Tin head politics of a fading brass

Nick Gowing, frequent news presenter of BBC, earlier this week showed he was either totally out of touch with reality in Sri Lanka or was pushing an agenda which was clearly opposed to Sri Lanka. It was about the Government’s decision to allow freedom of movement for the IDPs in the relief centres in the Vanni, especially Menik Farm.

In an interview with Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama, Tuesday night, the BBC was on one hand demanding to know why the IDPs who were free to leave the relief centres had to be registered, and also why they were expected to return after a stipulated period. Strangely it is these same voices from the West, especially BBC and the British politicians from Prime Minister Gordon Brown to David Miliband and that motley group of MPs from Labour, Conservative and Lib-Dems who had kept on a chorus of protest about conditions in the IDP relief centres.

Ultimate aim

From the time of the defeat of the LTTE which forced these Tamil citizens, until then held hostage by the LTTE, into the care of Government relief centres, the charge was that they were being denied basic freedom of movement and thereby their human rights.

Although the Foreign Minister explained, that the ultimate aim of the Government was to resettle these Tamils in their original homes, and that there was still time needed to ensure that this could be done with necessary safety, the BBC was pressing the line that the Government was not considering the humanitarian situation, allegedly in favour of political considerations. One fails to understand the logic of the BBC in seeing political considerations in having the citizens of Sri Lanka in relief centres, beyond the period of absolute necessity, or of giving them the freedom of movement that they do cherish, and the do-gooders of the West have been clamouring for.

But such is the thinking of allegedly independent media houses that insist on a right to supervise the treatment and conditions in Sri Lankan relief centres, but not in the repeated and continuing humanitarian tragedies of huge proportions now seen in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But Nick Gowing and the BBC exposed their hand when they showed and quoted Sarath Fonseka, the candidate for the presidency from the curious alliance known as the UNFA, state that the current regime of President Mahinda Rajapaksa was a “tin pot dictatorship” and went on to restate that movement of the Tamil civilians of the North was being manipulated for political purposes, in view of the upcoming Presidential Election.

Tin pot dictators

The BBC presenter Nick Gowing had not done his homework about who tin pot dictators are, nor had he received a proper briefing about conditions in Sri Lanka from the BBC correspondent here, Charles Havilland. Having its origins in the Victorian days of the British Empire, the better known examples of “tin pot dictators” are those seen in Central and South America at the height of the Cold War, planted or supported by the United States, who were known for their suppression of the rights of the people, the demolition of democracy and contempt for electoral politics.

From Fulgencio Battista in Cuba to Augusto Pinochet in Chile all those who were propped up in power over their people in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Bolivia and Argentina too, were the tin pot dictators, almost all of whom waged into politics in military uniform. There were other such people seen in Africa such as Idi Amin, and in the Middle East, too.

To describe a President who has been elected by popular mandate in a free and fair election, and who is seeking a fresh mandate, before his first term is over, is hardly the sign of a tin-pot dictator.

It is also interesting to note that in the recent past the BBC, as well as other news channels and western political leaders too, have been strongly critical of leaders such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and other elected leaders, who have sought to extend their terms of office through popular referenda.

Whether such extension of power is dictatorial or not is a matter at issue. But the situation in Sri Lanka has no such comparison. In the coming election, President Mahinda Rajapaksa is seeking a second term on the basis of what he has achieved for the country in the four years of his first elected term of six years. The highlights of it are the defeat of the LTTE’s terrorism under his watch as Head of State.

He is also placing before the country the record of development in the past four years, which far exceeds what any government since independence had carried out in such a short period, or even in much extended terms as the UNP’s 17 years from 1977 to 1994, and the UPFA led by Chandrika Kumaratunga did from 1994 to 2005.

Jumbo shove

As the a section of the UNP, with strange allies such as Mangala Samaraweera, and Chandrika Kumaratunga too, in what seems to be an impossible campaign to get Sarath Fonseka elected President, the vast majority of traditional UNP voters are in a quandary as to what has become of their own party. After more than 60 years in politics it has failed to field its own candidate.

Its leader is so unpopular that he fears running for election, as does the party fear to field him. But what is even worse is that the UNP has had to abandon out its own cherished symbol of the elephant, as well as its, colour green, to serve the interests of Fonseka who believes that he can float into office on wings of a swan.

It will be interesting to see what more the UNP will be ready to shed, as it gets closer to the JVP; and also how the JVP will explain to the people and its own cadres how they can be in such a tight political embrace with the UNP. But such is the politics of opportunism, especially in a situation of desperation, when forces repeatedly discarded by the people at the polls, have to seek the shelter of a discarded uniform and faded brass to come before the people, with a plethora of promises that are self-contradictory in their essence.

All of which shows more of the advance of the ‘tinny’ headed in the politics of desperation.