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5th International Conference of Chief Justices of the WorldAddress byHon’ble Mr Justice N.E. DissanayakeJudge of the Supreme Court of Sri LankaIt is a great honour for me today, to represent the Hon’ble Chief Justice of my Country,Sri Lanka, at the 5th International Conference of the Chief Justices of the world held atLucknow, India. The yeoman service rendered by Mr. Jagdish Gandhi in organizingconferences of this magnitude for the 5th time in succession, all for the sake of world’s 2billion children, to make their future safer from the stockpile of 36000 nuclear bombs andother weapons of mass destructions is laudable.I who am a follower of the teachings of the greatest son of India Gautama Buddha, whopreached the doctrine of “Ahimsa”, consider myself extremely fortunate to be in thisblessed country, and particularly to be in Lucknow which is not very far away fromBuddha Gaya where Lord Buddha lived, attained enlightenment, preached to the worldthe principles of Buddha dhamma before attaining Niravana, the ultimate goal of everyHon’ble Mr Justice N.E. Dissanayake,Judge of the Supreme Court of Sri Lankaaddressing the ConferenceBuddhist i.e. to stop being reborn in samsara so that it will end the suffering of the worldly miseries and misfortunesinherent in worldly life.As a result of King Asoka the Great of India sending his son Reverend Mahinda and his daughter Reverend Sangamittawho had been ordained as priests, in Dharma Wijaya to Sri Lanka, some of us in Sri Lanka were fortunate to beBuddhists by birth.Quite apart from the religious connections our history has it that some of our great ancestors being descendants of KingWijaya, who had come from India. A section of our population are descendants of Dravidians from South India, who hadmigrated with the Chola and Pandiyan invasions of our country. As a result of our aforesaid ancestory we have commonsocial, religious and cultural practices with India.There is yet another thing that is common to both our countries, and perhaps to many other countries in the world i.e. thescourge of terrorism.In many countries terrorism may have an underlying political crisis. In my country there is only a semblance of such apolitical crisis. There is no widespread discrimination between ethnicities. It is more or less an economic crisis where thepeople of the whole country are undergoing. Whatever the underlying crisis be, using terrorism to achieve political freedomin my view, is cowardly and dastardly.Terrorism in whatever name you call it, it is the weapon of cowards, whoever claims to be its leader is the greatest cowardof them all. This is very relevant to my country. Terrorist leaders of my country are the biggest cowards one could comeacross. They do not have the courage to come out into the open and fight their adversaries in open combat. They hide in faraway jungle hide outs and bunkers and indoctrinate their followers, brainwash them that they will be martyrs by beingterrorists and that if they die for their cause they will end up in heaven. After brainwashing them, they are sent as suicidebombers to eliminate their unsuspecting civilian targets.The terrorists indiscriminately cause death and mayhem in respect of innocent people who are totally unconnected to theircause. They commit murders, rape and genocide in the name of freedom struggles. They amass great wealth that is notaccountable. They lead lives of luxury while their cadres are used as cannon fodder and sent to the battle front while theleaders hide behind impenetrable and comfortable bunkers.They pose off as representatives of a certain class of people and sometimes claim to be their sole representative, but yet--51--