Voluble DG of UNESCO and LTTE psyops

Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, the voluble Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO) has not yet been able to amend his naive condemnation of the Sri Lanka Air Force' attack at the clandestine radio station of LTTE. In his statement he says: "Regardless of the content of the broadcasts aired by the Voice of Tigers, there can be no excuse for military strikes on civilian media.... Such action contravenes the Geneva Convention which requires the military to treat media workers as civilians."

Equally, there should be no excuse for making bovine statements against a member country which has been in UNESCO for 50 years, simply because Mr.Matsuura could not guard himself against being outwitted by agents of a terrorist outfit.

There is no argument that civilian media and freedom of expression should be defended at all times; but, what Mr.Matsuura seems to be benighted about is that the content of "Voice of Tigers" has never been intended for a civilian purpose.

VoT is an illegal broadcast station that has been actively engaged in propaganda aimed at glorifying terrorism and at tarnishing the good image of the country, and raising funds from abroad for terrorist activities. Its content is not only being spread locally but also spread throughout the world through the propaganda network of LTTE. Unlike any ordinary civilian media, VoT's content is clearly aimed at kindling extreme tribalism and damaging the racial and religious harmony of the country. Even on the day it was attacked, the radio station was about to transmit the implacable speech of terror chief V.Prabhakaran spewing hatred towards Sri Lankan citizens. In the eyes of those interlopers of cowboy rights groups, VoT may be viewed as something that serves their purpose, since continued violence in third world countries is what earns them a living.

Psychological Operations or psyops are essentially military operations which are aimed at influencing a target audience to elicit behaviours supportive to realization of their originators' goals. Psyops achieve their aim by conveying carefully selected information to target audiences, using various methods and influencing audience' emotions, motives, objective reasoning and ultimately push them to elicit the desired behaviours. What VoT has been doing all this time, is incensing its Tamil audience against their own brethren, while instilling them with extreme racial hatred towards all other races living in Sri Lanka. Further, it has been engaged in putting about false and misleading information to the world to tarnish the good image of the country. The collective hatred and cussedness created in the mindset of the Tamils living in LTTE controlled areas must have contributed immensely to make more suicide losers among the Tamil youth.

Further, it should not be forgotten that making a living through reporting does not mean that journalists can break all laws in a country. They have no special licence to help the cause of a terrorist organization and also demand protection under the Geneva Convention. All employees of VoT were therefore, active members of the terrorist outfit that has caused a great destruction to this country. AS far as media freedom or freedom of expression is concerned, no other country allows freedom for media industrialists to do their business like Sri Lanka does. The best example is the bogus free media movement in this country that always bellows only for the rights of a carefully selected crowd of media personnel. It is not difficult to understand that the job security of these media people is largely dependent on the continued bloodshed in the country and as a result they always have reasons get troubled and make protests whenever their "god sent" terror outfit is threatened. All such media industrialists do their business peacefully and shamelessly in Sri Lanka, yet they choose to live under a self imposed "threat" for a business purpose. However, they must understand that a government cannot allow the coexistence of the "free media" people and terrorists to be continued forever, because the lives of the citizens are also important as their enterprise.

It is unfortunate to see that such a senior level official of a responsible international body has become an easy target for propagandists of a terrorist outfit that has been violating all rules, so far initiated by the United Nations. It is now for Mr. Matsuura to think on his own two feet, and arrive at a reasonable conclusion of what he had done. A person in his in capacity must be able to distinguish between civilians and active agents of terrorists disguised as civilians.

Therefore, defence.lk requests all peace loving Sri Lankans living around the globe to rally their protest over this wicked and derogatory campaign against their motherland. We request you all to shed all petty political differences and unite against those powers that trying hard to lock our country into a never ending war. No one knows the reality of Sri Lanka better than Sri Lankans themselves. Thus, it is high time for us to break the silence and voice the truth to the world, so we would able to save our future generations from the scourge of terrorism. It is now or never!!!