The piñata in Sri Lankan political discourse

The piñata features prominently in modern Mexican celebrations.  It can take a variety of forms but is, often, a gourd-shaped container made of papier mache and stuffed with a variety of toys and/or other goodies, the nature of which depends on who the primary celebrants of the occasion are or for whose entertainment or delectation the piñata is intended.
There is a theory that the piñata owes its origin to China and, if the recent Sri Lankan predilection to beating on anyone seen as not marching in lock-step with the current government is anything to go by, has returned to the continent of its origin.

The Sri Lankan list seems endless.  Starting from the most recent and moving back in time, one could well begin with Hillary Clinton, the current United States Secretary of State.  While the lady has often been accused of operating very much in the shadow of Barack Obama, his vice-President (Joseph Biden) and the assortment of special US envoys scuttling around the globe seeking to put out an assortment of major conflagrations, she has featured front and centre in the Sri Lankan media, accused of partiality to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE/Tigers).  It began at the time of her run for the presidency when she was accused of taking campaign donations from the LTTE when, in fact, it was a matter of record (even in the Sri Lankan media) that whatever funds had been received from some Tamil organisations in the States had been, forthwith, returned.  The reason for this would be obvious even to a mind as cynical as mine: Tiger-front organisations in the US could never contribute enough dollars to offset any adverse headline in an area as politically sensitive as that of “terrorism” in the good old USA!

However, this was a seeming disappointment to our local scribes, among whom is an erstwhile diplomat who trots out this fact at every given opportunity.  As I suggested in an earlier piece, if grounds for criticism of the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary were needed, there was enough material to skewer them both without recourse to this sort of demonisation based on gross inaccuracies.  Try the connections to real estate deals and the ex-president’s lying to Congress after the Monica Lewinsky business, not to mention looking the other way when the Rwanda genocide was taking place.  However, the lazy, sycophantic journalists of this country have cultivated the habit of flogging a dead horse (or is it a hanging piñata?) to the point that they are incapable of staying up to date with events around their chosen target.

Before Clinton, there was Robert Evans, Sir John Holmes (whom our pundits insisted on referring to as “Sir Holmes!”) and every single person from a foreign clime who expressed any kind of concern about a brutal conflict about whose nature there was absolutely no argument and the human rights violations which the Sri Lankan government claimed did not exist under its watch.

More recently there has been Philip Alston, pilloried for having the temerity to suggest that the Sri Lankan government should have sought to clear its name of the implications of the now-famous Channel 4 piece, showing alleged Sri Lankan soldiers executing naked, trussed people, by employing experts without obvious connections to the government.  He suggested that to claim that a panel of four experts on the subject comprised of two serving army officers, one person with a previous record of being employed to provide similar expert information for the government and a fourth person whose credentials are unknown, is not the way for the Sri Lankan government to prove that this is a fake video.  He suggested that the Sri Lanka government could do better — way, way better – in its efforts to clear its name.  The response to this suggestion?  A typical barrage of invective accusing the man of being a Tiger supporter and seeking to de-stabilise the democratically elected government of Sri Lanka.

That whole de-stabilisation bit and the matter of neo-colonialist intrusions is something that those of us who have seen and sought to fight US imperialism over the years are only too familiar with.  However, the obvious question I have asked, over and over again, of Sri Lankan friends who are suspicious of Western European and US involvement in Sri Lanka is “What reason do those whom you accuse have for doing so?”  The US does have a history of their security agencies, particular the CIA going crazy and acting as a “rogue agency” as have the British MI5 and MI6.  However, to assume that the Western world’s behaviour is driven purely and simply by a need to de-stabilise Sri Lanka cannot stand by itself and needs some substantiation.

No one has been able to offer me one valid reason why Sri Lanka has been targeted in the manner in which it is alleged to have been. There is the absolute rubbish that the Norwegians (and others) want to get our “vast oil resources,” this in spite of the fact that these huge resources have not yielded one barrel of crude in the 40 years that I have heard them referred to.
No, this demonisation of anyone looking askance at our human rights record – and that is the sum total of the issue – is stupid and has already begun to yield the negative harvest that was just a question of time before it arrived.

The tip of that iceberg of reaction is probably the difficulty that senior members of this administration are encountering in the matter of entering some countries in the Western democratic world.  There is more to follow and this loud and abusive braying is going to have more reactions from those against whom it is being directed than just a delay in the issue of visas and suchlike. Keep tuned for when the screws are really tightened.  No amount of falling back on the excuse that those who’ve poured out the abuse are not voicing “official sentiments” is going to wash.  Those who handle the pit bulls are, sooner or later, going to be held accountable.  Unfortunately, those of us who live in the country they control are going to pay the price as well.  And why?  Because of the overweening arrogance and stupidity of those who speak for us, two elements that, unfortunately seem to go together.