{"id":118512,"date":"2014-01-17T00:16:14","date_gmt":"2014-01-16T18:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=118512"},"modified":"2014-01-24T02:43:48","modified_gmt":"2014-01-23T21:13:48","slug":"lubrication-of-reconciliation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/lubrication-of-reconciliation\/","title":{"rendered":"Lubrication Of Reconciliation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Malinda Seneviratne<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Malinda<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

Velyutham Dayanidhi is not a name many would recognize.\u00a0 He was born on March 3, 1956.\u00a0 He joined the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam not on account of any persecution or perception of discrimination on the part of Sinhalese.\u00a0 He was motivated after he was abducted and tortured by the Eelam People\u2019s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF<\/span><\/a>) in the late eighties.\u00a0 The EPRLF contended that Dayanidhi was an LTTE<\/span><\/a> supporter.\u00a0 Years later he became the media spokesperson for the LTTE.<\/p>\n

Everyone who kept abreast of what was happening with the LTTE would immediately recognize both name and face. Everyone knew Daya Master<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

In July 2006 Daya Master suffered a heart attack.\u00a0 Arrangements were made to admit him to Apollo Hospital, Colombo subsequent to a request made to President Rajapaksa<\/span><\/a> by his family.\u00a0 This was while the Ceasefire Agreement between the Government and the LTTE was still in force and despite the fact that hostilities had resumed.\u00a0 It happened two months after the LTTE carried out a suicide attack in an attempt to assassinate the then Army Commander, Lt Gen Sarath Fonseka<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 The National Movement Against Terrorism (NMAT) staged a demonstration outside the hospital, demanding that Daya Master be arrested.\u00a0 He was not.\u00a0 He was treated as a patient; his terrorist credentials were ignored.\u00a0 After he recovered, Daya Master was taken back to Kilinochchi.<\/p>\n

Less than three years later with comprehensive defeat on the military front staring him in the face, Daya Master surrendered to the Sri Lankan military.\u00a0 This was at Puthumathalan in April 2009. Today Daya Master, along with some 11,000 LTTE members, is free.\u00a0 If that\u2019s not a positive step in post-conflict reconciliation what is, one could ask.\u00a0 This is why when someone like Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu<\/span><\/a> tells those who still believe he has any sensible thing to say, \u2018This government is only interested in \u2018building reconciliation on concrete\u2019, it is funny.\u00a0 That\u2019s another story.<\/p>\n

Now Daya Master can be said to have \u2018defected\u2019, that he is victim of circumstances and that he has\/had no option. Fine.<\/p>\n

But a few days ago, Daya Master wept.\u00a0 He wept when a man his outfit fought against and would have had no compulsion in killing in cold blood (remember what Tamil \u2018civilians\u2019 did to SSP Charles Wijewardena?) was transferred from the North to Colombo.\u00a0 Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe<\/span><\/a> headed the Security Forces in the North.\u00a0 There was a farewell ceremony for him.\u00a0 Daya Master was present.\u00a0 He wept.<\/p>\n

Tears shed out of gratitude for the fact that he was not killed as his counterparts in the Al Qaeda would have been had the Marines got hold of them?\u00a0 Tears of gratitude for not having been held in some Sri Lankan equivalent of Guantanamo Bay if indeed such facilities are replicable?\u00a0 Tears because he read it all wrong, believed what he should not have believed?\u00a0 Tears for all the unnecessary deaths caused by pernicious misreading, the wide articulation of the misread and the buttressing of misread by bullet and bomb?\u00a0\u00a0 Who can tell?<\/p>\n

Let us not assume.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk of known facts.\u00a0 There was a man whose family wanted the Government to facilitate treatment for a heart condition. The Government did exactly that. There was a call for his arrest.\u00a0 He was not\u00a0 arrested.\u00a0 There was a man who was forced by circumstances to join the LTTE. He became spokesperson for that organization.\u00a0 Somewhere inside this 58 year old man lives a man who was tortured by the EPRLF, a man who spoke for the LTTE and a man who fled that organization. There is a teacher within him.\u00a0 A father and a husband live within him.\u00a0 Within him, also, there are tears.<\/p>\n

Even as past wounds are not allowed to heal, even as the failure of preferred outcomes to materialize prompts demonization and fuels revenge-intent, even as embrace is read as subjugation, even as certain kinds of embrace are tinged with condescension, even as a nation struggles with history and terminology, angst and anger, there is a man who still has tears and is unafraid to shed them.<\/p>\n

This country has hope.<\/p>\n

*Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of \u2018The Nation\u2019\u00a0and his articles can be found at\u00a0www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":105560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nLubrication Of Reconciliation - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/lubrication-of-reconciliation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lubrication Of Reconciliation - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/lubrication-of-reconciliation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-01-16T18:46:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-01-23T21:13:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Malinda-Seneviratne-150x150.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"130\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"135\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/lubrication-of-reconciliation\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/lubrication-of-reconciliation\/\",\"name\":\"Lubrication Of Reconciliation - 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