OTTAWA–The seeds of a decision to bar Bob Rae's entry to Sri Lanka may have been planted with the pen of a Sri Lankan expatriate from London, Ont., with advance knowledge of the trip and a grudge against the federal Liberal party.Days before Rae was turned away at Colombo's main airport late Tuesday night, allegedly for his sympathies toward the Tamil Tiger separatists, Irangani de Silva had one of the many articles and letters she has written targeting politicians and officials around the world published in The Island, a prominent Sri Lankan newspaper.
The June 8 opinion piece is an appeal urging Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona to rip up a visa granting Rae entry to Sri Lanka from June 10 to 12 because his report back to Canada would surely tarnish the country's image.
De Silva quotes comments Rae made in the Commons earlier this month urging Canada to push for a probe into an estimated 20,000 civilian deaths after the country's 25-year civil war ended last month.
"We are sure that he will return with a damning report on the government of Sri Lanka and push for war crimes investigations, publish media reports that there is discrimination, etc.," she wrote.
"Mr. Rae is due in Colombo on June 10th. There is still time to ask him to postpone his visit to a later date. ... I am laying out all the facts and requesting your help to negate this act of foolishness by the clueless people in the mission and some individuals in the foreign office in Sri Lanka."
Despite a visa from Sri Lanka's mission in Ottawa and scheduled visits with aid groups and United Nations officials, Rae was put on the first flight out of Colombo after he refused to sign a document disavowing "ill-informed" comments about the brutal conflict, which resulted in the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Rae wasn't told which comments had offended the government, but a defence official said he was deemed a national security threat and terrorist sympathizer based on "confirmed intelligence reports."
Some Sri Lankan and Tamil expatriates in Canada believe de Silva's article was the report that nixed Rae's visit. "She may very well have told somebody," said Daya Perera, Sri Lanka's high commissioner in Ottawa. "It's quite possible. I wouldn't put it past her."
Perera said he intends to sue the paper and de Silva for suggesting he personally approved Rae's visa. The application was filed by the deputy high commissioner, he said.
A closer look at her public comments and associations over the last few years show de Silva is an influential member of a global alliance of expatriates that urged President Mahinda Rajapaksa in a January news conference in Colombo to freeze the funds of any groups questioning the country's sovereignty or advocating a power-sharing deal with the Tamil Tigers.
She is former president of the Sri Lanka United National Association of Canada (SLUNA) and in frequent contact with senior officials at the country's Toronto consulate.
De Silva also condemned the Liberal party for promising last month to raise Tamil grievances in the Commons if protesters would end a Gardiner Expressway blockade.
Calls to de Silva's London, Ont., home were not returned.
Last August, de Silva met with Foreign Secretary Kohona, to whom she addressed her appeal to revoke the visa of the Liberal foreign affairs critic. Kohona came to Scarborough from Colombo for SLUNA's 25th anniversary.
"(The government) would have been well aware that (Rae) was coming," said Perry Casinathan, a Canadian Tamil Congress organizer. "(The paper) is influential."
Rae said he did not know de Silva, but a letter posted on the SLUNA website suggests the two crossed paths in September 2002 when Rae was advising the Sri Lankan government as it drafted a constitution and met with SLUNA's delegation.
"In a certain political section of the Sinhala community there's a real effort to target those who have been raising human rights questions and ... say well, you're all just a bunch of Tiger sympathizers, which is complete nonsense," Rae said yesterday.
No comments:
Post a Comment