Selected Writings
Brian Senewiratne, Australia

Brian Senewiratne is a Consultant Physician in Brisbane, Australia. His degrees include - MA (Cantab), MBBChir (Cantab), MBBS (Lond), MD (Lond), FRCP( Lond), FRACP. He is a Sinhalese. For many decades, Brian Senewiratne has stood up for the Tamil cause and has given expression to his own anguish at the suffering of the Tamil people. He has done so, despite death threats, physical attacks on his medical office in Australia, and vulgar abuse by Sinhala thugs. He has had the courage to openly stand up for that which he knows to be the truth and  he has been willing to suffer for that which he believes to be right. He wrote recently (May 2006)

 "There has been an unprecedented reaction by the Singhalese community by way of offensive e-mails and telephone calls. The verbal abuse is serious and disruptive. They have taken the form of telephone calls, both to my home phone and my mobile every half an hour throughout the night, ever since I published the Trinco bombing. The calls are disruptive not only of my sleep but, what is more serious, of my medical practice. I’m on call to several hospitals and it is impossible, and quite irresponsible in the interest of patient care, to knock off both my mobile and home phone. ....Although it does not bother us too much, it may be one reason why so few Singhalese (and others) have been reluctant to come forward and say what has to be said..." [see also Comments by Mariam Manuel Pillai, Leslie Kanthan and Usha Sriskandarajah and Daniel David]

"..The Sinhala Government is too stupid to realise that Eelam is not a creation of the Tamils or even of the LTTE. It is a creation of Sinhala ethno-religious chauvinism and State brutality. The division of the country is not going to come because the Tamils wanted it, but because it was forced on them by the abysmal stupidity of a succession of Sinhala Governments since Independence, especially since 1956. It is too late now to turn the clock back. Indeed, the events now unfolding in Trincomalee are turning the clock forward at a spectacular rate..."

This is not an Appeal, nor a Plea – humanitarian or otherwise. It is to apprise foreign Governments, the international media, religious leaders, NGOs, leaders of civic society and people outside Sri Lanka, of what is going on in that country. It is NOT a request for help or intervention. I am merely presenting the facts to the outside world and my sympathy to a devastated people in Trincomalee.

"...Recent revelations have confirmed that there may be several political parties in the Sinhala South, but only one ideology – being anti-Tamil. There is the right wing United National Party (UNP), the supposedly socialist Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the so-called “Marxist” Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the Marxists of yester-year, the Lanka Sama Samaga Party (LSSP), the political party of not-so-clean-shaven men in yellow robes, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), and many more of their ilk. In reality they are all different names for one party policy – anti-Tamil. .."

 "This is not an obituary, since I am not qualified to write one. It is just a note of thanks from a Sinhalese to a great Tamil for all he has done for the Tamil cause over a very long time..." more

"..The upcoming election is to elect a Sinhala President and that is a problem for the Sinhala people. It is not a problem for the Tamils. If the Sinhala people want crooks who have had their hand in the Tsunami till as their President, that is their problem. If they want hoodlums who have wrecked the South in armed uprisings (in 1971 and again in 1989) with the murder of thousands of civilians who included University professors, leading professionals and charismatic Sinhala leaders such as President Kumaratunga’s husband, and an extensive destruction of infrastructure which included much-needed agricultural equipment, which be described as “the vandalisation of a country”, that is a choice for the Sinhalese. If they want Buddhist “monks” who are more comfortable preaching violence than the doctrine of Buddha, that is a problem for the Buddhists..."

"...The EU “calls on the LTTE not least to take immediate public steps to demonstrate their commitment to the peace process and the willingness to change”. For the record, it was the LTTE that initiated the Ceasefire even before the then Sri Lankan Government did so. The EU needs to check its facts. Would the EU call on the Sri Lankan government ”to demonstrate …. willingness to change” by abandoning its declared policy that Sri Lanka is a Sinhalese Buddhist nation despite the fact that Sri Lanka is a multiethnic, multicultural and multi religious country, and repeal sections of the Constitution in which this is guaranteed? If not, why not?.."

"..Adrian is one of very few Sinhalese (others being the late Bishop Lakshman Wickremesinghe and my uncle the late Edmund Samarakkody) to have freed themselves from the shackles of Sinhala chauvinism to campaign for the right of Thamil people to live with equality, dignity and safety in the country of their birth. This is not a fight between the Sinhalese and the Thamils. It is a fight between injustice and justice. It is not a question of who wins the war between Sinhala chauvinism and justice for the Thamil people. What is important is where we stand..."

"I am not a fast reader nor a consistent one. With mind cluttered with my medicine, human rights, the state of our public hospitals, the horrors in Africa etc, I cannot read a book from cover to cover. Siva’s “Witness to History” was the exception. I got it on Thursday, I read it all day and for most of the night till Sunday, covering the 683 pages, reading even the Index! So will you if you are fortunate enough to get this book. It is compulsory and addictive reading..."

"..Even in the face of a national disaster, ethnic and political considerations are never too far away in Sri Lankan thinking, in particular in the minds of the Sinhalese politicians of all parties. The best example of this is a recent statement by President Chandrika Kumaratunga that the Tamil Tigers had lost too many cadres in the tsunami disaster to resume the armed struggle. This is an outrageous comment from a national leader whose country has been decimated. Faced with a national crisis from an unavoidable natural disaster, all that the President could do was to focus on what ‘benefit’ it could be towards settling her political problems...

"It is said that no one is irreplaceable. I don't believe this. Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe, Bishop Leo Nanayakkaraya, Vijaya Kumaratunge and now, Professor Eliezer, are irreplaceable. There can be no fitting memorial to him than to carry forward the struggle to free the Tamil people from domination by a Sinhalese Government and Sinhalese extremists, both in Sri Lanka and abroad, hell-bent on crushing, not the LTTE, but the Tamil people in the North and East of Sri Lanka..."

" Sinhalese­Buddhist ethno­religious chauvinism and its strongest advocates, the Buddhist clergy, are the most important factors that prevent a solution to the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict.... the Sinhalese majority have a deep rooted perception that Sri Lanka is a Sinhalese­Buddhist nation which 'belongs' to the Sinhalese and is the custodian of Buddhism. The most powerful advocates of this ethno­religious chauvinism are the Buddhist clergy. "Even though non­Sinhalese and non­Buddhist have been living in this country for a long time, Sri Lanka is the country of the Sinhala Buddhist" writes the Venerable Madhie Pannaseeha, Mahanayake Thera of the Amarapura sect, one of the three major Buddhist sects in Sri Lanka..."