{"id":119870,"date":"2014-02-11T01:12:12","date_gmt":"2014-02-10T19:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=119870"},"modified":"2014-03-02T03:46:01","modified_gmt":"2014-03-01T22:16:01","slug":"why-david-cameron-is-not-in-thrall-to-the-tamil-diaspora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/why-david-cameron-is-not-in-thrall-to-the-tamil-diaspora\/","title":{"rendered":"Why David Cameron Is Not In Thrall To The Tamil Diaspora"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dave Rush<\/span><\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Dave<\/a>

Dave Rush<\/p><\/div>\n

As international pressure builds in the lead up to the UN Human Rights Commission<\/a><\/span> session in March that will discuss a third resolution on alleged war crimes and human rights abuses in Sri Lanka<\/a><\/span>, column inches on the subject also multiply.<\/p>\n

The most notable thing about the government\u2019s response to this is how consistently it has trotted out the same arguments, and how rigidly it has stuck to tactics that have served it well domestically, but continue to fail in an international context.<\/p>\n

As a Brit who lives in Sri Lanka, one of the most interesting sub-plots to follow has been the reaction the involvement of David Cameron<\/span><\/a> and the UK government.\u00a0 But before examining that in a bit more detail, it\u2019s worth taking a quick survey of some of the common counter-arguments the Sri Lankan authorities have made to criticism from around the world.<\/p>\n

Smoke and mirrors<\/b><\/p>\n

The most common of these is the notion that governments, NGOs, charities and research agencies around the globe are simply being deviously manipulated by a seemingly all powerful Tamil diaspora.<\/p>\n

This argument takes several forms, but it can best be summed up as \u2013 there is a global Tamil conspiracy that is trying to destroy Sri Lanka\u2019s international reputation by funding a global media smear campaign.<\/p>\n

Around the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, Sri Lanka\u2019s High Commissioner to the UK, Chris Nonis, told CNN that criticism of the country\u2019s human rights record was a \u201cproxy propaganda war\u201d<\/a><\/span> being carried out by those who funded the nation\u2019s \u201cterrorist conflict\u201d, whilst Gotabaya Rajapaksa<\/span><\/a> repeatedly invokes the spectre of an \u201cLTTE rump\u201d who are agitating from the shadows.<\/p>\n

This seems particularly ironic as Sri Lanka\u2019s government itself has employed two PR and lobbying firms handsome fees to engage in a very real propaganda war.\u00a0 The Thompson Advisory Group, who are paid $66,000 a month by the government, recently aired a 30 minute infomercial on Sri Lanka\u2019s reconciliation and post war progress on US TV<\/span><\/a>, and the film was also show to US politicians.<\/p>\n

The government have also contracted the infamous UK agency Bell Pottinger<\/a> to look after their international image \u2013 and the choice seems revealing given that past Bell Pottinger clients include Gaddafi, Mugabe and Monsanto, to name but a few.<\/p>\n

If the Tamil conspiracy is not explicitly named, then it is either implied, or another international plot is inferred.\u00a0 The recent report by PIAC that suggested that Sri Lankan security forces committed the \u201cvast majority\u201d of war crimes in the last part of the conflict<\/span><\/a>, and that they may have engaged in systematic destruction of evidence since, was dismissed by the military here as the result of a \u201chidden agenda\u201d designed to \u201cmislead member countries<\/span><\/a>\u201d in the UNHRC.<\/p>\n

This is not to dismiss entirely the notion of political pressure from Tamil communities around the world.\u00a0 There are many powerful groups within the Tamil diaspora that are actively putting what pressure they can on the international community over war crimes and human rights abuses, but the power of these groups is far less than the government would have you believe. And indeed far less than the government\u2019s own power.<\/p>\n

Other favourite lines rehearsed by Sri Lankan politicians (from Chris Nonis, to all of the Rajapaksa brothers, to Lalith Weeratunga) are that Sri Lanka does not need outside interference because it has a 2,500 year old civilisation, and that foreign nations should sort out their own backyards before they come sniffing around here.<\/p>\n

David Cameron is many things, but he\u2019s not a Tamil stooge<\/b><\/p>\n

These last two arguments bring us nicely to the case of David Cameron.<\/p>\n

The UK Prime Minister snatched a lot of headlines during CHOGM<\/span><\/a> last year, both for his visit to Jaffna, and for his strongly worded demand<\/span><\/a> that Sri Lanka make meaningful progress on human rights before March 2014, or face international action.<\/p>\n

In the wake of this, Cameron was effectively told to butt out by the government, with certain branches of the media suggesting that the UK should look into its own crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq before worrying about Sri Lanka, that Cameron was only interested because he needed the support of the Tamil community in London to win the next election, and most bizarrely, for \u201cbreaching protocol\u201d when in Jaffna by not signing a visitor\u2019s book and failing to acknowledge a dance reception.\u00a0 The Daily News called him a \u201cbumbling boor\u201d and demanded a full and unconditional apology<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

These accusations are predictable, but are also representative of the Sri Lankan authorities overall response to international criticism.\u00a0 They are worth dealing with one by one, even though on another level they seem too ridiculous to be engaged with.<\/p>\n

Firstly, the argument that \u201cpeople in glass houses shouldn\u2019t throw stones\u201d does hold some water, but not in the way that it is deployed here.\u00a0 That human rights abuses around the world are not treated equally and that powerful nations, such as the US, UK and China are able to get away with certain crimes whilst providing moral lectures to others is certainly true, and appalling.<\/p>\n

But to say that justifies crimes you yourself have committed is both absurd, and on another level seems like a tacit admission of guilt.<\/p>\n

Secondly, David Cameron did not engage in the Tamil issue in Sri Lanka in order to boost his chances of winning the next election.\u00a0 There are somewhere between 110,000 and 150,000 people of Tamil origin in the UK (in a population of 66 million), and they do have strong representative bodies that lobby on their behalf.\u00a0 As recent reports show, Cameron did meet with many of these bodies before he travelled to Sri Lanka for CHOGM<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

But they are an insignificant voice in the British political landscape, and most of them do not even have the right to vote in the UK.\u00a0 The notion that a Tamil conspiracy is pulling Cameron\u2019s strings is absurd, not least because, as with the resolution presented to the US Senate last week, the UK\u2019s rhetoric has always emphasised investigating crimes committed by both sides<\/i>.<\/p>\n

A comparison of the number of meetings that Cameron\u2019s government has had with lobbyists for, and representatives of, big business in the last 12 months also puts into perspective the significance of the one meeting he had with Tamil pressure groups.<\/p>\n

I taught Sri Lankan literature in a university in the UK between 2006 and 2009, and most of my students (who were all highly politically active and motivated) knew almost nothing about the Sri Lankan conflict.\u00a0 That was at the height of the final days of the conflict, when press coverage was at its most prominent.\u00a0 This is, of course, only anecdotal evidence, but it is indicative of the wider British perspective.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka got a lot of media attention around the time of CHOGM last year, but overall, the civil war here is not an issue that has much resonance with the British electorate.\u00a0 Of course, Cameron got a chance to play the international statesman and all round \u201cgood guy\u201d for once, and that was a political opportunity not to be missed.<\/p>\n

However, within days of returning he was being accused of hypocrisy by the UK press, who took him to task for travelling straight from Sri Lanka to an arms trading fair, and then toadying up to China.\u00a0 The upcoming UNHRC session will see Sri Lanka again make the UK media (especially Channel 4), but this will not be front page news, and regrettably it will probably be completely missed by most of my countrymen.<\/p>\n

The fact is that people in the UK are simply too busy worrying about their own problems and lives to care much for the plight of any other nation, Sri Lanka included, and it will be Cameron\u2019s record on, and promises about those problems that will win or lose him the next election.<\/p>\n

David Cameron\u2019s motivation for his involvement in the Sri Lankan situation is of course motivated partly by real-politik, partly by opportunism and the chance to play the statesman \u2013 but there is also a moral dimension here.\u00a0 I speak as someone who cannot stand his, or his party\u2019s politics, but I do have grudging respect for his actions over Sri Lanka in the last few months.\u00a0 I hope he, and the UK government, will hold their nerve.<\/p>\n

Let us not forget what we are discussing here \u2013 in the last few months alone, an edited highlights package of accusations and evidence against the Sri Lankan government could include: Sri Lanka produces the most torture cases worldwide<\/span><\/a>, Sri Lanka has more unsolved cases of disappearances than any where in the world but Iraq<\/a><\/span>, there were 7,000 human rights complaints in the country in 2013<\/span><\/a>, the government has been condemned as increasingly authoritarian and anti-democratic<\/span><\/a> by domestic and international critics alike \u2013 and that\u2019s before we even get into a discussion about war crimes, rape, child abuse and violence against women.<\/p>\n

There is hypocrisy in the UK\u2019s stand, as there is in many of the other countries that have spoken out, and pointing that out is fair.\u00a0 But the responses of the Sri Lankan government and state owned media have been transparently inadequate, not only in rebutting accusations made against them, but in doing anything to change the mind of the international community.<\/p>\n

Time and time again, on top of the arguments discussed here, there have been suggestions that figures and organisations such as Navi Pillay, Nisha Biswal, Stephen Rapp, Stephen Harper, Manmohan Singh, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, international news media, and the UNHRC itself have been too easily duped by individuals with a sinister personal agenda.<\/p>\n

This insult to the intelligence of major international figures is stupid in its own right \u2013 but it is also representative of the way in which the Rajapaksa government regularly insults the intelligence of its own people.<\/p>\n

The level of media control that the authorities enjoy within Sri Lanka seems to have convinced them that the same tactics and arguments that have worked internally will work on the rest of the world.\u00a0 As CHOGM showed, intimidation of journalists, banning opposing political protests and abusing any one you disagree with works to an extent within Sri Lanka, but manifestly does not elsewhere.\u00a0 The UK\u2019s ITV news, one of the most tabloid in the country, said at the time that \u201cThe Sri Lankan leaders\u2026 have created a disaster for themselves in the court of public opinion,\u201dand it\u2019s hard to disagree.<\/p>\n

As I have argued elsewhere<\/a><\/span>, creating a siege mentality (\u201cno one likes us, we don\u2019t care\u201d) can be useful in shoring up domestic support, but it is absolutely destructive to international relations, both on a political and a public relations level. The language being used also presents exactly the opposite issue from the one that is intended \u2013 all the talk of \u201cpropaganda\u201d, of \u201cagent provocateurs\u201d, of small powerful minorities who are really<\/i> running things comes across as paranoid and more reminiscent of the rhetoric of a Cold War Soviet Union than an open democracy.<\/p>\n

One voice of reason has emerged recently, in the shape of Maduluwawe Sobitha Thero<\/span><\/a>\u00a0who said in an interview last weekend that \u201cSri Lanka is a part of the international community, we have to abide by international norms, and if there is a call for an international investigation, I have no problem in agreeing. If we have done nothing wrong we can go before an international investigation and vindicate ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see how the government reacts to a challenge from a prominent and respected Sinhala-Buddhist monk.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the response is likely to be one of the ones not discussed here so far \u2013 simply ignoring it and hoping it goes away.<\/p>\n

*Dave Rush\u00a0is Senior Editor at\u00a0The Republic Square.\u00a0 As a journalist working in the UK, he has also contributed regularly to\u00a0Trebuchet\u00a0magazine, journals and newspapers including the Guardian\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":119882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,6968],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-editorial","category-popular-columns"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy David Cameron Is Not In Thrall To The Tamil Diaspora - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/why-david-cameron-is-not-in-thrall-to-the-tamil-diaspora\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why David Cameron Is Not In Thrall To The Tamil Diaspora - 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