Ramanie de Zoysa

There is an apt Sinhala saying balallun lava kos ata bawanawa”; the phrase literally means someone is using a cat’s paw to pull out (roated) Jak seeds (kos ata) from the fire. Jak seeds roasted in a woodfire is a tasty treat eaten by Sinhala villagers; once roasted, one needs a fireproof utensil to pull out the roasted nut. 

BBC has been one of the most prominent mouthpieces for the terrorist group LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelaam) that ravaged Sri Lanka for over three decades; killing over a hundred thousand people and maiming countless civilians both physically and psychologically and destroying millions of dollars’ worth of public property. BBC has, right throughout the 30 years, been an unashamed and unapologetic spokesperson for the Tamil insurgents and their organisers living in the affluent West- distorting real facts, running falsehoods spewed by LTTE frontmen as news items or documentaries, producing via Channel 4 complete fake documentaries which have astounded Sri Lankans due to their venomous misrepresentation of facts or outright deception and audacity. Is this done out of ignorance of the real situation on the ground or is BBC pulling jak seeds out of the fire for the voracious consumption of someone powerful? Once we know the answer to this question we can evaluate our methods of responding.  

If no one has ever corrected BBC and put before them the real facts, one can understand the ignorance argument to mitigate BBC’s callous disregard for the truth and its co-habitation with key LTTE figures. However, for decades hundreds of people have made submissions, written letters and used a multitude of other ways and means to put BBC right- to no avail. One can wake someone who is asleep but when the sleeper is faking sleep, how do you wake the fake? BBC is not ignorant- therefore it is not asleep. Instead, BBC is faking sleep and we are wasting our time and effort trying to put forward facts before it to wake BBC up. Instead, we need to understand the under-currents that motivate BBC to play such a terrorist friendly role. For a start, who is BBC and how does it acquire funds for its existence?

BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is a British ‘public corporation’- which means BBC is a public company incorporated by the British Government. It is one of 23 or so public companies incorporated by the British Government similar to National Health Service (NHS), Royal Mint, Post Office and the Land Registry. The BBC is established under a Royal Charter by the British Government and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport of Britain. This just means that BBC is the information arm of the British Government- doesn’t it?!  Curiously, another of the British Government’s 23 public corporations is Channel Four Television Corporation. Remember the Channel 4 documentaries – Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields? Well, Channel 4 is another one of British Government’s public corporations!

The money flow- where does the funding come from?

Ostensibly BBC’s main responsibility is to provide impartial public service broadcasting in the UK, Channel Islands and Isle of Man. No, it’s not a typo! BBC is supposed to be impartial”! Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee which is charged to all British households, companies, and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts. According to publicly available data, the total income from broadcasting licence fees was £3.83 billion in 2017–18 of which £655.3 million or 17.1% was provided by the government through concessions for those over the age of 75. Thus, the licence fee made up the bulk (75.7%) of the BBC’s total income of £5.0627 billion in 2017–2018 and 17% of that came from the British Government by way of elderly concessions mentioned above. Please look at the 2019 financial accounts for BBC at http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/reports/annualreport/2018-19.pdf. They are similar in pattern to the 2018 numbers.

Therefore, basically, BBC is a British Government Corporation with the right to collect a fee from the general public. Why does a British Public Corporation established and funded to provide an ‘impartial broadcasting service’ peddle Tamil terrorism against a very small island in the Indian Ocean?

The answer lies in the British Foreign Policy produced in Whitehall.

Mark Curtis in his book Unpeople” published by Vintage 2004, made startling revelations about what the British foreign policy is like and how Britain (and the US) goes about achieving their goals through their foreign policies. Another writer of this calibre is John Pilger. Both Curtis and Pilger used declassified top secret” documents as the primary sources of information for their writing.

Please see an article by Rudra de Zoysa posted on Lankaweb on September 23rd, 2011 titled Some aspects of British Foreign Policy as it relates to Sri Lanka” for more details on this. http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2011/09/23/some-aspects-of-british-foreign-policy-as-it-relates-to-sri-lanka/.

In his article de Zoysa commented; Britain’s foreign policy is (and has been for the last century or so) crafted by a small group of government ministers, civil servants, diplomats and other bureaucrat with wide-ranging powers. Most of these people have attended Ivy League schools or universities, come from conservative  and ‘noble’ families such as Winston Churchill, Baroness Symonds, Lord Chalfont and bear such double barrel names as Douglas-Home and Drummond-Willoughby. They all have stiff upper lips, carry neatly rolled up umbrellas and are members of exclusive clubs. They also have the conviction that their white culture is superior and theirs is a superior form of life.”

Now, here’s the crux of the matter- what is this British foreign policy that requires the covert and overt promotion of terrorism in other countries? What are the goals of British foreign policy?

The goal of British foreign policy has always been to preserve its commercial interests and its international standing as a global super power- (US is no different). This was achieved through brutal colonisation of Africa and Asia and through slavery in the not too distant past. However, in the post war times Britain and its ally the US have had to change their previously used strategies to achieve their goals. In Whitehall, the Ivy League brains had to come up with ways to replace colonialism and slavery with strategies that will achieve Britain’s self-interest without using the now not-so-fashionable colonisation and slavery.

According to de Zoysa in the article mentioned above, there are 5 cornerstones of British foreign policy:

1). deepening support for state terrorism in other countries,

2). enhancing Britain’s ability to interfere militarily in global affairs (even if they have to play a ‘puppy dog’ role to enable United Sates foreign policy goals),

3). increasing state propaganda operations towards the British public,

4). the principle that Britain is no longer bound by international law, and, finally

5). the denial of the need to apologise for crimes done in colonial days.” (emphasis added)

De Zoysa further commented that Declassified documents (and postings of WikiLeaks) reveal that the decision makers in Whitehall were very honest in the policy documents about their real feelings and goals and disregard for human rights and humanitarian concerns…”

If you look at foreign policy numbers 1 and 3, isn’t this where Sri Lanka comes in? Unbelievable at some level may be, Britain has done nothing but support LTTE terrorism over the last 30 years! Together with the rest of the West, Britain forced Sri Lanka to sit down and negotiate with terrorists- on and on with no positives results for the civilian victims! I do not recollect one single incident where Britain asked the LTTE diaspora that was funding the carnage in Sri Lanka from England, to refrain from doing so. However, the ceasefires and negotiations providing the much needed breathing space to LTTE to re-group, re-arm and refresh for a more violent attack next time were directly supported and facilitated by Britain. Then again, we have always wondered about this- haven’t we?! Why wouldn’t a responsible, world leader say or do something to stop a group of terrorists against killing and maiming civilians- especially when they were in direct contact with the organisers and funders of the carnage- the LTTE diaspora?!  Was the reason that this is exactly what Britain wanted?!

Some with more humble opinions of themselves may laugh at the idea that Britain would pick tiny Sri Lanka to destabilise. These would also be the same people who think that the US in their generosity were trying to give” Sri Lanka $480m to build roads” via the recent MCC debacle! Answering readers of that mind set is not within the scope of this letter.

The number of countries where Britain has engineered regime change are well known. Curtis pointed out Iran (1953); British Guiana (1953 and 1963); Egypt (1956); Indonesia (1957 & 1965); Yemen (1962 to 1970); Oman (1970); Libya (1996 and 2011); Yugoslavia (1999); Afghanistan (2001 to date); Sri Lanka (tried in 2009 and still trying): also Saudi Arabia, Israel, early days of Idi Amin, support for the Chilean dictator Pinochet, Indonesia and early days of Sadaam Hussein are but a few more examples.

Where does BBC come in? BBC helps with policies one and three- that is supporting terrorism overseas to destabilise and to feed fake news to the British public. That is why it is the mandate of BBC to support those who cause terror in selected overseas posts. BBC is not interested in the victims of terror- that is possibly ‘collateral damage’. BBC is interested in what the armed terrorists want, what their aspirations are and where any disappeared to. BBC is there to keep the British public in the dark to keep the home front trouble free for the Government which the Government goes about foraging for more wealth. Remember the WMD (weapons of mass destruction) story that facilitated the Iraqi invasion because the West’s plant, Hussein was not behaving himself? Right though out the LTTE onslaught the news were delivered to the world by BBC news anchors/ producers almost exclusively consisting of Coomaraswamys, Manchettys, Gurumurthys and the like? Coincidence?! Probably not!   

This is probably why that complain” button at the BBC website doesn’t work so well for you! BBC is the information” arm of the British Government. It is there to support British global agendas which do not include the wellbeing of you and me.

BBC is only the cat’s paw; it is pulling kos ata from the coal for the consumption of the British Government. Target your responses to British thuggery and neo-colonialism accordingly. BBC is not there to get you the truth; it is there to manufacture the ‘Truth” that will suit and support the British foreign policy agenda.