Frost Over The World: Interview with Rajiva Wijesinha - 11 September 2009

by Rajiva Wijesinha

Presenter: Sir David Frost

The Sri Lankan Govt is on a collision course with the United Nations over the fate of 300,000 people displaced in the fighting between the Army and the Tamil Tigers. The UN accuses the Govt of effectively trapping people in their own refugee camps and of appalling human rights violations. Journalists complain that they are not allowed into the camps and stories are rife of malnutrition and maltreatment. With me right now is Sri Lanka's Permanent Secretary to the Ministry responsible for Disaster Management and Human Rights and Rajiva Wijesinha is here right now.

Sir David: The basis question I suppose, before getting into any detail is why (around the world this is said about your land) won't you let journalists and the UN people into these camps. For 300,000 people you must have something to hide otherwise you will let the journalists in. You are familiar with this argument but why, unless you have something to hide, why not let the journalists in?

Prof Wijesinha: Well, the point is we do let them in. I think we are a bit confused when we talk about journalists and the UN. The UN is there, it is working, it does not have what western journalists describe as free access but they are there all the time, they work in partnership with us. For instance on the main issue of what is called protection which is the one area where my ministry has an operational function. We work together with them and that perhaps answers your question about the journalists. I was amongst those who fought very hard for relatively free access for journalists in March and so on and the Govt did allow many people in and I am happy that many of them behaved admirably. A lot of Indian journalists who went in I think contributed to people realising that things were much better than claimed. The BBC had some negative things but always asked us to comment, Al-Jazeera I must say was very good indeed, but, like in finance, bad journalism drives out the good. We had a spate of very bad reports including from Channel 4 which never consulted us, with someone in the Guardian claiming that 13 women had been found with their throats slit. I actually had a meeting with our protection group and asked whether any NGO (we had about 12 NGOs working in there, so they do have access) I said is there any reason for this? They said none whatsoever. I'm sorry a lot of false reporting has led to the Govt saying if this is the way people react we have to be careful about journalists. Journalists are allowed in. The BBC guy wrote about travelling through the camps last week. But there are restrictions, I'm sorry about them but I think you have to realise that a Govt trying to do its best in a difficult situation can't distinguish between 90% of objective journalists and the very few who have been deliberately driven by a political agenda.

Sir David: But take for instance the UN. There are two things that will come up, isn't there? One is the UN saying that it cannot continue to indefinitely fund the main refugee camp in Sri Lanka where the Govt is keeping at least 300,000 people and they are still screening everybody and they may take up to even a year to complete it. They say as many people should leave as soon as possible. The UN are not happy with this situation are they?

Prof Wijesinha: Well, I'm glad you used the word they cannot fund indefinitely because we know that. This morning I was at another TV station - they said that the UN cannot any longer fund, that's not true. What Neil Buhne said is very clear - we can't fund indefinitely. We agree with that. When you talk of people saying 'clear the camps', we too work on this in a sensible way, I have prepared memos and suggested ways in which they can be de-congested and perhaps the process is slower than people want. But we do have security considerations and neither you nor I can second guess the Ministry of Defence in a context in which we had a really appalling terrorist group which had got its tentacles everywhere. We need to be careful. But what we can argue - and this I think is in accordance with international practice - is that unless there are good reasons for people to be kept we should move quickly towards returns and release. But we do recognise that many of them want to leave and we have to fast forward this.

Sir David: But there was this other thing from the UN - the UN spokesman from New York said the world body was extremely concerned about two of its Sri Lankan staff members arrested in June and there are allegations that they have been mistreated at the hands of the authorities.

Prof Wijesinha: When that first came up my ministry did investigate. They were said to have been abducted but the Police had taken them in. I'm afraid there is fairly strong evidence that they had been involved in certain activities that they should not have been involved in. Of course we do recognise that Tigers sometimes applied pressure on people and made them do things and because these people worked for the UN they were particularly subject to pressure from the Tigers. But we cannot, simply because they work for the UN, assume therefore that they are innocent. We have had examples before, for instance about 2 yrs ago as the UNDP Head arrived, I was at a meeting with him and he suddenly got up and said 'This couldn't have come at a worse moment, one of my chaps was found with a pistol pen’. I'm afraid if people working for the UN are going around with weapons we have to take them into custody but we have kept the UN informed about these things. We have to recognise that within the UN, while the senior members are trying to do a very good job indeed, some of the youngsters see themselves as white knight crusading against what they see as a wicked Govt and they damage relations.

Sir David: Looking at this situation from afar, it would seem to us (people from this country and so on) that you are in danger of missing a great opportunity of healing of the people by detaining people longer than necessary, by having these other stories and complaints coming up. Don't you think you are in danger of missing the boat in terms of persuading the world that this is a just regime?

Prof Wijesinha: I think you are right, there are great dangers. But can I say we also object to selective reporting. For instance we talk of the 10,000 who fought for the Tigers, we are doing our best with them and recognise most of them were forced to fight. If I may point out these pictures, these are girls who 3 months or 6 months ago would have killed me if I had gone there. This is them in the camp, you can see they are perfectly nice young ladies who want to have fun in life and learn to do better. These are the schools. People when they saw this said you mean the little kids have uniforms? These are the pre-school kids. We have provided education in there, we have conducted Advanced Level examinations, we are doing our best for them. One of the things we found was that particularly within the last year – and this book is a collection of rebuttals – there were lots of articles, in British papers perhaps under pressure from Tiger pressure groups, we know that some MPs are in fear of losing their seats - they have been threatened that the Tamils who support the Tigers will not vote for them, that has been said very clearly. They have actually been engaging in propaganda. I have absolutely every sympathy for Tamils who suffered in the past. But the British MPs are doing it for electoral gain and we find that embarrassing. It is really particularly bad in this country perhaps because of our long colonial ties. But there is a lost of prejudice and while lots of negative things are there which we need to improve there is no recognition of the positive.

Sir David: Thank you very much indeed for being with us and for putting your point of views so forcefully, we really thank you for being here.

Prof Wijesinha: Thank you Mr Frost, it's been a pleasure. [Ends]