OTTAWA–The seeds of a decision to bar Bob Rae’s entry to Sri Lanka may have been planted with the pen of a Sri Lankan expatriate from London, Ont., with advance knowledge of the trip and a grudge against the federal Liberal party.
Days before Rae was turned away at Colombo’s main airport late Tuesday night, allegedly for his sympathies toward the Tamil Tiger separatists, Irangani de Silva had one of the many articles and letters she has written targeting politicians and officials around the world published in The Island, a prominent Sri Lankan newspaper.
The June 8 opinion piece is an appeal urging Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona to rip up a visa granting Rae entry to Sri Lanka from June 10 to 12 because his report back to Canada would surely tarnish the country’s image.
De Silva quotes comments Rae made in the Commons earlier this month urging Canada to push for a probe into an estimated 20,000 civilian deaths after the country’s 25-year civil war ended last month.
“We are sure that he will return with a damning report on the government of Sri Lanka and push for war crimes investigations, publish media reports that there is discrimination, etc.,” she wrote.
“Mr. Rae is due in Colombo on June 10th. There is still time to ask him to postpone his visit to a later date. … I am laying out all the facts and requesting your help to negate this act of foolishness by the clueless people in the mission and some individuals in the foreign office in Sri Lanka.”
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There are 250,000 Tamils in Toronto. Ignatieff is considering a non-confidence vote in the House of Commons today. Votes, Liberals and the winning of ridings where the Tamils are a large voting block. Motivation enough for Mr. Rae to make a spectacle of himself in Sri Lanka.
Did the Red Star offer a single flake of evidence that Irangani de Silva bore a grudge against the federal Liberals? Nope… but that doesn’t stop them from publishing this assertion in the first sentence of their article. She pointed out a few unpleasant facts; nothing more.
Then there’s the elephant in the room: what did Bob Rae intend to do in Sri Lanka? Was he on a “fact finding mission” of some sort? Was he going to pretend to be a representative of the government of Canada? Who the hell does Bob Rae think he is?