The Sunday Times Thoughts from London

The Norwegian ambassador to Colombo Hans Brattskar has got hot under the collar on reading some news stories in the local newspaper “The Island.” Personally I would have left Mr. Brattskar to exercise his forked tongue with the dexterity that he and his Nordic fraternity are accustomed to particularly after his boss in this so-called peace process was caught out lying through his teeth in that recent Brussels confab.

The trouble with Erik Solheim is that he was some nondescript politician who got himself involved in Sri Lanka and having been catapulted into a position of power thinks he is God’s gift to diplomacy.

But unfortunately I cannot leave this diplomatic brat unscarred since “The Island” has mentioned me by name and quoted a news story I wrote in this paper last Sunday to defend its own reporting thus turning ambassadorial anger in my direction.The crux of the matter is that Ambassador Brattskar is contesting remarks that Norway had a hand in instigating a resolution critical of Sri Lanka in the European parliament and he wants the sources for that story disclosed.

I had gone further saying that the European Union is preparing a report, again critical of Sri Lanka, to be presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council and that this intended report stems from one drafted by a group of core EU ambassadors based in Colombo.

Now one does not have to be a Henry Kissinger or Pottu Amman to know who those ambassadors are and their relationship with the Norwegians.

I quoted diplomatic sources in Brussels- they are not Sri Lankan diplomats-as saying that Norway was pushing hard to see that a report is presented to the HRC in Geneva.

I gave the reasons for this. Norway which has been playing more than nurse maid to the LTTE, as many observers believe, wants to see Sri Lanka put on the rack.

But it has a second objective. Oslo which had strongly opposed moves in the EU to ban the LTTE, is now making use of the current hostilities and that ludicrous report full of conjecture and little fact submitted by the retiring head of the SLMM, Ulf Henricsson (another dubious Scandinavian) to have the EU review its decision to outlaw the Tigers.

Brattskar’s challenge, as it were, to The Island newspaper is couched in language which swings from the rather incomprehensible to the archaic.

Consider this peach from Brattskar. He says that the newspaper should have had the decency to “contact our embassy and gotten a comment from us.”

Gotten for heaven’s sake!

Brattskar’s linguistic aberrations apart, he has still to expend his ire on me for going even further than the other newspaper and reporting that the facilitator (or facilitraitor, to coin a word) Norway is engineering an anti-Sri Lanka resolution before the UNHRC along with its Nordic friends in the EU.
Had Brattskar merely denied Norwegian involvement one might have forgiven him. After all, diplomats are said to lie abroad for the good of their country, never mind how blatantly obvious the lie.

But then Brattskar’s umbrage ventures into the field of journalistic practice, hectoring the paper for quoting only one source and an unnamed one at that.

“This lack of an identified source prevents us from assessing the motives behind these allegations or comment on the genesis.”

He then expects the anonymous official to step forward and “explain his ‘facts."

Then comes the piece de resistance of his argument. If the unnamed chappie does not reveal himself “it would be obvious for all your readers that your articles were baseless.”

As a piece of irrefutable logic it would have had the ancient Greeks hooting with uncontrollable mirth.

This deduction by Ambassador Brattskar is important for he like his boss Solheim, has put his feet into that part of the anatomy that is also used for eating his words.

Brattskar is all bluff. He should know-and if he doesn’t he should take some lessons-that a cardinal principle journalists jealously safeguard is the right not to disclose their sources. Journalists have gone to jail rather than compromise this right.

So let Hans Brattskar answer this. Does he accept Ulf Henricsson’s departing gift to the world, his notorious report, without demur? Does he accept without question the ‘evidence’ and its conclusions?

If so, has Brattskar employed the same yardstick in evaluating the contents of Henricsson’s report as he has done in judging news reports? Surely not.

Who are Ulf Henricsson’s sources? Almost all those listed as interviewees are identified by designation as “OIC Trincomalee Hospital Police” and so on. But not a word on what they said and whether it was even remotely relevant.

By such jugglery Henricsson tries to create the impression he has investigated meticulously, that the interviewees provided evidence leading to his conclusions. But there is not a word about what they actually said. Except for some LTTE chap named Elilan whose evidence would have to be taken with a large dose of Epsom salt, there are neither names nor what the interviews yielded.

Does Brattskar accept that it is legitimate, using his own yardstick, just to say “Interview with family members of one of the victims.”

Did Brattskar, the local head of the Norwegian facilitator, ask Henricsson to name these anonymous persons or ask him to produce them. At least we know what the “senior official” said for he is quoted in the news reports.

But in Henricsson’s ex-cathedra report which has been uncritically embraced to the bosom of the international community as though it was the gospel, there is not a word of what all these interviewees supposedly said. What did the eyewitness actually witness? How is the world to know that he witnessed anything unless what he witnessed is clearly recorded.

What did the international staff of ACF who sent those 17 workers into Mutur when everybody else was trying to get out because of the impending fighting, have to say? Why are they not identified as Brattskar would have others do. Is it because the ACF is guilty of an appalling error, to put it mildly, by not only sending the aid workers into Mutur but also asking them to remain in the office while others were advising them to leave, if the report of the Jaffna University Human Rights Group is correct.

Brattskar speaks about “assessing the motives” of the senior official cited in the news report. Why then not the motive of the ACF’s international officers? Henricsson does not seem to have done it. Nor, apparently, has Brattskar for all his pompous outburst. Did he not submit a report to his government raising these questions and the crudity of the Henricsson report?

Or was Norway working hand-in-glove with Henricsson to discredit the Sri Lanka Government by producing a critical report ahead of the meetings of the European Parliament, EU officials Committee on Asia and the Co-chairs with the intention of adversely conditioning international opinion based on a false prospectus?

Surely Norway and Brattskar should look into their own motives before pointing fingers at others.

One last thing. Erik Solheim told the Brussels meeting that both the government and the LTTE had agreed to “unconditional talks”. This was almost immediately denied by the government. It later reiterated President Rajapaksa’s position when he had told the Co-chairs on August 21 that the government needed a written guarantee from the LTTE leader no less that they abide by the ceasefire and it would renounce violence.

Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera repeated this in parliament a few days later.

Now the LTTE’s Tamilselvam says they made it abundantly clear to a delegation led by Brattskar on September 6 that the government must first respect the “territorial demarcation” in the CFA to create the conditions for any talks.

Who in the government said it was agreeable to unconditional talks. Solheim does not name him. Should not Solheim do so by Brattskar’s logic.

By the same logic if Solheim does not name him then what Solheim told the Co-chairs is “baseless.”
I prefer another word- lie. Both warring parties have now exposed it for what it is. A crude attempt to impose talks by international sponsors.