Re: Rock fights ‘smear’ tactics

Asoka Weerasinghe Gloucester, Ontario, Canada

January 30, 2007
The Editor
THE WINDSOR STAR
Windsor
Ontario

Dear Editor:

Re: Rock fights ‘smear’ tactics

Former Canadian Ambassador Allan Rock has little choice but to fight the ‘smear’ tactics that he is accusing the Sri Lankan government of. He says that they are trying to undermine his credibility before he prepares to present his report to the UN on child soldiers in Sri Lanka. His exercise to hang on to his “credibility”, is certainly going to be a Himalayan task. If there is indeed a “fight” between Allan Rock and the Sri Lankan government, you bet the Sri Lankan government has taken its gloves off and is outside the squared circle and it is a street fight now, as they believe that Allan Rock accusing the Sri Lankan Government Armed Forces playing a part in the abductions of children to help the Karuna group to be trained as child soldiers, is a bucket of hog-wash.

Allan Rock’s credibility fell apart long time ago together with his colleagues of the Canadian Liberal Party when they decided not to ban the world’s most ruthless terrorist organization, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (aka, Tamil Tigers) for 13 years, when other nations, like the US, UK, Australia, India, Malaysia, the Czech Republic, and now the EU countries banned them. Not that the Liberals were smart about it, but the only reason was that they did not want to antagonize the immigrant and refugee Tamil community in the Greater Toronto Area where ten of its ridings depended on their bloc vote of 100,000. He might as well admit it, as the last Liberal Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler admitted to the editorial board of the National Post, that not banning the Tamil Tigers was due to the pressures of domestic politics.

It is unfortunate that Allan Rock, a Liberal Party Tamil Tiger sympathizer, did not notice that he was on skids the very moment he agreed on this assignment given by UN’s, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, a Sri Lankan ethnic Tamil herself, and that he was heading towards a fire wall. The permutation of these two individuals had reasons to conjure doubts in Sri Lanka.

It is always questionable when there is a sense of arrogance and superiority perhaps, when these western fact finders go into Sri Lanka, sweep the place for a few days and come out believing that, “Ha! Presto!! I found the evil”, as Allan Rock did in five days in Killinochchi, Ampara, Batticaloa and Jaffna. Even recognized intellectuals, men and women grey with experience and age, have found it perilous and foolish to come to conclusions leave alone to claim that they discovered the facts and have all the answers after a few days of probing.

Allan Rock was handicapped in many ways trying to accomplish what was expected of him in his assignment from a ten day visit to Sri Lanka. For starters he made little shrift of the Tamil Tiger abductions, who are the real culprits as recorded by UNICEF. They recorded 5,956 child abductions and forced recruitment by the Tamil Tigers for their army to be trained as front line soldiers and suicide bombers, between January 2002 and December 2006. This is where Allan Rock lost ground. Could he have accused the Tamil Tigers as they should have been, without affecting the relationship and allegiance of the Canadian-Tamils to the Liberal Party in Ontario and jeopardize their 100,000 votes at the next federal elections? And so the Tamil Tigers were made to look like a bunch of angels compared to the breakaway Karuna Group, who Allan Rock alleges to be recruiting children with the help of the government armed forces. Colonel Karuna who has been a thorn in the Tamil Tigers flesh has denied emphatically all allegations, giving reasons that they do not need an army. He has also agreed to allow UNICEF monitors to visit his camps to ensure that no children remain associated with his armed group. And the Sri Lankan government has said that, “There is neither complicity nor willful blindness on the part of the Sri Lankan Government towards the alleged forcible recruitment of children by the Karuna group which is a breakaway group of the LTTE.” These rebuttals certainly places Alan Rock in an awkward position in regard to his integrity.

Allan Rock’s Report’s failure to give due emphasis to the degree of violations committed by the Tamil Tigers in child abductions and recruitment for over two decades, displays a bias in his reporting and doesn’t bode well with his ‘credibility’.

To add to his woes, Allan Rock was accompanied by the Scandinavian Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission’s Batticaloa Chief, Arthur Tveiten. Tveiten has gone on record making prejudicial comments about the Security Forces many times, and had to apologize for such indiscretions later. We know where Tveiten stands in his claim that he is a neutral observer. There is every possibility that Tveiten could have manipulated evidence and distorted the ground realities for Allan Rock.

In that neck of the woods, where poverty is rampant, money can buy you anything. In such a circumstance, a thousand Norwegian kroner could manipulate any voice. And Allan Rock says that he has got “credible evidence" for his conclusions. But the Sri Lankan government has accused him that he went about his business depending on ‘hearsay’, and listening to ‘village gossip’. Allan Rock has a choice. Unless he reveals his “credible evidence” he is certainly going to have his credibility tainted. This certainly shouldn’t be a tough call for him.

Allan Rock being what he is, a Canadian Liberal, who let the Tamil Tiger war-chest be topped by 2 million Canadian dollars every month for 13 years collected by the Canadian-Tamil Diaspora, I am not surprised why the Sri Lankan government is asking him to first look at the beam in his own eyes before he comes to poke his fingers at the mote in their eyes.

Asoka Weerasinghe
Gloucester, Ontario, Canada