Listen to Sri Lanka’s mandate for change

On My Watch - Luden Rajakarunanayake:

An important aspect of democracy is recognition of a mandate by the people. If there had been any doubts regarding the mandate this Government has from the people for the key policies it is carrying, there was enough reason given last Saturday to erase such doubts.

The voters of the Western Province not only endorsed what the polls in five other provinces had shown, but also added convincingly to the strength of that mandate.

The key policy of the Government being the determined pursuit of its policy of eradicating terrorism from the country through the defeat of the LTTE, the verdict of the Western Province, which has a very good ethnic and religious mix, has given it the most resounding mandate for the purpose, as well as approval of how this task has been carried out so far. It is a mandate for change for being subjugated by the forces of terror.

Yet those who preach democracy to the world, and are even ready to carry our regime change to this end, do not appear to listen to such popular mandates. The current surge of Foreign Ministers and special envoys to Sri Lanka to pressure the Government into a pause in its actions to defeat the LTTE is clear indication that listening to the will of the people, is clearly not the policy of the power brokers of the world today.

To these advocates of a ceasefire or a temporary pause in the military operations to free the civilians who continue to be held hostage by the LTTE, what matters is not the desire, determination and mandate of the vast majority of the people of Sri Lanka, coming from the ethnic and religious mix that make up this nation, and from a clear spread of regions.

Their ears are not tuned to the voices and feelings of the people of Sri Lanka. Instead they are only tuned to the voices of those who wrongly claim to be the Sri Lankan Tamil ‘Diaspora’, in their need to keep the LTTE and the war in Sri Lanka alive.

The message of all these clearly interfering pleaders for a pause in military operations for allegedly humanitarian reasons, which show much more concern for the safety of the ruthless Tiger holed up in its ever shrinking hunting ground in the North East of Sri Lanka, than the people for whom they claim to shed so much tears.

Whether it is a David Miliband whose capabilities in diplomacy came a cropper with his comments on the Kashmir Issue, or a Bernard Kouchner, who has long departed from the days of socialist humanitarianism and Medicines sans Frontiers, and is today one of the most vociferous advocates of the modern version of gunboat diplomacy, especially in the Middle East, the message they bring is the same.

It is one of pressuring, arm-twisting, even threatening the democratically elected and sovereign Government of Sri Lanka on how it should get about finishing off the battle against terrorism in Sri Lanka.

This approach is not confined to the Old World of Europe; it is seen in the New World of the Americas, too. The voices being heard from Washington are certainly not an echo of the ‘Change We Can Believe In’ that gave such a huge mandate to Barack Obama, before he chose Hillary Rodham Clinton to be his Secretary of State.

The sounds that emanate from there are much more tuned to the unchanging and continuing voices of the highly pro-LTTE pressure groups that campaigned hard for Hillary Clinton to defeat Obama in the Democratic Primaries, and also contributed financially to her campaign.

In fact she had even accepted donations from these pro-LTTE groups for her campaign and returned them only after it was pointed out that these donors were in fact supporters of an international terrorist organization, identified as such by the US Government, and banned in that country.

It is obvious the pressure on her keeps mounting from these Forces, whether they are in Minnesota, Pennsylvania or Washington DC.

Quasi- Eelam

It is the same with Canada, with Ottawa lending its ears more eagerly to the shrill and often violent voices of the pro-LTTE lobby with its stronghold in Toronto, where one sees the actual realization of quasi-Eelam anywhere in the world; and not the voice of the Sri Lankans who have gone through this tragedy of terror, that Canada has joined with the United States and Europe, via NATO, to stamp down or wipeout from the mountains and valleys of Afghanistan.

The demand that all these forces make, for that is what they are - though they come in the garb of friend and concerned partners in the cause of humanity, or move through the United Nations which has a bigger mandate to fight terrorism than please the Western powers - is the same.

Allow a UN mission or any other such mission from the EU or a group of nations willing to bow to the pressure of the financiers and supporters of LTTE terror through the past three decades, to enter the No Fire Zone. It is a common purpose they all have.

To help end the bloodshed, prevent and impending ‘bloodbath’ because the fight at the end is known to be the toughest, and bring the Tamil civilians trapped there out to safety. Of course, as Bernard Kouchner did it the other day, they will quietly bowl doosra about having a third party mediator, which had to be rejected outright, or as we now see being said more often, talk of a some form of amnesty, as the Co-Chairs have suddenly found it is time to talk about, and the untiring Yasushi Akashi will most probably mention with bowing Japanese courtesy today (2).

The answer to all this is very clear, and in the open. It is in the 188,000 plus Tamil civilians who have now come over to government held territory, and at present living under somewhat difficult conditions no doubt, due to the very size of the influx.

These people have come without any interested, concerned, worried and possibly interfering groups going into the NFZ to ensure their safety or prevent a bloodbath.

They have come through the military strategy so far adopted by the Sri Lankan Security Forces, and have shown that they certainly prefer even the temporary difficulties of IDP transit locations to the frightening conditions under the LTTE’s terror in the NFZ.

If the Sri Lankan Government could get all these people out so fast, and in comparison to their numbers with a minimum of bloodshed, death or injury, there is no reason why the same security forces can not ensure that the balance several thousands held there cannot also be helped out to safety.

That is the firm position of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, articulated so well at his timely address to the public at Embilipitiya last Thursday.

Heal thyself

Whether it is to he physician Bernard Kouchner or the new brownie in diplomacy David Miliband, and any others who come with such formulae for the situation of the Tamil civilians held hostage by the LTTE, the answer must and will remain the same.

Physician heal thyself. Just take a look at Iraq and how you have been saving the people there for at least five years and more, and also look at Afghanistan and what the US donors are doing to civilians in the Swat Valley and the mountainous regions of the Pakistan- Afghanistan border.

Do not preach to us, what you do not practise elsewhere. This was the clear and succinct message from the President, who had received such a resounding mandate last Saturday, and in all preceding Provincial Council polls since the battle to liberate the North and East from the grip of LTTE terror began.

That is a mandate that outside meddlers, however much they may be electorally dependent on a so-called ‘Diaspora’ or economically interested in having more than a toe-hold in Sri Lanka cannot ignore.

It is best that they use their energies being spent in trying to save Prabhakaran and his close accomplices in terror from the fate of those who take to arms, the laws of Sri Lanka, and the wrath of the Tamil people who have at last been liberated from their bloody claws, for better purposes.

One such pressing need, in minding the interests of their own societies, is to get back and preach to the Pro-LTTE organizations that are waiting to raise more funds and give new life to a war that is almost over, to practise democracy in all its forms, including the right to protest, without resorting to violence and the glorifying of terror; matters that are frowned upon if done by a Muslim cleric or a supporter of Osama bin Laden, but not when it comes from supporters of the LTTE and Velupillai Prabhakaran. Stop them from demonstrations that cause the toppling and damage to the bust of a great Asian leader such as Jawaharlal Nehru, stop attacks on the High Commission of India, the world’s largest democracy, and the violence directed at Sri Lankan embassies in Oslo, Berlin and possibly soon in other capitals too.

Put your own houses in good order and then let’s talk of how you can possibly help the Tamils of Sri Lanka, who prefer to remain in Sri Lanka lead a better life in their motherland for years to come.

It is necessary to remember that these Tamils have over the years come in their hundreds of thousands into the midst, and of late into the caring arms of Sri Lanka, where they are said to face the threat of genocide.

As Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona described it so aptly when asked about this threat of genocide by a foreign journalist at a media briefing last Thursday, all of these thousands of Tamils must be suicidal if they come in such large numbers to areas where they face genocide.

There is certainly more respect needed for the psyche of average Tamil citizens by those who mouth such cheap allegations, whether they are UN officials here or abroad or foreign correspondents having associated and pressing links with UN officers to spread obvious falsehoods and unverified evidence of death and injury in Sri Lanka.