Miliband seeks Tiger boost to Labour leadership

http://www.dailynews.lk/2010/09/11/fea03.asp

Miliband seeks Tiger boost to Labour leadership

If David Miliband, has any interest in the truth, it seems to stop at the very thought or mention of Sri Lanka. In a recent interview with The Independent (August 29), the UK’s Shadow Foreign Secretary and contender with his brother and others for the leadership of the British Labour Party, made a significant revelation about his interest in truth and facts as opposed to myths
Back to school: Brighter future for IDP children. File photo
When asked by interviewer John Rentoul whether David Miliband was responsible for a cover up of British complicity with torture of prisoners at Guantanamo by the US, his answer was categorical: “I wasn’t (responsible). I’m very happy to go through facts as opposed to the myths because the myths get halfway round the world before the truth gets its boots on”.
But just one question earlier when asked what he had to say about a rival contender for the Labour Leadership, his brother Ed Miliband, being in favour of a foreign policy based on Labour values, he said much about Sri Lanka that was far removed from the fact and truth, giving it as an example of an ethical foreign policy that he stood for.
Miliband’s gimmicks
* Denies cover up of British complicity in Guantanamo torture* Ethical foreign policy based on myth, untruth* Being used by UK pro-LTTE lobby* Blissfully ignorant of rapid resettlement in Sri Lanka* Spreading falsehood to win Labour leadership* Did everything to prevent ultimate defeat of LTTE
Here is his explanation of an ethical foreign policy vis-a-vis Sri Lanka: “When people with relatives in Sri Lanka come up to me in the street and say, “I really thank you for what you have tried to do for the Tamils in Sri Lanka,” and I say the real tragedy is how little difference I made, and they say, “But you did try”. And it’s their mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers who have been slaughtered or have ended up as refugees. That is an ethical foreign policy.”
LTTE terror
There are enough Tamils in Sri Lanka and around the world today who are glad that David Miliband could not make any difference to what was happening in Sri Lanka, to prevent the ultimate defeat of the LTTE and its grip of terror on the Tamil people here.
David Miliband
Ed Miliband
It is indeed strange for a person who expects to be taken seriously in his campaign to be leader of the British Labour Party, with its tremendous record of humanism and socialist values, to give examples of the reactions of unidentified people who accost him on the street, with alleged tales of woe about the conditions faced by Tamils in Sri Lanka, both in the past and present.
As each day passes the world discovers that conditions for all people in Sri Lanka are improving and that many Tamils are voting with their feet for Sri Lanka, returning home from other lands, to enjoy the peace that prevails here.
Evidence is also piling up that most Tamils seeking or who have obtained asylum in Western lands have been taken there by human smugglers, earning considerable fortunes from their criminal operations, once intended to fund the LTTE’s terror and now profiting by keeping the belief in terror alive.
This is a truth that David Miliband is keen to ensure does not get its boots on, in his quest for the Labour leadership.
One cannot fashion an ethical foreign policy based on myth and untruth, as David Miliband seeks in his attempts to woo the Tamil members of Labour, who he expects would form a bloc vote at the forthcoming Annual Sessions of Labour, when its new leader will be elected. With such an election, today’s Shadow Foreign Secretary will be Leader of the Opposition. It is no doubt the expectation of the UK’s pro-LTTE Tamil lobby to use the position of Labour Opposition Leader to bring pressure on the Conservative - Lib-Dem Coalition to follow a foreign policy that is directed against Sri Lanka’s path to peace and reconciliation.
Labour Party
David Miliband’s strategy to win as many Tamil votes as possible at the Labour conference prompted him to organize a meeting of ‘Tamils for Labour’ on September 4.
To make sure the tactics of falsehood discussed there did not leak out, in what is becoming a keen tussle for leadership, the meeting was closed to all but ‘friends of Miliband’. Yet, it is no secret that it was decided to have a major disinformation campaign about the situation for Tamils in Sri Lanka, to draw the maximum pro-LTTE Tamils and fellow travellers among Labour Party members to vote for the Miliband, with scant respect for the truth.
The possible ‘Liar Leader’ of an even Newer Labour that may emerge from the conference, and his street side Tamil supporters, with their tiger stripes hardly hidden, have obviously not heard of the large number of Tamils, who have sought and obtained refuge in other lands, who now come to holiday in Sri Lanka, regularly; and of the Tamils in refugee centres in Tamil Nadu in India who are returning to Sri Lanka by the thousands.
David Miliband is also blissfully ignorant (or so he pretends) of the reports by UNHCR, the UN Office in Colombo, and other relief agencies about the rapid resettlement of IDPs in Sri Lanka, reaching record numbers, with hardly any help from those who shed tears of gratitude to who they believe would be the champion of their false propaganda against Sri Lanka, if elected Labour Leader.
The biggest expose of the pro-LTTE lie that David Miliband peddles today, comes from Canada. The media, Police and immigration authorities there are uncovering a great deal of the fraud taking place in the transport of Tamil asylum seekers to Canada, and unlike Miliband with his ‘ethical foreign policy’ are calling for a genuinely ethical and rational policy on immigration, and refugee status.
Tamil refugees
The Toronto Sun has again published a major story about the actual situation for Tamils in Sri Lanka, vis-a-vis the refugee and asylum claims that are being made and much publicized. Here is an extract from the report by Ezra Levant of QMI Agency, titled “Thousands of refugees leaving ‘paradise’ to return to peaceful Sri Lanka” in the Toronto Sun (Sept 7):
“Great news: There is a country in Asia willing to take Sri Lankan Tamil refugees by the thousand with the United Nations’ seal of approval.
And they’re already doing it. In the first six months of 2010, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says the generous country accepted 1,857 Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka, who had been staying temporarily in India.
UN refugee spokesman Michael Zwack says these Tamils are now “rebuilding their lives.”
The UN quoted one Tamil refugee, a 39-year-old woman, who said she was pleased with her new home for a pretty good reason: ‘Peace.’
So where is this wonderful place that Sri Lankan refugees are going to by the thousand? Sri Lanka.
That’s right. Thousands of Tamil refugees are returning to Sri Lanka because it’s safe.
Within Sri Lanka itself, internal refugee camps for displaced Tamils are winding down, as Tamils go back home. For example, the Menik Farm refugee camp in Sri Lanka once had 228,000 Tamils in it. It’s down to less than 35,000 now, with 3,000 people going home every week.
It’s an amazing success story, and it’s because the 30-year civil war with the Tiger terrorists group is over. The terrorists lost. The war ended last spring. Everyone can go home.”
David Miliband clearly utters deliberate untruths when he refers to the tragedy of Tamils in Sri Lanka. He is hiding the fact that most of their suffering was caused by their self-appointed liberators who were in fact their tormentors.
It is a sad day for British Labour that man who plumbs such depths of myth and untruth for one’s campaign, should even come within touching distance of the Labour leadership. But, the British Labour Party is in crisis. New Labour has shifted so far away from the old; it is even possible for the likes of David Miliband to aspire to its leadership.
The situation is far worse when a wannabe Labour leader has to depend on the bloc vote of those whose very survival is based on the spread of falsehood about a land and people that are striving to strengthen the peace they have regained, after so much tragedy - when the mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters of all communities were slaughtered by the forces of terror. David Miliband has chosen a tiger ride to success.