Mr. A. Sinnalebbe,Batticaloa MP on 16th January 1948 suggested that the Lion Flag of King Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe should be made the National Flag

National Flag The necessity of a National Flag was discussed even before Sri Lanka gained independence on 4th February 1948. Mr. A. Sinnalebbe, MP for Batticaloa tabled a motion in the State Council on 16th January 1948 suggesting that the Lion Flag of King Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe which was taken to Britain in 1815 should be made the National Flag. This was debated and later, Prime Minister Rt. Hon. D.S.Senanayake named an Advisory Committee for the formulation of a National Flag. The members of the committee were Mr.S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike (Chairman), Sir John Kotalawela, Mr.J.R.Jayawardena, Mr.T.B.Jayah, Dr.L.A.Rajapakse, Mr.G.G.Ponnambalam and Senator S.Nadesan. Although a committee for the formulation of a National Flag was appointed, no finality had been reached when the first independence day was celebrated on 4th February 1948. However, the Lion Flag fluttered on that day. The Lion Flag and the British Union Jack fluttered on the occasion of the opening of the first Parliament of independent Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) on 19th February 1948. Prime Minister D.S.Senanayake unfurled the Lion Flag at the Octagon (Pattirippuwa) during the independence celebration held in Kandy on 12th February 1948. The National Flag recommended by the special committee was presented to Parliament by Mr.D.S.Senanayake on 2nd March 1951 and adopted. It had two strips, one green and the other yellow. Each of these strips had to be equal to one seventh of the size of the flag. When Sri Lanka was first made a republic in 1972, the traditional Bo Leaves depicted in the National Flag were changed to resemble natural Bo Leaves. This amended flag was first unfurled at the Republic Day celebrations held on 22nd May 1972. The National Flag is incorporated in Section 6 Second Schedule of the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka of 9th September 1978. Except for the new Bo Leaves, the present flag is the same flag recommended by the National Flag Formulation Committee on 2nd March 1951. National Anthem After gaining independence from foreign rule, the people of Sri Lanka were kindled with patriotic feeling. On the recommendation of the Sri Lanka Gandharva Sabha a competition to select a national anthem was conducted in January 1948. At this competition, late Mr. Ananda Samarakoon`s composition `Namo Namo Matha` was chosen as the National Anthem. The main theme of the Anthem is designed to instil honour and respect to the Motherland and create national progress through unity. During the early 1950s there was a controversy about the national anthem. A defect was found in the lyrics and the opening words were changed as `Sri Lanka Matha - Apa Sri Lanka` The first rendering of the National Anthem was made on Independence Day, 4th February 1948 by a group of 500 students from Musaeus College, Colombo and it was broadcast over the radio. The National Anthem is incorporated in Section 7 Third Schedule of the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. State Emblem Sri Lanka used the British emblem when it was a British Crown Colony. We continued to use it even after gaining independence in 1948. According to the recommendations of a select committee appointed to devise a state emblem more suitable for Sri Lanka (Ceylon) we opted for a new State Emblem. It had a Lion with Sword in its right fore paw encircled with a `Palapethi` design atop. Below there was a strip carrying the country`s name in Sinhala, Tamil and English. A new republican emblem was chosen after the country was declared a Republic on 22nd May 1972. In addition to the lion with a sword and the `Palapethi` design, it portrays the `punkalasa`, `dhammachakka`, sun, moon and two sheaves of paddy. National Flower The Nil Mahanel flower was declared the National Flower of Sri Lanka on 26th February 1986. Its botanical name is `Nympheae Stellata`. This flower is mentioned in many Sinhala, Pali and Sanskrit Literary works. The flower which is also referred to as `Kuvalaya`, `Indhewara`, `Niluppala`, `Nilothpala` and `Nilupul` occupies a pre-eminent position in Buddhist literature too. It is said the `Nil Mahanel Flower` was among the 108 ceremonial designs found on the footprint of Prince Siddhartha. This proves that it had been a ceremonial flower throughout history. It is believed that the damsels depicted in Sigiriya Frescoes also carry the Nil Mahanel flower in their hands. Traditional poetry known as `Sandesa Kavya` likens women`s eyes to the Nil Mahanel flower which has also been used as an ear ornament. The Nil Mahanel plant which grows in shallow waters is found in all parts of the country. The flower which is purplish blue in colour has a heavy concentration of petals in the centre. The Nil Mahanel flower is also considered a symbol of truth, purity and discipline. National Tree A proposal made to declare the Na Tree as the National Tree was adopted by the Cabinet on 26th February 1986...

Batticaloa Lagoon the largest lagoon of Sri lanka

Hi divers,
My dive yesterday 27.09.09 on the wreck of Hermes was the 50th hermes dive. We usually leave from the Giant Batticaloa Lagoon. (the largest lagoon of Sri lanka) Every year during the months of September and October the mouth of the lagoon gets blocked.
We had to pull and push the boat to the sea. It was a 21ft fiber glass boat with a 25hp out board motor. Four tec divers and the boatman. It worth the trouble. We found the 2nd Propeller (port side prop) partially buried in sand but still connected to the shaft at 56m. Excellent visibility, great marine life. The season to dive the hermes will come to and end in a couple of weeks. It's a bit inconvenient to dive the hermes in September and October. We used a 25 hp out board engine for the first time after three decades.
Divers need to plan their dives next year during the months of March and August.
Happy diving
Felician
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Back to Batticaloa

Text and pics By R. Wijewardene
in Batticaloa

You hurtle at speed along a road so flat and smooth it resembles polished dark glass.

In the darkness villages, towns and houses flash by in a blur of fluorescent light, and neon. Kilometre posts appear and disappear in seconds — even the darkness is accelerated.

Is this the rush of an unlit autobahn at night or lonely highway cleaving its way through the American Midwest? No. Its the A-11 between Polonnaruwa and Batticaloa, perhaps the finest stretch of rolled tar in the country.

More than the quality of road however what’s striking is the darkness.

To travel to Batticaloa through the emptiness beyond Medawachchiya and through the once fraught towns of Valaichchenai, Kiran and Eravur in the darkness — without fear or check points is to experience, in a journey, the magnitude of the changes that have gripped this country over the past few months.

A night time journey to Batticaloa has been impossible for almost three decades. Daylight reveals the full extent of the changes that have taken place in the town and the surrounding area.

While the demolition of houses and shop fronts in the centre of Batti thanks to a road widening scheme makes the town appear like more of a war zone than it ever did previously, there is a relaxed, unthreatening air on the streets of Batticaloa that speaks volumes about its progress.

The hair trigger tension of what has for decades been the least stable major town in the country outside of the peninsula is gone. The armed presence has diminished.

Checks points are virtually non existent — newly recruited Tamil officers now patrol the streets and people move freely at all times.

Once forlorn bars, restaurants and hotels are crowded extraordinarily not with foreign visitors or NGO workers but with Sinhala businessmen and tourists.

Scenes that have been unimaginable for years; scores of Sinhala day trippers from Polonnaruwa and Dambulla bathing in the placid waters at Passekuda – are now almost routine.

The best things of course remains the same. The lagoons and the sea gleam – a dozen shades of blue under the searing eastern sun. The view from the Kallady bridge remains a vision of a virtual Venice – a city, more than any other in this country defined and surrounded by water. A city surely with a future as bright as the light that bounces off the dazzling surface of its lagoons.

But things in this country are rarely that simple. Beneath Batticaloa’s fresh veneer — its sparkling Food City, and rows of refurbished banks there are visible cracks, fissures that threaten to collapse this vision of a town wrapped securely in the folds of development and progress.

Feuding factions:TMVP vs TMVP

The rift within the TMVP is deep. Pillayan and Karuna’s factions remain in open confrontation. The last weeks have seen Pillayan prevented from opening offices in parts of the east by Karuna loyalists.

Within the limits of Batticaloa town the Pillayan faction of the TMVP have replaced the old roaring Tiger emblem which decorated their offices, bases and bunkers with a new emblem — a sleek motor boat powering into the future.

But outside his strongholds in Batticaloa and Trincomalee towns Pillayan’s ship appears to be sinking.

In the Tamil hinterlands of the interior and coastal villages Kurana reigns supreme — his cadres unlike Pillayan’s never handed over their weapons and posters affirming his closeness to the island’s shawled, mustachioed centre of power.

Pillayan by daring to ask that more power be handed over to the Eastern Provincial Council has incurred the wrath of the mighty centre.

No longer in control of an armed force and undercut by the central government his power base is rapidly being decimated. He is at loggerheads with the appointed governor of the EasternProvince — a battle he cannot expect to win given the enormous powers vested in the governor. The new mayor of Batticaloa too is thought to be sympathetic to Karuna.

Even within his stronghold of Batticaloa therefore his position is becoming untenable — his failure to win concessions from the government have revealed the narrow limits of the Chief Minister’s power. And faced with the Chief Minister’s impotence his inability to win concessions from the central government the people have turned against Pillayan.

However that is not to say they are in favour of Karuna either.

Ultimately from the whisperings in the town’s eating houses and conversations with veteran analysts of Batticaloa’s political situation an outsider can glean that for the most part the people of Batticaloa regard both Karuna and Pillayan as stooges of the government. Their inability to wok together to win more rights for the Tamil people is seen as a final act of betrayal.

Extraordinarily in and around Batticaloa there remains robust support for the TNA despite the party’s absolutely rudderless present state and its links to the vanquished LTTE. “If there were free elections in the province the TNA would win the Tamil vote and win easily” were the words of a seasoned journalist.

The same sentiments were repeated again and again by those prepared to comment on the situation. The government has crushed the LTTE and delivered unprecedented infrastructure development however the battle for the hearts and minds of the people of the east is far from won.

Changing the mindset of a people who have endured decades of restrictions, repression and fear will take time. Roads and bridges cannot undo decades of fear and suspicion; the wounds in this part of the country are still fresh and deep.

A damaged people

Beyond the highways the glass fronted buildings and the sleek roads of Batticaloa remain profoundly damaged. Not in the sense of bullet ridden buildings or craters left from past shellings – there are none of these, but the bruised psychology of the people reveals a shattered landscape.

This is a land of mental scars and where buildings have been rebuilt, damage remains manifest in the province’s people.

An indication of the scale of the human suffering that remains in the district years after its liberation is the fact that there are 60 orphanages in and around Batticaloa town. Each housing dozens of children. Young people who endured the worst atrocities of war saw their families massacred, their houses burned and their lives destroyed.

The homes range from well run and caring facilities to ridiculously extravagant air-conditioned equipped compounds now crumbling for want of funds.

Of these various houses of sorrow only five are registered. Some are extremely well run, others much less so but all continue to function as the government recognises that closing unregistered orphanages would only inundate a system that is even at present barely coping. There are simply thousands of orphans in the district.

Almost all these orphanages were built with generous donor funding and promises of long term assistance to the children in their care. But as the world’s attention has now turned to new crises donor funding is proving harder to come and many of these homes are struggling for funds.

Some have had to go to extraordinary lengths to secure the funding they need.

“Before we were funded by international donors – from Italy and other European countries we were following a programme where the children were looked after by carers who functioned like surrogate mothers. But the funding for that programme ran out and now we have an agreement with ‘Art of Living’ Ravi Shankar’s foundation. The children are raised according to the principles of Shankar’s philosophy, breathing exercises, compulsory laughter and crying – its helps balance their minds and souls”

The man in charge of the centre seems enthusiastic about the new system but whether the east’s orphans should be raised according to the new age teachings of an Indian guru is an open question.

Some orphanages in fact are nothing less that fully fledged Indian style ashrams with rhythmic chanting broadcast constantly over manicured gardens populated by shaven-headed orphans in dhottis who spend their days listening to mantrams and worshipping photographs of their distant Indian guru.

It all seems frighteningly arbitrary – Ravi Shankar orphanages, ashram orphanages, Catholic orphanages, fundamentalist protestant orphanages all without any particular regulation or supervision.

However for the most, the children are well clothed, fed and the current chaos may in fact be the best solution for what is a genuinely intractable problem. Government intervention might have the effect of closing orphanages or might only make things worse.

Ultimately the idea that children who saw their parents killed in front of their eyes, who had their mothers immolate themselves on hearing the news of their fathers’ death will ever lead normal lives is, for the most part, an unrealistic dream.

The horror of the conflict will live on in these children indefinitely; for decades they will be a reminder of a past everyone else is already eager to forget.

Electric refugees

Another living reminder of the east’s dark past are the refugees. Of course it was announced that all the east’s refugees had been resettled and allowed to return home months ago. But as ever things are not quite what they are announced to be.

While the vast majority of refuges have returned – there is a single but crucial exception – hundreds of families evicted from their homes in Sampur remain trapped in the tented limbo of IDP camps outside of Batticaloa.

Their former homes have been declared a high security zone. In reality of course the zone is the site of the proposed Sampur coal power plant and the government having encountered land disputes and protests that accompanied the construction of the power plant at Norochcholai is keen to make sure that the people never return.

These are therefore not refugees from the war but from development – displaced by the country’s need for electricity.

While the government has offered these electric refugees compensation and alternative land they continue to demand the right to return to the land of their ancestors. That the country needs development is unquestionable but why a community already battered by the war and tsunami should pay the heaviest price for this development is an open and uncomfortable question.

The Sampur refugees sweltering in their tin roofed temporary homes reveal both the duplicity and concealment of the government and the failure of the media who distracted by various other issues have failed to follow up on this painful but profoundly important case.

Eastern Tamils; a peoplein decline

Ultimately the reality of Batticaloa today is complex. There is the clear reality of development programmes and investment but also the reality that displacement destruction and death have damaged the region’s people, particularly its Tamil people, almost beyond repair.

North of the town in recently ‘cleared’ villages rent by the tsunami and the war the situation remains bleak. The land is parched from months of drought, the remaining water resources are barely adequate all the talk is of emigration and escape.

The inescapable reality is that the Tamils of the east are a people in decline. Literally so as their numbers continue to dwindle as the Sinhala and Muslim population of the east expands. Sinhala villages line the road from Polonnaruwa almost to Valaichchenai and Muslims dominate the coast from Kattankudi to Kalmunai and beyond.

An accurate census would almost certainly reveal that Muslims are in fact the largest ethnic group in the province. The thambis or ‘little brothers’ are now the dominant ethnic group in the east and Tamils now struggle even to constitute the largest minority group.

Separatism and autonomy are no longer even a remote possibility for a people who after decades of armed struggle are now a minority in a province they once claimed as their own.

Peace and the end of separatism must be a relief for any and all those who are truly fond of this ancient island but that one of the east’s cultures appears to be disappearing gradually pushed by emigration, disenchantment and despair into insignificance can only be a source of sadness,

For now in the evenings the air in the centre of Batticaloa town is still perfumed. Thick with incense as burning camphor is offered to the gods – as it has been for over thousands of years. But how much longer these rituals will persist in the face of the inexorable demographic and economic changes now gripping the east is difficult to predict.

And the best advice for those looking to understand the multifaceted and complex reality of this island’s most complex and fascinating province is visit now. Visit often. Fantastic roads and fabulous new intercity trains will take you there. Second class Colombo-Batticaloa train tickets on the comfortable newly donated Chinese intercity express start from Rs. 500 and you can roll into Batticaloa on the wheels of progress.

If you look at Batticaloa District on a map, you’ll see that in a sense there are two Districts.

Let Them Drink Rice Wine: Withholding Water as Punishment on the East Coast?

September 17, 2009 at 7:00 am · Categories: Batticaloa, English, Peace and Conflict | by A Little Batti

If you look at Batticaloa District on a map, you’ll see that in a sense there are two Districts.

The first is the coastal strip, where you find Batti, Kattankudy, Valachchenai, and other towns and villages. I’m only guessing, but it seems to me that some 90% of the Districts’ population lives in this narrow band of land.

As you will see on your map, a long sinuous lagoon separates most of the coastal strip from the interior, which makes up the bulk of the District. The interior is sparsely populated and there are no real towns to speak of; at best you could call them small villages or hamlets.

I am most familiar with Mamunai West Division, which is located directly opposite the lagoon from Batticaloa town. I’m quite familiar with many of the farming hamlets that dot the area, and the people who live there. Incidentally, the Division extends west, and includes Unnichchai Tank, one of the largest tanks in Sri Lanka. This is crucial to the point of this article.

In 2007, an agreement was signed between the Sri Lankan Government, the Asian Development Bank (as funder) and a Chinese construction conglomerate called China Geo-Engineering Corporation/Salcon Engineering Berhad/Access Engineering Ltd. to create a water transport system from Unnichchai to the coastal strip. Work was promptly begun, and proceeds apace today. The project is called the Batticaloa Water Supply Project.

To date, numerous Chinese-style water tanks have mushroomed up and down the coastal strip, and many roads have been dug up in order to lay massive pipes. This includes the dirt tracks that pass as roads in Mamunai West. The project is busily underway, and is slated to be completed in March 2010.

Water is an extremely serious problem in the Mamunai West. Or rather the extreme lack of it. During the long, dry, hot season, the water table disappears beneath the bedrock and many places literally are bone dry. For example, a friend constructed a water tank in the hamlet of Palakkadu. Palakkadu is so dry they had to pay a village boy to pedal his bike along the dirt track to a still-functioning tube well several kilometers away to fetch enough water to mix the cement. That’s how dry it is. The local Divisional Secretary (DS) has tried to improve the situation by bringing in NGOs to dig deep (and very expensive) tube wells, and has a water truck that makes the rounds.

There have been two serious consequences from this project in the Division, and they largely depend upon which part you live.

If you live near the tank, you have lost almost all of your water supply. Prior to the project, there was a British colonial era conduit that regulated flow from the tank. This conduit maintained the area water table. While the water table was deep, too deep to dig a conventional open well for example, it did allow for deep tube wells to be drilled and old fashioned hand pumps were adequate to bring it to the surface.

However, the conduit has now been closed and as a result, the water table has fallen drastically. The deep tube wells no longer draw anything near sufficient amounts of water. One well I saw takes about 10 minutes of pumping to draw a liter of water. Every couple of liters-full of water brought up, and pumping must stop for a half hour or so to allow more water to accumulate. People are now queuing up hours to get a couple of liters of water, sometimes well into the night. On top of this, much of Mamunai West is jungle, so there are issues with wild animals at night, particularly wild elephants.

If you live closer to Batticaloa, the problem is much the same. The difference is that while the DS water truck didn’t service those areas near the tank (as there was water available) it did on the sun-baked eastern half of the Division. However, due to the fall of the water table, the government pump no longer draws water, rendering the truck useless.

In both cases, the Division is littered with all those expensive tube wells the NGOs drilled, and almost all of them are now worthless. The few that work are now drawing water from a depth that contains sodium. I’ve tasted it. While not as salty as the ocean, it is definitely not fit for drinking. I could taste the salt in my mouth for the rest of the day. (Let me be precise; the water still drawn near Unnichchai is fit to drink; the water in the eastern half is not.)

I am not associated with this project, so I don’t really know the ins and outs of it, nor do I know authoritatively what the final project will look like. I can only report what the people have been told, which is what they tell me. And in a sense, perception is more important than truth.

First, the fall of the water table will be permanent and will probably go lower. The conduit is closed permanently, and all outflow will be piped directly to Batticaloa.

Second, the residents of Mamunai West will not see a drop of the water. There are no plans for water towers, tanks, or taps in the Division.

Third, the project itself has brought no economic benefit to the people of Mamunai West. For example, at the edge of Palakkadu is a big, brand new water control station and pump. However, no one from the Division has been able to get a job with the project, not even as construction labor.

Don’t get me wrong. Water is a big concern for the coastal strip which does, after all, represent 90% of the population. It is a good thing that the water will be efficiently transported to where it is needed. There is no argument about that.

But why can’t the people of Mamunai West also benefit? The pipes are going right past their villages. True, it would be a waste to put a tower/tank/tap in every hamlet, but surely three or four can be put in central locations so that locals can drink good water? Surely, compared to the amount of money being spent on coastal infrastructure, the additional cost for Mamunai West would be tiny? So too would be the amount of water consumed.

So why are the residents of Mamunai West being ignored by the planners of this project? I will tell you. It involves a little history, so bear with me.

First, let me say that I have no documentary proof of this; there is no “smoking gun.” However long history of living here has given me a lot of experience, which, when dosed with common sense, leads to the following:

During the recent civil war, the District was politically/militarily divided in almost the same way Batticaloa Lagoon divides region. Specifically, during the last half-decade of the conflict, the coastal strip was largely controlled by the Government and/or its militia proxies, in particular the TMVP. The interior was still controlled by the LTTE. The TMVP and LTTE were engaged in a cloak and dagger war up and down the costal strip. White van-ing was common, and you could hear gunshots at night.

In 2007, the military rolled through the interior of the District, defeating the LTTE and eventually brought the entire Province under government control.

The people of the interior were labeled “pro-terrorist suspects” in a way similar to what is going on now in the North. The result was the military turned its back while their allied militias launched a witch-hunt in the interior. The rumours trickling out of the interior were so bad that the government even prevented foreigners such as myself from entering the area, ostensibly for our security. Mamunai West, being opposite of Batticaloa, was considered a terrorist hotspot, and the people suffered accordingly.

By the second half of 2008, things had calmed down and foreigners were allowed to enter.

OK, so what?

It’s just that one can’t help noticing that the areas left out of the project are precisely the areas that are supposedly “pro-LTTE” whereas the TMVP relies on what little popular support it has strictly on the costal strip, which will benefit from the extra water.

I hate to sound cynical, but could it be that if the situation were reversed, if the interior was TMVP territory, that the pipes would stop in Vavunatheevu, the Division village closest to Batticaloa? On suspects that it would be so.

What one can conclude is that this project, while indeed helpful to most people, was also created and implemented as a method of reward and punishment, and the shoring up of shaky political allies, not only as a humanitarian project.

I want to stress something, if only to cover my own rear end, as foreigners are barely tolerated by the authorities in the east. This situation is in no way based on ethnicity, or religion. It SEEMS to be based purely on politics, national and local. I am only pointing out that this project has the appearance of being shaped by politics, rather than a desire to help ALL the people of Batti District.

Again, let me reiterate; the project will be very helpful for Batticaloa and its environs. Many people will benefit. The problem is not the project itself, but its motivation and its effects on the people of Mamunai West. Overall there will be tremendous benefit. But really, couldn’t the project planners to a little something to offset the damage they’re doing to Mamunai Wests’ water supply? I mean just a tiny little something?

I would very much like to get a posted response from someone involved in this project that addresses this issue. In fact, it’s my hope that by writing this, that Someone Important will tell Someone Else Important, and so on, and that the situation can be fixed. I hope something positive can come from this article.

Food for thought. Or should I say, water?