The double-talk of Sri Lanka’s U.N. ambassador

By UN Watch

(August 31, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) After he successfully blocked a war-crimes probe into the conflict in Sri Lanka, why is the country’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, being recalled?

Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka himself offers two different explanations.

Last month, at the U.N. Conference on the Question of Palestine in Geneva, he blamed Israel. “I’m leaving because of protests Israel made about my speeches [condemning Israel’s military operations in Gaza],” he told the gathering on July 23.

In the same statement, Jayatilleka also urged Palestinians to reconsider focusing their “resistance” operations at “soft targets” — not for reasons of morality or international law, but because to do otherwise “plays into the hands of the international media,” he said. “One photo of a rocket and a Jewish kid hiding in a cellar and you get the whole Holocaust narrative all over again,” he complained.

However, a recent article in The Economist quotes Jayatilleka giving a completely different reason (“Behind the Rajapaksa brothers’ smiles,” Aug. 6). “Mr Jayatilleka’s offence, he believes, was to have advocated regional devolution in a newspaper. ‘I thought I was operating within the bounds of government policy,’ he laments.”

So who’s responsible for Ambassador Jayatilleka’s departure, the Sri Lankans or the Israelis? Did the diplomat known for provocative speeches sacrifice his posting on the scenic shores of Lake Geneva for the noble cause of Palestine, or power-sharing with the Tamil minority?

Depends, it seems, on whom one is talking to.

-Sri Lanka Guardian