CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

UNESCO Director General makes a fool of himself

Tuesday, 18 December 2007

Dr. Tilak S. Fernando

The Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Koichiro Matsuura’s garrulous remarks and condemnation of the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) attack on the clandestine radio station operated by the LTTE terrorist organisation by stating that, "…regardless of the content of the broadcasts aired by the Voice of Tigers, there can be no excuse for military strikes on civilian media and such action contravenes the Geneva Convention which require the military to treat media workers as civilian’ has exposed perhaps his lack of knowledge on Sri Lanka or possibly being briefed by his subordinates via LTTE agents with false information that has done sufficient damage to his prestigious position as the Director General of the UNESCO as much as to the Organisation itself.

The Voice of Tigers (VoT) was not a legalised and independent radio station but which actively engaged in disseminating adverse propaganda against Sri Lanka, purely to lionize terrorist activities not only within Sri Lanka but to a worldwide audience. It was just in time that the Sri Lanka Air Force managed to destroy it when it was about to transmit yet another hatred speech on the terrorists’ Heroes day by its leader Prabhakaran.

If Koichiro Matsuura had an atom of basic knowledge of what really goes on in Sri Lanka, he should have realised to what extent some of the Sri Lankan broadcasting organisations are owned by prominent Tamils in this country. The Director General should have also known that no Tamil, Sinhala or English newspaper has been banned in Sri Lanka. There are privately operated Tamil TV channels under broadcasting licence covering the full continuum of the country which enjoy their freedom to transmit and telecast anything without any censorship. Contrary to the above, the Voice of Tigers was completely a terrorist radio whose purpose was to exalt terrorism, killing and destruction. Unlike in the case of a registered radio station under licence, it was an impossible task to ban or put a stop to such a clandestine operation carried out from what is known as ‘uncleared’ areas of the jungle where terrorists still occupy a fraction of the land. The only measure, therefore, left for the SLAF was to finish them off by bombing.

Whenever the Sri Lankan authorities came across any licensed broadcasting organisation stepping out of line and which endangered the national security of the country, the Sri Lanka government had shown no mercy in banning them altogether. Not so long ago, a prominent broadcasting corporation, the ABC was banned within 24 hours of having broadcast false information which put the security of the nation at risk. From a cultural aspect too the Sri Lankan government has taken stern steps when it banned the Raja FM radio station within 24 hours, for adopting a language, material and presentations which were foul, corruptive, and indecent and threatened the nation’s very social fabric. By the same token Sri Lanka could firmly and very proudly say that it has not banned a single private Tamil-owned radio or TV station despite some of them at times not being very friendly towards the State. This clearly goes to show that the attack on the VoT was not an isolated exercise.

It is well known today that some of the foreign representatives of international institutions who are based in this country do not feed back the real ground situation in Sri Lanka to their superiors abroad, which has caused on many an occasion embarrassment to their masters, who entirely place their implicit trust and depend on their subordinates’ unbiased and constructive feed back. Misdemeanour acts of some of these foreign representatives not only tarnish the good name and attempts made by Sri Lanka in its efforts to eradicate a serious terrorist plague in the country, but help their own masters to make fools of themselves at times with flippant statements such as the one the UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura did on the clandestine VoT radio station.

Sri Lanka, being a member of the UNESCO for half a century, the Director General should have at least had some basic knowledge of what was happening here for the last 30 years. Probably this official may not have realised the gravity of the blunder he made, perhaps due to misinformation fed to him from his Colombo office who have exposed themselves in this instance as being engaged in duplicity and working against the Sri Lanka government.

UNICEF and NGO activities have been exposed earlier too for "dishing out their equipment, vehicles and material to LTTE terrorists". Dr. Heendeniya, an ex-employee of the Red Cross Organisation, being a true son of Sri Lanka and a patriot, has not only ‘exposed a massive racket by the Red Cross with the connivance of foreigners to transport drugs, surgical material, urea and bombs even using ambulances’, but in a true national spirit, thrown the towel in when he no longer could stomach the duplicity that he witnessed from the main Red Cross Society Base in Kilinochchi.

What silenced Koichiro Matsuura when the LTTE terrorists bombed the SLAF base at Anuradhapura not so long ago; when the LTTE employed a disabled suicide bomber to attack a Sri Lankan Cabinet Minister Douglas Devananda where innocent civilians were killed; exploding a time bomb at a fashion house at Nugegoda and killing more than 19 civilians including a young school girl, and the claymore mine attack on a passenger bus in the Kebethigollewa area killing so many innocent passengers?

If Koichiro Matsuura had read the elementary books in Japanese history he should have realised that over 65 years ago it was this little country, then known as Ceylon, which came to their rescue at the St. Francisco Conference where the whole world stood against them for bombing Pearl Harbour. He should have also known the very famous words of the Sri Lankan Representative who, quoting the Buddha said, "Nahi Verena Verani, (hatred cannot be overcome with hatred) and appealed to the entire world to forgive the sins committed by Japanese government and not to punish the Japanese nation.

It is the normal practice in the so-called civilised West to quit from his/her public office once he/she puts the reputation of the institution he works for at risk or causing him/herself embarrassment. Perhaps Koichiro Matsuura should follow the three-time Olympic gold medallist who pleaded guilty recently, lying to Federal investigators when she denied using performance enhancing drugs and announced her retirement after the hearing.

It is high time that Koichiro Matsuura comes out clean and say, ‘it is with great amount of shame that I stand before you and tell that I have made a fool of myself by giving a wrong interpretation to the world that there was no difference between a terrorist operation and that of a normal civilian outfit.’ In my book, he has no choice but to resign and I am sure it would be the voice of Sri Lanka.

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