Thoughts from London

So it's the media what's done it
At the beginning there was Harrold. Not a simple Harold like some others bearing the same name, but one with a double-barrelled "r" and a biblical name to go with it.

Our Peter is a banker -- a world banker to boot. He is unlikely to share the same moral concerns as his fisherman namesake of yore. In fact if the World Bank has any morals it sure keeps them as safely tucked away as the family heirlooms.

In recent times Harrold has had other concerns like how to escape the wrath of Sri Lankan people after a serious verbal gaffe that he quickly tried to father on the media.

It seems this affliction of shifting the blame onto the media to cover up their diplomatic faux pas is becoming endemic in international organisations and similar bodies.

Not to be outdone by Harrold, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) was screaming its head off the other day that its acting chief Hagrup Haukland had been misquoted and accused the media of sensationalism.

Harrold and Haukland. I do not know whether they belong to the same genre as those slapstick comedians like Laurel and Hardy and Abbot and Costello and others of more recent vintage. Vaudeville surely missed a great pair.

Readers might recall the interview Harrold gave this newspaper some months back in which he referred to the areas under the control of the LTTE as a kind of "unofficial state."

Harrold reacted with umbrage. He not only claimed he was misquoted but had excerpts of that interview put on the World Bank website as proof of media manipulations.

He also issued a statement saying that a "careful review of the recording of the interview" would prove the newspaper wrong.

Alas. Before the week had passed Harrold was pleading mea culpa and trying to do a deal with this newspaper to stop it publishing a verbatim report of that interview.

Having been turned down, Harrold was virtually on bended knee admitting that any "reasonable person could have misunderstood" him and apologising for not speaking more clearly. That exchange with this newspaper left Harrold trying desperately to cover his nudity with something even smaller than a fig leaf.

I raise this again not only because of the Haukland ho ha where once again attempts are made to cast the media as cavalier and lacking responsibility but also because higher up the World Bank ladder they are trying to gloss over this Harrold episode that questioned Sri Lanka's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The World Bank's Vice-President for South Asia, Praful Patel told me in London that Harrold's remark was a "slip of the tongue". If so it must be the only such slip in history that was vigorously defended as a media misquote and resort was made to a website to deny the remark was ever made.

I don't know whether the government protested, or at least brought it to the notice of the relevant authorities at the Bank headquarters in Washington.

This much however needs to be said. When governments ignore such interventions from outside or do not make their displeasure known, it emboldens others to take the authorities lightly and even thumb their noses at sovereign nations as seems to have happened the other day with the UNDP in Colombo over the Clinton visit.

The latest rumpus is about an AFP report from Colombo apparently headlined "Truce monitors in Sri Lanka fear Tiger air assets may spark new war."

A subsequent SLMM statement said the AFP report, which the SLMM claims was picked up "by countless media organisations in Sri Lanka and around the world", contained "incorrect elements and a misleading headline." The AFP had reported remarks purportedly made by the acting head of SLMM Haukland at a meeting with the Foreign Correspondents Association. Not having seen the report I don't know what it said.

But I would have expected the SLMM that is howling with horror to say what precisely was wrong with the AFP report. At least we know the headline.

But what of the "incorrect elements." What were they? Curiously the great Scandinavian monitors are totally silent on this. If the SLMM is so angered by what it claims is a false or distorted report it had a duty to point out precisely where AFP was wrong, particularly so as it claims that "countless" others used the story.

The monitors had a responsibility to those who might have been misled. Instead it makes wild statements like this: "The Head of the SLMM deplores the use of sensationalist media to fuel the current fragile situation in the East and urges all journalists to act responsibly."

Who are the sensationalist media? Again the monitors are strangely silent. While liberally dispensing gratuitous advice about journalistic responsibility, would it not be more appropriate for the SLMM to perform its role with impartiality and responsibility?

Is the SLMM by any chance referring to the pro-LTTE website Tamilnet that refused to publish a correction issued by it following a Tamilnet report? Has the SLMM proferred this advice about journalistic responsibility to all, irrespective of their ideological hue or ethnic make up?

The headline to which the monitor's object basically says that the LTTE's "air assets" could re-start the war. A similar observation was made by the Political Editor of this newspaper last Sunday.

He wrote: "It was only Thursday the acting Head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) Hagrup Haukland told the Foreign Correspondents Association that the newly acquired 'air assets' of the LTTE could re-ignite war. This is the boldest statement made by an SLMM official in the three years of ceasefire. He said an air capability would mean a "hell of a lot" to the LTTE and warned "it not only destabilises Sri Lanka's security but India's security as well."

Whether the Political Editor was at the meeting or he got these quotes independently, I would not know. If it is AFP copy he is quoting from, is the SLMM saying that these very serious observations concerning the security of two sovereign states, was manufactured by a "sensationalist media?"

Or is it more likely that Haukland, like Harrold, having put both his feet in his mouth is now contorting himself to extricate them?

In fact columnist Rajpal Abeynayake last Sunday goes even further reporting Haukland's reaction to any attempt to bomb the LTTE airstrip. Are all these remarks figments of media imagination?

Now that the SLMM has given advice on responsible journalism, perhaps these moral monitors might tell us what they have done about the LTTE refusal to let them inspect the airstrip?

Have they brought it to the notice of Solheim, Brattskar and Vidar Helgesen who are in and out of Sri Lanka as though they owned the place? So what are these Norwegian travellers doing about it?

Nothing I suppose. They, like Shylock, will want their pound of flesh. Is that why Haukland is so upset about his observations on the threat to Indian and Sri Lankan security? Did the acting head of the SLMM fail to use his head at a sensitive moment and so angered his Eelam cronies?
The thoughts of Harrold go hand in hand with those of Haukland, no.

Back to Columns