Beware of gifts from Norway

By Susantha Goonatilaka

The Norwegian connection has surfaced again. First the Norwegian funded International Alert fiasco, now the Norwegian human rights activist Asbjorn Eide who denounced the LTTE.

Let me seek answers to this incongruency via a personal detour. I have known Asbjorn Eide and his wife Wenke Barth-Eide for nearly 20 years from a time when I had strong connections with Norwegian academia. I was teaching at Trondheim University on academic colonialism, and at Wenke's invitation gave a lecture series at Oslo University. The focus of the lectures' which were published, was the distortion of knowledge in our countries.

My views showing the other side of notions internalised by whites were well received. I was asked to address other fora, including one packed audience of leading politicians and academics. Once in a lecture at PRIO, partly in humour, I mentioned that Sri Lankan parents would warn sons leaving for Britain not to bring home a white bride. My wife in a study at PRIO found Norwegian women's organisations' attitudes to the Third World very much a Christian oriented paternalism.

Later, I advised the Eides on non-exploitative relationships with Sri Lankan academia. I helped Wenke do non-colonial research with the present Chairman of the University Grants Commission, Professor Sirisena Tillekeratne, I introduced her to nutritional groups resulting in a course on the subject at Kelaniya University. Although these were funded by Norwegians, the aim was academic equality.

The introductions to Asbjorn included various human rights activists as well as Kumar Rupesinghe. This led to Rupesinghe attending a conference I was organising with the Eides in Norway for a book Food as a Human Right. This introduction eventually led to Rupesinghe leaving his job as an assistant lecturer at Peradeniya University and his subsequent career both at PRIO and International Alert.

During the awful 1983 riots, when Asbjorn telephoned (as did so many overseas friends) he caught me in a frenzy rescuing friends and cursing J.R. Jayewardene. I gave an emotional description of the carnage. Asbjorn later moved his resolution against Sri Lanka in Geneva.

Five years later, with worse carnage under Premadasa, I tried to show Asbjorn the widespread misreporting. He then showed a draft report on the violence in the South. Incensed at its bias and falsity, I wrote out a detailed comment on its propagandist nature. The report was associated with Kumar Rupasinghe.

But Norwegian distortions on Sri Lanka are many. Thus a Norwegian newspaper covering the activities of one Arne Pjiertoff said that he was as well known as the Buddha or Marx. Thor Hyedahl the explorer of Kon Tiki fame, likewise debased the Sinhala heritage in a series of TV programmes and a book the Maldivian Mystery, by creating the fiction that Maldivian Buddha statues wore "Long Ears'' from Easter Islands. (These recent events are however not Buddhists' earliest connections with the Nordic. The oldest artefact of a high religion in Scandinavia is a sixth century Buddha statue found under its oldest church).

But still, Norwegians (and others) continue to see us colonially, and help aggression.

Thus the Norwegian University of Tromso has an agreement with the University of Jaffna for ''the development of the Tamil Eelam-areas''. In Norway, the University of Jaffna had declared Independence.

An American book (How to Get a Green Card) illustrates a refugee application by giving the following Sri Lankan Tamil example. The applicant is a ''TIGER [member] demanding a separate state from the Sinhalese government,... [was] responsible for publishing Tigers' position papers,...[was] in a mass demonstration on June 6, 1992, arrested, detained, interrogated, tortured..... and had to get an exit visa to leave the country by bribery.'' This whole story is fiction, in 1992 Jaffna was under Tiger control and no exit visa was required.

The respected left wing US journal ''Nation'' (Feb 14, 1994) says that learning Sinhala was compulsory for Tamils in schools and necessary for public employment. Lies again. No Tamils were required to learn Sinhalese and Sinhala was not a requirement for entry into government jobs. The report also ignores the use of only English in colonial times as well as the provision for the reasonable use of Tamil and the current provisions for all three languages.

One of the most important distinctions in human rights is between what the American Noam Chomsky said were ''worthy'' and ''unworthy'' victims. A US university MA thesis estimated the deaths among Sinhalese and Tamils and divided these figures by the words devoted to each group by a US rights organisation.

One Tamil death, it was found was equal to eighty (80) Sinhalese deaths. A Sinhalese-life was worth only one eightieth the life of a Tamil-life. A researcher in Japan found similar tendencies in international media coverage.

This is best illustrated by a personal incident. I wrote to the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission wanting to give evidence (and in turn to be questioned). Unfortunately I was only asked to give a written submission from which the following extract is taken.

Mangala Samaraweera as the Co-ordinator of the Mothers' Front and Prins Gunasekera were my guests in New York in 1992 and 1993. My wife arranged interviews with the National Public Radio (NPR), the major public radio in the US. Mr.Samaraweera appeared in two programmes ''Behind the News'' and ''Undercurrents'' and Prins Gunasekera appeared in another.

Mr.Samaraweera's interviewer was under the impression that he was talking about the ''ethnic conflict''. When Mr. Samaraweera tried to correct this, the interviewer said ''as we understand, [the violations] emerged as a conflict between the Tamils and the rest of the country''. The interviewer then went on to say specifically ''in the West, the conflict is seen only in terms of ethnic violations''. Mr.Samaraweera then tried to correct this impression mentioning that ''60,000 people had 'disappeared' in the South, not in the North''.

When Prins Gunasekera was interviewed, as a human rights activist, the interviewer's response was, ''You are Sinhalese. How did you end up being a human rights activist?" Then after Mr. Gunasekera had detailed the killings in the South, back came the following query: "Is it unusual for there to be progressive Sinhalese in the country and not part of the right wing party?" To this Mr. Gunasekera replied ''There is a strong left wing in the country''. Back came the interviewer to this with ''That includes Sinhalese?"

Now, Norway has a dark side. Before World War II, it took part in Hitler-type racist breeding programmes. In World War II, a segment of its population under Quisling proclaimed a pro-Nazi regime. More recently, although seemingly environment-friendly, where its own interests have been at stake as in whaling, its principles have been ''flexible''.

The war against Hitler's racist disciple Prabhakaran is like World War II, fought on military and propaganda fronts. Norway is aiding our Hitler by allowing Tiger sympathisers to collect funds for arms and aiding research at Tromso for Eelam's economics.

Norway's money for alleged ''peace efforts'', estimated at hundreds of millions of rupees, could turn out to be a not-so-subtle effort - like International Alert - to blunt local opposition to the Tigers. Norway could be funding local Quislings. The Norwegian embassy must immediately make public this aid, to whom, how much and for what.

In Norway such transparency would be required. If the Norwegian embassy does not, we should assume that they may be fronting for the Tigers.

As I had some responsibility for the Norwegian connection, to ease my conscience, may I suggest the following:

In human rights fora at Geneva, various Christian groups back the Tamil separatist hoax of traditional homelands. This is reminiscent of Hitler claiming Lebensraum from other territories. If Eide is a real friend of Sri Lanka, he should move in Geneva to completely reverse these Hitlerian propaganda.

In addition, he should get the churches to apologise for their past atrocities in Sri Lanka, the church having recently apologised for their involvement in the Holocaust and the Inquisition. Wenke should use her contacts to get Tromso university to suspend Eelam aid to Jaffna University.

I also urge my friend, the UGC Chairman, to immediately cancel the Tromso University agreement and invite the security organs to enquire into it. A war that has cost thousands cannot afford any lesser action. War time Norway would have understood.

-The writer is an academic specialising in knowledge systems. He has written several books and conducted lectures and research in institutes and universities in Asia, Europe and America.

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