Editorial

This week’s deluge that hit the country from north to south, east to west and the centre without discrimination, is proof that nature’s fury is no respecter of race, religion or geography. While the people begin to pick up the pieces from the deaths and debris, and the mopping-up operations get underway, postmortems will spill over to next week on the Government’s ill-preparedness and subsequent handling of what is going to be a very costly clean-up.

The Government seemed preoccupied with other issues when disaster, which was not unexpected, struck. It had allowed the ‘Maaveerar Naal’ commemoration of the fallen fighters of the LTTE to take place without let or hindrance on Thursday (Nov. 27), the date coinciding with the birth anniversary of the terror group’s leader. It was more than a matter of compassion; it was a clear part of the appeasement process the Government has embarked upon in its quest for ‘reconciliation’ between the secessionist factions and mainstream Sri Lanka.

Events in faraway Britain also this week, however, may have come as a rude shock to the Government. The ruling party’s General Secretary, who was there to commemorate their (JVP) own ‘Heroes Day’ and as part of a continuing campaign to canvass support from overseas Sri Lankans (to whom they have promised voting rights), was ambushed on his way to address them by a group of the pro-LTTE rump living in that country. Short of manhandling him, the unruly mob waving LTTE-like flags, banging on the car and shouting slogans, made a spectacle of their protest.

Given the Government’s painstaking efforts to go the extra mile to reach out to this very diaspora, the incident would have woken them up to the reality that this is a group that cannot be placated. Every new government thinks the diaspora will trust it unlike its predecessors. But they have accused the JVP in particular of supporting the military in crushing the LTTE and opposing devolution—even if that was in the party’s previous avatar. They give no consideration to the volte-face of the current leadership of the party. These are the new voters in British politics who form a crucial vote bank, especially in marginal seats during hard-fought elections—and in turn, influence whichever British government to pursue its human rights crusade against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council.

The hot-headed group consists not necessarily of those who fled Sri Lanka during the 1983 pogrom. In 1981, their elders dropped petrol bombs through the letterboxes at the Sri Lanka embassies in London, Paris and Bonn in a 9/11-style or Easter Sunday-style coordinated terror attack—even though all those missions were headed by diplomats from their own community. Even then, they would organise a demonstration at the drop of a hat, flying banners in private planes over cricket matches where the Sri Lankan national team was playing—their favourite spot being opposite the Ceylon Tea Centre at crowded Oxford Street, where they would ask the British public to stop drinking ‘Ceylon Tea’ as they would be drinking ‘Tamil blood’. The northerners from Sri Lanka seemed unconcerned that such a boycott would ultimately hurt their brethren in the plantations.

All this, however, ought not to deter the Government from its pursuit of reconciliation. Like in Sri Lankan politics, diaspora politics also has its differences. Many groups disagree with the strategies of those who demonstrated in London this week. They believe the armed separatist conflict was not the way to go and that working with the Central Government in Colombo would win for ‘their people’ more benefits than the aggressive approach that has not got them far. There is dissension among the pacifists and the megaphone agitators who are ‘full of sound and fury signifying nothing’.

Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath complained to the Canadian envoy this week that acts by local politicians in that country, egged on by the ‘megaphone diaspora’, were making reconciliation difficult in Sri Lanka. But when a Sri Lankan MP goes to Canada and beats the communal drum, whipping up the diaspora to support a minority ‘Aragalaya’ in this country, why blame the Canadians only? It appears the Government has promises to keep but miles to go on a minefield-riddled road to reconciliation.

Govt. devaluing armed forces

Protests by multiple unions demanding higher salaries, better prices, and whatnot from the Government are a regular feature these days. Placard-carrying men and women screaming their heads off for their rights over loudhailers is a daily occurrence in the capital city, but there was nothing so pathetic as to see wounded soldiers who had braved terrorist bullets and landmines protesting in the rain opposite the Presidential Secretariat regarding their pensions.

The incumbents in office today are the masters of the protest game. They prided themselves on being the voice of the oppressed and downtrodden, the working class and the professionals, but now, with the ‘boot on the other foot’, they have had to turn the bullhorns inwards.

The Government has realised that with roles now reversed, with the public purse in hand, doling out the cash needs responsibility. When it comes to bragging rights—that the common kitty has never been so full—they are very vocal; yet when it comes to the armed forces, there is a clear distancing. Of the latter group, they have not only made it publicly evident that there is little love lost but also gone on to make a statement of it.

The annual Remembrance Day (Heroes Day) in this month of November, when the armed forces of Sri Lanka also remember their fallen comrades in all battles, saw the President as Minister of Defence and Commander-in-Chief absent himself from paying homage to those who made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of this country and ensure that democracy survived multiple extra-parliamentary putsches. He sent the prime minister in his place.

These are not mere smoke signals by the government but clear messages to all. Our front-page photograph depicts the irony of the situation—the northern politicians demanding the withdrawal of whom they call an ‘occupational army’, and the military in the area helping save lives of the northern and eastern populace in this wretched weather, and a Government that is devaluing the armed forces, only to deploy them on disaster management rescue missions, their usefulness demonstrated in a state of emergency.