[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 75 (Tuesday, May 8, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E986]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 TRIBUTE TO THE NATIONAL PEACE COUNCIL OF SRI LANKA AND ITS EXECUTIVE 
                         DIRECTOR, JEHAN PERERA

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. MICHAEL E. CAPUANO

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                          Tuesday, May 8, 2007

  Mr. CAPUANO. Madam Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the National 
Peace Council of Sri Lanka and to a man who, were he not a brave and 
determined patriot, might be my constituent. Jehan Perera came to 
Massachusetts as a student and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard 
College in 1982. After winning a traveling fellowship, he returned and 
earned a J.D. from the Harvard Law School in 1987. He could have chosen 
to remain in the United States, practice law, and become an exemplary 
citizen here. Instead, he chose to work for peace in his native 
country. The son of a distinguished Sinhalese family, he learned Tamil 
and devoted himself to national reconciliation. He serves as the 
Executive Director of the National Peace Council and from that forum he 
has, for almost two decades, urged moderation and restraint, mutual 
respect and understanding. Jehan Perera is a fearless but thoughtful 
and nuanced critic of intransigence from any quarter. He has never 
ceased to call for magnanimous policies that respect both democratic 
decision-making and minority rights, and, of course, individual human 
rights. He has been active worldwide in encouraging representatives of 
civil society to work to resolve communal tensions. He rejoiced in a 
ceasefire negotiated in 2002 between the Government of Sri Lanka and 
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). I share his profound 
sorrow that the hopes it inspired have not been fully realized.
  In April of this year, Jehan Perera was honored in a ceremony at the 
Rajiv Gandhi Foundation in New Delhi addressed by Dr. Manmohan Singh, 
Prime Minister of India. Dr. Perera had been chosen by the Inter Faith 
Harmony Foundation of India to receive its 2006 National Award for 
Peace, Tolerance & Harmony. A few days later, as friends gathered in 
Colombo to congratulate him, Jehan Perera received a death threat, the 
first addressed to him personally.
  I honor and admire his fortitude. Active citizenship always demands 
some sacrifice, loss of privacy and leisure; hours and days spent in 
negotiations; the willingness, on occasion, to differ with our friends 
or to make common cause with old adversaries. In some places and at 
some times, politics, even the politics of peace and reconciliation, 
demands more than that. It calls for unflinching courage in the face of 
those who would threaten murder to kill even the hope of peace. I call 
upon all peace loving men and women to keep Jehan Perera in their 
thoughts and in their prayers.

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