Rumor and Lies out of Colombo

Well, well, with the advent of the war (yeah it's war, despite many quips to the contrary) the rumor mills and propaganda machines hv started on full steam.

There are two basic such camps operating out of Colombo;

1. The pro-tamil/pro-ltte lobby - comprising of tamil journo's, businessmen, NGO's, the Scandinavian countries - predominantly Norway (who actually fund the NGO's, journo's and to a great extent the LTTE) and communists. For the last few years, the media giant BBC also seems to hv aligned itself to this lobby and has been effective in diffusing the GOSL stand on the war front.

2. The pro-Sinhalese/patriotic lobby - comprising of nationalist political parties of JHU and JVP, Sinhalese expats/journo's and of course the military propaganda machine. Unfortunately these are not as fortunate as the other lobby to be funded by rich sources yet they to now command a massive presence, especially on the web which used to be free territory for Tamils up to now.

There is a minor but rapidly emerging third force of a tamil/muslim protest against terrorism but currently this voice is not heard much over the prevailing noise.

Well ... that covers the ground situation - will get back on how and why the lies are ingeniously incorporated in to the message by some of these institutions.

8/16 - Colombo