Sri Lanka’s image builders:

Countering LTTE propaganda

Extracts from the Olcott oration delivered by Sri Lankan Ambassador to Beligium, Luxembourg and the European Union Ravinath Aryasinha at Ananda College, Colombo on November 6, 2010 First part of this article was published yesterday

It is also significant that while the joint letter by HRW, AI and ICG, received wide international coverage, the response by the LLRC and later External Affairs Ministry received scant attention.

Nor have I seen any acknowledgement from the many, who for long have kept complaining, on the far reaching interim recommendations made by the LLRC- concerning those in detention, relating to private land in the former conflict areas, disarming any armed group carrying illegal weapons, transacting official business in one’s own language and facilitating livelihood efforts, the implementation for which the Government of Sri Lanka set up an Inter-Agency Advisory Group (IAAG). Such actions cast serious doubts about assertions being made by these NGOs.

State entities and others who choose to rely on such unsubstantiated allegations, while ignoring the patently positive developments taking place on the ground in Sri Lanka, show up as being rather naive.

It is no secret, that in the current post-conflict situation, with the drying up of international funding for NGOs working on Sri Lanka, rather than grapple with this reality and become relevant within the new context, many NGOs unfortunately seek to paint a bleak picture of the ground situation, to sustain continued international funding for their own survival.

Sri Lankans abroad

Of its over 20 million population, Sri Lankans abroad constitute roughly 15 percent. Over a million of them represent a migrant work force in many parts of the world, mainly the Middle East. The rest, belonging to all ethnicities of Sri Lanka, mainly reside in the Western hemisphere, Australia and New Zealand. Of these, estimates suggest that Sri Lankan Tamils constitute well over a million, of which a bulk are refugee claimants and constitute sizeable vote banks with considerable leverage within those political systems.

With respect to the influence the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora wields, it is important that we should neither over-estimate nor under-estimate their capacity. We must remember that Tamil Diaspora activism originated in some Western countries in the late 1970s, very much before the LTTE gained a monopoly over the Tamil separatist struggle in Sri Lanka.

This is evidenced by the resolution adopted on May 9, 1979 in the Massachusetts State Assembly proclaiming its support to the Eelam Tamils and later the Governor of Massachusetts Edward J King designating May 22 1979 (the Republic Day of Sri Lanka) as ‘Eelam Tamils Day’ in Massachusetts. Therefore, it is not surprising that their activities should survive the demise of the LTTE.

In fact, one can argue that, with the baggage of the LTTE which came to be condemned as one of the world’s most ruthless terrorist organizations off their back, the Tamil Diaspora has inadvertently been given a new lease of life internationally. Particularly significant in this regard is the role being played by the second generation Tamil youth, who never experienced the real horror of the conflict suffered by all Sri Lankans over the past 30 years, but who see this opportunity as one to be exploited as ‘political entrepreneurs’, as many other Diaspora communities who realize their electoral relevance in these countries, have done in recent history.

How the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora are using this new found space to re-invent themselves varies. A bulk of the Sri Lankan Tamil population living abroad are using it to eschew extremist ideas and to seek to re-engage with their roots in the North and the East of the country. This is evidenced by the large number of Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora who have returned to their homes and are investing in Sri Lanka.

LTTE activists

However, there is also still a vociferous minority among them, who are intent on seeking to vilify Sri Lanka and thereby prolong the struggle. Among these actors too, serious divisions have begun to surface as to who should remain supreme.

By all accounts it is the Nediyavan faction led by Perinbananayakam Sivaparan, which has inherited control of the organizational and financial assets held by the LTTE and its front organization activists and thereby controls organized criminal activity, human smuggling and money laundering that continues to be perpetrated by the remnant LTTE activists abroad.

The Global Tamil Forum (GTF), whose key figure is self-styled Fr Emmanuel, who once infamously equated Prabhakaran to Jesus Christ, concentrates on propaganda and is increasingly becoming the public face of the Nediyavan faction. A third faction is headed by US based lawyer V Rudrakumaran, who heads the so called ‘Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam’ (TGTE), which seeks to maintain a politico-diplomatic facade of a continuing struggle for ‘Tamil Eelam’.

Foreign investors

Even as terrorism has become a thing of the past in Sri Lanka, activities of these organizations pose a considerable challenge to the Sri Lankan State in the post conflict period. They offer expatriate Tamils, many of whom have entered Western countries illegally and who in the normal course of events are likely to be repatriated home given the restoration of normalcy in Sri Lanka and the UNHCR’s declaration that Sri Lankans should no longer automatically qualify for asylum, an excuse to remain in those countries where they had sought asylum by vilifying Sri Lanka and keeping the pot boiling in the eyes of the world.

This category includes institutions such as international lending institutions and groups such as businessmen, investors, tourists, academics etc., who through their engagement with Sri Lankan society contribute to the formation of Sri Lanka’s image abroad and hold considerable power in fashioning an alternative narrative on Sri Lanka.

They have the unique advantage of being detached from both the machinations that might be plotted by external elements against Sri Lanka and the internal party politics that divide our society.

The parameters they use to assess developments in Sri Lanka are more objective.

They will appreciate what many Sri Lankans might already have forgotten; that not a single bullet has been fired in the name of counter-terrorism since May 18, 2009 that one can move freely across all parts of the country, the high degree of political stability the country enjoys, the mega investment being made for development of infrastructure, that the economy is growing at 8.5 percent, that foreign reserves at an all time high, that the Colombo Stock Exchange remains Asia’s best performer in 2010, that Lloyds and other insurance firms have formally lifted their war-risk classification, that all major credit agencies have upgraded Sri Lanka’s ratings and that tourists are arriving in droves and this the sector has registered a 44 percent growth up to September this year.

International media

We know that good news, especially from the developing world, rarely makes headlines as the tendency among news agencies is to highlight negative stories.

Even so, the nature of consistent negative projection of Sri Lanka in the international media is highly exaggerated compared to the reality on the ground. Particularly in the present times, as Sri Lanka has gone off the earlier headlines prompted by the conflict situation, to fill copy, many of the reports of international media organizations datelined Colombo, are increasingly seen to be drawing on local media reportage which is heavily polarized.

In the larger picture, this is very detrimental, because the audiences abroad, who see and hear these as summaries and sound bites, cannot separate the wheat from the chaff, unlike the local audiences, who absorb them in a more informed context, sometimes with a pinch of salt.

In the hands of a sub-editor, often a young intern, fresh out of school with little or no appreciation of the ramifications that can follow by inserting a catchy headline, an isolated killing, an arrest, a judicial ruling that attracts attention, a public protest or a strike by a trade union can get projected as though the entire country is in turmoil.

Economic sector

Other than for a few reports that specifically focus on the economic sector, most of these reports also do not reflect the quantum change that has taken place on the ground. This is from two years ago, when the Sri Lankan Security Forces were reported to be fighting pitched battles in the Vanni jungles and were unlikely to succeed, to one year ago when the country was struggling with very little help to restore normalcy in the Northern Province and to re-settle some 300,000 displaced persons and the suggestion was that the Government intended to keep these persons ad infinitum in what were offensively described as ‘concentration camps’.

There has been no admission by these prophets of doom that they were badly off the mark in their reading of the situation in the past, nor any intellectual humility to acknowledge that they could well be over-stating their case even now. As a result, the Sri Lanka that is projected ‘out there’ by the international media is clearly not what the average citizen in this country, or a foreign visitor to the island experiences ‘over here’.

Given this context, how do we set about the task of recasting Sri Lanka’s image in a manner that while multiple narratives will continue to remain, the dominant narrative takes into consideration the ground realities, reflects the commonalities we have rather than overplaying the differences and above all is credible.

I make no pretence that I have a ready answer to this question.

However from my exposure to these issues initially as a journalist and subsequently as a diplomat, as well as in my continuing academic pursuits particularly as a student of Diaspora politics, I will endeavour to share with you my thoughts on the subject, in the hope that it could serve as a catalyst for others to also join the debate, in finding the ‘best fit’ that suits Sri Lanka’s current needs in terms of image projection.

Engaging constituencies’ abroad

Pro-actively, this would require tailoring messages to address the different constituencies I have mentioned.

I believe that while the Sri Lankan Government no doubt must play the pivotal role in this task, an equally important part could be played at least with respect to some constituencies by others, who also come into contact with them, in order to generate the required transformation we so badly need if we are to succeed in recasting our image abroad.

Western Governments

In this regard, each of us, who travels abroad, interacts with those visiting the country or even makes a presence in Internet chat rooms mainly frequented by those in the West, whether we agree or not with the Government of the day, has a special responsibility to safeguard Sri Lanka’s image.

While we cannot assuage the imaginary fears of some, all Sri Lanka, like any other self - respecting country can do, is to go the extra mile to address their concerns when they are even marginally genuine and to respectfully indicate to these parties why some of their demands are misguided and unrealistic and is not in the national interest.

Sri Lanka must also remain ready to continue to engage with these parties as long as it could, but it is under no pressure today to capitulate to unreasonable demands.

At the same time, the Sri Lankan Government is conscious that the post-Nanthikadal scenario is as much a challenge to foreign governments, as it is to the Sri Lankan Government. Several ramifications are visible.

Even as pro-LTTE Tamil activists and their front organizations rapidly adjust to remain below the radar in the West, recent prosecutions/convictions in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, France, the Netherlands and several other countries have shown the extent to which such activists remain a threat to the national security of these countries.

To be continued