Clinton and Jayalalitha get creative on IDPs

One did not think that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalitha and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have much in common, although both are seasoned politicians in their own ways. The former leads a state in the world’s largest elective democracy, and the other holds unelected office of much power in the world’s most powerful elective democracy. At their recent meeting in Chennai, they displayed another commonality, which was not so evident till then. It is their ability to shed copious crocodile tears for the Tamil people of Sri Lanka.

In this instance it was the Internally Displaced Tamils or IDPs of Sri Lanka, and in their chorus of sorrow and concern for them, one saw more than a touch of self-serving political interest, rather than the genuine interest of the IDPs themselves. One must not forget that Hillary Clinton, accepted money from supporters of the LTTE, a terrorist organization banned in the USA, in her primary campaign against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination.

She did refund the money from the Tamils for Clinton, after the obvious embarrassment to her cause, only when a Sri Lankan diplomat told her the truth about her donors. Let’s believe she did not know of their terrorist links when she took the dollars.

LTTE’s terrorism

Jayalalitha has blown hot and cold about the LTTE’s terrorism; opposing them when her arch rival Karunanidhi of the DMK supports them, and vice-versa.

Now that the LTTE has been militarily defeated, something that Clinton and Obama have still failed to do with the terrorists they are fighting against in Afghanistan, Jayalalitha has become a highly vocal crusader for the Sri Lankan Tamil IDPs, determined to twist the arms of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, to make her mark as the new redeemer of Sri Lankan Tamils; before the politics of corruption, nepotism, caste and regionalism catches up with her, just as it did to Karunanidhi before her.

One can understand the politics of Jayalalitha, although one may not agree with it. Not all politicians, either in India or Sri Lanka, base their thinking on facts or pay much importance to reality. Their politics has much more to do with emotion and the falsifying of events. So, she will keep shedding her false tears for the IDPs across the Palk Strait, in the calculated hope of keeping the support of the Tamil electorate in her state with her, for as long as possible.

But Hillary Clinton has no such political demands, although she must be hoping to keep the pro-LTTE Tamil support in New York State with her for any eventuality. Yet, one expects the Secretary of State of the United States to be more familiar with facts when she makes public utterances that involve foreign countries, their governments and people.

It is not that the US Secretary of State has no aides and researchers to do the homework for her before she goes public on cross-national issues. The very needs of diplomacy demands that she as the Foreign Minister of the USA, which is the role of the Secretary of State, keeps herself much better briefed on what she states in public, rather than gladly join a seasoned actress in both the cinema and politics when she sheds crocodile tears for the IDPs of Sri Lanka.

Economic progress

With an alarming lack of concern for facts, Hillary Clinton has thought it proper to go along with Jayalalitha in her lament about the Tami IDPs of Sri Lanka’s North, as called for ‘innovative and creative ideas’ in dealing with the internally displaced Sri Lankan Tamils, still living in ‘camps’.

Even if one leaves the creativity and innovation to the actress in Jayalalitha, Hillary Clinton had much more practical ways of getting a proper input as to the actual state of the IDPs in Sri Lanka.

All she had to do was make sure she spoke to the former US Ambassador in Colombo, and now the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert O Blake.

As far back as September 2010 Assistant Secretary Blake told the World Affairs Council in San Diego that the future of Sri Lanka holds promise with the end of the war and the impressive economic progress. He noted that most of the nearly 300,000 displaced civilians have left the welfare villages and begun to re-establish their lives.

IDP issue

The US Ambassador in Colombo today, Patricia Butenis, would also have been able to bring Clinton up to date on the number of IDPs still in welfare villages, and how the resettlement of those people, the unfortunate victims of brutal terrorism unleashed by the LTTE, many of who were forced to be human shields for that terrorist outfit, are now being resettled at great cost and effort, shared by the government of Sri Lanka with many donors from abroad, not the least the United States of America.

The problem with Hillary Clinton is her willingness to be carried away by anything against the Sri Lankan government that is whispered in her ear, or told to her more openly as in this instance, by those who claim to speak for the Tamil people of Sri Lanka. This is how she made that huge blunder when she told the UN Security Council, nearly two years ago, that that Sri Lankan troop had been using rape as a weapon of war against the Tamil people.

It was a gross falsehood, unbecoming of her office, that she had to withdraw through a key representative at the Department of State.

If she does not wish to trust her Assistant Secretary for this region, Richard O Blake, she could have asked the UN organization that deals with refugees and IDPs, and found out the facts.

The UNHCR is on record having commended the work of the Sri Lankan government for the speed with which the IDPs have been resettled, and it has also made important contributions to this effort.

Another source that would have put Hillary Clinton straight about Sri Lankan IDPs is the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which has also been highly complementary of the resettlement policy of the government in Colombo, and the speed with which it has, and is being done. It is a process that has surprised many concerned individuals and organizations for the speed of resettlement. That included a team of members of the State Legislature of Tamil Nadu, too, who made a special visit to see the conditions under which the IDPs lived and the process of resettlement.

But her call for innovation and creativity in dealing with the IDP issue in Sri Lanka showed that Hillary Clinton had no interest in facts.

Her larger interest was pleasing Jayalalitha, possibly keeping her happy with fake tears for the IDPs of Sri Lanka, on top of the promise of more investment by American business in Tamil Nadu. But such blatant disregard for facts is not what is best for US policy in the South Asian Region, where its relations with Pakistan are certainly very close to being the worst, it has no choice but to withdraw fast from Afghanistan, and its new cozying up to India and Tamil Nadu (or Jayalalitha) can have its own adverse consequences, in the wider context of US interests in the South Asian Region.

Indian Ocean region

It would be good for the US Secretary of State to read the report of two senior US Senators on the need to understand the strategic importance of Sri Lanka, in the Indian Ocean region; instead of seeking to please an actress politician, ever ready to shed fake tears for Sri Lankan Tamils.

She is a politician swept into state power in a much larger country, largely due to corruption of her rival, and not over the plight, real or imagined, of the Sri Lanka Tamils and IDPs in the North of Sri Lanka.

Hillary Rodham Clinton must get her facts straight. For the record, she must know that as at July 08, 2011 the total number of IDPs in Sri Lanka has declined to 10, 956. That is an easily verifiable official figure. This may be a fact that is hard for Jayalalitha to swallow, but it is something the US Secretary of State should know. That number is from a total of nearly 300,000 at end 2009, when resettlement began.

Can Hillary Clinton just tell us how long it took to resettle all of the IDPs from Hurricane Katrina, and whether it is true there are some who have still not been resettled?