 100 percent sincere about it you can not talk about peace. Similarly everybody who talks about peace should honour it. Bringing peace will be a very difficult task. But we can not give up. We must never stop finding solutions. It is what we should give for the future generation, otherwise they will curse us. Our forefathers have ruined the country and gone. We can not repeat the same mistakes. We have to find a durable accepted solution for this.

It is very unfortunate that this war is going ahead in this beautiful country. I always say this - religiously we are very close to each other. In Buddhism and Hinduism, the language has successive similarities. I wonder why we are fighting. I think it is the leadership of the country who should be blamed and now I think we have messed up everything.

Q: You said that something wrong with the successive leadership. So what is your view about the present leadership?

A: My opinion is that we should go for negotiations. Otherwise it is difficult. My feeling is that nobody should have weapons. Only those who are legitimately allowed to carry weapons should do so. Unfortunately from 1971 onwards we allowed them to carry weapons. We can not blame each other for that. There is no other way other than we sit and talk. Religious leaders also can play a major role in bringing them together.

On the other hand how many Tamil children have met Sinhalese children for the last two and half decades. They have different views about each other.

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Pic: Thilak Perera