Tea and Talks with the Sri Lankan Ambassador: Discussing Political Conflict and Resolutions in Sri Lanka

- November 26, 2014, Wednesday.

- Still fresh and dark-skinned from Taiwan (if you missed my posts, please click here for part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5,) I barely had any rest. I had to fix my things, and do some important school work, but I had also been looking forward to attending this forum held in the University of the Philippines Asian Center. The forum was entitled "Political Conflict and Conflict Resolution in Sri Lanka," and focused on the Tamil Eelam problem, vis a vis the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE.) The talk was to be done by none other than the ambassador of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka to the Republic of the Philippines, H.E. S.V.D. Gamini Samaranayake, Ph.D. Moreover, not only was I able to attend this forum, but I was also asked to be moderator of the event just a day before the forum.

- The forum this afternoon, held from 2-5pm, was mostly packed with students from PUP, Asian Center faculty, some students from the Asian Center, and representatives from the UP Asian Center Alumni Association. Apart from the ambassador's secretary, Mrs. Wijeratne Mendis, minister of the mission/charge d'affairs, was also there to accompany the ambassador.

- Ambassador/Dr. Samaranayake used to be the senior chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Peradeniya in Kandy, Sri Lanka, and as an academic, he specializes on various aspects of Sri Lankan politics, from ethnicity to conflict resolutions. He has also a long list of publications and achievements in relation to his profession as an academic. Ambassador Samaranayake was just designated to the Philippines this year, so he shared to us that he is still feeling his way around the country, although he has been to the Philippines twice or thrice in the past for short visits.

Asian Center dean, Prof. Eduardo Gonzales, giving the welcoming remarks.

I don't have a photo of me speaking, so here's an alternative.

My adviser, Prof. Joefe Santarita, introducing the ambassador.

H.E. S.V.G. Gamini Samaranayake.

- As mentioned earlier, the ambassador's lecture focused on the issue of Tamil Eelam. Just for a bit of background, Sri Lanka has two main ethno-linguistic groups: the Sinhalese (Sinhala-speaking people,) and the Tamils (Tamil-speaking people who came from India since ancient times; there are still Tamils in India, with most of them living in the state of Tamil Nadu.) Tamil Eelam is the proposed independent state by the Tamils of Sri Lanka, and comprises of the northern tip, most of the eastern coast, and some parts of the western coast of Sri Lanka. The organization that violently pushed for this was the LTTE, the country's foremost secessionist group. Since the 70s until the organization's defeat by the Sri Lankan government in 2009, LTTE has unleashed several serious attacks and assassinations; their list of assassinated people include India's Rajiv Gandhi and former Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa.

Some important slides.

- Ambassador Samaranayake stated that due to the destruction that the LTTE has caused, the Sri Lankan government responded with what he calls the "5 Rs:" rehablitation, resettlement, reintegration, and reconstruction, and reconciliation. He concludes by saying that while the Sri Lankan government has achieved many things in the recent years, the challenge of having social and political stability still remains.

5 Rs.

Final slide.

 - The ambassador presented the whole thing, according to my professor, not as a diplomat, but as an academic (which he was, for the longest time, before being a diplomat.) Ambassador Samaranayake was quite frank about the things that went on in Sri Lanka, and the intensity of the horrendous attacks that were unleashed by LTTE.

Official poster of the forum.

"Rock on." (Of course he didn't say that.) 

Certificate of Appreciation.

- After the talk, he was briskly escorted to another room for some Sri Lankan tea and some native snacks (puto and bibingka.) I initially followed them to the holding room just so I could have a photo with him, but I ended up explaining the snacks to him. My adviser also invited me to stay with them in the room and have some private tea-time with them. I was the only student there, and I was having tea with my adviser, the Asian Studies dean, the ambassador, Mrs. Mendis, and the ambassador's secretary. I felt quite nervous being around the ambassador in such a small room, so he will surely notice any blooper that I may unintentionally do (which happens a lot to me, like tripping in front of the former Indian ambassador, click here.) I actually felt like Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi, aka "Princess Mia" from Pincess Diaries, who had a hard and wacky time conforming to royal etiquette, trying her best not to do anything wrong, funny, or silly (but does anyway.)

Winning shot, taken by my adviser.

- Our almost-an-hour pre-dinner tea-time consisted of talks about the current situation of Sri Lanka, and possible academic, institutional, or cultural partnerships. Generally, tea-time was just chit-chat time.  We said our goodbyes to the ambassador just after the seasonal early sunset. As for me, the true victory for me was not (only) meeting the ambassador or moderating the forum, but it was not being able to unleash a clumsy blooper in front of the ambassador.