By Charles.S.Perera

There is a Zen Story of two young priests returning to the Monastery. It was after rain and there were puddles of water on the road side. As they were walking they saw a beautiful young woman who was hesitating to cross the road because of a large puddle of water. The elder of the two Zen Priests saw the predicament of the young woman and immediately crossed the road, lifted the young woman and placed her on the other side of the puddle of water. Then he joined the younger priest and continued to walk towards the Monastery. Having entered the Monastery they entered into their room to change the robes.

The younger priest who was silent all the time called his elder. ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- BhanteƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ he called. ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Yes friend ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- said the elder. ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- Bahante, isnƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢t it said that a monk should not touch a woman ? ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-. ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Yes, it is soƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ said the elder. ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- If so Bhante, why did you carry that woman on the road side ?ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ asked the younger Priest.

ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Well Friend, I carried the woman and left her on the other side of the puddle. But you are still carrying her.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ Said the elder.

It is so with the terrorism in Sri Lanka . The Government Forces of Sri Lanka have completely eliminated terrorism, butƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  the UK TimesƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  , IMF, UNHCR, Amnesty International and EU have still not stopped preoccupying themselves with the terrorism in Sri Lanka.

They seem to have nothing else to do other than meddling into affairs of a country, which is trying to turn a page, after that long episode of suffering to attend to other matters that had long been postponed to give priority to the elimination of terrorism. Times on line seems to be replacing the terrorists, with verbal terrorism on Sri Lankan Government with the intention of distorting as much as possible the image of Sri Lanka.

Every occasion had been made use of by these meddlers to discredit the government of Sri Lanka and its Armed Forces. Their final attempt to save the terrorists was to find an access into the no-fire Zone. With that purpose in mind they began to create an issue of violation of human rights by the Armed Forces in the no-fire zone , by the use of heavy weapons and indiscriminate shooting causing the death of civilians, damaging hospitals. In order to substantiate their accusations they made use of five Doctors working in the Hospitals of the Free Zone, who gave exaggerated figures of deaths of civilians caused by the artillery fire of the Armed Forces.

The Doctors had obviously been held as hostages by the terrorists, and forced by them to give false information. Perhaps there may have been ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-personsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ representing the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-WestƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ in the area ( there was a Canadian in the IDP Camps), who may have given the assurance to the Doctors that the International Community would intervene at the last minute to save the terrorists leadership, in which event the Doctors would have gone scott free, and perhaps migrated to one of the terrorist friendly Western Countries suchnas Canada, Norway or UK.

Prabhakaran himself seem to have stayed on in the no-fire Zone with that hope. If not he would have arranged for a way out or gone to the jungles to continue his terrorism from the hide outs in the jungles. But he was handicapped with his family whose safety was not assured in the Jungles of Mullativu.

Right through out the terrorism in Sri Lanka the International community had played a hypocritical role calling the government to return to the political option rather than the military option to end terrorism. The NGOs were their agents working with the terrorists. ICRCƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s role too was compromised as they were the go betweens with the terrorists and the Government. They too abetted or connived through their silence in spreading the false rumours of the numbers of civilian deaths in the no-fire zone and artillery attack on the Hospitals by the armed forces

There are several reasons why the Doctors had lied in favour of the terrorists. There is what is called the Stockholm Syndrome , according to which the captured become sympathetic towards their captors. And secondly there is also the sentimental attachment to oneƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s origin, and an inert feeling of agreement with the Tamil Homeland concept of the terrorists.

The latter reason of sentimental attachment to Tamilness, may also be the reason that drives Navi Pillay the High Commissioner of the UNHCHR accuse the Sri Lanka Government Armed Forces for war crimes, as revenge for eliminating the terrorist leadership. Navi Pillay cannot be blamed for being what she is, but unfortunately in that capacity she is not fit to hold the post of the High Commissioner of the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

The UK Times, says that it was despicable that the Doctors who lied to save their skins, were paraded before the journalists and made to retract their statements made to the foreign press under duress. But it is the likes of Times instigated by the Tamil expatriates, that was responsible for being so low as to have given exaggerated figures of civilian deaths caused by the artillery fire of the government forces, merely to give a lease life to a ruthless band of terrorists.

When we were young we were told that the white foreigners are punctual, honest , fair, just and reasonable. We believed it and even today the white foreigners are accepted by our people with their arms open believing that they are worthy of our respect for they are honest, just and reasonable. But now we know, thanks to the media like the Times , Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International , NGOs etc; the way how they have betrayed the trust our people placed on them and were all out to help a dangerous group of terrorists to divide our country.

The UK Times , Amnesty International, Human Rights watch and various other foreign goons are accusing our government for violation of human rights . IMF refuses to pay even a loan for development projects, and the EU turns down the GSP plus for import of textile apparels. They continue to punish our government merely for ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- fighting a victorious battle against terrorismƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚. They continue to resort to most mean ways to give a wrong picture of our government, our country, our people and our culture, perhaps for few dollars they receive from the propaganda campaign of the pro-terrorist Tamil expatriates.

The UK TimesƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  and UN both gave falsified figures of civilian deaths in the no fire zone and expected intelligent readers to believe them. Now the cat is out of the bag and Times is trying to cover up its error by creating another story of the Doctors having been forced by the Government of Sri Lanka to retract their former statements. It will be only the readers who sympathised with the terrorists that will believe the new story being recounted by theƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  UK TimesƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  editor.

The ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ UK TimesƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  shamelessly writes devastating statements about the conditions of the camps for the IDPs, without even having visited the Camps. ICRC was not fair by the government in not contradicting the false figures taken by the UNHCHR from the terrorists website TamilNet. TamilNet gave exaggerated figures of the deaths of Civilians supposed to have been caused by the artillery fire of the Armed Forces. These figures were corroborated by forcing the Doctors to give wrong figures.

The UK TimesƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  should at least now revert to a decent standard of reporting not taking its readers to be unintelligent people. ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-.

The UK TimesƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  should at least now revert from its now low and ignoble reporting on the IDP Camps and what is taking place in Sri Lanka after the elimination of terrorism, to make fair and objective reporting, keeping it self within decent ethics of good journalism.