Robert Evans’ falsehoods exposed
The infamous ceasefire agreement |
I was sorry to see you give so much space, in your columns of
February 14th, to Robert Evans to pronounce with regard to the situation
in Sri Lanka. Far from being an expert on the subject, he is a proven
partisan. The European Parliament noted this when it rejected his report
on the visit to Sri Lanka of a delegation of European Parliamentarians.
That report had claimed that the Sri Lankan government prevented a visit
of the delegation to the East, whereas we had tried to facilitate this.
Later Mr Evans declared to a pro-LTTE gathering in London that he had
not gone to the East because he did not want to shake the hand of the
current Chief Minister - a former child recruit who had repudiated the
LTTE and taken to democratic politics.
Fractured
The
British European MP Robert Evans has engaged in a constant
barrage of criticism of Sri Lanka for a period of nearly ten
years, when he accused the government of President Chandrika
Kumaratunga of ‘implementing an oppressive press-censorship
policy and of not allowing essential supplies, including
baby food and medicine, to be distribution in areas
controlled by the Tamil Tigers.... the government has made
no progress against the Tamil Tigers on the battlefield ....
its proposals to end the fighting through constitutional
reform will not work.’
Now, thought the situation
is quite different, Evans sings a similar song, basically
wanting to promote a solution on the lines of what the
Tigers want. It is to be hoped that the British papers will
publish this detailed refutation of his false arguments, and
that British officials will not give in to pressure from
someone who has for so long done nothing but criticize
successive Sri Lankan governments.
Secretary General of the
Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process Prof. Rajiva
Wijesinha in a letter to the Editor, the Independent
states... |
Mr Evans’ fractured relationship with the truth is apparent also from
the current article. He asserts, on the basis of the rejection of a
special British envoy, that the government has ‘become increasingly
paranoid and defensive about all matters relating to the vicious civil
war’. He fails to register that there is a special Japanese envoy, who
was appointed after consultation, which the British failed to engage in.
He claims that the conflict continued with ‘very little outside
involvement and the LTTE were able to establish a de facto independent
state-within-a-state’ - a ‘state’ in which all government officials were
paid and food supplies secured by the central government, with free
health and education provided as elsewhere in the country.
The heavy taxes the LTTE were able to collect precisely because of
foreign involvement went on weapons. Evans indeed knows about the
foreign involvement because he asserts that ‘the Sri Lankan Government
unilaterally withdrew from the Norwegian-brokered ceasefire, and under
the leadership of its hawkish President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, embarked on
this current campaign’ - again omitting that the current government
succeeded in resuming talks with the LTTE which had unilaterally
withdrawn from negotiations in 2003, and did so again in 2006 while
launching massive attacks which had to be resisted. It was only then
that the government decided that the right of self-defence accepted in
the Ceasefire Agreement meant taking measures also to prevent further
surprise attacks.
The abrogation of the Agreement itself only happened later, when the
LTTE made it clear it would not return to talks. That abrogation allowed
the Government to proceed more confidently with the talks it had already
begun with democratic Tamil forces. Evans goes on to say that the ‘real
victims’ of the Government’s struggle against terrorism are civilians,
he ignores the fact that his sanctimonious pronouncements come precisely
because the Government has rescued much of the country from terrorist
control - ie the victims are terrorists. Civilians have suffered because
the LTTE forced them to retreat along with the LTTE, and people like
Evans who are now pronouncing failed to make any effort to have them
released then, when it would have been much easier.
The same sadly goes for the UN, which claimed it was quiet earlier
because it feared for its workers who had also been trapped by the LTTE.
Now, however, the UN has begun to assert more loudly that the LTTE
should let the people go. Why does Evans fail to add his voice to
theirs, to condemn the continuing recruitment of children, to denounce
the murder, through suicide bombing and grenade throwing and shooting,
of civilians trying to get away?
Stories
Evans claims that the Tamil people are terrified of ‘Sri Lankan
troops and their “holding camps”, with all the stories of assaults and
rape, not to mention the different language and religion which divides
the Hindu Tamils from the Buddhist Sinhalese troops’. He obviously does
not know that nearly 40,000 have got away to the protection of Sri
Lankan troops - which include Christians and Tamils and Muslims, though
fewer of the last two since the LTTE started killing them as traitors,
in particular those who were able to set up a fantastic intelligence
network amongst Tamil speaking citizens sick of the LTTE.
Service
He also ignores the recent yeoman service of the Catholic church in
providing leadership to Tamils, Hindu as well as Catholic, who wanted to
escape.
Evans’ sole concession to Tiger brutality is that there are ‘stories
suggesting that the LTTE has, or might, shoot anyone who tries to escape
from the areas that remain under their control.’ But he promptly goes on
to claim that none of this is verifiable - presumably even his own
extreme pronouncements, which were asserted with no diffidence.
He claims that ‘The Sri Lankan Government restricts all journalists
and independent observers from entering the conflict zone. The reports
from the few remaining aid or humanitarian agencies still allowed in the
area are dismissed by the Sri Lankan authorities as propaganda.’ What
precisely is he talking about? He goes on to declaim, ‘Can Amnesty
International and United Nations workers all be lying? Are all the
horrific pictures of bombed-out hospitals and lines of dead men, women
and children false or fabricated?’This is rhetoric of the highest degree
of deceitfulness. There are no pictures of bombed-out hospitals, because
there are none. The PTK hospital about which there was so much hype,
Amnesty International claiming it had been cluster bombed and then
refusing to withdraw that statement even when the UN repudiated it, is
still standing. The lines of dead men, women and children are to do with
LTTE shelling, as asserted clearly by the Bishop of Jaffna and the UN.
What the Government objects to is assertions that, when there is
doubt about who did it, the Government is blamed. When it is clear that
the LTTE did it, even if the UN declares this, the Evans brigade claims
there is no evidence.
Finally, Evans does the classic British thing of wondering, if a
British envoy is not accepted, ‘who will protect the Tamil civilians
from being massacred?’ Does he not realise that, from the mealy-mouthed
British head of Save the Children who gave good reasons why he had not
spoken out against Tiger recruitment of children, to the Britishers who
allowed heavy equipment intended for humanitarian purposes to be used to
build Tiger defences, that it is the British who have the worst
reputation of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds? Des
Browne may himself be a gentleman, but he has to be accepted if at all
after formal discussions, not simply because Gordon Brown is under
pressure from Robert Evans and the other crew of British MPs desperately
in need of votes in marginal seats.
Robert Evans thinks that ‘anyone who doesn’t wholly back the
murderous tactics of the Colombo Government is automatically dismissed
by the Sri Lankan authorities not just as an apologist for terrorism but
as a supporter of the LTTE .’
Philosophy
Had he ever studied philosophy he would have known that that is a
collection of several propositions, none of which has basis in fact.
Further analysis of his bombast is not necessary, but has it ever
occurred to him that, while we might initially have thought of him as a
na‹ve fool, the alternative is not apologist for terrorism, but rather
self-serving politician? The fact that terrorists can take advantage of
such folly or self-serving does not mean he should be charged under
Britain’s Anti-Terror legislation - but Gordon Brown should perhaps
gently take him aside and sit him on his knee and say he really should
know better. |