Crowded agenda includes Cricket but no visit to Chemmani

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake made yet another visit to Jaffna last week. With all good intentions, he may be on course to set a record for visiting Jaffna more times than all his predecessors combined. There is no Lyn Ludowyk among us to make a political satire of presidents going to Jaffna, reversing the time honoured old trope - “He Comes from Jaffna!”.

- BY RAJAN PHILIPS

The President’s visit was primarily to launch development projects in the peninsula. There was the launching of the 3rd Phase of Myliddy Fisheries Harbour. Following that the President opened a new Jaffna Regional Office of the central Department of Immigration and Emigration at the Jaffna District Secretariat. He visited the storied Jaffna Public Library to inaugurate its E-Library Programme. The President’s work was not done yet. He found time to lay the foundation stone for the Jaffna International Cricket Stadium to be located at the islet of Mandaitivu. He even made an unannounced visit to Katchatheevu to assert Sri Lanka’s maritime sovereignty.

If there was one omission on this crowded itinerary, it was the failure to visit the Chemmani site of mass graves. This was a lost opportunity in my humble view. The President and his entourage could have walked from the Secretariat to the cremation sites in Chemmani and nearby Ariyalai. The government has been taking a number of meaningful steps since the recent discovery of human skeletons at the two old sites of mass burial. A visit to the sites by the President would have conveyed a heartfelt demonstration of empathy and earnestness.

If the President missed an opportunity to visit Chemmani while in Jaffna, no other government Minister would seem to have made the special effort to formally visit the site. At the same time, Justice Minister Harshana Nanayakkara has reportedly affirmed that the NPP government, whose progenitor JVP had suffered disappearances during its second uprising, is determined to uncover the buried crimes of the past. The government has also allocated LKR 11.7 million towards the Chemmani expenses and has assured that all expenses will be met without limit or exception. A presidential visit to the site would have been a capping confirmation of the government's seemingly genuine intentions.