Shenali D Waduge 

There is a very well planned concerted effort, well funded and with the same think tanks involved compiling report using ‘unknown’ witnesses or witnesses who have ‘escaped’ and awaiting asylum or refugee status to depict the notion that Sri Lanka needs to be divided and the North liberated. The reports are giveaways for when any report speaks of ‘sinhalization’ ‘genocide’ it simply showcases who is funding them. Nevertheless, while these reports are attempting to isolate Sri Lanka, the arrival of scores of foreign delegates from foreign missions, business delegations and foreign parliamentarians alongside their statements shows an entirely different picture but more importantly nullifies the bogus reports in circulation. Many of these reports have been exposed for their lies and distortions and the credibility of these organizations are now seriously to be questioned.

‘If there is any genocide – it is by the LTTE’  

Lord Naseby is the Chairman of the All Party British Sri Lanka Parliamentary Group.

We agree that infrastructure development is not the only criterion on which post-conflict development is to be measured. But we also need to realize that for 30 years these areas of the North were living like in the stone-age. These people needed to have something to look forward to start their lives. Now, in a matter of just 5 years they have new roads, new homes, new buildings, new means of income and ways to creatively generate income, ability to return to livelihoods that had been neglected. With the development a score of other avenues have opened up. Critics must realize this. The same critics need to also acknowledge that the LTTE enjoyed USD300m annual profits, the LTTE Diaspora funded them and that same Diaspora is demanding what the GOSL has done to develop the North when all the money sent by them to the LTTE were only to procure arms, build bunkers and to be shared amongst LTTE families.

We need to also add that scores of UN agencies, INGOs, and NGOs had offices virtually next door to the LTTE which next questions what they had been doing all these years. They were not even able to tell or did not wish to tell how many Tamils the LTTE took hostage! The contributors to these charities/NGOs need to seriously question them as to what they had been doing with the money sent to them for decades – absolutely nothing had been done in the North until the post-conflict development commenced.

Do we believe the LTTE-funded documentaries or the statements of diplomats arriving in Sri Lanka?

There is much talk of UN inaction during the final stages of the war, this is an attempt to downplay the UN country teams estimate of civilian deaths as being 7721 in an effort to give credence to the global campaign to promote 40,000 and more deaths. We have sufficiently argued that without names, dead bodies there is little accusers can do but to waste money running global campaigns. In a court of law their arguments will fall to pieces. In a war and with terrorists wearing uniform and in civil, with LTTE having trained a civilian defense force what army can differentiate a LTTE terrorist from a civilian who is pretending to be a civilian and not an LTTEr? Obviously, collateral damage did occur but the fact that amidst the fighting the army actually saved close to 300,000 Tamils (amongst whom there were plenty of LTTE cadres) is satisfactorily evidence of proportionality.

The country’s ‘Come See for Yourself’ policy has worked well. 1million tourists have arrived since 2009, over 200 delegations arrived in 2013 alone to Sri Lanka. The arrival of the Japanese Prime Minister and the Chinese Leader in 2014 and the agreements being signed showcases the extent of confidence these countries are having on Sri Lanka.

In the meanwhile, a lot of money is being spent by the usual culprits to compile reports, to serialize the same sets of allegations to show a picture of ‘consistency’ but they all end up using the same sources and the same mouthpieces and same online sites and same writers and speakers and reviewers end up saying the same thing. Almost always their ‘witnesses’ are kept hidden by a new concept called ‘witness protection’ and a cap on exposing their names for 20 years because obviously there are no real witnesses and by 20 years people would not remember to even ask the disclosure of their names! The attempt is obviously to do a Goebel – a lie repeated enough times becomes accepted as truth!

Nevertheless, they will have a hard time to counter their lies against foreign delegates arriving from all corners of the world and visiting all parts of Sri Lanka.

Arrival of Foreign Delegates to North Sri Lanka in 2013

All that needs to be said is that if anyone, any report is making allegations they would need to match these against the delegates that arrived, issued statements of praise and congratulated Sri Lanka on the efforts taken.

The very critics may well like to look at the illegal military interventions taking place, the illegal take over of lands and investments of these invaded nations, the scores of illegal renditions and the displacement of over 2.7million people and decide more of their time compiling reports on these nations to bring a ray of hope and sunshine to the lives of the people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Serbia, Kosovo, South Sudan,  etc instead of insisting that a UN team office positioned in these countries with NATO and US troops can solve all problems because there is little the UN or the Human Rights Head can argue as to these success stories to get away with similar action for Sri Lanka.