Foreign diplomats’ confused territories

By: S. Akurugoda

(October, 14, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Statements issued by various foreign diplomats in Colombo, almost one after the other concerning the internal affairs of our country, and reported visits and secret visits said to have been made to meet the opponents of the democratically elected government to discuss ‘undisclosed’ matters related to internal politics of the host country are typical examples of their extent of confusion over the limits of control of specific territories.

These diplomats, who are representatives of the superpower, are gradually becoming part and parcel of our local political system and their day- to -day tasks in Colombo are similar to those of local politicians. As a result, some of the local political party leaders have become ‘yes’ men of these diplomats and even their party policies are changed to satisfy the whims and fancies of the influential diplomats.

The UNP Secretary’s clarification on his party’s desire to drop the word federalism from its decades long cry for a federalist solution falls in line with the remarks made by the US ambassador Blake at a seminar on "Sri Lanka: the Way Forward" September 21, 2007 - Galle Face Hotel, Colombo, where the latter hoped that all parties in the APRC will frame the final APRC proposals in a manner that avoids the use of divisive, emotive terms like "federalism" and "unitary" is a case in point.

The ambassador is also reported to have praised the opposition UNP for "the important steps it took to advance the peace in 2002-2003". Remarkably this representative of the US (a country, whose policies are dead against to those of Marxism) went to the extent to praise the APRC Chairman Tissa Vitharana, who represents a Marxist party, on the latter’s attempt to promote federalism.

The US ambassador’s behaviour and remarks said to have been made when he met Wimal Weerawansa, is another example of the extent of his involvement in internal policies and politics. The JVP parliamentary leader should be congratulated for his courageous replies and positioning the interested foreigner in the right place.

Meanwhile, another outspoken diplomat,Dominick Chilcott, addressing the Burgher community has said that if his Fairy Godmother were to grant him the power to change one thing in Sri Lanka’s recent past it would be to prevent the Sinhala-only Law from coming into force and to make English the common working language.

The German ambassador Weerth, on the other hand, was said to have demanded that the Sri Lankan government should stop the war, in his speech on German national day. This diplomat, as reported in the press, is also behaving like his US and UK counterparts.

The theme of their common story is simply ‘Do not touch Prabhakaran’.

Time to time, we also see some advisors like Allan Rock and officials like Sir John Holmes from the United Nations coming here and providing the moral support to these diplomats to achieve their objectives.

The treacherous and illegal agreement called ‘CFA’ has not only given a powerful shield to the LTTE to cover-up the outfit’s human rights record and atrocities, while diverting the attention in a different direction. It has provided a powerful weapon to attack the government via various outside forces.

It is apparent now that the nation is still unable to get out of the trap set by the secretive conspiratorial organisations as a result of internationalising a domestic issue. Few political opportunists, who were either posted to their positions by the very same conspirators or who happened to be ‘leaders’ due to our own ‘karma’ are responsible for this situation.