Duplicity of the West renews and re invigorates Sri Lanka

By Raj Gonsalkorale

Pakistan is at war with the Taliban. The Prime Minister of Pakistan has said his Armed Forces will crush Taliban militants and will minimize collateral damage (polite way of saying civilian deaths will be minimized) and they will try and end the war as soon as possible. Many civilians have reportedly been killed in artillery and air attacks launched by the Pakistan Armed Forces.

A BBC statement mentioned that the Taliban militants are preventing civilians in some areas from leaving the area. It also reported that nearly 1 million refuges fleeing from the Swat Valley were expected to be housed in temporary camps.

The West has not asked the Taliban to surrender.

Sounds familiar?

The difference though, other than the number of refugees fleeing from the clutches of the entity that is acting against the national interest of Sri Lanka, the LTTE, is that what is happening in Pakistan is quite acceptable to the West, encouraged by them and financed by them, and what is happening in Sri Lanka is not. The LTTE and the Taliban are both terror groups and banned in many countries. Why is Sri Lanka treated differently?

The most likely answer is that the Pakistan situation has the open support of the USA, and therefore the West. It is the avowed goal of the US to defeat the Taliban, and they are bankrolling this war in Pakistan. Defeating the Taliban is in the national interest of the US and Pakistan, and that is a good enough reason for the rest of the West to look the other way about the plight of refugees, who in Sri Lanka are called internally displaced persons (IDPs), but not in Pakistan.

David Milliband and Bernard Kouchner who came to Sri Lanka and lectured to the President of Sri Lanka about what Sri Lanka was doing in its own national interests, and Carl Bildt who pontificated from outside about the same topic, are nowhere to be seen or heard as far as Pakistan is concerned. No other political leader in the West, or the Secretary General of the UN or zealots from bodies like Human Watch has even blinked.

Chief Minister Karunanidhi continues his slumber and ex film star Jayalalitha has gone mute, as those who might be killed in Pakistan and the million or more refugees are Pakistani’s, as bad as the Taliban as far as they are concerned. It is not the plight of human beings that stir them, but the label of the human being.

The attention of political leaders from the West, Media and INGO searchlights are forever on Sri Lanka. Every move of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces is reported almost in minute detail, but with veiled skepticism and at times with subtle contempt or at least disbelief. Information is twisted to give the world an impression that the President of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan Armed Forces do not care for their own citizens.

The West does not accept any collateral damage in the Sri Lankan war although they accept it in Pakistan. While sipping pink gins in exclusive clubs in the UK and elsewhere, these politicians are probably pontificating through their stiff upper lips how on earth one could fight a war without collateral damage and that good old Uncle Sam is teaching these “bloody awful Taliban a damn good lesson”.

Sri Lanka is not so lucky. We are of no strategic interest to the US or the West. We have nothing to do with the national interests of the US and therefore we do not matter in the real world of the US. We are just a pimple in the back of India and we are just India’s problem and a convenient whipping object for the do gooders from the West to hone their skills in political rhetoric and to sell their feigned interest in the innocent civilians suffering collateral damage to the Western media.

The BBC has in so many ways contributed to the widening of tensions in Sri Lanka by their insensitive reporting. The latest example is their reporting on the large number of civilians that have reportedly been killed in the war zone. Their headline broadcast laid the blame very squarely on the Sri Lankan Armed Forces for this tragedy without any real investigation of what might have happened.

They relied on what was reported on TamilNet and the word of a single doctor who apparently spoke to the BBC by satellite phone, to place the blame on the Sri Lankan Forces. It now transpires that this “doctor”, if such a person exists, could not have used a satellite phone as no doctor in the zone has been given access to satellite phones. The military has stated that they have aerial photographs showing the LTTE using artillery fire on their own people. The BBC being a responsible news agency and not a tabloid agency looking for cheap headlines, should have made more investigations before airing this news, or should have had the decency at least to use the word “it is alleged” that the fire came from outside the no fire zone.

The BBC report has naturally irked many Tamils, and possibly hardened the attitude of some Tamils towards the Sri Lankan government and the Sinhalese when the very sensitive situation in the country requires responsible people to behave in a calm and collected way and not sensationalise stories without due process of investigation and verification.

In so many ways, the dice is cast against Sri Lanka, and the country has to stand on its own and rise as a Nation. The West is doing a favour to the country as its duplicity has finally opened the eyes of the Nation. Sri Lankans are united as never before in condemning this duplicity. Sri Lankans have a wonderful opportunity now to get together and work together to build a new Nation. Anyone who wishes to regard themselves as a Sri Lankan first rather than a Sinhalese, or a Tamil or a Muslim will have a place in the newly awakened Nation.

Sri Lanka also needs new friends. While countries like Australia and Canada have remained true as good friends, the same cannot be said of the US and the UK, and many of the EU countries. They have preached but not practiced and they have not put any money where their mouths are. They have sent delegation after delegation to check the plight of the IDPs and lecture to the President of Sri Lanka but the IDPs have not received assistance they badly need.

The direction take by the current government to forge even closer friendship with China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Libya is a step in the right direction. We also need to look towards countries like Venezuela and other South American countries that have been treated shabbily by the West and develop closer relationships with them. An alternate has to be found to the West which is in decline.

We have for too long been in the shadow of our former colonizers, aping their ways, their culture, while forgetting our own. It is time to regain our heritage and stand on our own. Sri Lankans of all ethnicities are highly capable people and they need to show the world they cannot be pushed around by anybody. On a per capita basis, Sri Lankan probably hold more high level administrative and professional positions in international bodies than any other Nation although we don’t know this or don’t even acknowledge it.

Many Sri Lankans also hold similar national positions in many countries. Wherever they are, Sri Lankans are respected for their abilities, their dedication to duty and their attitudes. With such a vast number of Sri Lankans serving the world in various capacities, it is clear that Sri Lankans do not lack the ability to outperform professionals from many other countries. What many overseas Sri Lankan professionals lack probably is a sense of pride in the country which has made them who they are, and what they are today. Some of them probably do not appreciate the opportunities that Sri Lanka provided them and gave them the grounding with free education to get to where they are today.

Today there is a great sense of renewal and faith in the country and a dawning of realization that unless all Sri Lankans put their shoulders to the wheel and free the country from dependence on the West for handouts, the country will continue to experience the duplicity and high handedness of the West. Sri Lanka’s vast pool of human resources must be harnessed to free the country from the shackles of the West.

All Sri Lankans must realize how the West, led by the UK, has always attempted to divide and rule, and Sri Lankans have unfortunately allowed this to happen. The root cause of the conflict with the Tamils is this policy of the colonizers, in particular the British. Sri Lankans had lost their sense of pride in their culture, their languages and their religions and had been subservient to these colonizers for far too long even after they had left.

Tamil extremists and their supporters have continued where the British left. They strove hard to drive wedges between the two communities by making a mountain out of a molehill and magnifying whatever problems Tamils faced in the country, thereby creating conditions for Sinhala extremism to rise and influence the agenda relating to Sinhala Tamil relations. They derailed all attempts to address genuine problems faced by Tamils.

The LTTE and their supporters managed to shift the conflict from the domain of the moderates to that of extremists on both sides. Extremists on both sides have made it almost impossible for moderates to find a solution to a problem which was fundamentally one of implementation and administrative shortcomings rather than one of any philosophical significance.

President Rajapaksa has shifted that direction and the military might of Tamil extremism is finally over. LTTE terrorism may not end with an end to their military might unless the people who support them stop supporting them. Tamil political extremism will not end with an end to the militarism and terrorism practiced by a section of these extremists. It will only end if a political solution is found to address the root causes of the problem.

Such a solution cannot be based on any sense of division based on ethnicity. There has to be a paradigm shift amongst all communities to look towards the future and not the past. There has never been a better time to do this than now as President Rajapaksa has galvanized a large section of Sinhalese people as well as an influential number of Tamils and Muslims behind him. Some Tamils might have skepticism about the Presidents ability or desire to find a solution.

Such skeptics must realize that no solution is possible unless a leader has the backing of the Sinhala community. They must also look at what the President has done in the East as a starting point to find a permanent solution. They must look at the development work that is going on in the East despite the difficult conditions there.

President Rajapaksa has the all important support of a majority of Sinhala people, and the only other likely alternate national leader, Mr Ranil Wickremasinghe does not have that support. It will be foolhardy for Tamils to imagine that a solution acceptable to the Sinhala community will be possible with Mr Wickremasinghe.

The President has already commenced discussions with Tamil political parties and sections of the Diaspora who responded to his invitation for talks. Tamils must ask why the TNA failed to attend these talks. The Sinhalese interpret this failure as clear support given to the LTTE by the TNA. Only Tamils can redress this situation and pressurize the TNA to attend talks. If they cannot, then, alternate Tamil representation has to be found as failure to grab the opportunity available now could be far more costly than ever before.

- Asian Tribune -