Royal Commonwealth Society lacks transparency

R. Srikanthan in London

LONDON: The prestigious Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS) which facilitated a discussion meeting for the LTTE on October 31,2006 at its venue came under sustained pressure from the Sri Lankan community in the UK to open up the forum for wider participation.

The meeting on the theme "Sri Lanka on the edge" had facilitated the LTTE front line activist Nadarajah Suthaharan and his two other friends Nishan De Mel and Ms Farah Mihaler who were the approved speakers at the meeting. Nadarajah Suthaharan was introduced as a Phd student and the editor of Tamil Guardian.

Nadarajah Suthaharan is a frontline activist of the LTTE, is groomed Anton Balasingam to play an international role for the LTTE. He had accompanied Anton Balasingam in the last round of talks. He is also the editor of Tamilnet which he setup for the LTTE in Norway in 1996.

RCS was approached by concerned Sri Lankans and asked to reconstitute the meeting as it had given the forum for UK and EU wide proscribed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The RCS too recognised this and stated quite categorically 'Given the Commonwealth's united stand against terrorism, there can be no question of the Royal Commonwealth Society offering a platform to a representative of a proscribed organisation such as the LTTE, given its status in the UK and the European Union'.

It also acknowledged the need to reconstitute the panel of speakers at the outset of the protest in early September. The RCS promised that they will work with the objectors to select a new panel. After a brief lull the RCS has now written to state that they have reconstituted the speaker's panel themselves to avoid any ambiguities and is keeping the names of the speakers a top secret.

The reason for the secrecy by the RCS in naming the speakers has come under criticism by the concerned public as they fear that RCS is planning to execute a hidden agenda to please some of the original pro-LTTE speakers.

It is believed RCS having failed in its promise to engage with the protesters to select an acceptable panel of speakers is now keeping the names of the new speakers top secret to give limited time for the concerned public to express their views on the speakers put forward by the RCS.