CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

“Why is Karuna So Fortunate”? British High Commissioner Chilcott Does Not Answer

By Philip Fernando in Los Angeles (Philip Fernando is the former Editor of the Sunday Observer currently domiciled in Los Angeles)

How many lives dies Karuna have? Intriguing, judging by what British High Commissioner in Colombo Dominic Chilcott expressed during a recent speech. Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan alias Kuruna now held under British custody in London for entering U K with a forged Diplomatic passport has not been prosecuted yet. Chilcott did not explain why, during the recent annual Dudley Senanayake memorial lecture at which he made the keynote address.

This is what Commissioner Chilcot said: “... many of the rules of the older schools of diplomacy are no longer practiced. For example, any person claiming to be an ambassador in ancient Athens, without having been given the proper credentials by the Assembly first, was liable to be put to death. Fortunately for one Sri Lankan national, currently in detention in the UK, that practice does not apply in modern Britain, otherwise the penalty for reportedly entering the UK on a diplomatic passport with a false identity might be very severe indeed.”

Even though human rights activists have insisted that Karuna be tried and punished for his role as ex-LTTE operative and later as an LTTE dissenter, British justice seemed not to be moving in any direction. The same activists had repeatedly warned earlier that Karuna had recruited child cadres, indulged in extortion or forced people to provide funds to his military operation, practice acts of torture and terrorism. These are identical practices which prompted the British government to proscribe LTTE as a terrorist organization.

A Karuna trial would be intriguing indeed. What will come out? Can the British government be held responsible to permitting these practices to exist in Britain for so many years? Such treacherous activities by the terrorists have to be either annihilated or curbed drastically, which the British government had failed to do.

So Mr. Chilcott has the responsibility of explaining what he meant by his statement “Fortunately for one Sri Lankan national, currently in detention in the UK, that practice (of getting punished) does not apply in modern Britain, otherwise the penalty for reportedly entering the UK on a diplomatic passport with a false identity might be very severe indeed.”

The answer may never be forthcoming, at least for some time to come. Mr. Chilcott is reportedly completing his term of service in Sri Lanka early next year.

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