H.E. Jon Westborg
Ambassador of Norway

Excellencies:

Sri Lanka has not been able to afford comprehensive historical research of the country's people and economy. Still, we know that by the time of the Old Testament, the island's aromatic cinnamon was reputed (Exodus 30:23, Solomon 4:14). The same Cinnamonum zeylanicum (or 'Ilangovan pattai' in India i.e., 'Sri Lankan bark') has also been identified by archaeologists in pharaohs' tombs.

Other research identifies the island as Ophir of the Old Testament (2 Chr 9:9-12; that research de-rives the name from the word 'Ovayar' meaning 'skilled artisan.') The island's many river estuaries served sailing vessels carrying (i) the island's own produce (including sapphires and timber,) (ii) pro-duce from India, and also (iii) produce from the Far East brought in by Javanese sampang to Hamban-tota ('sampang port.') At a site little layered by new civilisations in the high elevation Horton Plains, barley seeds have been found. Though the seeds are dated at 5000 BC, when rigorous tests can be performed that may show the seeds belong (barley was a cultivated foodgrain of man before maize, rice and wheat) in a time series going to 10,000 BC as in the case of the vanished Indus Valley civili-sation.

Even if social endurance and continuity in the island has been little researched, modern evidence tells us that the pattern of artisan and trade groups represents a mode of social production different to that of the West. The mode of production contributed castes in the island's South and in the North and they may be seen represented in the matrimonials of any Sunday paper.

Among library references to caste sociology is Ralph Pieris' work. He documents, for instance, the Thumba workmen of the North who were once allowed to leave home only after nightfall, dragging a palm branch behind so as to erase footprints in the sand. The fifteen castes in the Southern systems are often considered milder though Pieris records the consternation of a British judge in Kandy in the case of a family that was obliged by Hakuru social tradition to take the life of its own daughter who had given her hand and been espoused by a youth of the Padu caste.

In the Atlantic civilisation, the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America was founded by a group of anti-slavery Methodists in 1843. In this island Wesleyans preached the dissolving of caste and creed as early as 1816. The oldest Methodist chapel in Asia is located in Colombo; it was designed by a Royal Engineer and contributors of cash towards construction included the British Governor. Starting in 1815 in the island with political unification, the British administration carefully worked to main-tain a peaceful situation without allowing clan conflicts to destabilise the island.

Though in today's legislative, tourist and media books, champions must identify themselves by a lan-guage, a tit-for-tat battle could go on within the Sinhala and Tamil identities. Therefore such events could erupt together:

(a) A release of bombs from airplanes on the North could lead to the destruction of warplanes parked on an airfield in the South;
(b) During on-going civil war, governance by SLFP-led alliance could suffer undermining by rallies organised by UNP-led alliance;
(c) The cooperation of one Northern group with the South could cause the loss life of its leadership at the hands of a rival group.

In fulfilling President Franklin D. Roosevelt's decolonisation pledge of the Atlantic Charter signed by PM Sir Winston Churchill in August 1941, the British government had a new task in the island when granting Independence. It exerted every effort to create a viable administration.

These perils were visible near Sri Lanka in Singapore. The International Herald Tribune of Sept. 17, 1998 records that Lee Kuan Yew in his memoirs "accuses Malaysia's dominant party - the United Malays National Organization, known by its initials as UMNO - of instigating bloody riots between ethnic Chinese and Malays in Singapore in 1964 ..."

"I thought our people should understand how vulnerable Singapore was and is, the dangers that beset us, and how we nearly did not make it," Lee Kuan Yew writes. "Most of all, I hope that they will know that honest and effective government, public order and personal security, economic and social progress did not come about as the natural course of events."

Riots in Singapore had occurred in 1950, 1955, 1961, 1964 and 1965 - but Lee Kwan Yew restored the order he had seen in the British period. He led Singapore into a selective focus on economic de-velopment. That advanced Singapore into the league of the world's developed nations.

In the case of Sri Lanka, we observe the country suffer loss of focus in 1977 in adopting the dangerous economic model of Milton Friedman and his early predecessor Thomas Hobbes (who plagiarised for publication in English in the 1660s the Italian texts of Machiavelli). With that model, the tilt of the island into prolonged disturbance began.

In 1983 the island experienced mass house burning, a stunning reflection of Thomas Hobbes' theory of "War of each against the other." As for overseas financial houses, in Sri Lanka the model supplied indebtedness as it did on trial elsewhere in the world. To that end, the country-wide business devel-opment that Friedman had advertised on TV ("Free to Choose" series) started to evaporate like de-sert mirage. A recent membership survey by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce showed that only 2% of its membership found the situation encouraging (report in 'Lakbima' newspaper of July 31st, 2001).

The pace of "War of each against the other" has increased rapidly since my letter to you of July 5th (the 4,100 word country report I enclosed is now on the Internet at http://www.oocities.org/Athens/7842/wcindex.htm.

Please be assured of my interest and of my cooperation in the task of returning normality to life in Sri Lanka.

Yours faithfully, Wendell W. Solomons

THINAMURUSU
Newspaper
July 29, 2001
The 1983 July riots saw innocent Tamils massacred in the South. The events which took place last week in Colombo brought back memories. The UNP organised five processions and was scheduled to demonstrate in Colombo but the government was determined to stop it - and they did that.

In the process two persons died and 60 persons were injured while the cost of teargas fired on this day was six million rupees. Meanwhile, more billions are going into the North-East war.

Last week's events have shown that huge monies are being spent on preventive measures. Like the 1983 July riots these events caused much damage to property. The culture of demonstrations has be-come the nature of our politics today and it can be seen that whenever clashes erupt between the two major parties, it becomes war and not just demonstration.

© 2001 by Wendell W. Solomons
All rights reserved.

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