Open Letter to US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Michele J. Sison

By Ekamuthu Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has had all three communities, Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim, living in harmony and they have enjoyed good and bad times together. As is well known, for 30 years up to May 2009, the country suffered from acute terrorism problems, which were finally resolved, thereby bringing stability to the economy and the country.

However, as is also well known, the US State Department had not been too pleased that Sri Lanka dealt with this problem on its own terms, and therefore in recent times, the US has been placing obstacles, and attempting to regularly brow beat Sri Lanka with charges of human rights violations, war crimes probes, etc.

Even when it is very clear that amazing progress has taken place in the north and the east, they have been suggesting that Sri Lanka has not yet moved into the path of reconciliation. Contrary to their futile assertions, every person who has come into Sri Lanka have seen with their own eyes how effectively Sri Lanka’s reconstruction and reconciliation process has taken place, and as to how harmoniously the three main communities are living together.

Today, in Sri Lanka, there are eight Cabinet Ministers who are Muslims while the Chief Minister of the Eastern Province and the Mayor of Colombo are also Muslims. However, some recent unfortunate personal incidents (which have since been resolved) have been blown out of proportion particularly in some sections of the media, and such stories have portrayed a wrong picture.

Recently, the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Michele Sison seems to have expressed great concern about the Muslims. This is an extraordinary change of heart for the Americans, since the US State Department has been practicing an alarming anti-Muslim sentiment right across the World through various de-stabilisation techniques over the past two decades.

In fact, the mayhem caused by the US authorities in the Middle East is well known, and the terrible human carnage that has been caused by the US in Iraq is now well-known and well documented right across the world.

In that background, for the Ambassador to say that the US is now “alarmed by the recent attacks on the Muslim businesses and certain inflammatory calls to action” would have been highly amusing, if only what they had done to the Muslims across the world, had not been so grim, gruesome and ghastly.

Further, the US envoy’s statement that “this type of hateful sentiment must not be allowed to fester” is extremely appropriate to be applied to the US, since the greatest damage that has been caused to the Muslims all over the world has been by the US, and certainly not by Sri Lanka! It is no secret that Sri Lankans have a great respect for their Muslim brethren, and that they interact very closely with the Muslim community, both locally and internationally.

The deep regard and affection that Sri Lanka enjoys with the Muslim nations was underscored by the pro-Sri Lanka votes that it received, at the UN HRC, even in the face of a massive and concerted lobby by the US against Sri Lanka. In fact, all Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Maldives, Pakistan, Qatar, Mauritania, and Indonesia voted against the US Resolution, while Malaysia also abstained.

Ambassador Sison, please be assured that all Sri Lankans continue to live in peace and harmony with their Muslim brothers and sisters, and your bogus and hypocritical advice is not needed. Please put your own house into order and start paying damages to innocent Iraqis before you preach to others.