COLOMBO, July 18: Lalitha Peiris, a Sinhalese peace activist and meditation teacher whose parents were shot dead by an LTTE cadre 20 years ago, says she wants to meet the assassin again ‘to be his friend’.

“My parents were in a bus, travelling to Colombo from the eastern Trincomalee district, where they lived. I worked in Colombo and they were on their way to visit me for my birthday. My mother and father were gunned down along with over thirty other Sinhalese passengers,” narrates Lalitha.

Her manner is calm. So calm that she could easily be talking about the weather.

“I wish I could see him again, the boy who killed my parents. I wish I could tell him what forgiveness is,” she sighs, at the end of her story.

Affiliated to a volunteer humanitarian organisation, the Sarvodaya movement which is based on Gandhian principles of self reliance and peace, Lalitha’s sentiments are echoed by the organisation’s founder, Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne, the recipient of over 30 international awards for his peace related humanitarian work spanning 50 years, including the Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership and the Mahatma Gandhi Peace Prize.

“Forgiveness is the only weapon that will fight war,” declares Ariyaratne, having started his professional life as a schoolteacher and soon after initiating his holistically motivated volunteer movement for development and peace.

His final goal, he says, is to change the mindset of Prabhakaran, the leader of the Tamil Tigers, ranked as one of the world’s most ruthless terrorist leaders.

“There has to be some good in the man. He has demonstrated to the world that he is a good father by sending his children abroad and not to the war,” he chuckles.

He is, Dr. Ariyaratne claims, closer to his goal, with each successful peace meditation camp he organises in the north and the east, areas which are dominated by Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority and the LTTE.