Of late, there has been too much interference by the Sri Lankan High Commission in the internal affairs of Malaysia. While the Sri Lankan government is concerned about the support local Tamils might be giving to the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), it has taken a bold and unsolicited step by going beyond the norms of diplomatic conduct to interfere in the local affairs of the country.

These interferences, not just in Malaysia but also elsewhere, are predicated on the notion that the Sri Lankan government through its diplomatic missions abroad must undertake a systematic task to reduce international support, both moral and financial, for Tamil national liberation currently headed by the LTTE.

For the past few years, according to information obtained from various sources, the Sri Lankan diplomatic mission here in Kuala Lumpur, has taken systematic steps to ensure that the local media does not report or sympathise with the Tamil cause.

The mission, through its contact with government agencies such as the Ministry of Home Affairs and others, has sought to impose some kind of control on local newspapers, television and radio.

Government officials keen to maintain good diplomatic relations with the mission have obliged the requests of the mission from time to time. Furthermore, the mission's discussions with editors of the various newspapers have meant, among others, a reduction of analyses on the Sri Lankan conflict.

Collecting info

Even this writer was told not to write too many articles on the Sri Lankan conflict as it bothered the mission very much.

Apart from the above, there have been attempts made by the mission to make representations to the government and its agencies to deny permission for the holding of seminars or conferences on the Sri Lankan conflict.

Recently, a department at a local university wanted to organise an academic conference on the Sri Lankan conflict by inviting foreign and local scholars, but when the mission got wind of it, the matter was taken to the highest level of the Sri Lankan government.

Subsequently, it seems that the foreign minister of Sri Lanka made a personal call to one of the government ministers and urged him to cancel the conference; it was felt by the Sri Lankan government that the conference might be sympathetic to the Tamil cause.

Although a final decision has not been made, it looks like the Malaysian government might cave in to the request of the Sri Lankan foreign minister. So much for Malaysia's autonomy!

The Sri Lankan mission in Malaysia is quite aware that the predominant Tamil population in the country is very sympathetic to the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka. In the past as well as the present, the mission has engaged in collecting information as to who are the active sympathisers in this country and what kind of support they provide.

Deflect support

In fact, this writer has been portrayed as a diehard supporter of the Tamil Tigers and such information has been disseminated overseas. When the president of Sri Lanka made a visit to Malaysia some years ago, the present writer was one of the persons barred from attending her talk arranged by Wisma Putra (where the Foreign Affairs Ministry is housed).

While the writer has been portrayed as a diehard LTTE supporter, this does not prevent the mission from extending to him numerous invitations to attend their Tamil cultural shows. It is really funny that Tamils in Sri Lanka face the most obnoxious forms of repression, yet the mission here finds it worthwhile to organise and hold shows in support of Tamil culture.

This is mainly to convince the Tamil audience in the country that the Sri Lankan government is fair to the Tamil people and the majority are supportive of the government. This is basically intended to reduce the moral and financial support given by Tamils in Malaysia for the Tamil liberation movement in Sri Lanka.

As such, the mission finds it useful to employ cultural shows to deflect support for the movement as though the government is so fair and kind to the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

All these activities indicate, among other things, that the Sri Lankan government is desperate to find a solution to their civil war that has lasted for nearly 20 years.

But then the solution seems not to take cognisance of the nationality aspirations of the Tamil population, whose history in the county predates the arrival of the country's majority population, the Sinhalese.

Bold manner

Thus, given the numerical inferiority of the Tamils, the Sri Lankan governments, both in the past and present, have not accorded a decent treatment to them in terms of their language, culture and political rights.

The rise of the LTTE in the late 1970s was basically in response to the inability or reluctance of the Sinhalese-dominated government to provide a political solution to the Tamil national question.

Over the past twenty years or so, the LTTE has grown from strength to strength and is now able to address and articulate the Tamil cause in a forthright and bold manner.

It is the general inability to find a lasting solution to the Tamil cause and to defeat the LTTE militarily that has forced the Sri Lankan government to rely on foreign countries to proscribe the LTTE and to reduce the diaspora of support.

In Malaysia, it is not so much that the Sri Lanka High Commission wants the government to proscribe the LTTE, (there is no LTTE here), but to ensure that the support for its cause is weakened among Tamil Malaysians in the country.

In this respect, the mission would like very much for the Malaysian government and mass media to downplay the legitimacy of the Tamil cause.

Whether this will succeed or not is left to be seen. But one thing is for sure, the cause of the Tamil national liberation movement shows no signs of being easily extinguished.

P RAMASAMY is a professor of political economy at the Political Science Department, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and has academic interests in Malaysian politics and labour. He has written quite extensively and is currently focusing on conflict management in Sri Lanka.