Two victories and the battle on the media front

Lucien Rajakarunanayake Courtesy : Daily News

30 May 2009
Two weeks and two victories – one was on the battlefront against terror, and the other on the diplomatic front against the backers of terror. Sri Lanka has every cause to be more than pleased; at the outcome of the UN Human Rights Council Session in Geneva earlier this week, when it humbled the so-called international community, which had to abandon its earlier resolution seeking to condemn Sri Lanka for alleged war crimes in defeating LTTE terror, and gave an overwhelming endorsement voting 26 for, 12 against with six abstentions to a consensual resolution by Sri Lanka that stressed the necessity for others to stop interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign State.

The powers of the old West — Britain, France and Germany and their lackeys who are influenced both politically and economically but these power centres of the West, must certainly be licking their wounds at having failed to even get the votes of all 17 nations that signed the initial resolution calling for the Special Session on the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka.

The Sri Lankan delegation led by Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe and comprising Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka, Prof. Rajiva Wijesinghe and the Attorney General Mohan Peiris and all who worked with them deserve the highest kudos for their achievement.

There is also a great deal of appreciation due to the countries of the Afro-Asian bloc and the Non-Aligned Movement, and especially the traditional friends of Sri Lanka such as India, Pakistan and China who buried any difference they may have over bilateral issues to support Sri Lanka to the hilt on this.

While these two gains are safe under Sri Lanka’s belt, there are other threats that will emerge very soon, which require high alert on the part of Colombo. There is the need to be watchful of the forces who are in total denial of all the savagery and brutality of the LTTE through the past 30 years, to attack Sri Lanka on many fronts, be it human rights, economic, trade or any other that suits the purposes of those who wish to have leverage over Sri Lanka in a situation where the two Asian giants, both in economic power and population – India and China – are emerging as world powers. There are also the pro-LTTE expatriate Sri Lankan Tamil population who are enjoying life as American, British, Canadian,

Australian, or French, German or any other European Tamils, who are using the power of their vote at various electorates, departments and districts to pressure politicians, political parties and Governments through what are believed to be vote banks, to keep the pressure on Sri Lanka alive and glowing, and not on the back burner.

The Money Media

One of the biggest fights that Sri Lanka will have to face is on the media front. One can already see how the Western media, and powerful, sections of it are lining up against Sri Lanka. Whether it is the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera (they are not listed here in order of importance), and so many other news channels and major publications that have abandoned the basic principles and ethics of journalism and media practice to carry on with Sri Lanka bashing to serve the same establishment interests in their respective countries and the interests of the prop-LTTE Tamil expatriate community in these lands.

The abundance of lies that are being reported about how the IDP community is being treated and the near anti-Sri Lankan fixation among most of the journalists who participate in this campaign, raises important issues as to whether they are in fact only paid by the institutions that they work for, or have other sources of income that are linked to terrorism. Being a journalist of some experience myself, I raise this matter with some concern, as I do not wish to tar all with the same brush, and it is possible that many of them who have got on to the easy job of Sri Lanka bashing are either ill-informed or have been misled into what they present to the world. But the insistence with which some of these journalists go on with their lies, and the exposure given to their reports by their news institutions do raise considerable doubts as to where their real allegiances lie.

It is not unknown that the LTTE had and still has formidable financial resources. As Jane’s Defence Weekly has shown it has much more than the annual budgets of many countries in its monthly collections from various means and sources. These extend from the expatriate Tamil community and various legal and illegal business investments it has been engaged in. Most of it is still intact, and whoever gets their hands on these funds, will have enormous resources that can be used to influence the media in away that is wholly negative to Sri Lanka. Some of the reports written about so-called surrender interventions by journalists give more than a clue that some Western journalists have definitely been in the pay of the LTTE and its agents.

The reports that are being filed daily about the appalling conditions in the IDP camps, and the shrill insistence on unhindered and unimpeded access to UN and other aid workers and various other interest groups, also point to the power of LTTE funds that are playing the role of the Pied Piper to sections of the Western media and individual Western journalists today.

But for such stuffing of the wallets of some journalists and NGO activists they cannot be expected to be so obsessed about barbed wire and concentration camps at these IDP centres, that are entirely distant from the truth; as well as the highly imaginative stories they write about the conditions in these places that are only means to supply more material for later attacks on Sri Lanka at various international fora, be it the UN Human Rights Council, various other bodies that seek to sit in judgment on human rights, statements of human rights watchdogs who view things with an anti-Sri Lankan tint in their lenses, and even the UN Security Council.

In the face of this entire barrage from a decidedly hostile media and Western powers that are keen to prevent Sri Lanka from reaping the fruits of her victory over terrorism, it is good to know that there are at least some journals of distinction that have not dipped there pens in the blood spilt by the LTTE and are ready to not to fall into the trap of denial of the threat and horror of terror, I shall end by quoting from the Wall Street Journal of May 21 on the current situation in Sri Lanka.

“The war on terror scored a big victory this weekend with the Sri Lankan Army’s battlefield defeat of the terrorist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

“The event ends one of the world’s longest running civil wars. It also vindicates one of the major lessons of September 11: Most of the time, terrorists have to be defeated militarily before political accommodation is possible.

“President Rajapaksa wisely ignored international calls for a ceasefire as he got closer to victory, including threats from the Obama Administration to block $1.9 billion in International Monetary Fund aid money. “As Colombo starts to grapple with those post-conflict problems, everyone else can take note: Thanks to a strategy of defeating the insurgency, Sri Lanka is now in a position to talk seriously about peace and economic growth. When negotiating with terrorists doesn’t work, beating them does.” (Wall Street Journal May 21, 2009)

We will now have to think seriously as to how we deal with the new threat to Sri Lanka about giving unhindered and unimpeded access to UN and other aid workers.

I trust President Rajapaksa is as pragmatic and strong in his determination to uphold Sri Lanka’s sovereignty in dealing with this new threat, as he was about the insistent calls for a ceasefire when the Tigers were on the limp, and when Hillary Clinton warned of stopping the IMF facility that Sri Lanka sought.