Support from NGOs crucial for Lanka

After observing the events that unfolded last week, if someone mistook Sri Lanka for still being a colony of the British, it would be unfair to criticise that assumption.
Initially, President Mahinda Rajapaksa was invited to address the prestigious Oxford Union in the United Kingdom, but then bringing back memories of colonial harassment from over 60 years ago, Sri Lanka’s First Citizen was told that he was no longer wanted at the Oxford Union, and that too after he had reached the UK.
And then, as if to insult Sri Lankans’ level of intelligence, the mighty British claimed that the speech was cancelled because they “couldn’t guarantee adequate security” for the President.

Even though it’s tempting to explain what happened over the week along the lines of modern day colonialism, what really took place was probably worse than that: One of the most outspoken champions of global peace and security, the British, succumbed to pressure exerted by the supporters of a banned terrorist organisation.

To deconstruct the events that took place, The Nation turned to one of the world’s leading and most sought after international terrorism experts, Professor Rohan Gunaratna. Among the many positions he holds, Professor Gunaratna is also the Head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) in Singapore, and has in depth experience and knowledge regarding the Sri Lankan conflict. 

Following are excerpts from the interview:

By Tharindu Prematillake in Singapore

Q: The LTTE is a proscribed organisation in the UK. However, pro-LTTE elements were present inside the Heathrow Airport carrying LTTE flags when the President of Sri Lankaarrived at the airport. They would not have been able to enter the airport without the permission of the authorities. How should we read this scenario?
The British Government has proscribed the LTTE. However, the British Government has also permitted the LTTE organisation and many other proscribed groups to campaign in the United Kingdom at the political level. These proscribed groups have been allowed to conduct protest marches, rallies, conferences, lobbying campaigns, meetings with politicians and even maintain websites. Only very few proscribed organisations have not been allowed to express themselves, most notably are Al Qaeda and the Muslim organisations. So, in many ways, Britain has demonstrated double standards when it comes to fighting terrorism, and what happened when the President visitedBritain is just one example of it.

Q: When the Oxford Union decided to invite President Rajapaksa to deliver a speech they would not have been ignorant of the sentiments of some of the pro-LTTE Tamil diaspora in the UK. But, after the President arrived in the UK, the Oxford Union cancelled the speech. Was this acceptable treatment of a leader of a country? What do you think caused the change of heart, for the Oxford Union?
No, it was not the way to treat a Head of State.
We should try to understand what happened here.
First, I should point out that the bulk of the Tamil diaspora are not with the LTTE. Most of them feel that they were cheated by the Tamil Tigers.
The Tamil Tigers destroyed one entire generation of Tamils and also intimidated, coerced and used deception to take their money and then used it for a project that failed.
It is a very tiny minority of the Tamil diaspora that lobbies for the LTTE.
This minority which was mobilised by the LTTE have become politicised and radicalised over the years.
The group that protested in the UK was the Global Tamil Forum.
That group is the public face of the LTTE.
It is imperative and essential for the Sri Lankan Government to constantly mention that the Global Tamil Forum is not innocent and that it is controlled by the LTTE.
In fact, it is controlled by the Nediyavan faction.
Nediyavan exercises extraordinary influence over Father Emanuel, and there is no difference between the ideology of the Global Tamil Forum and the mentality of the Nediyavan group.
Their methods of operation are slightly different.
While Nediyavan’s group controls the LTTE branches in every country, it is more clandestine and uses a lot of intimidation.

The Global Tamil Forum on the other hand will mostly use methods of dialog, campaigning, and lobbying to get support among British politicians. The Global Tamil forum will approach these politicians and say, “we will campaign for you,” “we are going to make this campaign contribution,” or “so many members from our organisation will lobby for you and raise funds for you”.
So, in many ways what happens is that organisations such as the Global Tamil Forum organises very well orchestrated campaigns to lobby the British Government, the British opposition and the British NGOs. This time, working together with those institutions, the LTTE front organisations were able to convince the Oxford Union that the President’s talk should be cancelled.

Q: What steps should the Sri Lankan Government take to ensure that such situations don’t arise in the future? 
The Sri Lankan high commissions, the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry, the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry and the Sri Lankan Information Ministry should develop a strategy.
The first step should be to dismantle the Global Tamil Forum because it’s a terrorist front.
The second step should be to disable the Nediyavan’s organisation which is operating in Norway with considerable strength and expanding influence. And thirdly, the Sri Lankan Government should engage the NGOs.

Up till this day, the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry does not have a NGO division.
You must create a specialist NGO division because today NGOs are very powerful in the international system.
The government has to get along well with the NGOs because without the NGO co-operation and NGO assistance I don’t think the government can promote Sri Lanka well enough.
I don’t think the government can restore its image without the support of the NGOs.
And if the government continues to resist the NGOs, the Tamil Tigers and its fronts like the Global Tamil Forum will keep engaging these NGOs, and getting what they want. So, the Sri Lankan Government needs to sit down, think intelligently and come up with a far reaching strategy to engage with the NGO community.

The Foreign Ministry, working with the Information Ministry, should work with the mediaorganisations.
Without just complaining that the media is not listening to us or giving publicity to us, what the Foreign Ministry and the Lankan diplomatic staff in other countries must do is to proactively educate leading media personnel about what happened in Sri Lanka, and explain what the ground reality in Sri Lankawas and is.

But, because the Tamil Tigers had a very strong propaganda system, they were able to in many ways convince some western politicians and Western NGOs including organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that there were significant human rights violations in Sri Lanka. So, unless Sri Lanka gets its act together the kind of events that took place in Britain last week will continue to happen, and perhaps even things that are much more problematic will affect the country in the coming years.

Q: The Oxford Union cited “inability to provide adequate security” as the reason forcancelling the President’s speech. When a State Leader visits a country – whether the visit is official or personal in nature – can the host country claim that they are not able to provide adequate security to that leader?
I think that even when President Obama visits a high threat environment somehow or other he is protected. If that is the case then I simply cannot see why a country like Britain cannot protect the President of Sri Lanka when he’s inside Britain. So I believe that this is an excuse that has been given. And I believe that the British Government should in itself reflect on its own course of action.
Mostly the Sri Lankan Government should work with the British Government and make it clear that especially some politicians and NGOs have been lobbied by the Tamil Tigers. So, it is important for the Sri Lankan Government to re-engage the British Government on this matter.
Also, when some of these British leaders visited Sri Lanka they had a difficult time, and it was made clear to them that the British should not interfere. When those politicians returned to their home country the Tamil Tigers very cunningly adopted them as friends, and it is those British leaders who were humiliated in Sri Lanka earlier, who are now playing an active role against Sri Lanka. I think Sri Lankaneeds to handle such situations delicately.

Q: Do you think the incidents that transpired during the President’s visit to Britain will have a negative impact on the diplomatic relations between the two countries? 
We should not let it affect the diplomatic relations. I think this is a good reminder to the Sri Lankan Government that the country needs to develop proper counter propaganda strategies. They also need to develop a proper communication strategy and plan, to bring out the reality of what happened in Sri Lanka. They can point out that civilian deaths in Sri Lanka is much lower as a percentage compared to the civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan by American and British troops.
Sri Lanka should also project a positive image of the country to the world.
Sri Lanka has rehabilitated thousands of LTTE cardres. And of course all the IDPs have been resettled except for the ones whose homes were destroyed, and the ones who live in areas where land mine clearing is still ongoing.
In many ways, Sri Lanka has also developed the North East in a remarkable way.
I myself have seen what the government has done in the North East. This is the image Sri Lanka needs to project.
The Sri Lankan Defence Ministry, working with the Foreign Ministry, should neutralise Tamil Tiger front organisations such as the Global Tamil Forum and dismantle those networks, so that thoseorganisations will die the same way the Tamil Tiger military wing was dismantled in Sri Lanka. This requires the government to work with the host countries that are hosting the Tamil Tigers knowingly or unknowingly, and work to make sure that these groups die a permanent death. These organisations are poisoning the minds of the people, and they want to create another cycle of violence. So, it is essential that Sri Lanka identifies this phenomenon as a threat and dedicate specialist resources and build national security organisations to counter the threat from overseas.

Q: You mentioned that certain foreign politicians faced a difficult time when they visited Sri Lanka. Former British foreign secretary David Miliband was one such politician whose views on the conflict were not liked by many Sri Lankans. In one diplomatic cable recently released by Wikileaks, a US official referring to Miliband states, “He said that with UK elections on the horizon and many Tamils living in Labour constituencies with slim majorities, the government is paying particular attention to Sri Lanka, with Miliband recently remarking that he was spending 60% of his time at the moment on Sri Lanka.” Do such revelations shed new light on the actual motives of some foreign politicians who show an overt interest in Sri Lanka? 
Absolutely. In the case of Miliband, I can tell you with great accuracy that his reason for working onSri Lanka was not because he had any special love for the country. He clearly had personal political objectives in mind when getting involved in the issue. Like it has been proved in the Wikileaks cable,Miliband was playing the tune that suited his politics in Britain.
When a politician such as Miliband gets involved in an internal conflict situation like in Sri Lanka, his personal bias only complicates things even more. Miliband was never genuinely concerned about the welfare of the Sri Lankan people no matter what he claimed in his speeches and statements. The Sri Lankan conflict was a means of obtaining a few more votes.

Q: In one of the memos leaked by Wikileaks sent by the US embassy in Colombo to the State Department, it says that the Tamil people and political leaders in the country showed a greater interest in “securing greater rights and freedoms, resolving the IDP question, and improving economic prospects in the war-ravaged and former LTTE-occupied areas”. The memo also quotes former TNA MP Pathmini Sithamparanathan as saying, “...now was not the time for war crime-type investigations.”
However, despite the wishes of the Tamil people and political leaders in Sri Lanka, certain countries in the west kept trying to bring in war crime charges against the country. Can this be considered an intrusion of sovereignty and a blatant disregard for the wishes of the Tamil population in Sri Lanka? 
It is just two countries that have been pushing for war crimes charges, one is the US because MrsClinton has been lobbied very significantly by the LTTE fronts, and on the other hand you haveMiliband for the UK. And sure, the British and American Governments might have spoken with other governments and they might be influenced to a certain extent by what the British and American politicians want.
But still it is very few countries who have asked for investigations in Sri Lanka. Even in those countries that have made such requests very few politicians have been susceptible to LTTE lobbying.
I fully agree with you that the Sri Lankan Tamils living in Sri Lanka are very pragmatic.
They themselves have suffered so much and they don’t want there to be another wave of radicalisation.
It is only a tiny segment of Sri Lankan Tamils living overseas who are being controlled by Tamil Tiger front groups that have asked for these war crimes investigations. So it is crucial for the Sri Lankan Government to take make this fact known.
That is why I have always said that the failure is with the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry, with its diplomats.
The Sri Lankan missions especially in Europe and North America need to act more decisively.

Q: Recently, the armed forces discovered a mass grave in the Mullaithivu area with 21 bodies of Sri Lanka Army personnel. The international community has so far not made any comment about the incident. What are your thoughts on this silence?
The Tamil Tigers have traditionally operated in the West, with their charities and non-profitorganisations. It is essential for Sri Lanka to build new platforms and new systems with specialists at the helm to handle this situation. Unfortunately, Sri Lanka has not done this.
That is why when the incident that you mentioned took place, not much publicity was given. On the other hand if it was bodies of young LTTE cardres that were found in that grave, there would be a huge outcry.
Until the Sri Lankan Government takes the initiative to act decisively, segments of the world will be misled by the terrorist propaganda.
The Sri Lankan Government must get its act together, starting from the President, the Ministers, their secretaries, the diplomats.
Everyone has a role to play in this.
Until such time that all these people realise the gravity of the situation, Sri Lanka will suffer internationally.
The country is doing well internally, but overseas the country’s image is being chipped away by terrorist fronts.

Q: Channel 4 recently released yet another video which claimed to show war crimes of Sri Lanka. This video was released around the time President Rajapaksa arrived in the UK. Do you think the timing of these two events was a coincidence?
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Channel 4 released its latest disparaging video on Sri Lanka right when the President was visiting the UK. Channel 4 has a history of releasing such videos coinciding with visits of important Sri Lankan officials to the UK. Once again this comes down to the extent of Tamil Tiger lobbying and funding capabilities.
However, like I mentioned before the Sri Lankan Government needs to take steps to counter this false negative propaganda. The government has to take action to get the correct message out to the world. Yes, Sri Lanka won the war in the country, and the government won the hearts of the people in the country. But a lot more needs to done to win the war outside of the country, to dismantle the Tamil Tiger’s front organisations, to win the propaganda war and thereby win the hearts of the people around the world.
Within the country we can clearly see that there is a boom in the economy, development, tourism, pretty much every aspect you can imagine.
However, Sri Lanka’s image outside of the country needs to be cleared up with the presentation of the true situation in the country.
Only then will the country be able to establish a positive and defining image that will not be easily tarnished by false propaganda from any local or foreign outfit.

(See diaspora threat , Nation 2)