To many Sri Lankans watching the international TV coverage of Osama bin Laden’s slaying a week ago, there were unmistakable similarities observed between the spontaneous public expression of feeling in the US in the immediate aftermath of that event, and the public reactions witnessed in Sri Lanka two years ago when the news of Prabhakaran’s death got around.
The scenes we witnessed then and those that unfolded in New York City and outside the White House in Washington DC last week may well have been enacted from the same script – the only difference being that this time most faces seen on the TV screens were white not brown, and the actors waved US flags not Sri Lankan ones. The emotion expressed by US citizens who poured out onto the streets was identical to that which was experienced across Sri Lanka the day Prabhakaran was killed.
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| Newspapers in Lahore with headlines about the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden |
Al Jazeera reported “It would be difficult to overstate the magnitude of this event for the people of New York” who received the news with “pride, joy and relief.” Bin Laden was described as a man who killed thousands of innocents who had met his just desserts. European leaders expressed their empathy with this point of view. But given our own recent history, Sri Lanka could perhaps identify with this psychological moment better than any other nation. This country has in fact suffered many more horrific bombings, massacres and assassinations at the hands of the LTTE, over a more extended period, than the US has on account of al Qaeda.
The question that must surely have arisen in the minds of many viewers is, how come Sri Lankans’ reactions at the time were promptly condemned by western leaders and media as “triumphalism,” whereas there was no such talk when it came to the US? (let’s ignore for the moment that one New York daily carried a banner headline that read “Rot in Hell,” alongside a picture of bin Laden).
President Obama paid tribute to US troops engaged in combat operations saying “they sacrifice their lives so that we may be safe.” Doesn’t that reflect the same pride Sri Lankans feel for their war heroes, whose surviving members western powers seek to haul up before war crimes tribunals? How is it that the west begrudges this small nation the right to express a human sentiment they have no trouble allowing themselves?
While this puzzle requires explanation, it would be facile to attribute the differential treatment of two historic events to some kind of inexplicable perversity. The climate of anti-Sri Lankan bias has grown in the west over many years. The LTTE successfully established its version of history at the expense of any other, presenting itself abroad as a heroic ‘liberation movement.’ As a result, average westerners unfamiliar with the background of the conflict never really saw the outfit’s true bloodthirsty face. The LTTE played this game of ‘smoke and mirrors’ with great success through its control of the Tamil diaspora, who dutifully propagated their version of events at every turn.
This was done from the safe distance of western capitals where people didn’t know, still less cared, about the horrors visited upon civilian populations including Tamils in Sri Lanka, by these imagined ‘freedom fighters.’
The Sri Lankan government gravely underestimated the LTTE’s use of propaganda as a weapon over the course of three decades. It is paying dearly now for that mistake. The fallout of this situation is reflected in the report of the UN Secretary General’s advisory panel. An aspect of the report that many find shocking is its seemingly uncritical acceptance of the LTTE’s self-definition as a ‘liberation movement’ which it says “eventually became the most disciplined and most nationalist of the Tamil militant groups.”
The report refers to “triumphalism on the part of the government, expressed through its discourse on having developed the means and will to defeat "terrorism", thus ending Tamil aspirations for political, autonomy and recognition …” (Note that ‘terrorism’ is mentioned within quotes, as if to raise a doubt as to whether this was an appropriate way to describe LTTE activity.) The language seems to suggest that the Panel identified the LTTE - a known, proscribed terrorist organisation - as the arbiter of ‘Tamil aspirations for political autonomy and recognition,’ and also in the Panel’s view, that the state’s moves to defeat it were in some way illegitimate.
The bias that pervades the rest of the report may be seen to flow from this initial assumption, and the government can perhaps rest its case for rejection of the report on this preposterous error alone.That the Advisory Panel exercise was a fiasco has now been borne out by Ban Ki-moon’s statement that he is powerless to act on the recommendations of the report. But the document still stands as a propaganda coup from the point of view of the LTTE, its sympathizers, proxies and fronts who appear to have been its main sources. Predictably, an embargo has been placed on the revelation of those sources.
The dubious material regurgitated in the report was probably submitted in the safe knowledge of this condition.
Notwithstanding the SG’s reported admission that “it is not a UN document,” the damage has been done. Upon its release the BBC, Al Jazeera and most other international media referred to it as “A UN report,’’ and the chances are the tag will stick. The net result is that there is a battery of unsubstantiated war crimes allegations with UN ‘branding’ on it, lying out there like a bludgeon for anyone to pick up and have a go at Sri Lanka if it serves their agenda.
The writer is a senior freelance journalist
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