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ASHAMED TO CALL MYSELF A BRITISH
By Derrick Smith
Dear Mr. Chilcott
I am writing to you as a British who has had a lot of business connections
with Sri Lanka in the past and who has traveled widely in and out the
beautiful island. As an Englishman who, perhaps has had more living
experience by intermingling with the Sri Lankan populace right across
the country more than you have been there as High Commissioner recently,
I am sadden to note the growing speculation among the majority Sinhala,
Muslim and the ordinary Tamil people that you have stepped out of your
diplomatic boundaries when you recently visited a newspaper office (
Daily Mirror) to register your concern on alleged violations of free
media and human rights violations by Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary
. As a senior Civil Servant with FCO experience behind you, did you
ever think of it as stepping out of your diplomatic boundaries? Perhaps
you may not have come up to the same level as Mr. D.N.Dixit, a former
Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka in 1980’s who attempted to
interfere with internal affairs of Sri Lanka, but you need to consider
yourself very fortunate that unlike Gladstone, one of your former colleagues,
who stepped out of his mark, you were not made persona non grata by
the Sri Lankan government.
I do not have to brief you on the definition of diplomatic missions
as they are established in accordance with the provision of the Vienna
Convention on diplomatic relations 1961. Accordingly, “typical
consular duties performed by British High Commissions include issuing
of passports and emergency passports; registering births and deaths;
handling cases of child abduction and forced marriages; and assisting
Britons detained or imprisoned like in the case of a Tamil gentleman
(British citizen), who was detained by the LTTE terrorists during his
visit to Vanni where the top ranks of the British government had to
intervene from London to get him released.
Please bear in mind that your former FCO is the eyes and ears of the
British Government abroad. As you are aware all activities abroad are
linked directly into Departments across Whitehall, providing vital information
on developments abroad. You as the Head of the Mission in Colombo are,
therefore, in a position to exert influence, and maintain extensive
networks of contacts among decision-makers and have targeted programmes
of public diplomacy with aim to promote the UK's strengths of integrity,
creativity, and openness and thereby increase trade, inward investment,
tourism and the influence of UK foreign policy rather than choosing
to walk on dangerous grounds of being seen as partisan to a terrorist
cause!.
To substantiate my statement let me take you very briefly on certain
statements which you have come out with and leave it for yourself to
chew back and analyse whether those spoken words were appropriate from
your position as the British High Commissioner and to what degree it
has helped or damaged the image of Britain.
On June 16, when you made a speech from the BMICH on UK’s Peace
Building Efforts you said, I quote, “We recognise that outsiders
cannot make peace in Sri Lanka, but outsiders can help shape the political
and security environment”. At the same breath you mentioned that
your “first objective was to generate in the country a greater
commitment to a negotiated peace”. Looking at our own back yard,
England, do you think Britain will entertain or has entertained any
outsiders to come and interfere with our foreign polices when hundreds
of thousands innocent people are massacred day in and out in Iraq and
Afghanistan?
When Sri Lanka’s Foreign Secretary criticized various foreign
parties with vested interests of bullying Sri Lanka you had the tongue
in cheek to throw challenges to him saying that “ if the Defence
Secretary’s view reflect the government’s more widely, why
don’t we pack up and go home and save ourselves all that money
and effort”.
Defence Secretary is a responsible official of the Sri Lanka government
who has much more inside information of activities and intelligence
reports on Sri Lankan affairs that you may not have as High Commissioner,
and being a most respectable officer do you think he will come out with
some flippant or baseless criticism to pass judgment on those who were
not helping Sri Lanka in this dark hour?
Mr. Chilcott, you have to bear in mind that you are only a representative
of Britain in that country and it gives you no right whatsoever to interfere
into internal affairs of Sri Lanka.
You also went on record in your speech at the BMICH stating that “Britain
thought that the right of the Tamils in particular would be safeguarded
by what Soulsbury Constitution left as necessary arrangements, however
history has proved otherwise.” Does not this kind of statements
give the wrong impression and a twisted view that you are biased towards
a portion of Tamil people who have turned mass murderers and world known
terrorists?
To get answers for your own questions you need to delve into the history
of Sri Lanka deep and not the latest twisted history of Sri Lanka by
Tamil terrorists. Only when you view the situation with an open mind
you will realize that even prior to all these unfortunate incidents
that have taken place since 1983, 25% of the Top Civil Servants’
jobs in Sri Lanka were occupied by approx. 10-12% of the Tamil population
at the time.
You have chosen to point a finger at the host government on adductions,
human right violations, extortions, murder, killing and kidnapping etc
displaying your inability to grasp the real situation and distinguish
the difference between the Tamil people and the Terrorist outfit of
Tamils. This is rather pathetic and embarrassing to all British people
as a whole. Can the Sri Lankan Defence Secretary be blamed in pulverizing
all foreign emissaries who choose to criticize and denounce a democratically
elected government which is trying its best to safeguard law and order
and human rights in extremely difficult conditions?
Are you, Mr. Chilcott, oblivious to the lawlessness experienced in
London as a sample of violence committed by Tamil Terrorist gangs in
a much larger scale? Have your faculties become benumbed to hear, feel
and see the atrocities committed by Tamil terrorists who not only murder
and kill Sinhalese but their own folk indiscriminately? Why have you
been reigning silence when the Tamil terrorists in the East of Sri Lanka
held innocent Tamil folk as human shields when the Sri Lankan army was
trying to flush the terrorists and save the innocent who had become
prisoners? Where were you when the Terrorists plundered food and provisions
sent by the government to displaced innocent Tamils? Did not you see
those as violations of human rights? Or does the Human Rights factor
suit you when you want to point a finger at the Sri Lanka government
only? Your shameless and biased behaviour which is becoming a naked
truth is such a disgrace to the very government hat has sent you to
represent.
Anywhere in the world, in a situation where the national security is
at risk, history reveals how they have reacted. May be it was long before
you were born Mr. Chilcott that UK fire bombed Dresdon in Germany killing
hundreds of civilians during World War II ,and USA dropped nuclear bombs
in Japan only because of one reason – when their national security
was at risk. Today when Tamil terrorists are killing their own people
and attempting to disrupt a complete society by slaughtering and murdering
politicians, a former President, introducing suicide bombers and attempting
to kill the country’s Army Commander, Defence Secretary after blinding
Mrs. Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga in one eye, destroying soft
economic targets such as Central Bank building, blowing up of a national
airline plane, bludgeoning to death innocent infants, villagers, farmers
and commuters and even their own Tamil folk who go against them, and
finally becoming a threat with air power to the whole of South East
Asia, you consider the taming of the Tiger as a violation of human rights?
Dear Mr. Chilcott, I am ashamed today to call myself a British as I
have lived in that lovely country for so long, and done business with
Sri Lankans. When my business interests are hampered, and my burning
desire to be there with such a lovely and hospitable people are denied
by a ruthless terrorist factor for which you deliberately or being brain
washed denying my right, naturally as a British I am perplexed.
If you need to educate yourself about to what extent Tamil terrorists
have been a threat not only to Sri Lanka but to the whole of the South
East Region I would request you to view the some of the web sites which
I hope will open your eyes:
Terrorist and child soldiers training by Adelede Balasingham (wife
of late Anton Balasingham, Ethnic Cleansing of Muslims by Tamil War
Lords from South India, LTTE tax collections by Al Jazera etc.
Mr.Chicott Sri Lanka is fighting to survive a terrorist menace and
the LTTE is fighting to create racist Tamil empire. Being British we
should set an example of that the Law should be the same for all. There
should be no favours to LTTE terrorists who are fund raising in the
UK.
If you really care for Sri Lanka, which is a democratically elected
administration, please stop giving residence status to bogus economic
refugees. It is high time that you stand by the highest principles of
British values and by hounding and stopping Aid to Sri Lanka you are
indirectly supporting terrorists.
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