I refer to R. Karalasingham's article published in The Island of 29th May. His misguided invective deserves pity but he has gone beyond it to make a serious libellous accusation against me. I will not reciprocate this statement either by dissecting his motivations or by making counter accusations. Since I have made no comments at all on the subject of ethnicity, I consider his libellous accusation to be a part of his contribution to degrading that irrevocably natural condition. Hence, I will restrict myself to reveal his lack of understanding of simple English and the piteous condition of his total dependence on the inappropriate use of outdated syllogistic logic, which leads him to the distributed muddle of saying that I have accused the foreign triumvirate of Jimmy, Adolfo and Desmond of committing atrocities or condoning them. His repeated claim to the intellectual property of logical reasoning and empirical verification too, only reveals compound ignorance. The facetious reference to Allan Ginsberg and his bottles may be part of his experience but I will work on the more charitable basis that he is given to drinking socially acceptable beverages, bottled or otherwise. All I wish to say is that "A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again" (Alexander Pope).

It is evident that RK is in the grip of a serious language problem. Words like 'chauvinism' only prove the kinetics of the boomerang effect. Those who accuse others of chauvinism are those who are usually immersed in it. Nowhere have I said that either Jimmy Carter or Esquivel or Bishop Tutu is responsible for the atrocities committed in their countries. I have only said that the guilt lodged deep in the collective unconscious of these nations, when it rises to the surface of the conscious minds of individuals, is usually transferred to other nations as a part of their inarticulate yearning for global expiation. In fact Esquivel has stated that he condemns the atrocities committed in his own country. This does not constitute sufficient reason for him to make a sweeping direction to the UN to reject Sri Lanka's candidacy.

RK has got himself entangled in another muddle by saying that I have given a religious twist to my comments. I have nowhere made a statement that warrants the following remark, "He wants the goodly bishop to practice "forgiveness" because that is the Christian thing to do"." The use of misplaced inverted commas (except in the case of the word 'forgiveness') may give the inattentive reader the impression that the rest of the sentence is quoted from my article. May the 'goodly' bishop forgive those who do not know what they are doing. When a deeply religious person becomes a priest or bishop he not only gives a religious twist to his life but a reputedly noble religious twist to the treatment of crime and punishment. My argument was that it is incongruous for a man who talked of forgiveness to make a sweeping direction to the UN to reject Sri Lanka's candidacy. This is not a twist but a recorded fact. Since the good bishop has already condemned Sri Lanka, his own logic would imply that forgiveness after punishment is a clerical expectation. Sri Lanka neither needs nor wants his forgiveness.

RK states that "it is a kind of wishful thinking to believe that but for the work of NGOs Sri Lanka would have a pristine reputation in the international field". It is wishful thinking indeed if NGOs who are now in a delirious state of euphoria believe that the rejection of Sri Lanka's candidacy will lead to its total rejection by other nations. Kath Noble in an article published in The Island of 28th May has this to say about this type of euphoria: "Human Rights Watch should understand that human rights standards and victims of abuse everywhere will never benefit from the type of process that it is advocating. Politics will always get in the way. It is only wasting time, energy and money". Attorney-at Law S. L. Gunasekera refers to another process, which he refers to as "the Farce called evidence by 'video conferencing' in The Island of 28th May. This is good reading for those who shelter in the sanctimony of protecting human rights.

Finally I must say RK's reference to Roman Catholicism is another irrelevant and mischievous twist that is crafted to bring religious conflict into the picture. By dragging it into his armoury of invective, RK reveals the despicable nature of a defence that Bishop Tutu could do without.

Eymard de Silva