It’s a stopover in paradise for a foreign correspondent to live majestically on his overseas allowance. Such comfortable digs are not in the market in the recession stung home country. There is exotic food and groovy watering holes at affordable prices. NGOs’ provide the freebies and roll out the red carpet.

Evenings may be dull but there is fun around - sun and surf, safaris and misty mountains within easy reach. Surroundings are ideal to prop a savings account for a rainy day. It’s an earn to save assignment; where on most days the drinks and dinner are free with invitations galore. Many sophisticated hostesses desire to declare that they call the local BBC/CNN man by their first name. They pass unquoted quotes, to display their importance.

It’s a comfortable station to report a war with no hazard to life or limb - the possible menace being the cancellation of the visa and a deportation order. Foreign correspondents live in Iraq or Afghanistan, Sudan or Somalia with death beckoning.

English is understood by those who matter and the girls in the NGO circuit provide the information and entertainment. News is at the doorstep with LTTE agents in attendance. Cultivation of news sources is not a requirement as there is a free flow.

So laid back is life with much free time to read the book that requires the time to read. The constant irritant being the need to attend press conferences where ministers narrate stories which the editor will not bother to read. Yet a convenient platform to meet the tribe to exchange a few yarns to embarrass the government.

To win the holiday package you need the war to obtain the assignment. If the guns are silenced the return ticket will arrive and the bags must be packed. War is a must and it must go on and on and on for the good life to continue. Otherwise Sri Lanka is not a resident base for a foreign correspondent. Such events that matter will be conveniently covered by the Delhi bureau with a periodic visit to Colombo.

To keep the war on track, the LTTE’s presence as a fighting formation is paramount. To beef the LTTE, arms and ammunition and ships and planes alone are not sufficient - pen and ink are equally vital. To win hearts and minds, it is necessary to usher the propaganda war -so enters the foreign correspondent.

Most foreign correspondents arrive with a neo liberal agenda peddled by their editorial staff. Sri Lanka is often an early posting and a stepping stone to the cosmopolitan world of journalism - many in Colombo are seen later in hotspots around the world dispatching reports.

For upward mobility writing must calibrate with thinking of the news desk and editorial opinion which is to romanticize the war with a strong tilt towards the underdog. That is breaking news and a visa to a more prestigious posting.

Their insights on arrival had been choreographed by the NGOs and provided with a hand picked list of contacts from the NGO seminar circuit. They take over with a dinner date in a local atmospheric café with sophisticated small talk in attractive company. A traveling urbane companion is provided to map the Colombo strategy.

To the credit of the foreign correspondent many are not soft bunnies and in their whimsical western way enjoy the goodies laced with their typical suave cynicism. Still, there is much common ground to tread hand in hand with the Colombians.

Certainly reporting from Colombo, the television foreign correspondent is more balanced in his presentation than the anchor person in the studio. This is media manipulation at its prime, supporting the philosophy of western stalwarts like Hillary Clinton leaning towards the terrorist outfit. The local based foreign minions have to toe the official line, from editor to statesman for their future enhancement.

The print media are the foot soldiers of the LTTE; the dispatches that please the editor are those that discredit Sri Lanka. Having supported the LTTE relentlessly for 25 years, to be defeated in a cause they peddled is to have egg on the face. Westerners can never take defeat gracefully when inflicted by Easterners. It was visible from Dien Bien Phu to Saigon, from Baghdad to Kabul. It is unbearable to watch terrorism being defeated with minimum facilities, while the west gropes with jealous green eyes, the east achieving success as they understand better the aspiration of the peoples’ local power.

It is a wonder why the west has been unable to fathom the reason the CIA is a permanent loser in the final chapter?

These media mercenaries treat with contempt those in conflict with their culture- it a handful that have the sophistication to understand cross cultures. Whatever is alien to their value structure is blasphemous. They carry chips on both shoulders; mocking both the NGOs that nourish them to the government they abhor. At least at this point there is no discrimination. It is a complex in reverse, stupid!

With the LTTE gone where will they go? After few more horror stories to demean the security forces and back to the bonnie west to face the shock treatment of recession. War is an investment relief to the foreign correspondent. The order will soon come to pack the flak jackets and return to a not so sweet home and to wait patiently for a call to another exotic destination?

To be fair, the foreign correspondent deserves sympathy - he is his master’s voice. The master placed his bet on the wrong horse and made the work horse sounds dim and daft.