Upali Cooray: A Tribute From Canadians for Peace

by Ratnam Ganesh

Mr. Upali Cooray – Comrade Upali Cooray to the many who worked with him from the left of the political spectrum – relentlessly campaigned against all oppressions and abuse of power in Sri Lanka. He formed The Committee for Democracy and Justice in 1988 and worked with several political organisations and trade unions and defended democracy, justice and pluralism in Sri Lanka and outside.

Upali Cooray

In 1971-72, he toured Canada campaigning for the release of 80,000 political prisoners held in detention in the aftermath of the failed JVP insurrection of April 1971. Although he did not agree with the JVP’s policies, he believed that every person is entitled to human and fundamental rights, regardless of his or her political opinions and actions.

He was arrested and detained by the police in Sri Lanka in 1972 for these activities. It a similar brave and principled campaign by him and his colleagues in 1988-89 that helped Mahinda Rajapakse to present in foreign human rights for a the data on killings and disappearances during the Premadasa regime. This has deep lessons for sections of the present Sri Lankan government that claim that those presenting information abroad on rights abuses within Sri Lanka are traitors. Not so – they do it out of their love and affection for and commitment to the oppressed and their
motherland.

Once again he visited Canada in November 2007 to campaign for peace and to end all forms of violence in Sri Lanka.

He also campaigned for the human and democratic rights of people in the south such as the workers in Balangoda as a result of which he was arrested and detained for 6 months in 1984. He was the Secretary of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in the UK and campaigned against the Americans in Vietnam and Iraq, The list of his activities in support of human and democratic rights is too long to enumerate and detail.

With the demise of Upali Cooray, Sri Lankan Tamils lost one of their best and ablest friends among the Sinhalese people. Upali consistently stood with and supported the Tamils in their struggle for greater political autonomy. His pioneering activities, along with a few other dedicated and like-minded friends, helped to awaken the consciousness of all progressive Sinhalese on the plight of the Tamils who were subjected to various forms of discrimination at the hands of successive governments since 1948 when Ceylon gained independence from the British colonial power.

Even after leaving Sri Lanka in the early 1980s Upali continued to defend vigorously the rights of the persecuted Tamil population and championed their right to be equal in all things at various forums in different countries. He continued to have dialogue with different Tamil parties in the hope of fostering strong links with the Sinhalese to enable all the communities to lead a peaceful co-existence in a united Sri Lanka and work together towards that noble end.

Unfortunately post-independence politics in Sri Lanka saw the emergence of parochialism and communalism as a significant trend. Few stood up against this or opposed it vehemently. Upali certainly was one of those courageous few. He was unchanging in that he always stood for the weak and the oppressed – be it a JVP-er in prison or an oppressed Tamil. In spite of opposition to his ideas and schemes, he pressed on undaunted. His efforts cannot be assessed with any yardstick for they are immeasurable at this very critical period of Sri Lankan history.

Upali contracted an infection while he was on his way to Sri Lanka in May this year. He came back to the UK where after some tests doctors found that blood eating bacteria had entered his system and attacked his knee – Alfa Haemolytic Streptococcus Pneumonia. He recovered from this and continued to write his second letter to Pody seeya, the first having been well-received in the press.

He was taken to the hospital on the 20th of August following breathing difficulties and succumbed the following day morning.

A cultured gentleman he was, and all those who came to know him also learnt to love and admire him. Now that Upali Cooray has left the scene of time, we can echo Leon Trotsky’s words: it is victims who move humanity forward. All of us who worked with him – indeed all of us for whom he worked – mourn his death.

We salute our dear departed friend and mourn his demise, an especially unbearable loss to all those who want Sri Lanka to be a country of peace and freedom. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this difficult time.