Letter to the Editor - The Independent, UK - 10 April 2008

by Rajiva Wijesinha

The Editor Independent. co. uk April 8, 2008

Dear Sir

I read with interest the April 6 piece by your correspondent Dan McDougall regarding the activities of what he terms the Karuna faction. He writes about disappearances in Sri Lanka, and also about attempts at extortion based on such disappearances by individuals in Britain whom he claims belongs to this faction. He describes it as ‘a militia once part of the LTTE movement but now firmly allied to the Sri Lankan government’. Though he is fleetingly mentions worse practices on the part of the LTTE in a range of countries, his target is the Karuna faction, even though he notes that Karuna himself, once its leader, is now in a British prison.

The allegations he makes should certainly be investigated, and I have already asked for a report on the two that relate to Sri Lanka. Further specific information with regard to the plight of the individuals he mentions in this regard would be welcome.

It is to be hoped that he will also request the British authorities to look into the various allegations he makes about problems for the Tamil community in Britain. We would welcome his sharing with us any evidence of links between the activities he describes and any individuals currently resident in Sri Lanka. Certainly it seems bizarre that one of his informants should ask whether he is being threatened by (presumably Sri Lankan rather than British) government agents outside a church in West London.

Leaving aside these extraordinary extrapolations, I hope Mr McDougall will also use his investigative powers to highlight similar activities on the part of the LTTE. It has been said that, despite the various criminal cases brought in this regard before the courts in Britain, there has been no similar sustained critique in the Independent of the techniques used by what the FBI has described as the most dangerous terrorist outfit in the world.

The Independent should also be aware that over the last couple of years there has been a sustained campaign by the LTTE to demonize what it terms the Karuna faction. Your reporter continues to use that term, as I did recently, in talking to the political party that is based on members of the former Karuna faction, albeit about incidents that occurred in 2004. I was duly reprimanded, and I believe it is necessary to respect and support the transition to democratic practices attempted by those who were forced into more violent methods by the LTTE’s ruthless recruitment of children and young adults.

Karuna himself is now in Britain and, whilst we believe his efforts to liberate his Province from the LTTE should be admired, there is little doubt that British genius is the most appropriate to confirm his rejection of LTTE methods of violence. In Sri Lanka, the government, by introducing elections into an area where, even during the Ceasefire, the LTTE had refused to allow people to be consulted through elections, has facilitated the transition more effectively than anywhere else in the wars against terror that have proliferated in recent years. The TMVP, the political party based on the group that courageously split away from the LTTE four years ago, won local councils in elections that independent monitors ruled to be free and fair, and look set to do well in Provincial Council elections, being held after twenty years. Several other Tamil parties are also contesting, as is the major opposition party which had earlier boycotted the local elections.

Sri Lanka has a long way to go, but I believe we are dealing with our terrorist problems, including suppressing those who refuse to reform, and aiding those who are keen to change, more effectively than many other governments. In such a context recycling LTTE propaganda without question does not make much sense, though I have no doubt your correspondent sincerely believes he is fighting for justice rather than terror.

After all, thirty years ago, there was much concern about the plight of Tamil estate workers immediately after the British tea plantations were nationalized. The idealistic reporters who went to town on this had not had their attention directed thither during the hundred years and more during which foreign owners had imposed much worse conditions. I have recently edited the memoirs of one of the planters of those days who talks about his efforts to secure improvements, and also about the steady response of his Directors in London, to the effect that they were responsible to their shareholders, and could not sanction such expenses, to improve line accommodation, provide running water and better latrines.

The reporters who pounced on Sri Lanka immediately after the nationalization of the plantations had no idea that they were being used. I am sure Mr McDougall has no idea of the provenance of those who have supplied him with the information he uses now to beat an entity that no longer exists. What is going on in London I do not know, and I hope he ensures that the British authorities look into it. But with regard to Sri Lanka, it would help if he relied more on facts rather than emotions and hearsay.

Yours sincerely

Rajiva Wijesinha

Secretary General

Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process