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Minister Wimal Weerawansa is one of the few politicians who had the courage to campaign against terrorism. One may have reservations about Wimal`s politics and his bull-in-a-china-shop approach to sensitive issues but there is no reason to question his patriotic credentials. Sadly, he blundered on Tuesday by carrying out his much advertised threat to lay siege to the UN office in Colombo. We pointed out in these columns the other day that he had not yet been fully weaned from the JVP tactics that involved more brawn than brain. Thanks to their rashness, impetuosity and aggression, anything that the pugnacious Marxist hotspurs of his ilk touch turns into an unholy mess.
Wimal and his National Freedom Front (NFF) activists must be condemned unreservedly for their abortive bid to hold the UN staff incommunicado. The police, for once, got their act together and used sufficient force to help the UN staffers leave their besieged office. That the protesters, in spite of their anti-UN frenzy, did not try to harm them was a matter for happiness. It was a faux pas on the part of the government to order the police to withdraw prematurely to satisfy Wimal`s caprice.
Theatricals of Wimal and his NFF may have gone down well with the lowest common denominator but the damage they inflicted on the country`s image was enormous. Sri Lanka`s enemies wanted Wimal to carry out his threat to take on the UN and he did not disappoint them!
It is being speculated in political circles that the anti-Sri Lankan elements in the UN system will try to make the most of Tuesday`s incident by suspending their operations in Colombo in protest. True, the government failed to honour its pledge to the UN that nothing untoward would be allowed to happen. But, let the UN worthies be asked to desist from making a mountain out of a molehill. They had no reason to keep away from work yesterday. There are no threats whatsoever to their lives and they can return to work.
When the LTTE abducted two UN employees in the Vanni in 2008, their bosses in Colombo refrained from informing the UN Headquarters of the incident. Instead, they sought to secure, through unofficial channels, the release of the victims held by the LTTE for about two months. It was an expose in this newspaper that led to the issue being raised in New York. Later, the LTTE stormed the UN office in Kilinochchi, threatened its workers and desecrated the UN flag. When the army launched the Vanni offensive, the LTTE stepped up forcible recruitment and the UN and INGOs in the North had to keep their workers indoors for months on end to prevent them being snatched away. As fighting intensified, the UN wanted to shift its workers in the Vanni to the army-controlled areas but the LTTE refused permission. At the height of war, the LTTE held scores of UN workers and their kith and kin at the battlefront as part of a human shield thus exposing them to danger. The UN took it all lying down as it did not want to embarrass some western governments on a campaign to save the LTTE leaders trapped in the Vanni. So, it is laughable that the UN bosses in Colombo keep their office closed in view of Tuesday`s protest! Whom are they trying to fool?
There is a misconception in some quarters that all UN staffers in Colombo have been on the side of the angels. But, some of them have manifestly abused Sri Lanka`s courtesy to promote terrorism. They laid bare their true faces in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster in 2004 by trying to take the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to the LTTE-held areas on some flimsy pretext in a bid to sanitise Prabhakaran`s terrorism and legitimise his macabre cause. President Chandrika Kumaratunga, to her credit, aborted their sinister plan.
Minister Weerawansa must be told that he and his men cannot scare the UN into submission and that he must not make the mistake of identifying the UN with the anti-Sri Lankan campaign by Ban Ki-moon and some others. The UN Security Council and Human Rights Council have not adopted an anti-Sri Lankan stance. Strong arm tactics against UN employees by government ministers and their followers in Colombo will only antagonise the whole UN system. At this rate, Sri Lanka will become an embarrassment even to her friends in the UN.
It is incumbent upon President Mahinda Rajapaksa to rein in the UPFA hordes on the warpath and prevent them from harassing and intimidating the UN staff in Colombo. Let no lame excuses be trotted out!
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DONP
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 548
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 8 Jul 2010 10:19:37 GMT Report for Abuse
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At this rate, Sri Lanka will become an embarrassment even to her friends in the UN
What more can you expect when you make a minister out of a pavement-hawker and let him operate in the only manner he understands and take pride of?
How can anyone take this fellow's pavement upbringing off him even if you make him the President? Don't we have examples from the past? He has the added qualifications of been christiend in the political gutters of the JVP.
Sri Lanka is destined to go a long way with guys like this at the top rungs of the Government, with the blssings of the men who matter most. Good Luck! |
rswkv
Senior Member
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8 Jul 2010 12:38:12 GMT Report for Abuse
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Wimal and his National Freedom Front (NFF) activists must be condemned unreservedly for their abortive bid to hold the UN staff incommunicado.
Come on Island grow up what else this humble balu patiya has to do when Raja Balla ordered him the protests? Get a spine The Island, condemn the one who ordered it not this paid worker..
Edited By - rswkv - 8 Jul 2010 12:42:12 GMT |
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