2 Responses to “Sri Lanka: could the West do more about human rights and press freedom?”

1. nilwala Says:
   July 8th, 2010 at 8:43 pm

   Douglas Wickramaratna single-handedly faced 3 anti-GOSL foreign journalists and is to be congratulated for his brave defense of Sri Lanka and for presenting facts about Sri Lanka’s long war against the LTTE that do not get exposure in the Western press (US and UK), which instead seems to be stuck in a time warp of the last days of the conflict, and drowned in statistics derived from rump-LTTE sources that are being taken unquestioned.
   A video clip shown at the outset referred to 280,000 Tamil civilians being kept in camps – with no reference at all to the fact that all except some 30,000 have been resettled in this brief space of an year. The numbers of civilians reported as killed has varied from 7000 (UN – Holmes) to 30,000 (Times on Line) to 40,000 (ICG), but none of the accusing panelists seem to have a problem with these free-floating numbers.
   The moderator Steven Sackur was more balanced than was expected, but he should have given Douglas equal time as the 3 opponents put together, in order for Douglas to make a fair response to the many allegations and accusations being hurled at Sri Lanka from these 3 panelists. Sackur was fair in at least mentioning in response to one of the panelists who accused Sri Lanka of being a “sinister place far worse than Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Burma”, that when he (Sackur) visited Sri Lanka he had not sensed anything to fit that description, and that even Tamils in the North had said they were glad to be rid of the LTTE who had taken away their children as recruits, and who said they had suffered the LTTE’s terror and violence. The hostility of the 3 Western panelists to Sri Lanka was quite evident, and clearly they had no compassion at all for what Sri Lankans had undergone these last 3 decades, and what it means to Sri Lankans to finally have the LTTE routed and the war over and done. The anger of the diaspora who supported the LTTE notwithstanding, it is the people living in Sri Lanka who experienced the terror, and it is they who should be given the hearing; it is their suffering and not those of a frustrated diaspora that should be considered by the West, if it hopes to restore once more the good feelings of friendship that many Sri Lankans had towards the West. Press freedom and ready access into Sri Lanka were what the Western panelists were most concerned about, but the elementary fact that it is their own antagonistic stance that prevents Sri Lanka, still nursing the wounds of war, from offering its usual well known hospitality to persons with clear ‘mala fide’ intentions, seems to elude them. Still, the title question of this discussion is hopefully a gesture that might indicate that Western hostility towards Sri Lanka has peaked out.

2. nilwala Says:
   July 8th, 2010 at 8:49 pm

   Douglas Wickramaratna single-handedly faced 3 anti-GOSL foreign journalists and is to be congratulated for his brave defense of Sri Lanka and for presenting facts about Sri Lanka’s long war against the LTTE that do not get exposure in the Western press (US and UK), which instead seems to be stuck in a time warp of the last days of the conflict, and drowned in statistics derived from rump-LTTE sources that are being taken unquestioned.
   A video clip shown at the outset referred to 280,000 Tamil civilians being kept in camps – with no reference at all to the fact that all except some 30,000 have been resettled in this brief space of an year. The numbers of civilians reported as killed has varied from 7000 (UN – Holmes) to 30,000 (Times on Line) to 40,000 (ICG), but none of the accusing panelists seem to have a problem with these free-floating numbers.
   The moderator Steven Sackur was more balanced than was expected, but he should have given Douglas equal time as the 3 opponents put together, in order for Douglas to make a fair response to the many allegations and accusations being hurled at Sri Lanka from these 3 panelists. Sackur was fair in at least mentioning in response to one of the panelists (Channel 4) who accused Sri Lanka of being a “sinister place far worse than Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Burma”, that when he (Sackur) visited Sri Lanka he had not sensed anything to fit that description, and that even Tamils in the North had said they were glad to be rid of the LTTE who had taken away their children as recruits, and who said they had suffered the LTTE’s terror and violence. The hostility of the 3 Western panelists to Sri Lanka was quite evident, and clearly they had no compassion at all for what Sri Lankans had undergone these last 3 decades, and what it means to Sri Lankans to finally have the LTTE routed and the war over and done. The anger of the diaspora who supported the LTTE notwithstanding, it is the people living in Sri Lanka who experienced the terror, and it is they who should be given the hearing; it is their suffering and not those of a frustrated diaspora that should be considered by the West, if it hopes to restore once more the good feelings of friendship that many Sri Lankans had towards the West. Press freedom and ready access into Sri Lanka were what the Western panelists were most concerned about, but the elementary fact that it is their own antagonistic stance that prevents Sri Lanka, still nursing the wounds of war, from offering its usual well known hospitality to persons with clear ‘mala fide’ intentions, seems to elude them. Still, the title question of this discussion is hopefully a gesture that might indicate that Western hostility towards Sri Lanka has peaked out.

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