Caucus causes re-think: Uncle Sam loves whom?
The United States should consider lifting the ban on the LTTE, as the ban "has the unintentional effect of making it impossible for the U.S to exercise leverage over the organization'' says Teresita Schaffer a former U.S. ambassador in Sri Lanka, broaching a new LTTE policy for the U.S government. The U.S. she explains, cannot engage the LTTE or contribute funds to it because of the ban -- and therefore cannot get the LTTE to fall in line, or behave itself.

Schaffer's position is that the only way to twist someone's arm is to get close enough to be sprayed by his spittle. Her words take our breath away by stripping to the bone any cover on the debate about two kinds of terrorism. One is aimed at the West, which is considered noxious terrorism --- and the other aimed at other countries, which is considered a brand of terrorism that's unavoidable, being motivated by a 'just cause.'

Schaffer plays simpleton. She wants the congressional caucus to acknowledge that her country views terrorism aimed at itself differently to terrorism aimed at others. Else, she would have obviously added that the best way to apply pressure on Al Quaida is to engage it, by lifting the ban on it, and contributing funds to it. But she never says that anywhere.

The whole of the U.S. establishment thinks on the same lines as Schaffer does -- but they need a Schaffer to cut through diplomatic refinement and give it to us as it is. Schaffer can do it as an ex-ambassador, a lady heading a think-tank, and therefore in the larger scheme of things sufficiently like an underage boy who can prick the pomposities of playacting adults and yet not give a toss…..

Schaffer's lark before the congressional caucus, seeks an opening for the US to de-ban the LTTE. It comes cannily, in a week that we heard that the U.N.D.P rates Norway as the world's best country to live in -- for the second year running.

We are now entitled to have the same feeling of discomfiture of the under-dressed at a dress up dinner. Not only is the U.S. saying that our kind of terrorism is different, even the proxies they work through, those quaintly-saintly and slightly distracted Vikings are the richest folks around, so we have to show some respect.

When the Portuguese and the Dutch ran this world, things were different, with the pretence of international law entirely absent, and the Portuguese being free to take us over and then summarily free-hold us to the Dutch, as if we were a cabbage being exchanged over the backyard. Centuries later, we in our own right have had a Foreign Minister who read at Balliol Oxford, and therefore commanded respect with the same sang-froid that Schaffer does in her own Anglo Saxon habitat. Our current peace envoy is a formidable candidate for the UN secretary generalship. It's a job that is the equivalent of heading of the Dutch East India Company when the Portuguese and the Dutch ruled most of the world.

But, in our world today, we do not have weapons that big powers do, and we do not have oil that they do. In that reality, such little privileges that we enjoy by being a member of the international 'members-only' club the United Nations, is the only respect we have got.

Not being a country, the LTTE does not have this respect. The LTTE is not just out of the club - - but by being banned, has been banished and prevented from being seen in the club lawn, or anywhere in the precincts.

But Teresita Schaffer wants the LTTE to get a toehold somewhere in the members only area, and she is telling us what other genteel diplomatic members of the congressional caucus cannot tell us.
She informs us that we do not have any real tonnage. We can't play by the same rules of those who run the premises, the club elite. Who is banned and who is not banned is a matter for the club elite, not one for the club's annually paying members -- Sri Lankans or others -- to decide.

But Dhanapala more or less put it to the useful session of the US congressional caucus last week that we deserve more respect. He told the caucus in his own words that "the international community's indulgence of the LTTE is yielding nothing.''

Sri Lankans have other things that can replace the oil clout or dollar clout. “Our Diaspora in their countries has so far helped terrorism” Dhanapala told the Asia Society the day before the caucus met. What he left unsaid was that the Diaspora could exert nuisance value in Western societies, a sort of 'negative clout.' Schaffer who is worried about terrorism aimed at America should also worry about what an unrepentant un-banned Sri Lankan Diaspora can get upto in their own countries.

But when Schaffer speaks of the unintended consequences of the U.S. ban on the Tigers, there is a fine touch of irony as most of what she says ends up having the unintended consequence of clarifying clouded issues.

She speaks of the U.S. ban on the Tigers blocking any contributions to the LTTE, while saying that the ban "stops direct engagement and therefore prevents the U.S from applying pressure on the Tigers.''

Paying off the Tigers could be tangentially what she means by 'contributions.' She's not incorrect in saying that the U.S. has paid off some global brigands - for example the North Koreans have at times variously been bribed to curtail their nuclear ambitions, and the U.S. is considering similarly paying off Iran in a deal struck to throttle that country's nuclear progression. But such contributions amounting to pay offs are for major international problem children such as those who engage in nuclear proliferation.

No way that Schaffer does not know this. What she means by the U.S 'being unable to contribute' is clear. The U.S. is unable to pay the Tigers, and she is sorry not because the U.S cannot stop the Tigers from doing what they are doing now. She is sorry on the contrary, because the Tigers are stopped without U.S funds, from continuing to do what they are doing at present -- which is to misbehave.

But mostly, she unintendedly clarifies that behind the façade of politeness, the U.S. really doesn't want any member of the international club of nations without any real power - such as us -- to exercise any options. Countries such as ours need to have decisions pertaining to us made for us -- that's her pep talk for Lankans, when she recommends a de-banning of the Tigers. She talks of a Sri Lankan presidential candidate allying with a Marxist party, something that's poised to take apart the peace process she says. Unintendedly she clarified one issue in my mind at least, which is that we have to develop some real clout, some real economic clout at least, to count for anything in international forums.

To do so, we may have to swallow some intimidation - external or internal - and bite the bullet to solve our internal problem, which is not what either a polarizing candidate or an appeasing candidate seems to be doing.Schaffer's polite recommendation to de-ban the Tigers is transparent for what it really is: it's an up-yours signal to the Sri Lankan government to say, 'we do what we want, until you have muscle in the international club of nations to do what you want.'

At the moment, all we have to counter that attitude is our U.N.membership card, by virtue of which a few such as Kadirgamar and Dhanapala could leverage only so much respect -- but no more.

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