SL:Here is a candidate who has allegedly accused his own past,and here is a government that wants to enliven a serious allegation against itself...!!!

GENERAL FONSEKA’S COMMENT AND THE CONSCIENCE OF OTHERS

With the issues surrounding the alleged comment made by the opposition’s common Presidential candidate General Sarath Fonseka to a newspaper gaining ground, almost all issues concerning the ordinary people have been overshadowed. Also the election campaign has turned into a smear campaign, as President Mahinda Rajapaksa said, days ago.
The debate over the controversial remark allegedly made by General Sarath Fonseka too has become an appropriate case in point. Some people have gone to the extent of misleading the voters by launching fake websites that are full of “mud.” It is not clear as to how much impact could be made on the voters with “mud” in order to change hearts.

However, the controversial comment allegedly made by General Sarath Fonseka has raised so many vital questions that have not been answered by the people concerned, in spite of the fact that it has eclipsed the real issues of the masses; and also it provides us a platform for a discourse on media practice, political ethics and international politics.

It is natural that various issues that have nothing to do with the main theme or the context concerned would crop up during media interviews. However, given the well known tussle between the former Army Commander and the Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, a comment such as the one in question coming up at an interview by the paper concerned with General Fonseka is in no way incomprehensible.

Whether the alleged comment was voluntarily made by the former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) or it was made in response to a question is not important here, since even if the journalist concerned asked a question in this direction, it is justifiable on her part to be curious on the circumstances under which the LTTE leaders were killed during the final days of the war.

Because stories had been in circulation some months ago about the unsuccessful attempt by two prominent LTTE leaders to surrender through the LTTE’s international Wing leader Selvarasa Padmanathan alias KP, the then UN special envoy to Sri Lanka Vijay Nambiar and Marie Colvin, senior journalist with The Sunday Times (London) at the final stage of the war. But then the name of the Defence Secretary was not dragged in.

However, the alleged comment in question was too serious in spite of the Editor of the newspaper that carried it being too bold to publish it. It is now up to the courts to decide whether carrying it was derogatory or not, as the Defence secretary has taken legal action against the newspaper. The court proceedings in this regard would be an important case study on defamation, for the students of journalism.

On the other hand this would also be a significant case study on the collective as well as individual conscience of a nation. It might most probably be provocative for one to question the propriety of killing of the surrendered LTTE leaders, had that happened, despite the countrymen boast of their nobility, as all other nations do. It would also push us towards a struggle with our own conscience. It might be equally provocative, in all probability, to question the propriety of concealing of information on such killings, again, had they happened.

There is another aspect of the issue. Sri Lanka is now free from bombings, mass killings and fears of war after three decades, despite the underlying problems of the conflict remaining unprobed, leave alone resolving them. There were attempts to probe them in Geneva with the LTTE and it was put off until the end of the war only to be again postponed until the re-election of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

However, even the Tamils in the Northern and the Eastern Provinces, whom the LTTE claimed to be fighting for, are now relieved of violence. They now do not have to fear their teenaged children being conscripted, their houses being flattened by air raids on LTTE fortifications. Roads and bridges in the two provinces are now being developed; transport facilities and telecommunication facilities in the provinces are being improved.

Therefore, one can justifiably question whether this situation would have been so, had the LTTE leaders been left to go underground or abroad or at least left to be arrested or surrender. Then again, we are to confront a dilemma of conscience as to whether we are rejoicing over the decimation of the LTTE leadership including those who might have surrendered and also whether it is proper to rejoice, irrespective of the circumstances under which they were killed. This might be a debate within the conscience of some, who believed those stories, despite it not being preferred to be debated openly.

There have been other instances in the history where political leaders tended to expose the violent and brutal behaviour of the state or the armed forces of their own countries. A local case in point was the one where Mahinda Rajapaksa as a radical opposition parliamentarian tried to smuggle out to Geneva hundreds of photographs of dead bodies of youth killed by the armed forces and the vigilante groups which then existed, for their alleged links with the JVP, during its second insurrection in 1988/9. Also in South Africa, the anti- Apartheid leaders demanded sanctions against their own country to pressurize the White rulers of that country to end brutality against Blacks.

The then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once argued that the sanctions would further aggravate the hardships faced by the poor Blacks, the victims of Apartheid, a contention that was not practised in Iraq and Afghanistan.

However, the issue now before us can be termed as a far cry from the cases with Rajapaksa taking photographs to Geneva or Bishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela calling for sanctions. Here is a case where a former Army Commander is allegedly accusing his own immediate superior and his close subordinate aides during the war for what could be termed as war crimes. It is also difficult to imagine what the response of General Sarath Fonseka himself would be, had such a comment reportedly been made by someone else when he was in command of the Army, even if the person concerned were to deny the report later. The criteria for the UN and the international community to take a country to task for violating human rights are not clear. How come the UN which did nothing when the reports about the alleged attempts by the LTTE leaders to surrender and their deaths first appeared in the media, now call for clarification from the Sri Lankan Government? Also it must be recalled that when JVP founder leader Rohana Wijewera was killed allegedly after arrest in 1989, the UN did nothing.

However, the political wrangling between two parties has created a national issue that would be detrimental to both parties and already has undermined the people’s real concerns. Here is a candidate who has allegedly accused his own past, and here is a government that wants to enliven a serious allegation against itself.

DAILYMIRROR.LK