The Mouse’s Tail

One cannot but feel some sympathy for the (now ex-) Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Attempted rape is a heinous crime, even worse when it is committed against an employee - sexual assault compounded by sexual harassment in the workplace. But he has only been accused of this double crime, not convicted - except perhaps by the media.

‘Strauss-Kahn, whose lawyer Ben Brafman says his client is innocent,’ writes Susan Antilla on CNN’s website, ‘had been a likely candidate in the 2012 French Presidential election - an international political superstar. But in the world of workplace assault and harassment complaints, he’s a pretty typical perp.’

Now this sounds very much like the Mouse’s Tail in ‘Alice in Wonderland’: ‘I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury,’ said cunning old Fury: ‘I’ll try the whole cause, and condemn you to death.’ Or very much borderline.

Modern world

There is no doubt that the media owe it to their readers - and to the public at large - to rake up the dirt wherever it is. But it is a big step to go from there to the Mouse’s Tail.

Unfortunately, trial by media is very much a going concern.

It should also be remembered that, as the New Yorker journalist A J Liebling said, ‘Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.’ In practice, it is the media big guns which have a say - and a huge say it is in the modern world of fast mass communication. And what it does not say is as important as what it does.

Consider the following. On May 16, a Baghdad wire agency reported that at least 21 bodies had been found in a mass grave in Fallujah in the Anbar province of Iraq. This was picked up by Xinhua and AFP, which issued bulletins on the following day.

Western media

According to the Xinhua report, ‘the bodies were found in body bags and have numbers, indicating that they were not killed and buried by militant groups’.

AFP quoted Brigadier General Mahmud al-Essawi of the Fallujah Police as saying: The bodies were found in body-bags with Latin letters and numbers on them. They were blindfolded, their legs were tied and they had suffered gunshot wounds.

AFP also reported that the town’s mayor Adnan Hussein had accused American forces of carrying out the killings. The item wraps up by saying that the US military declined immediate comment on the report.

This incident does not seem to have registered even as a blip across the radar screens of the Western media. On the other hand, there has been ample mention of an alleged mass grave in Deraa, Syria. So what is sauce for the goose is not necessarily sauce for the gander.

It is against this background that the controversy surrounding the report of the Darusman Panel must be judged.

Fabricate information

The position of the Sri Lankan government is that it will not respond to the Darusman Panel’s Report. The panel was not set up at the behest of the United Nations Security Council or of its General Assembly, and as such cannot be considered to be an official body.

In other words, like Ammu in Arundhati Roy’s ‘God of small things’, the Darusman Panel has No Locusts Stand I. It is homeless. Its attempt at a Mouse’s Tail has no future.

Or would not have, except that there is the media; or, to be more precise, the Western media.

Consider the train of events leading up to the appointment of the Darusman Panel. Complaints of excesses by the government in the North towards the end of the Eelam conflict were first raised by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a shadowy NGO.

The ICG is part of a network of even more shadowy right-wing organizations and advocacy groups, such as the Project for the New American Century, the National Endowment for Democracy and the now-defunct American Committee for Peace in Chechnya.

The ICG’s cry was taken up by a number of International NGOs, including Human Rights Watch (HRW), a very high profile Human Rights advocacy group.

It should be noted here, parenthetically, that HRW caused controversy earlier with its ‘report’ on Venezuela. In 2008 more than a hundred experts on Latin America wrote to HRW complaining about it. Their letter makes interesting reading, and may sound familiar.

LLRC

The academics pointed out that the report made sweeping allegations based on minimal evidence and that the sources cited in it - including a mentally unstable opposition blogger - had been known to fabricate information.

However that may be, neither the ICG nor HRW were willing to appear before the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), despite being invited to do so.

The Western media picked up on the hue and cry being raised by the ICG, HRW and the other INGOs and the ball was set rolling along the undulating rodent appendage, to be fielded by Ban ki-Moon and Darusman.

In his documentary ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’, Michael Moore indicated that it was the ‘fait accompli’ by Fox News in calling Florida for George W Bush which ultimately cost Al Gore the 2000 US Presidential election. Whether or not this is true, enough people believe that Fox News is capable of influencing events to such an extent.

The power of the Western media is great indeed, and that power can be transformed into momentum. It can sweep events along with as much dexterity as it can sweep facts under the carpet.

It is vital for the Sri Lankan government not to be cast in the role of ‘a pretty typical perp’ who protests his innocence in a trial by clamour orchestrated by the likes of the ICG and HRW.

It must mobilise all the resources at its disposal, journalistic, diplomatic, and of the not inconsiderable Sri Lankan expatriate community in a pro-active manner to publicise the inequity being visited upon it. It must gird its loins and cut off the Mouse’s Tail.