Time to counter misinformation campaign effectively

By S. Akurugoda

(June 01, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayaka addressing the mass rally at the Parliament grounds called upon to appoint a Presidential Commission to probe the activities of the LTTE and its shocking caches of sophisticated arms and ammunition. During the humanitarian operation and thereafter, the Security Forces exposed the magnitude of the LTTE's underground arsenal and said to have in the process of further investigation to gather proof of evidence to probe the link between the outfit and its local and foreign promoters.

As the Prime Minister quite correctly identified time has come for all those who are genuinely interested to see the lasting solution to achieve peace, stability, progress and the establishment of democracy in Sri Lanka without any racial and religious differences, to identify the real culprits for the death and destruction in the country and take action there on for the betterment of future generation.

Although the Sri Lanka government had taken steps to confront the terrorist outfit militarily, not enough attention had been made to counteract the effect of false propaganda machinery of the LTTE, both in and outside the country. As a result the menace of separatism is still alive both in and outside Sri Lanka.

Now that the chances of dividing Sri Lanka on ethnic lines by military means are no more, the next question, often raised by the desperate agents of the Anglo American oriented international community (who openly exhibited their indisputable relationship with the Tamil Tigers and their terrorism) is ‘human rights’, ‘equal rights’, ‘living with dignity’ etc, mere slogans adopted by the very same divisive forces to promote separatism.

The crushing defeat of the LTTE, no doubt, would have caused serious concerned to the bogus “peace’ and ‘rights’ activists and other interested parties whose survival depends upon the continuation of conflicts and terror, though they appear in public as the saviours of peace.

These NGO ‘peace nicks’, anti-war kingpins who appear under various attractive name boards such as ‘co-existence’, ‘National Peace’, Policy Alternatives, “Ethnic Studies”, Free Media’ etc and who were extremely busy supplying the necessary amenities to their pay masters of the West to save Prabakaran up to the last moment, appear to have gone underground for the time being, but will resurface very soon and will do whatever possible to maintain their stance at any cost. This time, probably, to give another attempt to pave the way for the dead Tiger Leader’s dream.

Although we have not come across a recent appeal for ‘piece’ from Jehan Perera of so-called National Peace Council, man who work very hard to white wash LTTE in each every atrocities committed by the outfit as “tit-for-tat kind of retaliation” while tarnishing the image of Sinhalese and political parties opposed to LTTE , and his bunch of so-called ‘independent (but dollar dependent) analysts’ have to start from some where to justify their existence to the funding agencies. Since the vision statement of the NPC includes the LTTE as an integral part of the solution, now the time has come to change the ‘vision’ prior to commence his next mission.
Kumar Rupasinghe, the well known key player of the infamous Anti-war Front and Foundation for Co-existence has already announced his latest starting point, ‘enhancing 13th amendment to the constitution’. Probably, this is the only way-out left for him to keep communal cry alive and later to defeat the victories achieved by our security forces. He will definitely get the necessary moral support form the old Marxists and other groups who were with him during his ant-war campaign, but in the government rank now.

Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, it seems, has already commenced his misinformation campaign to tarnish the image of our country and one such meeting is reported to be held in Melbourne at the coming week end under the topic ‘Human rights and media freedom in Sri Lanka’, the very usual topic repeated by these paid groups over and over again.

While promoting the terrorists’ global campaign that Sinhalese, particularly Sinhalese Buddhists, or the Sri Lankan Government as Tamil’s greatest enemy, these NGOs and other interested parties including their funding agencies were promoting the misconception that the war against the terrorist outfit is un-winnable. Hence completely eradicating the terrorist is not the expectation or the mission of these paid groups.

A lie repeated under each and every news item, repeatedly for decades, via international news agencies could register as a conclusive piece of evidence in support of the LTTE terrorism in the minds of the millions of its readers /listeners/viewers throughout the world, with time. Western media institutions often give wide publicity to media releases of the NGO peace bandwagons operating from Colombo and frequently quote their so-called analysis made in favour of the separatist and disastrous to the security forces and the Sri Lanka government.

NGOs exist for a variety of reasons, usually to further the political or social agendas of their members or funders. Their ‘academic’ directions, in the name of peace-making, merely worsened the crisis and prolonged an unnecessary war. These NGOs were in the driver’s seat during the Chandrika-Ranil regimes when the CFA was in full swing. Hence the contribution of these lobbyist NGOs to the loss of lives and destruction by promoting the terrorist’s global campaign for a non-existing problem should also be probed and appropriate action should be taken, at least, to counter their misinformation campaign effectively if terrorism is to be wiped-out completely from our soil.

As we remember, immediately after Mahinda Rajapaksa came to power, a conference was held in Colombo for the diplomatic service personnel, specifically to explain the dynamic role that they have to play when countering the activities of the LTTE and its front organizations responsible for spreading misinformation and raising funds. Although the Sri Lankan diplomatic services operating in some of the countries are active in this direction, the most appear to be quite sluggish. Despite the efforts of handful of patriotic Sri Lankan expatriate community living in those countries, anti- Sri Lankan propaganda machineries continued at an unprecedented level, while our diplomatic missions were apparently doing nothing.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his historic statement made in the Parliament on 19th may 2009 said that there would no longer be divisions among minorities and majorities in the country on the basis of ethnicity but there would be two kinds of people--those who loved the country and those who did not. Those who do not love the country are now a lesser group. Hence it is essential to have a complete overhaul of our diplomatic mission as a matter of national priority and to choose our High Commissioners, Ambassadors and Consulates from those who loved the country.

-Sri Lanka Guardian