Sri Lankans plan demo outside C’wealth Society

Sri Lankans from all communities are planning to demonstrate outside the Royal Commonwealth Society for pandering to the LTTE, an organisation banned in the UK and in the European Union.

The organisers say that unless the RCS announces early its list of panellists for a discussion it has promoted on Sri Lanka scheduled for October 31, they will launch their protest against the society's perceived pro-LTTE bias.

Earlier the Sri Lanka High Commission had lodged a strong protest after the RCS announced the meeting listing the editor of the pro-LTTE Tamil Guardian as one of the main participants, the only confirmed speaker at the time.

After word got around of the proposed discussion among ‘young stakeholders’ as it was initially dubbed by the RCS which is one of the institutions linked to the Commonwealth Secretariat, a large number of Sri Lankans representing all ethnic groups petitioned the society for listing the editor of the Tamil Guardian as a participant who they claimed was a well-known LTTE supporter.Another speaker tentatively listed was Nishan de Mel, unknown to the vast majority of those representing various Sri Lankan associations here.

Surprised by the heap of protests from the Sri Lankan community and the High Commission, RCS back-tracked and has now dropped the Tamil Guardian editor from the panel but is still not disclosing the list of participants, according to information received by The Sunday Times from those planning the demo.

But organisers fear that other well-known LTTE supporters will end up on the panel or the meeting will be disrupted by unruly behaviour as is said to have happened recently at an Amnesty International sponsored gathering to launch a human rights report.

Asked by The Sunday Times, the head of public affairs of RCS Miles Giljam admitted there had been numerous protests about the participation of the Tamil Guardian and that a new panel is being constituted.

"We are still trying to find a panel that would be balanced," Mr. Giljam said. Mr. Giljam's comment was dismissed by one of the protestors who said the RCS was deliberately delaying announcing the names of the panellists giving little time for objections to be raised.

"This is a deliberate attempt to force a one-sided panel on the public. If the RCS organisers now say they are trying to select a balanced panel that will present all views on the Sri Lanka situation, then it is a tacit admission that the previous panel arbitrarily picked by the society was not balanced. So we were not wrong in objecting to the pro-LTTE bias shown by the RCS in picking a strong supporter of a banned organisation and putting some other nonentities to present other sides of the case."

"If we are not informed early this week about the panel, then we will go ahead with our demonstration on the day of the meeting. The RCS cannot be allowed to get away with pandering to the Tigers. Sri Lanka is a member of the Commonwealth and of the RCS. The society cannot be allowed to act as though this was its private property," he said.

Earlier the Sri Lanka High Commission had written to the head of RCS Stuart Mole protesting at the manner in which the High Commissioner had been cast in a role where she was expected merely to sum up the discussion without even extending the courtesy of first sounding her out on whether she would be willing to do so.