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| Sunday, 26 December 2004 |
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Ranil accused me as an enemy of peace process - Paul Harris by Rohan Mathes Former Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe has accused me of being an 'enemy of the peace process', which was indeed dangerous. Instead of dealing with the real enemies of Sri Lanka, he proceeded to set up a Prime Ministerial Security Division at Temple Trees to set his goons on me and keep me under surveillance, claimed the internationally renowned political Scientist, Paul Harris, at an international conference "Towards Democracy and Peace in Sri Lanka" at the BMICH, organised by the WAPS and the Forum. Paul Harris said that as one of the first to be under the attention of the unit, he was subjected to physical surveillance, illegal searches and telephone tapping. He was expelled from the country by the Wickremesinghe regime in November 2002, in retaliation for both spoken and written comments he had made on the peace process. "It is not necessary to blindly support a peace process per se, sans analysing and assessing its implications and making a balanced judgement. If a peace process looks likely to institutionalise political violence, support the abrogation of human rights and intolerance of democracy and imply approval of a megalomaniac murderer, then I for one, find myself unable to support it. I think any rational, fair-minded human being must reject it as a hopeless sham and a fraud upon the very people it is supposed to help", he affirmed. He opined that Sri Lanka should not be offered as an extravagant reward for a bunch of avaricious terrorists, which he termed as 'the greatest giveaway in history'. Intelligence is the key, he said and there was a glimmer of hope for this strategy three years ago via the activities of the Long Range Patrol Group. However, the group was disgracefully betrayed in its 'safe house' on January 2, 2002. Its agents compromised and the operation wilfully deserted by the Wickremesinghe government. "In most countries, treason trials would have followed. But, Sri Lanka abandoned its only winning strategy at the very point at which it was working. Anecdotal evidence suggests that even Prabhakaran had become paranoid about his own safety", Paul Harris noted. Paul Harris added that there was no reason to revise his assessment made in 2002. In many ways, the de facto division of Sri Lanka had already been achieved, the writ of the Colombo government hardly existed in the North and East, even in the areas controlled by the security forces. The rule of law was only a concept rather than reality. |
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