Predictable politicians

On Wednesday, I went to listen to yet another speaker: this one, the president of my own country, Chandrika Kumaratunga. She had come to New York for the UN summit, and was gracing the Asia Society with her presence, so I decided to shell out 15 big ones to go listen to her!

It was a pretty mediocre performance. I think her objective with the session was to leave her presidency (which is coming to an end soon, as we are going to have elections within the next few months) with a bang. She went on about how hard her government had worked to achieve peace in Sri Lanka, and to keep peace talks with the LTTE going, even though the LTTE petulanty keeps reneging on its cease-fire agreement.

Not quite true, because, although there have been isolated incidents and internal conflicts among the LTTE itself, it has, for the most part, adhered to its promise of not returning to full-fledged war.

She claimed to have tried hard to redevelop conflict-affected areas in the north and eest of the country, sending ministers there to lead redevelopment efforts, whom the LTTE have promptly killed. This might well be true, but she made no mention of the several Tamil areas still occupied by the Sri Lankan army, which refuses to let Tamils back into their land and their homes, saying they are high-security zones.

She also called for transforming the LTTE from a "dictatorial, brutal force to a political one that doesn't use violence to make its voice heard." Which might be a noble goal, but the last time I checked, it wasn't only the LTTE that was a "dictatorial, brutal force".

I am, by no means, under the illusion that the LTTE is some sort of saintly force that is trying to fairly and accurately represent all Tamils. The internal struggles that it has been dealing with over the past year itself are evidence that this is not the case. Yet, Kumaratunga's claims that she has done nothing but good for the country, while the evil LTTE does everthing possible to foil her saintly efforts, made me feel slighty sick.

Overall, it was a disappointing and somewhat predictable evening. But, as my International Reporting professor commented when I told him so afterwards, "What did you expect? Politicians are always predictable."