Friends in high places

The LTTE is alive and well thanks to govt.

| by Pearl Thevanayagam

(September 11, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Bell Pottinger, take a hike. If ever the LTTE wants a public relations team it has none other than the government. The Rajapakses have taken the vanquished LTTE to a new level of exhortation. It has elevated the LTTE to the top spot with the able leadership of the Island editorial team headed by none other than the veteran journalist Manik de Silva who is pitting a new angle to the Norway shootings that he could have learnt a lesson or two from the LTTE.

Perhaps the LTTE had a hand in Delhi courthouse killings? This angle is well worth a try and who better to do this than our fraudster terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna.

The government has shown a clear path to sustain the popularity of the LTTE. It needs to show the UNHRC that it is still acting in good faith by setting up the LLRC, doing away with Emergency Regulations and replacing them with powers to the military outfit.

Now that the LTTE is but a spent force and Pathmanathan alias KP, its one of many arms procurer courted by the government in its serendipitous hopes he could hold the key to the LTTE cache, the Rajapakses are re-inventing the wheel so to speak. Velupillai Pirabakaran never trusted anyone. KP is enjoying the government hospitality at Ackland House aka Sausiripaya while the LTTE funds are beyond the reach of any one individual.

In fact the modus operandi of the LTTE agents abroad had been to offer businesses such as off-licences (wine & spirits outlets), restaurants, petrol station franchises and estate agencies taken out in the buyer’s name while procuring a hefty loan against their regular earnings. They also obtained credit cards in their names and absconded to Europe and Canada with as much cash advances as possible. Now the poor victim was left with massive debts and only if he/she was prudent and clever would he/she have been able to pay off the debts. Many such innocent people had their fingers burnt, declared bankruptcy and pulled down shutters on their business premises.

I have attended several hearings on bankruptcy and fraud at the FSA (Financial Services Authority) and my mind boggles at how sons and daughters use their parents’ names as directors and run their business without the parents’ knowledge. In one instant the father who was named managing director is illiterate. Whether the father knew of his offspring’s wheeler dealings is open to question.

I am straying here but the point is many unscrupulous people among the Tamil refugees used the LTTE name for their money-making scams. Another case in point is the collection by White Pigeon project after the Boxing Day Tsunami. To this day there are tills in shops and restaurants to collect money for the victims. I visited the White Pigeon office two days after the tragedy to volunteer my services. The place was abuzz with Angayatkanni, Minister Douglas Devananda’s trusted friend , Dr Moorthi and several others who were transacting business over the telephone obtaining bank details of Tamils abroad to donate funds. Funds kept pouring in. Did the LTTE get its slice of the pie? One will never know.

The only assets remaining of the LTTE stash are a few cargo ships and human trafficking businesses. But then these are also tied up to other paramilitary groups now working with the government that it is indeed very difficult for the government to point its finger at the LTTE since its accomplices are closely linked with some in the government such as politicians and defence chiefs in their arms brokering deals abroad.

Now arms traders do not differentiate between terrorists and governments. To the US, the largest supplier and manufacturer of arms in the world according to World Fact Book, the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Government are simply two different styles o governance. It will sell arms to anyone who pays the right price.

As a colleague of mine at UC Berkeley once told me when I asked him why US media does not allocate enough space to world news, `US has 51 states and it is a huge country. There is hardly any space left for world news.’ Out of the 20 students at the Graduate School of Journalism in 1993 only one could vaguely place Sri Lanka in Asia.

But now 18 years later if one mentions he/she is from Sri Lanka the next obvious question is, `Are you Sinhalese or Tamil Tiger?’.

Another diplomat, firmly courted by that other former militant turned government spokesman Dayan Jayetilleka, is Tamara Kunanayakam who is poised to support the President at the UNHRC and swear by the Almighty God and all the deities that it did not commit war crimes. The fact she is not a career diplomat is a matter that was dealt with through the Presidential privilege which can vest upon its sycophants any amount of educational and professional qualifications. Even the President holds three honorary doctorates without sighting the inside the walls of higher educationional institutions barring his brief foray into the halls of Oxford University to address a group of students.

Tamara would argue the LTTE are still a threat not just to national security but to that of the rest of the world’s democracies ergo the new powers vested with the military and the despatching of defence chiefs to Sri Lankan missions abroad. Two years since the LTTE was vanquished Sri Lanka is still on high security alert going by the number of forces virtually running the country. The militarised state is further.

Keeping the memory of the LTTE alive is crucial to the very sustenance of these fly-by-night diplomats and inadvertently they are giving it the highest publicity without the militant outfit spending even a red cent.

The government has shown a clear path to sustain the popularity of the LTTE. It needs to show the UNHRC that it is still acting in good faith by setting up the LLRC, doing away with Emergency Regulations and replacing them with powers to the military outfit.

And our diplomats who are dab hand at lying through their teeth would make sure MR is the right person for the country. But all good things must come to an end. The UNHRC is not going away and international pressure to account for war crimes is gathering momentum. It is not difficult to get independent evidence from the 300,000 Tamil civilians who are still alive.

(The writer is Asia Pacific Journalism Fellow at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, California and a print journalist for 21 years. She can be reached at pearltheva@hotmail.com)