David Cameron wrecks the Union

In a few days time Scotland will vote on whether or not to remain in the union.  That’s the ‘United Kingdom’.   Put another way, Scots will be asked whether they want to separate.  It is predicted that the vote would be close.  Interestingly, the two major parties in Britain, Conservative and Labour, are in agreement on the issue.  Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour leader Ed Miliband have dropped all other matters to go campaign in Scotland.  They want Scotland to remain as part of the United Kingdom. 

Well, it’s up to people in that part of the world to figure out what’s best for them.  What interests us is a lovely claim made by Cameron:

‘The United Kingdom is a precious and special country.  That is what is at stake.  So let no one in Scotland be in any doubt: we desperately want you to stay; we do not want this family of nations to be ripped apart.’

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, a David Cameron better endowed with that rare commodity called integrity and equally empowered by a solid understanding of history, was heard muttering to himself.  This is what he said.

I am a subject.  That’s less than citizen of course, but still.  I am a subject and one that loves his native land.  For me, no country is more special than mine.  That’s because I was born here.  Now had I been born in Somalia, I would probably say ‘no place on earth is more beautiful’.  But I was born in what’s called the United Kingdom and that’s special to me.

Special, yes, and precious too, for the very same reasons.  But I know history and I am no liar (at least not in this particular universe I am resident in at the moment).  So even as I say ‘precious’ I can’t help not hearing a thousand voices from all parts of the world and from decades gone by screaming in my ear, ‘pernicious’.  I know the history of my country and I know how it became wealthy.  I know at what cost we obtained our comfy lifestyles and I know who had to pay (not I and not my ancestors). 

I hear those voices and I get tongue-tied about the union.  I mean, how can I talk about the integrity of the union when I know how Britain with guns, deceit and even Bible, moved to tear apart countries, communities and families?  Did I use the past tense?  Sorry.  It’s not history.  It’s as-we-speak unfolding.  No other nation (well, the USA is admittedly giving us a run for our money) has played with map and boundary as Britain has.  It was and is as though we loved nothing more that destroying cultures and fracturing communities.  Indeed it was as though we operated on the following lines ‘we desperately want you to get the hell out of wherever the hell you happen to be – we would like nothing more than seeing your families ripped apart.’

We did the ‘divide and rule’ number, but we don’t think that goose-sauce is the same as gander-sauce if you know what I mean.  We don’t want to be divided and ruled.  We don’t want to be sold as slaves.  We don’t want someone to draw arbitrary lines and turn the British Isles into a dozen countries in ways that leaves communities stranded in different ‘countries’ paving the way for ‘ethnic fratricide’ somewhere down the line.  We don’t want to be turned into so many ‘minorities’ and have ‘majorities’ elsewhere booing us the way our blue-blooded subject booed Moeen Ali the other day.

My country is special to me, but history says that we would be shortlisted for the dubious prize of the most uncivilized people the world has ever known.  We are bunch of savages who had no qualms about marrying Bible to Gun and using both to subjugate people, plunder their lands, desecrate their temples, dispossess them and if necessary slaughter them in their thousands.  

We want Scotland to remain in the union, but the truth is, given what England was, is and intends to be, and what the ‘union’ does as boot-licker of the USA in many parts of the world, we cannot blame Scotland for voting ‘yes’…’yes, we want to do stuff our way in the by ourselves, with ourselves and for ourselves manner’.   

P.S. All this in a parallel universe called 'Humility'. 

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Sison wrong, Cameron right

US Ambassador Michele Sison got it wrong.  Addressing a media briefing following the UNHRC vote on Sri Lanka, Sison dismissed allegations that the US-backed resolution was ‘against’ Sri Lanka.  In other words it was ‘for’ Sri Lanka, she implies. 

Now if the Government of Sri Lanka, which represents the people of Sri Lanka, thinks a resolution is ‘for’ the country, it would not oppose it.  The main opposition parties blame the government for putting the country in a position where such a resolution could be tabled and approved, have not exactly endorsed the document.   Only the Tamil National Alliance has openly cheered the resolution. The TNA, one time mouthpiece of a terrorist organization which continues to let pro-LTTE elements or LTTE-remnants to dictate party policy, is but a regional political entity whose sway is limited to just one province. 

For Sison to imply that she knows better than Sri Lankan what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans is unadulterated condescension.  From any other diplomat it would deserve the tag ‘unbecoming’, but she’s the representative of a country that has the word ‘ugly’ stuck on diplomacy and diplomat.  She got it wrong, but that’s not a surprise then. 

It must be mentioned that the USA didn’t cover itself in glory when other resolutions were debated, in particular five resolutions condemning Israel (the USA was the sole ‘nay-sayer’) and the Pakistan-led resolution on drone attacks which sailed through over the objections of the USA, Britain, France and a handful of other members who interestingly had voted against (yes) Sri Lanka.  

The USA objected to ‘the singling out of Isreal’, even though not too many hours before it put its full weight on ‘singling out Sri Lanka’. 

Sison got it wrong, but British Prime Minister David Cameron did not.  Cameron said ‘the UNHRC decision on Sri Lanka is a victory for its people’.  He got the wording right. His reasoning was off the mark and in that he was quite ‘Sisonic’.

It was a victory for Sri Lanka but not in the sense that Government spokesman mean ‘victory’.  The vote was a defeat, never mind that the US got one less than half the voting members to vote ‘yes’.  It is less than consolation to count each abstained vote as a ‘no’.  It was a victory, again in a consolation kind of way, that Sri Lanka, given the massive mismatch vis-à-vis the USA managed to have 12 countries support her, including China and Russia, not counting out the fact that there were political blocs to contend with. 

It was also consolation that India abstained, but too much should not be made of India’s position since the Indian ‘explanation of position’ demanded rejection and not ‘hands-off’.  A perusal of the Congress Party’s election manifesto would reveal the truth of India’s oft-uttered assertions of ‘friendly relations’ with Sri Lanka.  The Bharathiya Janathan Party is no better since it is talking ‘Monroe Doctrine’ these days with obvious reference to Sri Lanka’s ties with Pakistan, China and Russia.  These three countries backed Sri Lanka to the hilt.  Their statements were unambiguous and not compromised by the kind of pernicious meddling India is known for. 

But Cameron got it right because any process which reveals friend as well as enemy is a significant positive.  The vote revealed that India is no friend. The vote revealed that Pakistan, China and Russia are solidly on Sri Lanka’s side.  The vote revealed that there is absolutely no point in going beyond general courtesies in relations with the USA, UK, France and India; placating will not purchase a ‘back-off’. 

The bigger victory is that the government is now forced to acknowledge all this but especially the fact that its own survival and that of the country is dependent on the people standing as one.  The government must realize that such unity as necessary to meet the obvious threats articulated in Geneva cannot be obtained without rectifying institutional, constitutional and policy-related flaws that are patently anti-people.  Without redressing general grievances that are of economic and political nature, the government cannot count on continued support that is the final and most effective bulwark against meddling of any kind from the likes of Washington and London.

That ‘truth’ is political and pertinent.  ‘Geneva’ has produced it.    In that sense and that sense only, David Cameron, side-kick to Barack Obama though he is, is quite spot-on.  There’s ‘victory’ that counts in all this, subject to the caveat ‘if recognized, digested and acted upon’. 

msenevira@gmail.com

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Has Cameron heard of the RAB?

[The grimace referred to here materialized on Peter Hayes' face a little more than three years ago.  The article was published 'Sunday Lakbima News' on December 26, 2010. Back then, I hadn't known what RAB meant.  I don't think many do, even now.  Good to go back now and then because there are things that happen and continue to happen, terrible things whose architects try to make out they are saint]

I don’t watch TV much.  My daughters don’t let me.  They complain to their mother that I watch ‘adult’ thing when there are children’s programs running in other channels. Their whines terrify me and I quietly slink away, guilt written all over my face.  In any case, without an antenna and living in the middle of what could pass off as a jungle in the Colombo District, the reception is so poor that I prefer checking scores on cricinfo than actually watch the action ‘live’, which is all I need the TV for. 

I happen to be in a television station recently and got to watch a program. Not sure if it was ‘adult content’.  I didn’t watch for very long, but managed to catch a face and an expression.  Dr. Peter Hayes.  British High Commissioner in Sri Lanka. Caught on camera at the swearing-in ceremony of Mahinda Rajapaksa.  Just for a fraction of a second.  That was enough. A grimace.  I am not sure if the poor man was at that very moment being harassed by a fly or something, but he was quite down-in-the-mouth.

He certainly had reason to feel uncomfortable, going by reliable reports of his conduct in certain circles.  To begin with, he is known to have been salivating at the snub delivered by Britain to the Sri Lankan President while he was in London, sneeringly claiming that his government was not honor-bound to provide security to a Head of State on a private visit.  I am not sure if that’s ‘ok’ with diplomatic protocol, but even if this were the case, I doubt the British would exercise discretion in a similar manner if Barack Obama (for instance) was facing the prospect of being insulted by rent-a-Taliban groups in London. 

Dr. Hayes wanted a particular political outcome on January 26, 2010.  He used his authority as head of institution to canvass votes for the candidate of his choice.  He was duly chastised, in polite or curt terms I do not know, by a Sri Lankan employee he had accosted for this purpose. The man was duly sacked on what appears to be the most frivolous of charges, not to mention the fact that the principle of equal treatment had been violated in the process. 

I don’t think it was a fly. No, I don’t think it was a mosquito either. 

I don’t know what his problem is.  Human rights violations?  Internally displaced persons?  War crimes? Systemic torture and other atrocities?  It could be possible but not related to Sri Lanka. It is more likely that his worry lines are a product of what his government has been up to these last few years in Iraq and Afghanistan (I doubt he is interested in going beyond this, for that might make him contemplate suicide, such has been the track-record of his ancestors in the small matter of robbing, looting, killing and desecrating in countries such as Sri Lanka). 

After all, he cannot be ignorant of the fact that his Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, believes with all his heart that the invasion of Iraq was illegal.  He knows too that British handbooks for interrogation of prisoners contain methods that are in violation of the Geneva Convention. He might have known something I didn’t know and that may have been why he seemed to be having a foul-face morning. Bangladesh.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it has been found that the British government has been training a Bangladeshi paramilitary force condemned by human rights organizations as a "government death squad".  It has been established that members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which has been held responsible for hundreds of extra-judicial killings in recent years and is said to routinely use torture, have received British training in "investigative interviewing techniques" and "rules of engagement". 

The RAB, in the last six years, is claimed to have been responsible for more than 1,000 extra-judicial killings.  They call it ‘crossfire deaths’, how sweet. The RAB’s use of torture has been exhaustively documented and this might have been something that crossed poor Dr. Hayes’ thoughts that bad morning in November. 

Despite all this, British and US governments are in favour of further strengthening the RAB. Surprise, surprise!  The US Ambassador to Dhaka, James Moriarty, believes that the RAB is positioned to be the Bangladeshi equivalent of the FBI. That should tell us a lot about the FBI!  I wonder, by the way, if Particia Butenis, the then US Ambassador in Colombo had attended the same event and if she had a similar expression on her face for similar reasons, i.e. US complicity in ‘crossfire deaths’ and torture in Bangladesh.  On the other hand, as a former Ambassador to Bangladesh and one who actively sought to bring down the then government of that country, she would have known all this way back when and as such would have acquired a passable ‘poker face’.  Poor Dr. Hayes must have been less thick-skinned.

Moriarty admits that British officials had been training the RAB for 18 months in areas such as ‘investigative interviewing techniques’.  At least some of the British training has been conducted by serving British police officers, working under the auspices of the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA).  It is hard to believe that the experts would not have drawn paragraph and page from the training manuals they themselves would have had to study. 

The British Foreign Office calls it ‘human rights training’.  The tall-tale is that involvement is about make policing more professional and teaching human-rights based practices linked to the rule of law. RAB’s head of training, Mejbah Uddin, maintains that he is unaware of any such training. Fishy. Quite fishy.

Now I am sure Dr. Hayes, as a British subject and representative, is embarrassed.  I am sure he finds it tough falling asleep at night. What’s a grimace here and there, then, eh?  

Malinda Seneviratne is the Editor-in-Chief of The Nation and can be reached at msenevira@gmail.com

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The black and white of the (mis)information industry

[As Geneva 2014 beckons, there's a palpable upping of ante by the usual suspects, UK and USA and now India.  This time, however, both the UK and USA are in the dock, considering the damning report on prisoner abuse and other human rights violations in Iraq.  It has caught Foreign Secretary saying things that ought to make David Cameron blush considering his high handed moral posturing in and with regard to Sri Lanka.  It's not a new story though.  I wrote about this black-white business more than three years ago and thought a re-visit would not be out of order. Read on.]

There is this strange thing about skin colour.  If you are white, you can do no wrong, you are above-board, intelligent, good hearted etc etc, at least that’s what certain high-ranking people on the global stage seems to believe.  I am talking specifically about James Elder, UNICEF’s Director of Communications in Sri Lanka, who has been asked to leave the island by September 21, 2009. 


UNICEF has howled in protest: “Through Mr. Elder, UNICEF has consistently spoken out against the suffering of children on both sides of the intense hostilities earlier this year and called for their protection. UNICEF unequivocally rejects any allegation of bias.”   UNICEF vows the ‘continue to uphold its mandate in Sri Lanka, to advocate and speak out on behalf of vulnerable children and women. 

Is Elder really ‘unbiased’ though?  In an article posted on April 23, 2009, Elder writes about the horrors of war.  That’s ok.  War is horrible.  But surrender was out of the question.  A ceasefire with a cornered terrorist was out of the question.  Only those ignorant about the LTTE or were complicit in its political project would have thought otherwise.

If Elder was sticking to the UNICEF mandate, he would have spoken about the thousands of children recruited for combat purposes by the LTTE. He didn’t.  That’s impartial? That’s ‘concern for vulnerable children’?  Elder talks about the efforts of aid workers in IDP camps but says zilch about the efforts of the Government. The aid workers worked, yes, but they only complemented the work of the state agencies, including the security forces.  Elder does not mention the fact that the Government had legitimate reason to restrict access of aid workers including those in UN agencies because there have been innumerable instances where such people have helped the LTTE.  James Elder does not mention this fact.  That’s ‘impartial’? 

The Government is correct to be wary of loose-cannons located in the premises that house UN agencies.  Gordon Weiss, Elder’s predecessors (elevated to the post of communications chief of the UN office in Colombo ‘for good work’), has been found guilty of leaking totally unsubstantiated information about the conflict to the international media, causing much damage to the country’s image.  The man was given to quoting ‘doctors’ serving in LTTE-held areas, who have since confessed that they were forced to lie by the LTTE.  The UN later retracted all these statements, including a horror-mongering one about 20,000 people having been killed in a matter of a few weeks.  And we are supposed to believe that UNICEF and other UN agencies are always ‘impartial’! 

Elder was not mandated to make public statements.  That’s taking refuge in the broader meaning of ‘communications’ and surreptitiously expanding mandate arbitrarily.  There is no mandate for UN agencies like the UNICEF to interpret policy or make public statements that contain interpretation, projection etc.  There are agencies that do have the right to examine, comment and call for action and even this only in fairly well specified forums.   The General Assembly, Security Council, Human Rights Council and the Department of Political Affairs have a broad mandate in this regard, not so UNICEF.  Elder was not a diplomat, as some newspapers and commentators believe.  He was just another information officer. Well, a mis-information officer, as it turns out. 

The UN has a role to play but it is selective in affirming its mandate.  This is why Boutros-Boutros Ghali was not allowed a second time, as has been ‘usual’, as UN Secretary General. Why not? Well, the man criticized the USA and Isreal in relation to the question of Palestine and the gross violation of human rights against the Palestinians. The USA used the veto option. Boutros had to go.  See?  When you talk about certain humanitarian issues, it is ok, while in other instances it is not. 

But I am digressing.  There is a white-skin issue here.  The UN offices in Colombo appear to be peopled by a critical number of people who are rabidly anti- Government and anti-Sri Lanka in general. Plants. That’s what they are.  These white people who give all white people a bad name, seem to think that the colour of their skin gives them Viceroy status in this island. 

A friend of mine who calls himself Alvis in Wonderland asked some pertinent questions regarding ‘white people’ (suddhas in common parlance).  One could protest that he was engaging in crass generalization but then again, one could insert the qualifier ‘some’ (which is appropriate) with the added caveat ‘extremely powerful’ to precede ‘suddha’.  Anyway, this is what Alvis had to say:

“Can someone explain the common Sinhala term in the expression, “Acting the Suddha,” or “Talking like a Suddha”? For I’m trying hard to understand this snafu: 5 Cubans trying to prevent terrorist attacks on their country are imprisoned for life by the USA, while the same USA gives refuge to a man (named Posada?) who bombed a Cuban civilian airliner killing Guyanese students? I ask for an explanation of the Sinhala term, for it is apparent, that some white folk can hold the world hostage (threatening to blow the earth up a hundred times over with their nukes), engender daily mass murder in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, and yet claim to care for the rights of humans, and, yes, even quadrupeds. Is this what ‘Acting/Talking the Suddha” means? Immortal Teflon? A bloated balloon of flatulent righteousness? Is this why USA also means United Snakes or United Slaves of Amnesia? And if Obama today, continues the embargo to isolate that proud island, can we conclude that he is George Bush III but with a blush, and that in fact, one doesn’t need to be pig'mentally challenged to “Act the Suddha”?

He is right.  That’s why there is a category called ‘Kalu-Suddhas’ (Black-whites, or ‘brown sahibs’).  The Government should not be blind to this reality.  People like Weiss and Elder compel the Government to keep a watchful eye on their activities. Perhaps the Government, in terms of diplomatic niceties, would be reluctant to exercise that kind of vigilance.  That’s the Government’s business.  The people of this country do not require permission from Ban Ki-moon or the Government to keep their eyes open. Call it community policing or something else; it better be done. We better do it.  Sorry ladies and gentlemen in the UN system in Colombo, you’ve asked for it. 

[First published in the Daily News, September 16, 2009]
 
Malinda Seneviratne can be contacted at msenevira@gmail.com

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The free-n-frank that Cameron did not tell the press

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron was more of a presence on the sidelines of the recently concluded Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) held in Colombo. Indeed he tried to upstage the main event with his visit to Jaffna, on-field spin-on-spin with former Test Cricketer Muttiah Muralidharan and a cleverly stage-managed ‘meet the press’ event following discussions with President Mahinda Rajapaksa.  Much of this was of course anticipated after Cameron pledged ‘tough talk’ with President Rajapaksa weeks before he actually arrived in Colombo. 

Cameron certainly talked tough.  He thereafter detailed the tough-talk in his ‘From the Comfort Zone’ engagement with the media where he only fielded questions from his hand-picked entourage of journalists, leading to many complaints of unfair treatment from the Sri Lankan press.  He said that there was a ‘free and frank exchange of views’.  Unfortunately Cameron only told his part of the exchange, carefully leaving out the ‘free and frank’ that came from the other side. 

In the interest of offering ‘whole picture’ to a world where media outfits such as the BBC and Channel 4 are signature by slant and selectivity, we detail with relevant comment the free-n-frank that Cameron was silent on.

Cameron had to talk about human rights, accountability and closure.  He had to concede and applaud the post-conflict reconstruction and development efforts of the Government. He had to say that the LTTE was a despicable terrorist outfit and express satisfaction that it was no more. He did this.  He framed it well, conceding all that but insisting that the excellent opportunity can only be exploited to the full if there is reconciliation, which of course, according to him, has to be preceded by ‘independent investigation’ into alleged atrocities so that ‘justice is done’. 

Nothing was said about reconciliation being a two-way matter, that the representatives of the Tamil community has to come clean about their complicity in the crimes of the LTTE (proven, not ‘alleged’) and that glorifying the terrorist organization does nothing to dispel suspicions about their (rarely) stated ‘need to reconcile’. 

He had to talk about demilitarization. He trotted out some numbers and earned a rebuke for sloth from Secretary Ministry of Defence and Urban Development Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who corrected misconceptions about military presence and the process of demilitarization.  

Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in the United Kingdon Dr Chris Nonis, according to sources, however, put things in context, reminding Cameron that his country had invaded (illegally, according Cameron’s deputy, Nick Clegg) Iraq 10 years before and that the Chilcot Report is still to see the light of day, whereas the LLRC Report was published a couple of years after the LTTE was militarily defeated and is being implemented. 

The Prime Minister did not refer to Field Marshall Charles Guthrie’s damning revelations about that invasion.  Guthrie, the professional head of the British Army between 1994 and 1997 and Chief of Defence Staff from 1997 to 2001 admits that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction and that Tony Blair was selective about intelligence reports, preferring those that told him what he already believed.  Or pretended to believe, we might add. 

Cameron said, ‘it will be out in six months’.  Six months?  What is he going to do in those six months?  Is he going to ‘delete and dilute’?  Is he under pressure from Washington to clear Dubya Bush?  In the end we have Cameron sitting on a report of a war launched more than a decade ago and requesting six month’s grace, even as he insists that Sri Lanka implements recommendations of an unedited report compiled just a couple of years after terrorism was defeated.  Those recommendations are being implemented; Cameron knows and demands that Sri Lanka stick to his, Cameron’s time-table.  The arrogance could be excused if not for the hypocrisy!  

It was also pointed out to Cameron that the Sunday Times of London had reported a few weeks before that the Police Service of Northern Ireland was to launch an investigation into ‘Bloody Sunday’, aka ‘Bogside Massacre’, where 26 unarmed civil rights protesters and bystanders were short by British soldiers.  This is not an allegation based on flimsy evidence compromised by clever editing (and editing out) and unreliability of sources but fact.  The massacre took place in January 1972.  But Britain, which has twiddled investigative thumbs and felt no moral compulsion to obtain justice and deliver closure to loved ones of victims and the community they belonged to in the interest of reconciliation, thinks fit to read riot act to and set deadline for Sri Lanka! 

That’s patronizing. That’s the height of arrogance.  But Cameron, to his credit, was good on his feet.  ‘We don’t want you to make our mistakes!’ he had responded.   Then again we are talking of four years to Britain’s forty, fact versus fiddling, no-contest versus obfuscation.  If 40,000 civilians had been killed, the US/UK cameras hovering in the skies would have captured the whole scene. Those who demand justice for the 40,000 could give the names of those they grieve over.  The truth is that Cameron cannot lecture but could listen to lecture.  Looks like that was what happened, although he didn’t talk about the listening part when he met the full-toss tossing journalists after the free-n’-frank session with President Rajapaksa.

And yes, this champion of rights and freedoms had to offer his two-cents on the media.  Now there’s been a lot of media-talk before, during and after CHOGM.  There’s been Channel 4’s Jonathan Miller doing a Cameron-like ‘talk-down’ to Sri Lankan journalists.  Channel 4’s media ethics was also evidenced in that much-quoted outfit whittling down a 45 minute interview with Muttiah Muralidharn to a 3 minute clip, clearly another of their ‘de-contexting’ maneuver s.  And then of course   Cameron’s own ‘my script, my journalists’ behavior. 

He was asked, ‘Prime Minister, look at the outcome of the Leveson Inquiry’.  That, folks, is the judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone-hacking scandal.  It was not only about phone-tapping and deleting text messages.  It led to inquiries about the government, the police and press; the nexus, that is.  

Cameron might have been made to squirm had he been queried about his role in bringing in new regulations to curtail press freedom.  Perhaps this is why, he interjected the face-saving ‘I will deal with your mischievous High Commissioner in London’, raising a laugh. 

Through it all, William Hague remained quiet.  He did pass a note to his Prime Minister.  Did he advise, ‘let’s cut this now’?

So, ladies and gentlemen, let’s get this straight.  David Cameron is not a bad guy. He has electoral pressures to deal with.  He has to bat for his funders.  He had a script to read.  In order to read that script to the media and the world, he had to first read it out to President Rajapaksa.  He did that.  He could now go back to London and say ‘I read the script’. 

It works for him, no doubt.  He could spare the lectures, though.  

msenevira@gmail.com

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David Cameron’s reverie during the long flight back home

[IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE CALLED ‘HUMILITY’]

I came, no one can say I did not. I saw.  I mean, I saw some stuff, didn’t see a lot of stuff and pretended not to see some of what I did see.  I pretended to be conqueror.  I can’t say I talked tough or talked down, honestly, because I was at the receiving end of a lot of ‘tough’ and was left looking up a lot of times. 

I spoke about media freedom but didn’t talk about the Leveson Inquiry which all of Britain knows is a judicial public probe into the culture, practices and ethics of our press following the News International phone-hacking scandal.  When I tough-talked with my friend Mahinda, that tough-talk was tossed at me.  I had to opt for thumb-twiddling. 

I spoke about human rights and I was asked about the Chilcot Report and about Bloody Sunday, the former about an illegal invasion 10 years ago and the latter about crimes against humanity perpetrated 40 years ago. The Chicot Report, if you really want to know, is being edited to clear our friends (should I say ‘our masters’?) across the Atlantic of any guilt.  I got a lesson in arithmetic, since the LLRC Report came out just a couple of years after May 2009.  The LLRC Report was not ‘edited’.  So when I gave a March 2014 deadline and had to say ‘please give me six months to get the sanitized version of the Chilcot Repoirt out, I was made to look like a first grader who was finding it tough to add one to one and get ‘two’.   More thumb-twiddling. 

There was other stuff that I had to listen to. It was altogether uncomfortable and disconcerting. But then again, I had a script in hand and I played my part. I had to say certain things to Mahinda so that I could come out and tell my journo-buddies (who alone were allowed to shoot questions at me, ‘freebies’ or ‘full-tosses’ I think they are called) ‘I said this and that’ in my ‘free-and-frank’ monologue.  No one asked what was said to me, because I didn’t allow intelligent journalists who subscribed to media ethics to query me.  

The flight home is long.  I have time to think.  I know for a fact that we allow, in the name of ‘freedom of expression’, LTTE operatives to demonstrate in London.  We did that even when Prabhakaran was alive.  Then, as now, the Tiger flag is waved.  We would never allow an Al Qaeda flag to flutter anywhere in our fair land, folks.  No Al Qaeda slogans either.

And then there’s this other funny thing.  It’s also about numbers, but those numbers were not shot at me when I met Mahinda.  My government never listens to unions or union members who are more numerous than all the brown folk who take to the streets in London.  

I also thought how important the Commonwealth is to us.  As a client state of the USA we have nothing to brag about except past glory.  We need the monarchy because that’s the only thing that gives us ‘leadership’ in the CHOGM.  Truth be told, if we became a republic, India might take over the Commonwealth.  That’s what happened to the ICC.  

I closed my eyes and the words of a Yaka floated into my dreams.  Loud and clear.  Ox-bridge accent and all to make sure I got the lines right.  Here’s what I heard:

“They have always used the early technique of 'transference'...
they hit us on the head to get rid of their headaches...
it clears the synapses apparently...
the angst about debt...”

It will be nice to get back to London. 

msenevira@gmail.com

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