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Pospet Nidhiya Raekagaenime Udghoshanaya
("Shouting Out for the Protection of the Phosphate Deposit")
[Literal translation of Sinhala-language verse composed by the Committee Protecting the Eppawala Phosphate Deposit, which was distributed and chanted at the Fourth Demonstration of the people's opposition to the Sri Lankan government and the multinational mining conglomerate, Eppawala, Sri Lanka, 27 December 1998]
We are saying to the Sri Lankan Government:
We are saying to the Sri Lankan President:
- Don't destroy our Buddhist heritage!
- Don't sacrifice the ancient capital Anuradhapura!
- Don't destroy our fields and gardens!
- Don't give away Eppawala!
- Don't give it to McMoRan!
We are saying to the Sri Lankan Government:
We are saying to the Sri Lankan President:
- Don't destroy the land of our birth!
- Don't dig up our fields and gardens!
- Don't give it to the dirty white males!
- Don't give away Eppawala!
- Don't give away the Phosphate Deposit!
We are saying to the Sri Lankan Government:
- Don't eradicate our farmlands!
- Don't destroy our reservoirs and canals!
- Don't seize our fields and lands!
- Don't give it to McMoRan!
- Don't give away the Phosphate Deposit!
We are saying to the President and the Government:
- Don't sacrifice the villages and jungles!
- Don't destroy our fields and gardens!
- Don't give away Eppawala!
- Don't sell and eat the country!
We are saying to the President and Government:
- Don't sacrifice the village lands!
- Don't destroy our fields and gardens!
- Don't sacrifice our lives!
- Don't give away Eppawala!
- Don't give away the fertilizer deposit!
- Don't make the country a desert!
- Don't sell and eat the country!
We are saying to the Government:
- Build up our farming!
- Be leaders to the farmers!
- Fertilize our motherland!
- We want the fertilizer deposit!
- We want our water in Kala Wewa reservoir!
- We want our water in Tisa Wewa reservoir!
- We want our water in the Yoda-Aela canal!
- We want our water!
- We want all of our reservoirs!
- We want all of our village lands!
- We want all of our farmlands!
- We want all of our farmlands!
- We want our Earth!
- Don't! Don't! Don't give it away!
- Don't give away the fertilizer deposit!
- Don't give away Eppawala!
- Don't give it to McMoRan!
- Famine Approaches!
- People will begin dying!
- If the Phosphate Deposit is sold
- all the farmlands will be destroyed!
- The country will become dead desert!
- We call out to the people:
- "Join together with us!"
- We call out to Buddhists:
- "Join together with us!"
- To protect the Buddhist people's land!
- To protect Anuradhapura!
- To protect the Sacred Bodhi Tree!
- To protect all the farmlands!
- To protect all the village lands!
- To protect our heritage!
- Hey you people, come on!
- You people who eat rice, hear this!
- To protect all the fields and gardens,
- To protect our ancient heritage,
- Come on, together with us!
- You Ministers of State, hear this!
- If you want the village vote
- then come and join with us
- and help us save the Phosphate.
- The fertilizer deposit to Mak-MoRan;
- Our farmlands to the mouth of the Makara [a Demon, Death]!
- Don't! Don't! Don't murder!
- Don't you murder our children!
- They are selling our resources.
- Our children will starve!
- The water buffaloes who are doing this
- are selling the Phosphate Deposit!
- That mountain filled with fertilizer
- is like the Mountain of Golden Sand [main shrine in Anuradhapura]
- and like the Mountain of the Sacred Footprint [of Buddha, in the central highlands].
- Aren't you ashamed to sell and eat it?
- You give the Phosphate to McMoRan,
- and the Mahaweli River to other companies.
- You set the farmers adrift on the highway
- and sell our children into slavery.
- We won't give you any space!
- We won't give you our farmlands!
- We won't give you our Jaya Ganga canal!
- We won't leave this and go!
- We don't want some other space!
- We don't want some pay-off!
- We don't want McMoRan's bribes!
- We don't want foreign balls of fire!
- You gave the Steel Corporation to Korea,
- and the Type Corporation to some other thief.
- The plantations to other companies,
- and now you want to give Eppawala to McMoRan.
- Chase away! The thieves who are coming
- to eradicate our farming: Chase Away!
- To eradicate our reservoirs and canals: Chase Away!
- To seize our fields and space: Chase Away!
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Govi Kamkaru Jana Vas Kavi
("Verses of Curses from the Farming and Working People")
[Anonymous Sinhala-language verse, distributed and chanted at the Fourth Demonstration (27 December 1998) and also at the Third Demonstration (Eppawala, 30 August 1998). No transcripts have been located of the chants from the First Demonstration (at the Sacred Bodhi Tree in Anuradhapura, February 1998) and the Second Demonstration (in Colombo, Sri Lanka, June 1998).]
What is this rush of power?
It is our chief monk's rush of power!
It is the farmers' and workers' rush of power!
It is the people's rush of power!
Do! Do! Do Rebel!
Eppawala, Do Rebel!
To preserve our resources!
Rebel throughout the country!
The former government was expelled
because they betrayed the country.
The present government will be expelled
for toying with selling the country!
Devil! If Eppawala is given away
Buddha's power in the ancient homeland is finished!
Devil! If we left the villages
we would be feeding our heads to dogs.
McMoRan: Don't Come!
Don't come to eat our villages!
Don't come to eat our Earth!
We don't want your "compensation"!
[The government] wins the vote then destroys the country;
they eat the villages, they destroy the country.
Preaching and preaching they're destroying the country!
They will fall prey to the curse of the people!
Look at them process those human sharks [mora]!
Look at them process Mc Mora!
They are betraying our farmlands!
They are betraying our children!
Scum, did you get this from your mother?
Scum, did you get this from your father?
You devils betraying the Phosphate:
What will you eat then, poison?
Don't! Don't! Don't give it away!
Don't give away our villages and lands!
Don't give away our heart!
We know your little tricks!
[The government] takes power for 6 years
then gives away Eppawala for 30.
Because of the harm these people do
may lightning strike them down on a cloudless day!
Power! Power! Our Power!
Farmers and Workers: Class Power!
Who made this sort of Power?
Our chief monk made this Power!
Fight! Fight! Get into the Fight!
Get into the Fight for the lands of your birth!
Get into the Fight for the sake of the villages!
Get into the Fight for the sake of the country!