Open Letter To British Prime Minister And His Foreign Secretary
Dear Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband,
This petition, in the way of an Open Letter, would not have been necessary had the British Government acted with the political rectitude that it preaches to others and in compliance with the letter and spirit of the UN Charter that your country has undertaken to observe and respect.
We, the people of Sri Lanka, were surprised – nay, dismayed – to find that you, as Prime Minister, not only attended the recent Global Tamil Forum (GTF) held in London in February, but also that your Foreign Secretary addressed that gathering.
There are many people around the world who have come to believe that nothing the British Government does would surprise them. That is your reputation. You tried to stop the IMF loan to Sri Lanka and did canvass against GSP Plus. But the British Government spoke vociferously against sanctions against the Apartheid government of South Africa which practiced a system that openly discriminated against the blacks. Such has been your international conduct.
Your government invaded Iraq after lying to the British people about weapons of mass destruction. Even the other day, Mr. Brown, you defended that invasion in violation of UN principles and international law before the Chilcot inquiry. Your government pretended it would bring peace and democracy to Iraq.
All the world can see what you have brought to the Iraqi people.
We Sri Lankans however still clung onto the belief, much against our better judgment, that those who preach righteousness and humanitarianism must surely have some faith in what they preach, and like charity, would first practice it at home.
Alas, the more the people of Sri Lanka and indeed the world read and hear about the conduct of your government in undermining the high principles that you preach from the political pulpits in London, the more disillusioned they are by your constant homilies to the rest of the world. Does it take that much intelligence to realize that you are no longer a major power?
Had you and your government set an example by your exemplary conduct in this regard, we would have felt humbled and taken your words with the seriousness that they deserve, though we suspect there is more cynicism in your advocacy than righteousness.
If we were to look only at recent history and the conduct of successive British Governments from Northern Ireland to Afghanistan and Iraq, leave alone your disgusting duplicity in evicting the people of Diego Garcia from their legitimate homes and lying to the United Nation about it, you should well understand the poor opinion that the world outside has of British politics and the deviousness of your foreign policy.
Even your own people have such a low opinion of British politics and politicians, as has been so clearly demonstrated in public opinion polls that it comes as no surprise to us that you should now rub shoulders with terrorists and those who have advocated terrorism.
Your presence in their company is testimony to the bankruptcy of your political agenda and it is such a disgrace that the once great Labour Party that produced memorable politicians that adorned the Mother of Parliaments has been irredeemably reduced to a rag tag of third raters that cannot even win the confidence of the native Britons, and has to crawl on hands and feet to solicit the votes of people who have no allegiance to the UK.
It must surely surprise the average Briton to see the ludicrousness of your stance in attending the GTF inaugural meeting.
What is the ultimate goal of the GTF and the fundamental position it enunciated? The Tamil forum has as its goal the establishment of a Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. It means the division of Sri Lanka, and therefore the GTF is advocating secession.
By participating in the inaugural meeting, you, Mr. Brown and Mr. Miliband, you have endorsed this program though Mr. Foreign Secretary; you have tried to justify your position by saying that the Eelam is to be achieved by non-violent means.
Two questions arise from this. Firstly you are supporting a group whose ultimate goal is to divide a sovereign state. If division is a legitimate political practice, then why is it that your government as well as others suppressed the same aspirations of the Catholic people of Northern Ireland?
You used military force for years to suppress and crush the political aspirations of the people of Northern Ireland killing innocent protestors as you did on what has come to be known as the Bloody Sunday Massacre in June 1972.
Why was the use of military force by you to maintain the integrity of your country – though Northern Ireland is not on the same land mass just like the Falklands – correct and the use of military force by Sri Lanka repugnant to your thinking?
Is it because you failed to defeat the IRA and had to enter into political negotiations to end the conflict, whereas we succeeded in eliminating the LTTE despite all the expert prognostications by your political establishment and security experts?
Is that what is rankling in your minds as you lend support to secessionism which you did not and will not permit in your own country?
The second point is this: If the GTF wishes to push for a separate state in Sri Lanka, one would be fair in assuming that these great advocates of separation will go and live in their Eelam. Unless, of course, they are of the same hypocritical bent as you!
Is it not strange then that you are shamelessly soliciting the vote of and keeping company with persons who wish to live in their Eelam and have no allegiance to the UK?
What kind of legitimacy do you think your government would have if, in its attempts at survival, it will even seek the votes of those who have no allegiance to your country?
There is little doubt in the minds of most people that in your desperation to return to power, you are seeking the votes of the Tamil community.
So your support for the GTF arises more from your instinct for political survival than any serious belief in the agenda of the GTF.
That only makes your conduct and actions in recent years against the Sri Lanka Government doubly hypocritical.
In your address to the GTF, you said that whenever a British minister proposes an inclusive political process as a solution to the Sri Lankan minority question they are accused of “trying to tell Sri Lanka how to govern or run its own affairs.”
“I want to refute that very, very clearly, because the shape of any future political settlement is for the Sri Lankan people… It is for them to determine.”
Seriously do you think we want a lesson on this from you – we, who know how Britain was aware of the CIA torturing a British national held as a terrorist suspect? Do you think we are not aware, Mr. Miliband, of your retaining counsel to try and censor court papers so that the public will not know of your complicity and how you suffered a humiliating defeat when the court rejected your attempts?
People who have been complicit in violating the one article in international human law that is absolute – the freedom from torture – would be better advised to keep their own counsel.
Originally published on March 9, 2010 on Asian Tribune.
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