CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

SHOULDN'T THERE BE A LIMIT TO FOREIGN INVOLMENT IN THIS COUNTRY

By Dr Tilak S. Fernando

Not even three weeks have lapsed when the whole hornets' nest was brought upon the UNESCO, particularly on the shoulders of its Director General Koichiro Massusra, officially by the Sri Lankan State as much as by patriotic Sri Lankan nationals who are living throughout the globe on the imprudent statement he made condemning the SLAF air strike on the Voice of Tigers Radio Station (VoT) by calling it a 'Civilian Radio' station. Subsequent defensive statements from UNESCO proved beyond any doubt that the respectable Director General had been mislead when he apparently borrowed coloured glasses from his representative in Colombo to view the situation before he commented. What a poor show!

Even before the dust settled down on this indecorous performance what did we hear? The UNICEF country representative Philippe Duamelle becoming mischievous, in thinking that Sri Lanka is his grandfather's backyard, and acting accordingly to his own whims and fancies thus overstepping all diplomatic norms and going far beyond his UNICEF mandate to turn his back on Foreign Ministry Guidelines and venturing into the so called ' uncleared' terrorist areas on the pretext of advising them about child soldiers recruited by the LTTE terrorists - perhaps to soothe the crying rebels who are desperate and in agony at present.

In this country we have a Sinhala adage about 'the man who climbed a coconut tree to cut grasses. Philippe Duamelle's excuse given to the Foreign Secretary, Palitha Kohona, when he was summoned to express the Sri Lanka government's concern over his high handed dictatorial behaviour and visiting Killinochchi was no different to the coconut tree climber's excuse - "I was not familiar with Foreign Ministry guide lines" similar to what the climber said, "I am coming down because there is no grass on the coconut tree" (Thanakola nethi hindane bahinne)!

If Philippe Duamelle as the Country Representative of the UNICEF in Sri Lanka does not know the fundamental guide lines laid down by the foreign Ministry to all diplomats and foreigners, then what is he doing in this country? What does he think of Sri Lankans? A bunch of harebrained idiots who would swallow any bait? He should realize that the era any foreigner could arrive in this land with the hospitality of the Sri Lanka government and tried any monkey pranks are over and done with, and moreover his unacceptable behavior in rushing to cuddle the terrorists had not been cleverer than an ostrich trying to hide its head in the desert sand.

Officials of high calibre sent out from International organisations to various countries, especially the developing world, with a prime aim of helping and aiding the progress of that country are not school boys who have just got through their 'O' Levels in secondary education. They are chosen out of a severe sieving process according to their educational and professional qualifications, knowledge on the subject on which they are sent abroad for, and who are either familiar with the host country or after being briefed thoroughly through orientation courses before they embark on such responsibilities. When things are in that order any high ranking official in the calibre of a country representative coming out with such brusque statements only exposes how biased this foreigner can be and for what purpose he has arrived in this land with perhaps his own agendas on the pretext of protecting children !

Philippe Duamelle may have been in Sri Lanka as UNICEF's Country Representative less than three months but that does not give him the right to overstep Foreign Ministry guide lines given to diplomats in entering a terrorist controlled ' war zone' as and when he fancies? He has claimed after the visit that he 'met with the LTTE to impress on the outfit the urgent need to release the newly recruited child soldiers numbering 240 or more' according to the complaints received by UNICEF'.

UN Convention on the rights of the child states 15 years as the minimum age a child could be recruited for any combat purposes. The UN Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict has repeatedly asked the LTTE to cease child recruitment and sent strong messages calling for the cessation of child recruitment. Subsequently the Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki Moon has also sent a strong message to the LTTE, and categorized the LTTE as a 'repeat offender on the Secretary General's list of violators for years'. if Duamalle's intention by visiting Killinochchi had been 'to assess the effectiveness of ongoing programmes and meet with the UNICEF staff' as he put it, then there is a wretched vacuum in their communication system as the LTTE has paid no heed except for a lip service and the innocent Tamil children are being forcibly recruited and made cannon fodder every day which is being exposed day after day by the Defense web site, electronic media and through numerous websites the world over.

It is not only the UNICEF that comes out with lame excuses when in a trapped situation that they are officially carrying out formal investigations and the outcome would be shared with the Government of Sri Lanka. In their books there is always no evidence of illegal transactions or illegality in what the LTTE terrorist are up to but the Sri Lanka Government.

This is not the first or the second instance officials of the UN or the representatives of UN affiliated agencies have been unfair to Sri Lanka. Last year when a prominent Sinhala freelance journalist who happened to be a member of staff of the UN office in Colombo asked a journalist during a press interview whether it was a crime to compare Prabakaran, the mass murderer, who has killed thousands of people including political leaders both Sinhala and Tamil in this country, including his own Tamil brethren with that of Sadham Hussein's crimes of ordering the assassination of 146 people was a punishable offence and to focus such information for the benefit of the newspaper readership and say, " No country in the world demands the summoning of Prabahakaran before the World Court Marshal', the UN's stance was bared by Olare Clinton, the Country representative based in Colombo, by not only attempting to victimize her member of staff but had the audacity to phone Bandula Jayasekera, the then editor of Daily News and question as to why such an interview was published. If not for the pressure exerted by the press at that time Olare Clinon may have gone to town and bulldozed her member of staff .

Over and over again it has been exposed that there are pro-LTTE elements in employment in many of the foreign agencies that are based in Colombo. Once the former UN Secretary General Kofi Anan was pushed into an embarrassing corner as a consequence of misguided information fed through to him by the UN officials in Colombo when he innocently sympathised with the LTTE terrorist leader Kauslyan's assassination. UN Colombo office records of impartiality towards Sri Lanka was not new and it had been exposed once before too when two former Heads in Colombo office, Peter Witham and Arve Ofstads, were given marching orders to leave the Country by the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry due to their jaundiced eye attitudes towards the LTTE terrorists.

It is very unfortunate that some of the foreigners who land in this country on the pretext of working for the welfare, human rights, peace promotion and to combat recruitment of child soldiers under various names and categories, appear to be taking the reins of a variety of operations to their own hands willy nilly and are trying to dictate terms to the Sri Lanka State at times!

The time is ripe now for the Sri Lankan government to open its eyes much wider and call spade a spade whenever foreigners are seen to be involved in internal affairs or politics in this country and fathom the level of duplicity adopted by these white serpents coiled round in Sri Lanka in the form of peace promoters, INGOS, High Commissioners and diplomats. When they are found guilty there should be no pardoning but to take the same stance the late President Ranasinghe Premadasa took by sending them out to where they came from, by the ear.
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