Carlo Fonseka in his letter to the editor "Tit for Tat" (Monday December 3), is trying to vilify Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe for having referred, in his letter to the Heads of State of US, UK and EU, to President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s provocative call in Sinhala to her supporters to answer murder with murder: "If they try to kill us, you kill them"

Carlo Fonseka, in his anxiety to exonerate his political idol misleadingly points out that CBK’s words should be translated as "Kill them if they kill you" and that this injunction to "Kill them if they kill you" cannot be carried out because "those who have been killed cannot kill others".

This is simply a silly argument offered to defend what is plainly indefensible. To people who speak Sinhalese the President’s words mean what she expected them to mean: "Meet violence with violence".

The words "Kill them if they kill you" (taking Carlo Fonseka’s own English version of CBK’s Sinhalese to be the correct one) are clearly not addressed to the murdered, asking them to rise from their graves and kill their murderers; they call upon the victims’ surviving companions to exact ‘retributive justice’.

The President was not, as Carlo Fonseka wrongly implies, being joking she was quite serious and was speaking plain Sinhalese.

This is confirmed by the comment she immediately added: "I haven’t said such things before, but now I do".

Over to you Carlo.
W. Ranaweera
Kandy