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 through thematic postings.

For variation I thought now I thought to post pictures from Sri Lanka for 20 days, connected with work and journeys I did while at the Peace Secretariat. I was appointed to head it in June 2007 and had a very full two years there, which included much international travel. I also continued with some of my responsibilities at the university and the Sri Lanka Military Academy, as well as completing some books I had begun, though all that tailed off over the year. This was just as well for in June 2008 I also started to work concurrently as Secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, a position which also carried a heavy workload.

I shall publish later an account of these days, detailing my journeys abroad as well as those in Sri Lanka. But here I will only note important events apart from interesting journeys which provided further opportunities to relish the beauty of the country.

And there will also be pictures of people with whom there were interesting interactions, as well as of my dog Ricky, whose death was the saddest event of those early days at SCOPP though it had been long expected.

  1. Beginning at SCOPP – Ricky’s death

I was asked to head the Secretariat on May 28th when I was teaching at Sabaragamuwa University. I accepted straight away, and found the Vice-Chancellor positive about releasing me. Several of my colleagues were former students and were sad about my leaving, but I was also surprised, and touched, that several of the students seemed tearful.

I went to my cottage by the river near Ingiriya on the 30th and on the next day worked on the text of the series of English textbooks I had been asked to prepare by Newton Peiris who presided over the association of international schools which taught the local syllabuses in English. In Colombo on the 1st of June I formally accepted the appointment at the Pesidential Secretariat, but was told the previous Secretary General Palitha Kohona would only be available the following week to hand over. So I went back to my cottage on the 2nd for more work on the books and then went on the 3rd to the Tangerine Hotel for a seminar organized by the Centre for Policy Analyses, little knowing that its head, my old friend Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, who had been Vice-President of the Liberal Party when I was its first President, would turn out to be one of my fiercest critics over the next few years.

I was back in Colombo on Monday evening, saw Palitha at the Foreign Ministry, where he was Secretary, on the Wednesday, and then took up my duties on the 7th. SCOPP was housed at the BMICH, but in a number of unconnected rooms while awaiting the new office that was being built for it in a separate very attractive building also at the BMICH.

In addition to getting to know my staff I had to familiarize myself with the diplomatic community, with the British High Commissioner coming in the very next day, and the Norwegian ambassador on the Monday as also separately the Norwegian Facilitator Mr Bauer. And since I thought I should actively promote internal changes regardless of whether the Tigers negotiated or not, I met with the Ministers tasked with promoting reforms.

But I still had many loose ends to tie up, the English books and also Derrick Nugawela’s autobiography which I was editing. Then I thought I could still continue with work at the Sri Lanka Military Academy in Diyatalawa where I was academic coordinator of the degree course offered through Sabaragamuwa University.

And saddest of all I had to look after my dog Ricky, the gentlest of German Shepherds, who was dying. He had to be taken regularly to the vet, and on Saturday the 16th, since I had to spend some time in the office I took him with me. Kithsiri took a picture of him there, where he looks alert as he used to be.

I was at the office Tuesday to Friday and then went to the SLMA again on the Saturday for vivas. On Sunday, at the cottage, I had to mark papers for the South Eastern University where I was consultant on English, and also check on a thesis for the MA in English and Education we conducted at Sabaragamuwa.

In Colombo that night Ricky woke me up five times and I knew he would not last longer. So after work that week I took him to the cottage on the Saturday. I had only started doing this recently, but he seemed to enjoy it and I am glad we were together so much in that last week. He had to be taken to the vet when we got back on Sunday, and again the next day, when I persuaded him to eat with a mixture of biscuits and ice-cream. But that evening, when we got back from the vet, he died. He went to the tap to drink as he always did but I did not open it for I wanted to give him something more nourishing. I still regret that for a moment after I went upstairs Kithsiri told me had had died.

He was a lovely creature, a good companion to my father when I was away, and incredibly devoted though I was away from Lakmahal so much. His tail would whirl like a Catherine wheel when I got back after a long stay abroad. And once, at the river, when I went in, he whimpered on the bank until I came back, something he had never done before, obviously worried by the strength of the current.

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 the LTTE considered me a target, understandable given how effective I was in dealing with their propaganda.