For the purpose of this article, to give the reported discussion some shape, I introduce a mythical mediator, Socrates, who was not present on the scene. What he speaks may be relevant but not necessarily a record of anything said by anybody there.

Kiriwandeniya: I spent 3 days in the Wanni recently. Ours is a cooperative network with 8000 primaries, 2000 in the N&E. Sanasa funding, unlike Sarvodaya_s, is internally generated. The N&E has been the scene of the best coops in the past like the producer coops for subsidiary foodcrops. When we visited Kilinochi it took half a day_s dialog, to break the ice with the LTTE. They were willing to listen and talk
Socrates: Would you be able, by linking up coops, facilitate a freer flow of produce both ways?

Mahroof: To implement relief, rehabilitation and reconciliation there are 13 different agencies on the scene. Susil : Jayalath Jayawardene_s ministry of R&R must play the role of leading agency. Not merely allocate the roles but have the executive authority over the 13, to make them do what R&R wants.

Kiriwandeniya: One cannot talk of the scene as a resettlement program. It is a post war recovery plan like the Marshall Plan that is required. There has been the movement of Tamil refugees from Jaffna to the Wanni. Then there has been the movement of Muslim and Sinhala refugees from the Wanni to the refugee camps further south .

Socrates: To take them back or to find alternative places for resettlement?
Pauline: Rationalisation and clarity of management is critical in handling such sensitive problems. Will the LTTE be consulted in management? If not RRR will be a remedy worse than the decease. Socrates: Perhaps an interim administration will solve the problem of LTTE participation.

Pauline: Basic services in the war torn areas have to be strengthened. The example that hits the eye is the A 9. But there is a tremendous amount to be done. For the last 6 years infrastructure development of Jaffna was not permitted. Now that will have to be done. A great deal of construction activity must take place. Will the benefits of such activity, the wealth that is generated thereby, be made available to the N&E? Will the Sinhalese forego a part of what they long to earn and give it to the Tamils, who live there?

Socrates: The dispute over bus transport on the A 9 is simply a question of distributing the wealth that will be generated. Ethnic conflict is very much a fight over resource distribution. See how the PA, the JVP and others are protesting against the ADB for talking with the LTTE, when in Chandrika_s draft constitution, the devolved areas were entitled to negotiate foreign aid independently. Tamils have been left out of the Mahaveli and the general development of the country and have been made the poorest community. Will equality be restored through RR and R? Mahroof:

undamental rights issues for refugees will be such as titles to land, birth certificates, exam certificates etc, which they have lost. If government organizations, such as the registrar general, follow usual procedures suitable for stable communities in peace time no documents will be forthcoming. Susil: I expect that is the purpose of having an interim administration dominated by the LTTE.

Wilfrid: The PRS official document also says, _new schools in mixed ethnic areas to be multiethnic _ and _expand English education to develop a bridge language._ Sri Lankan feelings of separateness and ethnicity has been consolidated by creating language streams, which was a deliberate divisive device. An important policy step to create harmony is to amend the Education Act of 1961, passed in Mrs B_s days, with Badiudin Mahmud as Education Minister, which created the division and prevented unity.

Socrates: Minister G.L Peries lamented that fact publicly when he opened an international colloquium on Commonwealth Writing in the 1990s. And even in this document, the state is trying to solve the problem of separation only in the N&E, when in the south, it is endemic. The clever young JVP men in Parliament, are the product of the language streaming policy of 1961. That policy must give way to an optional language policy, allowing the student_s choice in one or more media_English, Sinhala and Tamil.

Susil: And a new vision must emerge in education. When Black integration took place in the 60s, in USA, it was accompanied by a whole revision of curricula. New courses on Black culture and history were introduced and existing terms, which denigrated Blacks were phased out.

Socrates: _Old Black Joe_ is a song unknown to the black students in USA. Of course we also have the same syndrome of rewriting history saying the colonial past must be rewritten to suit modern tastes. So Robert Knox, whose views on government are surprisingly modern, as well as Leonard Woolf_s dramatization of village life, must be categorized as colonial and downgraded. There are pros and cons for all that.
Pauline: Over the last couple of decades or more the NGOs such as _Save the Children_ have been been conducting the same programs.

Socrates: They have largely been remedial rather than positive? Pauline: Should NGO programs now change? Socrates: As Mahroof said, what we have now is a post war recovery scenario.

Pauline: But will NGOs get the same environment in which to operate in the LTTE controlled areas? We will be in an environment of child soldiers when we are spearheading the rights of children. Sepalika: Already there is news that women are being told to wear a certain kind of clothing. Like a sari and not trousers.
Kiriwandeniya: One can object to that. But one can always argue that these are ways of preserving the symbolic unity of an oppressed community. It is necessary to preserve that sense of unity if such a community were to forge ahead.
Socrates: A good example is the Muslim community in Sri Lanka, which has adopted a style of dress for women quite unsuited for this climate, but which proclaims they are Muslim.

Subaitha: There is also extortion. A businessman was forced to pay Rs40,000/ recently. We should include in the program that such things should be forbidden.
Sepalika: My major criticism of this document is that except for four pages, where specific reference is made to women, the rest of the document talks about _people._ Who are these people? Are they men or women? Insufficent attention is given to the issues of women as women.

Marikkar: To come to the major theme of RRR, when resettlement takes place it is not enough to take the people back and ask them to settle down. Schools and clinics must be built for them in the resettlement area. Susil: Wilfrid, you and I both ex land men. We were involved in resettlement in new irrigated areas and know how those things were done. I feel that we must have a participatory approach. Refugees must participate in building their own houses and communities.

Wilfrid: Apart from the specific matters raised in this document, which we have addressed, I feel there are general issues, which need to be raised to make these programs successful. One of them is to create a new non government media organization, which can respond to all the negative points of view canvassed all the time by voices, which see peace from various negative angles. No doubt it is a political issue but peace is too important to all the citizens of this country to be left to the politicians. Civil society or NGOs or whoever must find a mechanism to counter the uproar that is created in the existing media, serving certain limited points of view such as family and ethnicity. An enormous majority voted for peace.

The existing media, not only here but in countries like USA too, find great value in creating news and noise, which upsets peace. After all CNN reports only disasters.

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