Is Rohan Gunaratne a genius or a complete fraudster?

by Pearl Thevanayagam

(June 03, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) The difference between Prof. G.L. Peiris and Rohan Gunaratne is that the former plays down his vast intellect for whatever reasons and stoops low to manipulations by political powers he adheres to whenever it suits him and the latter inflates his minimal cerebral capacity to the fullest and now stands on par with intellectuals. Is Gunaratne a genius or what?

Paucity of credible and authentic speakers at the military conference enabled former Sun ( an independent national daily in Sri Lanka for over 40 years until the publishing house folded in December 1990 under government pressure and internal mismanagement of funds) reporter turned `international terrorism expert’ Rohan Gunaratne to come out with more of his bloopers.

It was not enough that his book, `Indian Intervention in Sri Lanka’, commissioned by President Premadasa to counter the LTTE in early 1990’s and another book on the LTTE circa 1996 have been binned and never seen on bookshelves of worthy bookstores such as Waterstones or W.H.Smith. Even Jeffrey Archer, the disgraced Tory peer manages to sell his books despite his pilfering aid money meant for Kurdish refugee children and spending time at Her Majesty’s Pleasure for perjury when he denied in Court that he paid a prostitute for services rendered to him.

To give Gunaratne credit he is a master of spinning yarns. Alan Bullion who spent enough time in Delhi and who is a well-known researcher on South Asia’s defence and political strategy and Former Indian High Commissioner for Sri Lanka J.N.Dixit deride him as a non-entity who spins round the globe proclaiming himself as a terrorism expert.

How does a terrorism expert gain his expertise in the field? Does he need university education or does he need on the ground experience of mingling with both the defence forces and the insurgents for a considerable period of time or both? How much close he was to insurgents is open to question.

From Australia to US, the academia do not give him tuppence worth of speaking time. And pray, why is it that such a globe-trotting self-proclaimed terrorism expert hailing from the Sinhala majority need to apply for political asylum in Australia for his parents? He is not exactly Bin Laden’s brother or is he sought after for insurgency or subterfuge activities.

Gunaratne speaks at the drop of a hat. Show him a podium and you get a verbal diarrhoea on counter-terrorism. I urge readers to go through Indian Intervention in Sri Lanka. It has just eight pages of his own writing and the rest media clips and photographs. Even in these eight pages he has no sources to back up his claims such as that the LTTE was collaborating with Columbian drug cartels. Then why was he courting supposedly key LTTE members to launch is book and visiting Weekend Express in 1996 with one such person called Kannan to lend credibility to his association with the LTTE?

Has he got an inkling of how to write a book on non-fiction? Sources are essential if you are making a proclamation as serious as the above. You need to back up your claim.

The latest of his proclamation is that the Darusman Report was taken from Tamilnet and other pro-LTTE sources. Tamilnet may have an agenda but it is a necessary tool for the UK Border Agency when immigration applicants claim political asylum. Tamilnet is the brainchild of a very versatile journalist and former founding member of Tamil militant group along with the slain LTTE leader Velupillai Prapbhakaran, K.Sivaram alias Taraki, who was murdered by the government in May 2005.

Taraki shunned militancy subsequently and channelled his talent into writing. He was the defence columnist for the right wing Island newspaper and then wrote weekly defence columns for Sunday Times and his knowledge in Sri Lankan politics, defence and the militants was unsurpassable. Besides, he was an intellectual and a well read scholar who could keep his audience enthralled from Greek literature to modern warfare and Rohan Gunaratne is not a patch on this worthy gentleman.

Taking on the UNSG Panel’s report is bordering on insanity. You can call it biased and you may rightly say that the UNSG is under pressure from the international community and particularly those sympathetic to the Tamil cause. But to deride this report as relying on Tamilnet and other pro-LTTE sources only reveal the level of Gunaratne’s understanding of international diplomacy.

To cast aspersions on an international body comprising the crème de la crème of think-tanks, diplomats and intellectuals as relying on website sources one has to be a complete moron or total fraudster. Which category does Gunaratne fit in?