Letters to the Editor

17th October 1999

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Please give the kids a hospital

There is a dire need for a children's hospital in the south, preferably at Karapitiya. In my childhood, I had been warded on the second floor of the Children's Hospital in Colombo with my mother at my bedside for two months.

My mother still talks of the torments of my childhood disease, having been forced to climb up and down the stairs of the hospital several times a day.

I appeal to President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva to open the third Children's Hospital in the south.

D.Y.A. de S. Rajakaruna
Ratgama


In the middle of nowhere

Being a tourist in Sri Lanka means that one will often be met by touts and also have to pay higher prices than locals for goods and travel.

Sri Lanka is a beautiful place and Sri Lankans a charming people. But to most of them foreign tourists are rich.

I stayed at the Adisham Monastery in Haputale with a friend and three children recently.

From there, we wanted to go to Kirinda and one driver asked Rs. 3,000. Another driver was willing to go for Rs.1,500 but didn't show up. A third driver agreed to Rs.1,750. He was to take us from Haputale to Kirinda, with a stop at Buduruvagala.

The trip was fine. The driver was good. He stopped at a spot, which we later realized was Tissamaharama, insisting it was Kirinda. He helped us find a hotel. From his behaviour, it seemed as if he knew the owners.

As he had been pleasant and attentive, I even gave him a tip of Rs. 100. After he left, we realized that it was the lake at Tissa and not the sea at Kirinda he dumped us, at!

It is one thing to cheat and charge more, but quite a serious matter to drop us in the middle of nowhere - a place we had no intention of going to.

Sonja Leunbach
Denmark


An open letter to MP Anura Bandaranaike

He was a clean fighter

Your reference to Canon R.S. De Saram, Warden of St. Thomas' College Mount Lavinia in your memorial, "A political culture void of decency and tolerance" (The Sunday Times, October 3), wherein you state that he criticised the Prime Minister (your father) in acrimonious tones and harsh language in a Prize Day speech in 1958, is not true.

During your father's tenure as PM, it was he who led the Sinhala Only cry and backed by some Ministers, vowed to make Sinhala Only a reality in 24 hours. Canon De Saram and other leading educationalists felt the folly of this and foresaw (quite correctly, as is evident today) the damning consequences for future generations. Canon De Saram, of course, spoke with the courage of his convictions.

Not only educationalists, but others too including Ministers, saw the reality of the dismal, nay disastrous, future they would have to face and some sent their children (et tu Brute) to educational institutions outside Ceylon, but compelled the less-fortunate to be damned with Sinhala Only.

It was in this context that Canon De Saram addressed students and parents in a Prize Day speech at another Anglican institution where he was the Chief Guest. He spoke of the inherent dangers of doing away with English and expressed his wish that education be left in the hands of educationalists and not with power hungry politicians. He did not refer to any particular individual by name or innuendo, but to opportunists who were chanting the Sinhala Only cry, and there were many.

Canon De Saram was a clean and straight fighter, and never hit below the belt. He was fearless and much concerned not only about his charges but all humans as was evident when he risked his own life while saving the life of a Tamil from rabid racist murderers at Mount Lavinia, during the communal riots of Emergency '58, when the police simply kept gazing as if they were mesmerised — a gruesome and barbaric aspect of the Sinhala Only campaign. Canon De Saram burnt his cassock and hands, when dousing the flames on the innocent victim who had been set on fire.

As much as you would like to see your father's image enhanced, we Thomians, like to see that our late Warden's honourable and inspiring image is maintained with dignity.

May I request you please, to refer to the unabridged text of Canon De Saram's Prize Day speech to which you refer and which would be in the College. You will then realise the untruthfulness of what you have stated. There is no doubt that political culture and decency have degenerated. I do hope that you will succeed in your attempts to salvage and resuscitate the decency and tolerance that prevailed upto and during your father's time. You will succeed only if you resort to facts and not fiction.

My best wishes and unstinted support go with you.

Aussie Seneviratne
Ja-ela


How many fit these qualifications?

Are the following the only qualifications one needs to represent Sri Lanka at the SAARC Radio Quiz?

* You must belong to one of the 25 prestigious "selected" schools.

This "selection" is based solely on the whims and fancies of a certain official of the SLBC English Service, even though, it is open to all youth under 25 years.

* You must agree to some mysterious selection process adopted by the management (unlike anywhere else in the world, it is the management of the SLBC which decides who will represent the country).

Wonder how many Sri Lankans can fit these qualifications?

K. Wijegunawardane
Dehiwala


We won't sit by and let this happen

We the residents of Barnes Place and Horton Place were quite taken aback to read the letter "You'll have to learn to live in this darned place" - Right of Reply by Dr. Neville Fernando, Managing Director, Asha Central Hospital Ltd. (The Sunday Times, September 26). His letter, in our opinion, was superficial and inaccurate.

The City of Colombo Development Plans published by the Urban Development Authority (UDA) in 1985 and again in 1999 have clearly demarcated the area consisting of Barnes Place, Horton Place, Rosmead Place and their neighbourhood as a "Special Primary Residential Zone". Commercial establishments such as schools, hospitals, restaurants, and cinemas which had been within the zone before the gazetting of the plans were to be allowed to continue, not expand, provided they could accommodate all their clients and visitors within their premises. The UDA and the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) have informed Asha Hospital, in writing, with copy to us, that:

i) they must accommodate the vehicles of their patients and visitors within their premises;

ii) the gate to Barnes Place should be used only as a service gate;

iii) they must remove all obstructions placed by them on the private access road leading from Horton Place to Asha.

The CMC letters were sent after discussions with the Special City Planning Committee, which includes the UDA and the Traffic Police.

Asha cannot accommodate their present clientele within their premises, and consequently a large number of vehicles are parked along the main roads - Barnes Place and Horton Place - and on several private roads off these main roads from around 4.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.

Horton Place is also the "State Drive" to Parliament. This main road is heavily congested. The traffic jams worsen due to the heavy traffic moving in and out of Asha. Several serious accidents have already occurred near this junction. A disturbing feature is the large number of three wheelers that now frequent this area. The Development Plans require that a "traffic impact assessment" be made before any development plans are approved. We seriously doubt this has been done.

The declared intention of the government to make the City of Colombo a planned and beautiful city will never be achieved if we accept Dr. Fernando's philosophy of spreading noise and congestion all over the city. Slums may have been created in other areas, but we cannot sit by and allow this to happen in our area - a "Special Primary Residential Zone". Do we have to live with noise, pollution and congestion to accommodate the private property developers' concept of development?

The problem with Musaeus College is that it has been allowed to expand without control. The fact that it was established about 100 years ago is not relevant. There are now not 3,000 or 4,000 students but almost 10,000 students attending this school, and they have opened to the public, fee levying badminton courts. A 2,000-seat auditorium has been planned. The school is simply too big and too ambitious for the infrastructure of a small road like Barnes Place. Recently even the pavements were demolished to widen the road to facilitate the parking of vehicles.

A majority of students live far away from Colombo. Creating traffic congestion to enable them to go "home as soon as possible" is not the answer to the real tragedy that students have to commute long distances to attend a school located so far from their residences. Musaeus College has refused to move into much larger premises in serene surroundings away from residential areas despite land being made available to them by the authorities.

We are not against the development of educational and health institutions provided they conform to the rules and regulations that have been enacted, after due consideration by qualified persons. Debatable statements claiming that an enterprise is "a national undertaking" are irrelevant. Any enterprise, by any citizen, which conforms to the laws of the country, is a national undertaking. These special claims are only desperate attempts by entrepreneurs to justify exemption from the common law, regardless of public interest and the rights of other citizens.

The joint committee of Residents of Barnes Place and Horton Place.

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