Will someone please get David Miliband a brain?

By Malinda Seneviratne

(April 05, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) One can learn from experience and one can learn from other people’s experience, they say. To learn from other people’s experience, one has to have a mind that is uncluttered, a modicum of intelligence and a bit of humility. Those who lack these attributes will remain ignorant until such time they burn their fingers. I am not angry at David Miliband, British foreign secretary. I feel sorry for him.

Miliband acknowledges that there is a lack of verifiable reporting from the conflict area. In the same breath he says “there are credible reports of civilians being killed and wounded everyday including in the ‘no fire zone’”. What he’s saying then is that it is possible to consider something that cannot be verified as being somehow ‘credible’. Incredible! The ‘credibility’ then is predicated on the believability of source. He cites none.

Now there are some ‘verifiable’ reporting and I am sure Miliband has seen these: the stories of IDPs who recently fled the ‘no fire zone’ dodging intimidation and even bullets from the LTTE. So Miliband knows that the LTTE is killing people in the no-fire zone. He doesn’t say this though.

Unhindered access

Miliband is upset that the government rejected a special envoy of Britain, one Des Browne. Come, come David, you already have a high commissioner here with whom the government is engaging. Are you saying your chappie over here is incompetent? Replace him then!

Miliband wants unhindered access to humanitarian agencies to IDPs, a privilege that Britain has not allowed others in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unhindered, did he say? In this day and age? Surely the man knows that no country would give blank cheques to anyone, least of all to agencies that have been caught doing the dirty, aiding and abetting forces openly fighting the state? Hasn’t this man, whose country has suffered terrorist attacks, ever heard of a thing called ‘mandatory screening’? Look David, once your aviation authorities allow unhindered access through its airports to all passengers in transit, then we’ll consider your ‘directive’ (some gumption, coming from a has-been nation!).

Forget all this. Let’s just consider this thing he calls ‘humanitarian ceasefire’. Why is he pushing for such a thing? To allow the civilians to leave the no-fire zone. David, David, David, you poor, poor, poor man with your peanut sized brain, we’ve gone over all that before. As Dayan Jayatilleka once put it, ‘been there, done that, got the T-shirt’. Won’t happen, dearie. Just think (if you can). If a fish was given the ‘option’ to have the water which is the only habitat it can survive in removed, would it seize it? No, it will not want it. If it could prevent it, it would, wouldn’t it?

David, if the government was not concerned about the civilians, this war would have been over some months ago. Can you get that into your silly little head? Since it is more concerned about civilians than your government has been about your own civilians and of course the civilians in countries your government has chosen to bomb into the Middle Ages and the countries your ancestors have pillaged for centuries, we are suffering massive losses on the frontlines. Feel sorry for them, baby? No, I know.

There’s not much that a country like yours can do, reeling still from empire-loss and your reduced circumstances vis-a-vis the rest of the world, earlier the USA and now China. You can stop playing electoral politics though and tell the LTTE’s proxies where to get off. On the other hand you would not dare show the kind of bullishness you show Sri Lanka to your potential voter would you? Admit it chum, you are chicken right? Your political philosophy can be captured in a single word, ‘disingenuous ‘, can it not?

To the no-fire zone

David castigates Sri Lanka, one newspaper said. I wonder if David knows the meaning of ‘castigate’. Poor David, let us be kind to him. I don’t have the resources to invite him over for a cup of tea (with or without a dash of milk) or some boiled vegetables (read, ‘bland food’), but I am sure the government can arrange for this little man to come here and partake these delightful delicacies sometime soon. We can take him all the way to the no-fire zone. He can stand there, bedecked in sunglasses and other touristy paraphernalia, arms open, and with a big, big, big, sign ‘Come to me, my trapped children, let me embrace you with the kind of love my ancestors didn’t have!’ He can wait until the cows come home or longer.

One condition though. He, along with whoever he succeeds in luring past Prabhakaran’s guns, will be thoroughly searched. Why? Well, thievery in some cases is a genetic trait.

Your ancestors have a sorry history, David; many were good at picking pockets. So bear with us. You have a ministry that looks after homeland security, right? We do too. It’s a prerogative of a sovereign state, you know.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance journalist who edits the monthly magazine Spectrum. He can be contacted at malinsene@gmail.com.
-Sri Lanka Guardian
Sam Perera said...

Malinda,

Great piece of writing in the days when some Brits acting like monkeys who have no idea where they are and what they are. May be it is the time to send Milband back to middle school to learn contemporary world geography and politics from scratch. He needs to go through the new curriculum that came out after 1948.

Lanka Dakshina said...

very well said

he is one of the idiots who betray whole Britsh identity for nothing.

I am not worried about him, he and his government are goners long time back
we are waiting for the election to officially pass the massege.

His worry is UK Tigerbase vote, you can have it, but he and his party is 20% behind David Cameran
Mr Milli mind your seat and internal affairs

Sri lanka has a capable administration, and as policy we dont play or feed terrorists, you do

Unknown said...

Malinda

I should commend you on writing a piece that is articulate & truly relevant. It is one of the best articles I have seen in recent history. Keep up the good work.

Lion

Unknown said...

Poor journalistic skills, if one were to be generous enough to call this a piece of journalism at all. Next time, perhaps the author would prefer to articulate his thoughts in a more balanced manner which is more attractive to an intellectual mind than a mere 'rant' which wastes the paper it is written on.

Asoka said...

The British Army was confined to the barracks in Basra by Mokhtada al Sadr's militia.Stop sending our soldiers to Sandhurst. The British should attend the Kotalawala Academy.

According to British documentary 'Dispatch'(?) , the British are paying the salaries of 4 tyrants running Somalia. They have British citizenship and own houses there; families are living there too.

The tyrants kidnap civilians for ransom and torture them until relatives overseas pay up.

When the English journalist questioned the British Minister for Africa, that clown Maloch Brown gave pathetic replies.
The West bribed Christian Ethiopia to invade and oust the Islamists and installed the British Somalians thugs.
This documentary need to shown in SL.

Asoka
Australia

Tudor the Canadian said...

I could not have put it better.Well done Sir.By the way is it possible for the SL goverment to borrow a few missiles from the USA that they fire into Pakistan which seems to kill only terrorists and not civilians.Perhaps the SL armed forces can use them in NO FIRE ZONE.

Asoka said...

According to British documentary Dispatch (?) the British are paying the salaries of 4 British Somali tyrants to run Somalia after ousting the Islamists after bribing Christian Ethiopia to send her army into action..
Civilians are kidnapped and tortured until relatives pay up. Aid to refugees is plundered. The tyrants have their families and houses in UK.

When the British journalist questioned the Minister for Africa, that clown Maloch Brown gave evasive answers.
That documentary need to be shown in SL soon to expose British hypocrisy and complicity in war crimes.

zeylanicus said...

Brilliantly argued by Malinda Seneviratne.

Obviously, and so sadly, people like David Miliband appear to be led by the nose with LTTE-diaspora statements fed to them, and without checking the facts and the conclusions of more reliable sources like the UN's John Holmes.

Soon the efforts of Miliband et al. will be shown to be seriously misplaced, and they will lose face with their display of poor judgement in relying on LTTE sources for their information.