It is a strangely paradoxical world we live in this isle of our birth. The more we find out the less we know apparently. As the season of goodwill and good cheer is upon us again recent events however legitimately poses the notion More questions than answers.
The Swiss Affair is a classic case in point. The Swiss Ambassador has gone to Switzerland. Swiss officialdom has not confirmed if Mr Ambassador has suffered a recall. It is now announced that a special delegation will come to Sri Lanka headed by a former Ambassador once accredited to Sri Lanka.
Several questions roll into play almost all at once. Is this a tacit admission that the Swiss mission in Sri Lanka were led up the garden path? Mr Ambassador Mock met with President Gotabya Rajapaksa and it appeared rather cordial. President Rajapaksa we are told, clearly spelled out to the Ambassador the evidence. The staffer’s version of events seemingly has no veracity. She was waiting outside a school for a pre-ordered taxi. The surrounding video evidence from CCTV cameras did not support her claim. She was said to be traumatised. The next story was that she was in fact in Palmyrah Avenue far removed from the girls school she was supposed to be outside. Then came the claims that she was traumatised by these events – a real possibility of course – but surely the trauma starts from the moment (in this case) of the traumatic event that is to say, her abduction. She was they say sexually assaulted. She was apparently so injured and or traumatised that she needed an air ambulance presumably on the account of the Swiss government. Yet the public were able to see the so-called victim walking, head covered and not stretchered in or wheel-chaired into the CID offices, the JMO, the Courts, the National Mental Health Institute and so on.
Now the so-called victim is being charged under this country’s penal code. The Swiss were even bold enough to ask if she could be questioned within the premises of the Swiss Mission and or the immunity-enjoying Ambassador’s house.
Surely the Swiss Mission including the well experienced Ambassador Mock must have known the wider implications: their Mission and the residence of the Ambassador are strictly speaking under international treaty, Swiss territory. Sri Lanka law cannot apply within there. So yet another question is by asking for this remote questioning were the Swiss trying their best to keep the story within prime time news?
The question to pose is this: the Swiss have always purportedly been a neutral nation. Even if they do make the most precise time keeping machinery much valued and loved by the world, they can make mistakes.
Are the Swiss not neutral enough to admit when they have made a mistake or is it that however convoluted the case may be, the Swiss have been roped into a sinister mission by elements still supporting the LTTE as well as hell-bent on ensuring the stormiest of rides for President Rajapaksa and his team?
For Sri Lanka more bad publicity was on the cards: in spite of the paltry number of visitors from those United States of America, the US Mission in Sri Lanka decided that they simply must put their citizens on notice that during the festive season they must be extra vigilant in Sri Lanka.
Perhaps Sri Lanka’s new foreign minister must immediately consider placing travel alerts not only for those United States of America but also for those from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland where in London the death toll by knife-wielding so-called humanoids, has risen to 137 to date. It is entirely possible that that toll may well rise by the time you are reading this newspaper in a few hours hence.
The US action is nothing but prudence one may argue. It does however – perhaps – pre suppose that Sri Lanka’s intelligence authorities are anything but intelligent and that the US State Department does not wish to place much faith in these departments entrusted with the safety of the people and property in this island.
Whichever way we look at it – the odour eliminating from just these two matters alone smells to high heaven. It is far removed from the crisp clean air of the Swiss Alps at the very least.
As this year grows to an end if nothing else what President Nandasena Gotabya Rajapaksa would have learned from his Presidency thus far is that he can expect only the most nastiest of actions, gracefully wrapped up as diplomacy from key trading partners – those United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain.
Diplomacy is to say and do the nastiest thing in the nicest way.
Here’s to a marvellous holiday period! God bless Sri Lanka.