Saturday Sep 21, 2024
Saturday Sep 21, 2024
Wednesday, 20 November 2013 10:27 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Prince Charles – representing the Queen, the Head of CHOGM – chose to be a friend who has visited this country more than once, like his royal mother and father. He acted not like a prince but a king.
His Prime Minister, however, choose to act like a twerp and bounder, with a Billy Bunter like appetite for the spotlight, ignoring the reason he was here for; instead he, according to the media, visited a newspaper press, played cricket with Muttiah Muralitharan and held a unilateral press conference, which the local press was denied access to. He made threats and demands of the Sri Lankan President, which made international news; CHOGM was overshadowed.
Asian interests?
A predecessor of his, Tony Blair, has found post-prime ministerial employment, dabbling in the Middle East. Another predecessor, Gordon Brown, has found work, among other things, promoting the now famous Malala, the Pakistani teenager shot in the head. One assumes that likewise Cameron is looking past his temporary position of Prime Minister, for employment.
Cameron, who arrived in Sri Lanka after a visit to India, must find rising Asia a powerful draw. Is employment in this region then of interest to him? Has he found a sponsor? Is this his motivation? The nexus between Rupert Murdoch’s media and himself was scandalously established when, among other things, it came out that he signed off to a female executive there with ‘LOL’. Prime Minister indeed!
More sinister aspect?
Tony Blair’s links with Murdoch were also established. Murdoch’s Fox News makes no bones about being blatantly Republican in the United States of America. But is this current Prime Minister acting on his own or is there a much more sinister and extremely dangerous aspect lurking in the background of the international media manipulation at CHOGM?
Sri Lanka – Ceylon, Serendib, Taprobane – in its millennia-long history, if one is truly objective, has had its marauders and invaders coming from the shores closest to the island. The 450 years of European invasion tends to mask this. The closest shore hosted a multitude of kingdoms in the subcontinent unified only centuries ago by the British.
This unified India while gaining independence and subsequently has divided itself twice with much bloodshed into Pakistan and then again Bangladesh. Thus positioned, Sri Lanka may not have yet a proper take on this our closest neighbour.
England, India and China
Like in England, a vibrant democracy may not necessarily be as transparent as it seems to its vociferous population. England’s downturn in GDP growth and rampant unemployment spiralling downwards are presently indisputable facts. Meanwhile, England’s melting pot of ethnic and religious groups are becoming a cauldron at boiling point.
India is endeavouring to keep a seeming overall social balance. Both, however, share great illusions of grandeur, one from a lost empire and having to be subject to the leadership of a German woman – a former communist to boot – Angela Merkel in the EU.
India has hopes of being a future super power by expansion of its nuclear capabilities, space programs and aircraft carriers while half the population is malnourished and poverty is at the highest levels in the world, while society seriously discriminates against women like almost no other land. Its per capita income is less than Sri Lanka’s.
On the flip side, China, which has been a historical friend for millennia, one country confidently moving towards being the No. 1 economy in the world, is introducing reforms even now to stabilise its society and people.
Each successive Sri Lankan Government has maintained very cordial relations with China ruled by the same communist party almost since our independence and democratic journey. The present Rajapaksa Government strengthened these ties. One of the highest GDP growths in the world and one of the lowest unemployment rates are a result of this, and other development polices of the Rajapaksa regime.
What is the link?
Is the very development of Sri Lanka a subject of concern, unlike to China, and a reason to destabilise this country? The congress party which has ruled India for the greater part of it being a democracy has lost their separate Gandhis to assassination. The first and second, Mahatma and Indira, supposedly to separate religious differences; the third Rajiv, assassinated by a foreign Sri Lankan terrorist group but on Indian soil.
What is the link? Is there both depth of time and interest in Sri Lanka by the congress and other governments far beyond, or rather below, what one sees? Is the dog wagging the tail as it is shown or is it that the Tamil Nadu political structure, LTTE and diaspora are tails being wagged by the real dog to stop progress and destabilise a forward-looking neighbour whenever it appears to surpass them?
Far-fetched? But why does mighty India not get on with any of its neighbours? Why did they, only a short while ago, shelter in its embassy a Maldivian ex-president evading a court order who has incidentally just recently lost an election? This is only an example of high-handed big brotherliness. Wars have been fought with two neighbours whose nuclear armaments have probably stopped further wars.
High-handed big brotherliness
The utterly high-handed food drop, agreement with LTTE and occupation by the IPKF were forced upon one of Sri Lanka’s strongest reformers, J.R. Jayewardene. The 13th Amendment was thus elicited under duress, a subject of pressure on our other strong reformer and current President, Mahinda Rajapaksa.
In a small country like Sri Lanka, police and land powers cannot be divested. If so all nine provinces need to do so. India pretends our provinces are states and must therefore have similar powers. The Indian state of Uttar Pradesh alone has 10 times Sri Lanka’s population. In any event, what business of India’s is this?
The constant target of the diaspora, LTTE rump organisations and interested Tamil Nadu politicians seem to be President Rajapaksa and his family. This, after a whole generation of political leaders of all parties, including Tamils and a President, were brutally eliminated.
Elimination of vibrant and strong leadership seems the real goal, the LTTE and diaspora only tools. Did Indira Gandhi allow or promote the original LTTE training camps in India? Was M.G. Ramachandran, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, mentor of the current Chief Minister Jayalalitha, not Sri Lankan born?
A hidden hand?
Are we of one nation manipulated to go against each other by external interests? Brother Sinhalese fought brother Tamil for decades. Were we the pawns – all of us – in this emerald isle? Was S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, another great reformer, who broke class barriers in the country and caste barriers among Sinhala and slain by a Buddhist monk, another pawn of a foreign hand? No one stopped to consider.
Under siege?
We blame our own in the diaspora, Prime Ministerial pawns of Canada, UK or Mauritius. But is there the hidden hand which sets in motion – as in CHOGM with high profile non-attendance – while the lackey Prime Minister of another country probably looking for further favours, disrupts?
Our main Opposition party, led by a basically honest man after elimination of many of its leaders by assassination, is constantly in trouble and in danger of imploding. Are we as a nation under terrible siege from an old enemy of millennia compounded into one in the last century?
Our children, our people are already scattered. Let us try to see, to understand and together confront the real enemy not merely the apparent, especially our own – the diaspora.
