The Island Editorial

Of that ‘new Constitution’

05 October 2016

 

Celebrated physicist Prof. Stephen Hawking, a few years ago, rectified a mistake he had made in the early 1970s, when he claimed information was lost in a black hole. He now argues that information can survive a journey through a black hole. That may be so, but information either gets distorted or even lost in enlightened Europe!

The Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police says, in an official statement on migration issue, that Sri Lanka has adopted a new Constitution to achieve ethnic reconciliation and strengthen the rule of law. This cannot be ignored as a minor lapse in that the accuracy of information about Sri Lanka is of paramount importance for Switzerland, which has granted citizenship to a large number of Sri Lankans, mostly economic refugees, claiming to be the victims of war. There is reason to believe that racketeers, thriving on human smuggling etc, use misinformation to mislead the Swiss authorities so that they can advance their agendas.

As for the affluent countries which were once burdened with so many Sri Lankans seeking asylum the most important question that went unasked was why they did not flee to countries like India if their lives were really in danger. It does not make sense for anyone who feels threatened to spend time and resources to travel all the way to the developed world without fleeing to the nearest country. Australia has been wise to deny economic refugees entry and other countries had better follow suit if they want to keep racketeers and terrorists, disguised as asylum seekers, at bay.

Sri Lanka’s armed conflict, which is thankfully a thing of the past, not because of those currently in power but in spite of them, became the proverbial beggar’s sore for economic refugees and human smugglers operating in the West. Now, these elements are all out to paint a gloomy picture of the situation in Sri Lanka to avoid deportation and to continue their sordid operations.

While the Swiss government is under the impression that Sri Lanka has already adopted a new Constitution, the so-called yahapalana government is blowing hot and cold on the abolition of the executive presidency, the be-all and end-all of the process of making a new Constitution. Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, who usually echoes the views of his boss, President Maithripala Sirisena, has been quoted by this newspaper as saying that the plans to scrap the presidency needs a rethink vis-a-vis Northern Chief Minister C. V. Wigneswaran’s utterances.

About a fortnight ago, the Danish Immigration website recognised Tamil Eelam as one of the countries from which foreigners could apply for visas. We thought the immigration officers of Denmark were quite au fait with the world map. This glaring error was subsequently rectified, but it as well as the aforesaid lapse on the part of the Swiss government demonstrates how uninformed the Europeans, tasked with handling immigration and asylum issues, are.

Meanwhile, in 2009, the then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, addressing the UN Security Council, declared that rape had been used as a weapon in Sri Lanka’s war, which had ended a few months back. Either the foreign affairs bigwigs of the developed countries are uninformed about developing nations like Sri Lanka or distorting information to suit their agendas as was seen in the exaggerated civilians casualty figures in the Vanni war and the falsification of intelligence dossiers to justify the US-led invasion of Iraq.

It behoves the affluent countries, especially those grappling with the problem of economic refugees masquerading as victims of war, persecution etc., to ensure that information on the basis of which they make vital policy decision is accurate.