Appreciation
Brig. Dennis HapugalleAs a year comes to a close since the sudden demise of my father, Brig. Dennis Hapug-alle, I recognize this as the most difficult piece of writing that I have ever attempted. To keep my objectivity in appreciating a man, who was almost perfect in my eyes, without losing myself in volumes of memories and emotion, has been exceedingly difficult. Not knowing where or how to begin, I try to capture snapshots of a memorable life.
With a passion to lose myself in ana-lysing human relationships, I think of the bond between my late father and my utterly devoted mother Junie. Their relationship was more than special, for they formed the mutual admiration and protection society. Many were the times that my father informed us with a firmness which ens-ured that it became engraved as fact, that we had the best mother and he had the best wife anyone could ask for. And she was always his soul-mate, care-giver, best friend and still is, his biggest fan. At the time of his death he was 68 years and they had been in love with each other for 50 of those years. Even the odd tensions which rose in their marriage, became a subsequent opportunity for greater understanding and patience with only fleeting long suffering looks! They were a very happy couple and our’s was a happy family. By the strength of that firm foundation and the values that the two of them shared with us, we, the children, together with our little families shape our lives, relationship and destinies.
I think again of family.......it was the most sacred collective in my father’s life. He, not only dedicated his personal life but committed and shaped his professional life to support others to achieve a better life by planning their own families. His fourth baby, Community Develop-ment Services or CDS as it is better known, bears testimony to this. It became his mission to share all that he knew and had, with the lesser privileged, and he died a happier man for it.
I think of love..... A painting of a stern faced red-Indian Chie-ftain hangs in our home stating - "There is only one Chief in this camp". This was brought to our home by my father and I can almost see the tongue-in-cheek smile on his face as he hung the picture. In another location at home a wooden plaque is well placed to remind us that "Pa is boss. Everyone knows. But what Ma says - always goes." This too was brought to our home by my father along with the saying, "I may be the Brigadier. But she definitely is the General". All this to say that perhaps their unwavering love for each other, enabled my parents to complement and supplement each other in very special ways. Unlike many of the young couples these days, they constantly worked to strengthen their relationship.
To illustrate this point I allude to the fact that my mother, always the shy half of the equation, has to be kissed even on our birthdays. But my father, the demonstrative reassure would be up at the crack of dawn with a little note of advise and encouragement by our beds, being the first to remind with a hug that it was our birthday. Sometimes much to my sister, Kumari’s dismay, the hug would be replaced with a bite on the nose, which left her related to Rudolph for a couple of days at least!
I think of challenges and successes......-Within it all he overjoyed in our successes and looked at our failures with neither dissatisfaction nor acceptance. He always challenged himself to be better than he was, in his career, in health, in sports, and even in love. A similar level of excellence was expected from those who worked, played or lived with him. He did not believe that "failures are the pillars of success". He was more of a "when the going gets tough - the tough get going" kind of person. This he shared with his son, Saliya. But he believed in ethical and moral victories rather than "winning at any cost".
I think of respect......In a world where family ties are ever loosening and family members soon become passing acqu-aintances, I can only hope that many children feel about their fathers the way I do of mine. It was, and still makes me very proud to be recognized in any circle as Dennis Hapugalle’s daughter. Almost always people would end their little speech of love, admiration and respect by saying "above all else, he was a good man and a decent human being" only to be vehemently endorsed by me. They say people invariably speak well of those who have died. But about my father, they spoke well of him even when he was alive. In life, as in love, there are those who command respect and there are those who gain respect in recognition of their sincerity and decency. My father most certainly belon-ged to the latter.
I think of time.......My father had, and if he didn’t have, he made time for anyone who sought his support or requested his attention. His close friends still appreciate and recollect with gladness, the philosophic, didactic or trivial discussion they have had with him on numerous topics. But there were three people who did not ever need to ask for anything from him. And they were his three grand-daughters, Anitra, Sasheen and Shehara. Especially on Sundays, they ‘owned’ their Seeya. He was their clown, and puppet and April fool all rolled into one. And he never failed with big and little treats for them.
I think of loss of the most personal kind ..... One can only imagine my mother’s feelings. I miss my father, the man who represented the best of men in my life. More than any other human being, I shared my joys and sorrows, my fears and challenges, my learnings and yearnings, my successes and failures, even my secrets with him. We were quite a father-daughter team I would pretend to shyly dismiss when being referred to as "Father’s pet", but secretly hope like hell it was true. He never endorsed this, much to my dismay! For he had three special children, who then grew to be five with the addition of my brother-in-law Kavan and my sister-in-law, Amali. In his later years, he would often count his blessings and say that he was a contented husband and father.
I think of parting, death and endings......The void that is left in the life of my mother and our lives and the many lives that the late Brig. Hapugalle touched in his own special, sincere, honest way, is profound.
But if endings symbolize beginnings, then I want to believe in yet another beginning.... Much more than ever before, I want to believe in meeting my father again in Samsara. I am convinced I will and the thought is comforting, exciting and urgent, at the same time. I know he will remember me.
Thatha, may your journey through Sam-sara be gentle, peaceful and always blessed by the noble triple gem and May the Devas gently hold you in their arms. Until we meet again.....
Kamanee Hapugalle
Bill Clinton, Robocop
To many of us in what is derisively called the Third World, Bill Clinton is an amiable stumblebum with his sexual shenanigans and his finger-wagging mendacities. We could not be more wrong. Hitler was an evil and dangerous man, but he was evil and dangerous to the rich nations which had battened on their colonies for centuries. Hitler’s activities actually were of great benefit to the occupied countries which were enabled to get rid of their oppressors.
Clinton, too, is an evil and dangerous man, but he is dangerous to the countries struggling to build up their economies.
All over the world there are countries with ethnic minorities trying to form breakaway states. Sri Lanka has its Tigers, the Philippines has its Moros, Burma has the Karens, Spain and France have the Basques, Turkey and Iraq have the Kurds, Russia has the Chechnyans, Nigeria has the Ibos, Rwanda has the Tutsis, China has the Tibetans and so on. In the years BC (before Clinton) these struggles were regarded by the rich and powerful countries as being outside their areas of interest - home-and-home matches as it were. It was Clinton who saw an opportunity to intervene selectively in some of these civil wars for the greater good of the Wall Street investment bankers. Once he has established America’s right to intervene in the domestic squabbles of Yugoslavia and Iraq, the door would be open for intervening in China and anywhere else the US bankers would like to sink their talons into.
US propaganda has painted a totally untruthful picture of the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Kosovo had been a part of the Ottoman Empire for over five centuries. With a Kosovo Liberation Army of ethnic Albanians trying to breakaway to form a separate state, there is an ongoing civil war. It was Bill Clinton, side-stepping the UN, and misusing NATO (which is supposed to be an organisation to defend its constituents from hostile attack) as an instrument of aggression, that launched a massive bombing attack on Yugoslavia, with little Tony Blair at his heels yapping encouragement. (NATO is, and has always been, headed by a US army general). Clinton claims he wants to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
Milosevic’s response to the bombing was to step up exponentially the ethnic cleansing of the Kosovars, as his perceived best way to prevent Clinton and NATO forcing him to hand over Kosovo to the rebels. The sudden escalation in ethnic cleansing in Kosovo to such tragical proportions was not the reason for Clinton and NATO to bomb Yugoslavia, but on the contrary, it was the bombing that triggered off the escalation. Though mostly inhabited by ethnic Albanians, Kosovo is holy land to the Serbs, like Jerusalem is to the Jews. The reason is that during the Middle Ages Kosovo was the heartland of the Serbian empire. There is no way the Serbs are going to acquiesce in Kosovo being taken away from Yugoslavia. Anybody who is interested in solving the Kosovo ethnic problem and also ignores this basic fact is doomed to failure. Clinton is on a killing spree. The destruction in mid-winter of the electricity plant that was supplying power and heating to a million people is pure genocide.
Clinton will have to go on bombing Yugoslavia till every building and every bridge is destroyed and every Serb killed or until the civilized world rises up in horror and stops him.
What is it about Kosovo? How come half a million Tutsis were massacred in Rwanda without Clinton doing anything about it?
Clinton sees hunself as Robocop, slaying the baddies with gun and bomb, breaking all international rules governing armed intervention in the process. Ethnic cleansing is only an excuse Robocop is using. Actually, ethnic cleansing per se does not bother him one bit, he has aided and abetted in it himself! It is the Serbs he wants to kill off.
This is proved beyond doubt by the events in Croatia in August 1995. Krajina is a province of Croatia that ethnic Serbs had inhabited for over five hundred years. In four days the Croatians, with advice and encouragement from Robocop and his myrmidons, drove out 1500,000 Serbs from Croatia. This campaign was carried out with brutality and indiscriminate shelling of civilians. Charles Krauthammer has called this "the largest ethnic cleansing of the entire Balkan wars." The War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague is bringing waar-crimes charges against several Croatian officials. Robocop is not being indicted.
The second modus operandi chosen by Robocop for his depredations is destabilising the economies of Third World countries. Abid Aslam of Inter Press Service calls it "sacrificing Third World children to serve First World financiers." Robocop’s batchetmen in this enterprise are Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Rubin’s deputy Lawrence Summers. Robocop is pressing for "freer movement of capital" to win opportunities for US banks, brokerages and insurance companies. The classic case was South Korea. Robocop offered South Korea a bait, an offer it could not refuse, membership in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), the rich nations’ club. To enter OECD Koreans were pressurised to liberalise their economy faster than they had planned. There was no insistence that Korea should first improve its bank regulations and legal institutions. The aim was to use OECD to pry open the Korean market for American banks and brokerages.
When disaster struck, US officials insisted that Korea make difficult budget cuts, allow ailing firms to go bust and to raise interest rates.
Thailand and Indonesia were similarly destabilised. Robocop’s team took over the supervision of "rescue packages" organised by the IMF, rejecting alternative proposals put forward by Japan and others.
The Times reported: "South Koreans lost their businesses and in some cases were even driven to suicide. But foreign banks - among them Citibank. JP Morgan, Chase Manhattan, Bank of America and Bankers’ Trust - were rewarded with sharply higher interest rates."
The civilized world has to stop Robocop or face ruin.
Piyal Gamage
Colombo 4.