A burning train engine yesterday crashed into the Kandy-Colombo intercity express which was stopped at the Rambukkana station, causing injuries to 13 persons.
Railway Chief G. P. S. Weerasooriya said the engine involved in the crash was the backup engine from the Matara-Kandy train. The engine had caught fire in an area between Rambukkana and Kadigamuwa.
Railway workers had disconnected the burning engine to prevent the fire from spreading, but the engine raced on its own to the Rambukkana station where it collided with the intercity train, the Railway Chief said.
And the solution keeps eluding the country and its 17 million people waiting in hope, half of whom live below the poverty line. With the woes of an open economy widening the gap between the halves and the have-nots, institutionalising many a new structural injustice, commoners as "when will this war end?" They know well that prosperity lies just a stone's throw away from them. But the only obstacle they face in reaching it is war. A solution has to be found.
Judging by its efforts, the present government, it seems, is more keen and genuine than the previous regimes in finding a solution to this vexed problem.
The legal draft or the PA's solution to this crisis, which is older than independent Lanka, has run into severe opposition from some Sinhala-Buddhist organisations and monks.
Arguments they offer in favour of their views vary. One anti-package proponent even said that devolving power to the North and East region means seeing an end to Buddhist artifacts there. Some make land an issue and ask whether the centre will have any power to take control of regional land.
These and many other issues need to be addressed and solutions found, perhaps at the select committee level. But the questions and anti-package proponent must ask himself are, "Are artificial or land matters more important than the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians? Thousands of children are becoming fatherless and wives becoming widows.
Do we need a spirit of accommodation to settle the conflict or do we perpetuate the war to make more orphans and widows?
Is keeping the country geographically united better than keeping its populace divided with perpetual animosity towards each other? We must have empathy with the widows and children who lost their loved ones to the woes of terrorism and 'terrorism' and of course due to no fault of theirs.
Only the thunder of terrorism echoes in us as we often hear the sounds of gunfire and bomb explosions. But for thousands of such unfortunate children, what echoes in their minds are the screams and wails of their mothers when they were widowed.
Errors have been committed by both the Sinhala and Tamil communities ever since the crisis erupted during the colonial period.
The right thing therefore is not to perpetuate the errors but to right the wrongs.
It is quite natural for a minority community to entertain fears about the majority. Imagine a situation where in a room two Tamil strangers are locked up with eight Sinhala people. The fear is natural. For harmony to prevail, the eight Sinhalese should approach the two Tamils and say, "Look friends, have no fear. We are all brothers." Not only that, they should also demonstrate by their action that they mean what they say. Once the fear is allayed, the two Tamils will become one with the eight Sinhalese and it would be beautiful living.
The legal draft presented by the government includes provisions that meet the Tamil aspirations to a great extent, though some Tamil parties say it falls short of it. This could be considered as a bargaining strategy on the part of those Tamil parties.
Some conflict resolution experts who hail the package also suggest that the government should adopt a twin-track approach to finding a solution to the crisis. They suggest that while the government pursue its war efforts with the package in hand, secret talks should be held with the chief belligerent, the LTTE, under the aegis of a third country. Such talks are now being called the Oslo Track after the success of Israeli-PLO negotiations in the Norwegian capital. In fact, Norway and several other western countries have expressed their willingness to play the mediator role provided both parties to the conflict agree.
For such talks to succeed, it is important that secrecy should be the key magic word. if necessary, even the Cabinet should be kept in the dark until a deal is struck.
Since the government and all peace-loving people await a speedy and lasting solution to this crisis by hook or by crook, all avenues to peace should not be left unexplored.
Failure to do so will no doubt mean the continuation of the misery, road blocks, fear psychosis, economic hardship, etc.
For Tamils, it will be a further plunge into hell. Already any Tamil in the South is seen as a potential terrorist. After the Dharmalingam affair some are saying they do not know whether the colleague who works with them in the same office is a Tiger or not. Once again the anti-Tamil hysteria is gaining momentum among the ordinary Sinhala people. The situation is assuming dangerous proportions and it shouldn't come as a surprise if some extremist were to brand Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar or Sri Lanka's cricketing hero Muttiah Muralidaran a potential Tiger.
