I move now, in this account of travels in Sri Lanka while I was a government official, to 2009, an intense year when the forces finally achieved what many had thought impossible, the eradication of the LTTE within Sri Lanka. But the year began with the killing of Lasantha Wickramatunga which as I note the British suggested was under the ...

I move now to the last days of 2008 and the brilliant initiative of General Chandrasiri, Security Forces Commander in Jaffna, to have an exhibition there promote employment for the young. Civilians in government were not capable of such thought or planning, and I began to realize that it was the military rather than government that best understood the need ...

This post deals with what were termed old refugee camps. While the West was complaining about the centres where the recently displaced were housed, they had done nothing for years about old centres because these were for people whom the LTTE had displaced many years previously. They included the Muslims the LTTE had expelled from the North and also the ...

I begin the fifteenth account of SCOPP work with the insidious support provided to the LTTE by a group of NGOs headed by a man called Guy Rhodes who was obviously involved in intelligence work. He was part of the UN Security Committee which seemed to have a life of its own, leaving out the very helpful Resident Coordinator Neil ...

This continues with my southern trip, and then another to the north which involved work with Bindu and her team. I also relate here the difficulties I had with trying to ensure our own input into aid programmes which, before my taking over at the Ministry, the internationals had run pretty much as they wished. Though officials of other Ministries, ...

This account is cursory about some work which was in fact very important, the efforts made by those I had put in charge of what were termed Confidence Building and Stabilization Measures. Bindu Urugodawatte, a most imaginative archaeologist, was in charge but had roped in some of her environmentalist friends who did a great job in promoting cottage gardens amongst ...

This continues with journeys for pleasure with old friends and also lunch at home for an actor I had met years ago through the British Council. The pictures are of Ena with the Kalsia children and of Frank Barry. 12 Wasgamuwa, the Perahera and lunch at the river The following Friday I went to Alu where I was joined by ...

This eleventh account of travel in Sri Lanka during my Peace Secretariat days is really about light relief, the only official travel mentioned being to Kalutara with regard to religious tension. In those days it was attacks on Christian churches, fundamentalist ones, and we found the police balanced and keen to maintain order though sometimes aggressive monks were supported by ...

I continue here with my visit to the East and note memories of earlier visits to Mutur, when Siron Rajaratnam the redoubtable Director of the Trincomalee Affiliated University College twice organized teacher training workshops for me there. Those were dangerous times and once we heard gunfire nearby in the night, but there was no question of refusing her request, for ...

I continue with the visit to the East, including an account of how my encouragement to deal firmly with abductions led to them stopping in the area. However I regret that government did not move straight away, on the lines of the Sarvodaya programme we visited, to the training necessary to promote employment and economic activity. It helped that I ...

This eighth account deals with my first long trip into the field as head of SCOPP, which will allow for pictures of this lovely country. The trip was to all the Districts of the Eastern Province which had been cleared of the LTTE the previous year. I needed to see what was going on and to find out what if ...

I record here also the farewell dinner I gave the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission which had generally done a good job. The pictures are of its head, and the Deputy Anna Sender who became a good friend and saw me a few years back when she came on holiday to Sri Lanka. I also add a couple of pictures, though ...

This sixth account of Peace Secretariat days notes the coincidence of my coming across Rama Mani at the Galle Literary Festival. She was then engaged in trying to subject Sri Lanka to the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, and actually used the festival to drum up support to stop the government cancelling her visa. But the UN was firm, the local ...

This describes one of my most important achievements in my early days at SCOPP, when I managed to get the A 9 open six days a week. The LTTE had stopped the ICRC opening this more than three days, while also managing to blame us for their own intransigence. The pictures are of the Omanthai checkpoint and a contrasting aerial ...

This fourth account of SCOPP days notes my continuing educational work, as well as the visit of Louise Arbour, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who was being manoeuvered by her staff to embarrass us, which was why I suggested she was a political football – thankfully with a question mark, for she was a rotund woman which I ...

This account of SCOPP days notes the problems we faced from international elements which opposed our firm dealings with the LTTE and engaged in insidious criticism designed to stop us in defeating them. I note here too how we moved into a splendid new office, and how perhaps I incurred Sajin Vas Goonewardene’s eternal wrath when I side-stepped an effort ...

This second account of days at SCOPP deals with interactions with different foreigners, amongst whom the most principled I found were the Norwegian diplomats. Some of those involved in aid work were a bit shifty, and indulged the terrorism of the LTTE. The risk I had taken on became clear when I was told I needed to have security, for ...

Pictures from Peace Secretariat Days I have posted 20 extracts now from my letters from Oxford, bringing the narrative to the end of my first summer vacation. Obviously these are not as interesting as the 100 posts I presented earlier, with pictures from my travels. These were mainly about other countries though I did cover some ground in Sri Lanka ...

From the City of Aquatint 20 These letters continue with the visit to Russia when I joined a parliamentary delegation from home. And there is a postscript about the last few days in London before I went back to Oxford for my second year. The pictures are not mine, a taste of what I was lucky to see St. Mark’s ...

From the City of Aquatint 19 These letters are from the end of the vacation, in Russia where I joined a parliamentary delegation my father was on. They have a romp through what I had done earlier, spending some weeks in Yugoslavia using the homes of our friends Milan and Helga Kovac as a base, but exploring much. And I ...