Sri Lanka Should Have Rolled The Red Carpet To Rathika
Veluppillai Thangavelu
Sri Lanka Should Have Rolled the Red Carpet to Rathika, MP Instead of Unleashing Sleuths to Harass Her
Sri Lanka like Don Quixote has gained notoriety in fighting imaginary enemies. Tilting at windmills is an English idiom which means attacking imaginary enemies. The phrase is sometimes used to describe confrontations where adversaries are incorrectly perceived, or to courses of action that are based on misinterpreted or misapplied heroic, romantic, or idealistic justifications. It may also connote an importune, unfounded and vain effort against confabulated adversaries for a vain goal. Don Quixote is Spanish novel written by Miguel de Cervantes and published in two volumes, in 1605 and 1615.In the novel, Don Quixote fights windmills that he imagines to be ferocious giants. For instance Quixote sees the windmill blades as the giant’s arms.
Sri Lankan politicians and bureaucrats are so paranoid like Don Quixote that they perceive visitors to the country as potential enemies or to be precise LTTE sympathisers, proxies, rumps etc. Such visitors are treated roughly no matter their status.
A classic example is the deportation of Mr. Bob Rae back to Canada in June 2009. Mr. Rae travelled to Sri Lanka on a private visit with a valid visa issued by the Sri Lankan High Commission Office in Ottawa. Upon arrival, Mr. Rae was detained, accused of being a national security threat by the government of Sri Lanka, and refused entry into the country. He was further accused as a supporter of LTTE.
“He is barred from entering the country. He is being deported. . . . We have intelligence information that he is supporting the LTTE,” chief immigration controller P.B. Abeykoon said, according to Agence France-Presse in Colombo, the country’s capital.
“To describe me as ‘an LTTE supporter,’ as an army spokesman has done today, is a lie, pure and simple,” Mr Rae fired back in an e-mailed statement. “The Sri Lankan government has made this decision because they have apparently reached some ill-conceived and defamatory conclusions about me. But after 30 years of public service at home and abroad, I have to say, this decision reflects on them, and not on me.”
