SriLankaUnites is a misnomer

Prashan De Visser, President of Sri Lanka Unites(till November 2019) and Global Unites, misleads the
national and international community:

1.Anybody would expect a body called SriLankaUnites to raise a voice against injustice to the ethno-
religious minorities, eg. the post-war hyper-militarisation of Northern SriLanka for
PsyOps: https://www.scribd.com/document/440612550/Sri-Lanka-21C-PsyOps-on-the-War-ravaged-
People-in-the-North-East 
- News Archives 2010-2019 got wiped off http://www.cimicjaffna.com/ and replaced by on 31 December
2019

Why has Prashan De Visser been silent on Post-ar Militarisation and its PsyOps on the people?

2. Then he goes on to mislead the world on his catalogue of the years of violence in Sri Lanka:
a.
 i. ‘’....... Sri Lanka is a beautiful island and it had brutal violence in 54, 72, 83, 88, 96, 2009, 2012,
2019. ......’’ -  Conflict Transformation and Reconciliation, 11/12/2019, Global Unites Summit
2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ptjz4uykbU&feature=youtu.be
 ii. ''....... We had cycles of violence:1954, 1972, 1983, 1988, 1996, 2009, 2012, 2019. ........'' - Panel
Discussion: How does Sri Lanka treat our minorities? 
27/06/2020 - https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=268164887622322&ref=watch_permalink
 
b. Prashan, it is very tragic that you failed to mention major incidents of state violence which created the
Tamil armed rebels, LTTE and Sinhalese armes rebels, JVP:
according to the submissions made by many conscientious Sinhalese(top civil servants, lawyers, academics,
etc to LLRC in 2010 - https://www.scribd.com/doc/104705097/Conscientious-Sinhalese-Tell-LLRC ,  two of
them are members of  the Board of Trustees of SriLankaUnites - Appendix):
1948/1949 - Sri Lanka obtained Independence from Britain in February 1948. Tamil workers  in tea/rubber
plantations were made voteless and stateless by laws passed ln 1948/1949.
1956 -  ''Sinhala Only'' Official Language Act was passed in the parliament on 5 June 1956.
 Tamil parliamentarians and Tamils numbering about 200 protested by Gandhian-style non-violent sit-in
opposite the parliament. Sinhala thugs attacked them, while the police stood by without restraining
the attackers as ordered by Sinhala parliamentarians. Two of the protestors were even pushed into Beira
Lake) Violence spread around mainly Colombo and GalOya killing about 150 Tamils and many more
attacked with looting and burning of shops and houses belonging to Tamils.
1957 – Banda-Chelva pact, an agreement for concessionary use for Tamil Language in the North/East was
withdrwn by Buddhist monks' opposition.
1958 - a pogrom was unleashed on Tamils- hundreds of Tamils were killed and houses and shops were
burnt - the Tamils who were worried about their safety were shipped to the North and the East by the
government
1959 - Prime Minister S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike was shot dead by a Buddhist monk.
1961 - Gandhian-style non-violent sit-in protest in Jaffna against ''Sinhala Only''  from February onwards
when the army was sent in April to crush the protest and to put Tamil parliamentarians and local-level
leaders under arrest in an Army cantonment for six months. Several peaceful protesters were attacked and
some were hospitalised.
Militarisation of the North began with Military camps in Mannar, Jaffna, Mullaitivu and Trincomalee
districts(Appendix 1) because the Prime Minister's Secretary, N.Q.Dias, thought that there would be armed
rebellion after 25yrs
1965 - Dudley-Chelva pact, a concessionary pact for Tamils was opposed by Buddhist monks in a protest
when a monk was accidentally shot dead.
1971 - JVP armed rebellion in the South lasting two months - thousands of Sinhala Youths were captured
and put in rehabilitation camps for months.
1972 – A new Constitution was made with the removal of the protective Clause(29c) for minorities in the
Constitution handed over by the British in 1948.
1976 – Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was formed
1977 - post-election pogrom was unleashed onTamils killing hundreds of Tamils in many parts of Sri Lanka
1979 – 11 July – 31 December Emergency declared and in JaffnaTamil boys were arrested - Public Security
Ordinance gave the police and armed forces the power to dispose of dead bodies without an inquest.
Some bodies were never seen again.
1981 - Jaffna Public Library was burnt followed by the burning of Jaffna market, houses and some offices
including a newspaper printing office. A few policemen and several Tamils got killed. The library with
irreplaceable manuscripts were burnt by the Police at the instigation of two government Ministers.
1987-1989 - second JVP armed rebellion in the South when thousands of youths got killed and govt
appointed Youth Commission to help the defeated rebels which defeated Tamil rebels get(Appendix2)
2014 - 2018 - anti-Muslim riots led by Buddhists and Buddhist monks. There ware attacks on Muslim shops,
houses, hotels and mosques and some Muslims were killed.
 
c. This mentions many of the incidents given in b.:
Lest we forget: the anti-Tamil pogroms, http://www.ft.lk/article/630359/Lest-we-forget--The-anti-Tamil-
pogroms 

d. Thus the President of Sri Lanka Unites hides the state violence and distorts the picture and makes a
bombastic lecture on Youth Radicalisation which is actually a response to state violence or Bad
Governance. So Sri Lanka Unites does not wish to press the Sri Lankan government for Good Governance
but actually protects it by harping on Youth Radicalisation without mentioning the structural violence(=Bad
Governance) that caused it:
Conflict Transformation and Reconciliation, 11/12/2019, Global Unites Summit
2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ptjz4uykbU&feature=youtu.be
I'm my brother's healer, 02 Jul 2019, https://m.facebook.com/story.php?
story_fbid=2284259571659683&id=118464538239208?sfnsn=wa&d=w&vh=e
Counter Radicalisation of Youth, 18 Mar 2015,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pCH-zG3c3s

e. B.H. Farmer( later joined Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge) wrote a book
published in 1963:
Ceylon, A Divided Nation with a Foreword by Viscount Soulbury - the Commissioner who was in charge of
transferring CEYLON(former name of Sri Lanka) from the Empire to the Ceylonese -
''As Sir Charles Jeffries has put it, in his remarkable book, Ceylon - the path to Independence, the Soulbury
constitution had entrenched in it all the protective provisions for minorities that the wit of man could
devise. Nevertheless in the light of later happenings I now think that the commission did not also
recommend the entrenchment in the constitution of guarantees of fundamental rights on the lines
enacted in the constitutions of India, Pakistan, Nigeria and elsewhere.'' - Full Foreword - attachment

f. Sri Lanka Unites went to several schools in the North and the East in early 2017.
In one school in the East:
a. pic.twitter.com/ZNNgXvbq3f
Sri Lanka Unites
@SriLankaUnites
Jan 17, 2017
Students of KM/VipulanandaCentralCollege vow to avoid creating conflicts in the future #DreamTeam6
#SLU #SRT #Day14 https://pic.twitter.com/ZNNgXvbq3f
The picture shows students with their right arms crossed on their chests - facial expression speaks
volumes. They could have been about 7or8yrs old when the war ended. 
How could they have been asked to vow ''to avoid creating conflicts in the future'' ?
Who created the conflict?
b. pic.twitter.com/VI1z4PCzS3
Sri Lanka Unites
@SriLankaUnites
Jan 17, 2017
When students' responses are accurate, we have been
http://productive.Km/St/VipulanandaMahaVidyalayam… #SLU #STR #DreamTeam6
https://pic.twitter.com/VI1z4PCzS3
What is accurate? What is productive? 

g. Reward for the President of Sri Lanka Unites?

''Commonwealth Point of Light 65. Prashan De Visser
 The award for Prashan was presented at the British High Commission Colombo by the UK High
Commissioner in Sri Lanka, James Dauris.'' - https://www.pointsoflight.gov.uk/sri-lanka-unites/

h. The UK, the funder, needs to assess the performance of Sri Lanka Unites periodically. Sri Lanka Unites
certainly needs to remove ''Unites'' from its title if it cannot comment/criticise post-war Militarisation for
PsyOps on the war-ravaged people in the North and if the President misleads its members and the part of
the international community, Global Unites with its members Afghanistan Unites, Colombia Unites, Congo
Unites, Kenya Unites, Liberia Unites, Myanmar Unites, Palestine Unites, Uganda Unites and USA Unites.

 #StaySafeSaveLives
Yours sincerely
Puni Selvaratnam
Women for Justice and Peace in Sri Lanka

 Appendix:
a.Jayantha Dhanapala's address to LLRC: 25 August 2010:
‘’ I believe that your Commission has been appointed one year too late…. The conflict that has ravaged our
country is not only the result of the perversity and the venality of the LTTE and its leader Prabakaran, but
also the cumulative effect of bad governance on the part of successive Governments in Sri Lanka. Our
inability to manage our own internal affairs has led to foreign intervention but more seriously has led to
the taking of arms by a desperate group of our citizens.
I think we need to rectify this bad governance and the first and foremost task before us is to undertake
constitutional reform in order to ensure that we have adequate devolution of power. We have already
missed several opportunities in the past; we have had an APRC functioning for quite some time but its
report is still languishing in obscurity and needs to be presented to the public of Sri Lanka for discussion.
We need to have State reform; we need to have rule of law established; we need to ensure non-
discrimination amongst our citizens; we need to have devolution of power, tolerance of dissent and
strengthening of democratic
institutions.’' - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxbk4wYolphwZWRhOTg0YmYtMTE0YS00YWU3LTkwY2It
NDAzNWVhOTVmNDFh/view?hl=en&authkey=CJCU1YUO
 
 b.Chandra Jayaratne's address to LLRC, 23 September 2010:
‘’The opportune moment to reflect on the conflict of over thirty years and the consequential sufferings the
country and its people have gone through as a whole, and then to have recognized and regretted past
mistakes as a part of a process of atonement should have been led by the leaders of the nation last year,
concurrently with the post war celebrations. Thereafter the leaders should have collectively taken
immediate strategic steps to redress grievances of the impacted communities and laid down the
foundations for effective reconciliation, having regard to the common aspirations of all citizens made
partners in an initiative of sustainable and equitable socio-economic development of the nation. This
process should have embedded Relief, Rehabilitation, Reconstruction, Reconciliation, and Reawakening of
the North and East as well as economically backward regions. This was yet another missed opportunity
that our leaders ignored, similar to the previously missed opportunity post the Tsunami. It is recommended
that a formal process leading to a public expression of regret and apology to war victims be arranged as a
part of the processes led by this Commission’s recommendations.’’ – Chandra Jayaratne, 23 September
2010,
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bxbk4wYolphwMzRjYTY2NjQtYTM0NS00MDE3LWIxNTUtMWFkYmJiMjdlN
jdh/edit?authkey=CK2Z3IAK&hl=en

It must be noted that Colombo Newspapers distorted the submissions(or did not publish) and Jayantha
Dhanapala, Chandra Jayaratne and Austin Fernando(current High Commissioner to India) had to get
Groundvies.org publish their submissions. They did not publish many submissions by Tamils in Colombo or
in the North or the East. BBC reporter was prevented from going to Jaffna when LLRC was receiving
submissions( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11729962 )

1 A chain of military camps stretching from Mannar in the west to Karainagar and Pt. Pedro in the North,
Mullaitivu and Trincomalee in the east was planned as a grand strategy and built. Not to arouse suspicion
and to ward off protests they were purported to check illicit immigration and smuggling -
https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/neville-jayaweeras-writing-of-prime-worth/

2 .’ ‘The society felt the need for a Youth Commssiion to help the JVP. The kind of feeling of guilt that we
are responsible for JVP uprising in the late 1980s is not there now.  I am proposing we have some kind of
Youth Commission for youth in the North and the East because that is where the future of the country lies.
As we do not feel guilty for the Northern militancy uprising we cannot go anywhere in the future as a
country’’ - Prof Priyan Dias to LLRC, 7 October 2010, 
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bxbk4wYolphwYzBlNTI3OTctODgxZi00ZjY4LWI3YmUtYzI5OTgwNTJhM2Ni/
edit?authkey=CMXB69MF&hl=en