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Govt’s Proclamations and Actions – Ever widening gap and inconsistency exposed

Mother Nature, ironically though, did not discriminate in letting out her fury, in that, the devastation has impacted all people, beyond the lines of distinction based on race, language, religion or territory.

In the same way that we faced the consequences of the Tsunami disaster, joining hands to work together to stand up, let us also extend this unity by each of us contributing a block to build confidence, mutual trust and understanding. The environment looks so gloomy that many of us may tend to call it wishful thinking. But Mother Nature has dictated to us to take the positive thread of hope within the sense of hopelessness, and weave through the fabric of lasting peace in this island.

This hope is beginning to diminish, given the partisan attitude Colombo is adopting in matters of humanitarian relief. The unfortunately inherent ‘majority’ and supremacist mindset is let to prevail even in handling humanitarian disaster management at a time when compassion and care to all alike, stand tall as the order of the day. This partisan attitude of Colombo has, no doubt, shattered the hope of many peace lovers who fear that this isle of splendour is loosing a golden opportunity to bring back unity and peace to everybody.

Accusing fingers are becoming more in number, pointing towards Colombo for the partiality adopted in channelling international aid into the Tamil territories. Discrimination, even in matters of humanitarian relief arrangements, is becoming more and more exposed in its stark naked form.

One among the wrong step is the government’s failure to include the entirety of the NorthEast coast in the itinerary of UN Secretary General. Tamil collective memory has with it, the dreadful days of war, the unimaginable misery-stricken two decades, during which, Colombo carefully saw to it that no diplomat, journalist or any outsider for that matter, visits the theatre of war, the Tamil habitats. A heinous modus operandi is on the stage again, a bad timing for a good government that entertains any hope for peace to all the people.

UN Secretary General’s visit has no political linkage. It is a humanitarian mission in its totality. UN’s Head was here to see for himself the devastation and the travails associated, to assess the damage and more so to make UN’s presence felt by the people in distress, and personally deliver words of consolation and solidarity. He was here as the accredited representative of the international community, that incidentally is the source, the affected people see as the ‘kitty’ that has the wherewithal to put them back in their habitats.

Inclusion of the Tamil territory not under military occupation and administered by the LTTE, in the Secretary General’s itinerary, has been, tragically though, viewed by Colombo with a politically tinted glass. Head of the August assembly that strives for peace in the world, provided the opportunity to meet with the LTTE leaders, according to the line of thinking in Colombo, would enhance the credibility of the LTTE and in a way would place a seal of recognition and acceptability on the LTTE. Colombo could not help its political ‘profit and loss’ calculation enter into this totally humanitarian equation. This is a clear indication of Colombo continuing with the same partisan ‘profit and loss’ modality even in matters of humanitarian delivery at a time of crisis that has a commonality but asymmetric in the background of the already devastated infrastructure in the Tamil territory that was a theatre of war for two decades and more so by the neglect it suffered under successive governments in Colombo.

UN Secretary General, in fact, wanted to see the devastation in these areas as well. But the government, true to its conscience, realised the danger of the UN’s Head acknowledging the asymmetry in the devastation and hence this subtle move. It is time therefore the international community takes cognisance of the hidden agenda Colombo manipulated at the cost of human suffering in one part of this island. It is also trusted that the international community will take this message as an indicator to the discriminatory pattern in which relief and reconstruction inputs would be channelled into these Tamil territories.

Going the extra mile, the international community must now, having assessed the situation through demonstrated acts of Colombo, take courage to deliver assistance direct to the affected people, boulders of sovereignty, statehood and diplomatic niceties notwithstanding. Also essential is a word of censure from the civilised world to a government that practices different standards of governance. Civilised nations of people who are the real stake- holders in the ‘donor funds’ that flood in, have a responsibility to ensure that humanitarian issues are not politicised and no entity perpetrates trickery on them in matters that are purely humanitarian.

Courtesy: “Uthayan” Tamil Daily

10 January 2005

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