Sri Lanka President should not face LTTE harassment abroad
Posted on June 8th, 2012
Asada M Erpini
The Business Council of the UK cancelled the address that had been scheduled to be given on 06 May in London by His Excellency Mahinda Rajapakse, the President of the sovereign state of Sri Lanka. The reason attributed was the expected protests by the LTTE.
It is difficult to accept that the UK Police is incapable of providing security to a visiting Head of State, and keep a group of protestors at bay, especially if the latter is not openly carrying arms: the Olympics 2012 is scheduled to commence on 27 July in London, and the visiting athletes and their officials as well as the spectators have been assured by the concerned parties that all security measures have been adequately handled and that there is nothing to fear.
In December 2010, the Oxford Union cancelled the scheduled address by the President of Sri Lanka at the last moment, citing security reasons related to protests by the LTTE in the UK
Additionally, a number of MPs from Sri Lanka have been mistreated by the Tamils when they were on legitimate business in Tamil Nadu. The latest is a Sri Lankan Minister who had to cancel his participation at a function in Coimbatore on the advice of the Police because of expected protests by LTTE activists and its sympathisers.
Sri Lanka may be a poor, or as the populist international jargon goes, resource compromised, Third World country. But it has many reasons that should make it proud in the international arena, foremost among those being the only country in the world that took a terrorist group head on and annihilated its military wing, in spite of many affluent nations in the West doing every imaginable ruse to derail its endeavour and declaring the LTTE as invincible.
The advisors to the President and his inner circle should plan His ExcellencyƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s visits and engagements judiciously. Whatever his faults are ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” after all he is human -, millions of Sri Lankans are in debt to him for his steadfastness and strength that he displayed by not giving in to David Milliband and Bernard Kouchner who descended on Sri Lanka in May 2009 to asking him to stop the war against the LTTE, ultimately delivering three years of peace since then.
The Head of State of Sri Lanka deserves a great deal more respect than having to face protests by Tamils who invested millions of dollars, pounds and krones and got no Eelam in return. Let the President visit only those countries that guarantee his safety and are ready to punish the offenders.
June 7th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Let them protest. Its their right. We should not be seen preventing democratic rights of any idiot.
May be it is a good reminder to the President, why he has to tighten security screws WITHIN the country.
June 7th, 2012 at 4:42 pm
The Christian West have their own agenda and no amount of preaching can change their plans for Sri Lanka. President should only take on engagements that are do-able, worthy of doing and beneficiary to the Sri Lankan nation. There are burning issues at home on which he should devote more time.
His achievements in eradicating Racist Tamil Terrorism from Sri Lanka will be forgotten soon if he messes up the his governance. There are others heroes who ended up only as foot notes in history! It is time he takes heed! Sri Lanka lives on the heroic deeds of her heroes for it is their bread and butter when it comes to meeting threats to dismember the nation. Sri Lanka certainly needs the President and his brother Gotabhaya to do well and make Sri Lanka great!
He can certainly miss out any more presentations unworthy crowds in Britain.
June 7th, 2012 at 5:50 pm
The British did their very best to save their coolie servant fat terrorist Prabha, but failed miserably. They sent Mr Bean(Milliban) and Koucher to arm twist the president, but failed again.They used Donkey Moon, the UN and various other jokers against Sri Lanka,but now have noticed Sri Lanka is growing rapidly and have good friends. Now they let the dogs to bark at our courageous leader.Let the dogs bark, but a mountain won’t come down.
June 7th, 2012 at 6:26 pm
When the High Commissioner second guesses the President of GOSL on SL soil, what can one expect from the British government in London?
These appear to be targeted and strategic moves to snub the President MR for his refusal to accept their terms to let the LTTE terrorists escape to fight another day, so that the west could continue to sell their arms and ammunition for many more years to come.
June 8th, 2012 at 10:30 am
Lorenzo, it might be the democratic right of migrant Tamils to demonstrate, but it is also the democratic right of the British people to invite foreign guests to important functions, which right unfortunately has been brutaly challenged by these Tamil Tiger migrants to UK. However, the British police for some reason seems impotent to prevent these migrants from causing rifts within their society. As for the Tamil Tiger diaspora, we know that they fear SriLankan leaders visiting overseas nations and exposing the fraud carried out by the Tiger diaspora, which presently seems to be controling important politicians and other individuals in important organisations in those countries. However, as the british police have failed to perform their duty effectively to protect democratic traditions such as freedom of speech in the UK, the british people may not tolerate the existing situation for too long and their could be a backlash against all migrants from South Asian nations. Right now, it is the UK that is suffering because of these ugly demonstrations by the Tiger diaspora and not SriLanka.
June 8th, 2012 at 3:36 pm
A. Sooriarachi,
“it might be the democratic right of migrant Tamils to demonstrate, but it is also the democratic right of the British people to invite foreign guests to important functions”
BOTH these happened PLUS OUR demonstrators (more decently) exercised their freedom too. The president went on his work (except for one speech) and Tamils protested.
What is MORE important is to prevent this happening in SL in future. By reducing army camps and numbers govt INVITES these troubles IN SL.
WHEN similar protests happen in Jaffna in 3 years, there will be NO Sinhalese or Muslims to counter them!! It will be MUCH WORSE than London!!