‘Peace at any price’ always costs too much

It was an interesting dinner this writer attended Saturday night in the residence of Norwegian Ambassador Paul Moe. The red Bordeaux wine, French naturally, was excellent and even United States Ambassador Frank Ricciardone Jr. enjoyed it – or pretended to, diplomatically.

What was fascinating were the dramatis personae present: Our two major peaceniks were there, namely the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, Secretary (and retired General) Eduardo Ermita, and Davao’s Peace Processor Silvestre "Bebot" Bello.

Also there was Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Franklin Ebdalin, who deserves commendation for having "tongue-lashed" the talkative and offensive Japanese Ambassador Kojiro Takano.

Ebdalin told me that Takano had asserted he was truly sorry, but what else could the envoy have said, after that verbal banzai charge he had made, creating maximum havoc? Get him out of here, I say, and let the Japanese send us a real diplomat. (Heroes who fall in battle die for their country; the diplomat’s heroic role is to go abroad to lie for his country.)

Takano didn’t even try to obfuscate in tatamae style. Coming from a land known for courtesy and polite etiquette, where everybody bows automatically and utters words like gomen nasai and "so sorry" at least five times a day, Takano is a throwback to the face-slapping Nipponese heitai soldiers of the war years and the brutal kempetal (military police) who tortured Filipinos with the "water cure", burning with hot pokers, pulling out of finger-nails, and the final benediction, beheading with the katana or sword. Send him as a special envoy to Aceh in Indonesia, I suggest, where he can act as a "guest adviser" to the T.N.I., the ass-kicking Tentara Nasional Indonesia.

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The guest of honor at the dinner was, of course, the visiting Norwegian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Vidar Helgesen. He was accompanied by Assistant Director Espen Larsen of their Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Having had a hand in launching the ceasefire and peace negotiations between the Sri Lankan government and its formidable rebel adversaries, the savage Tamil Tigers, when such an idea seemed hopeless, State Secretary Helgesen has been meeting with various groups the past few days, trying to kick-start the long-stalled peace negotiations between our government and the National Democratic Front (NDF) and New People’s Army (NPA).

Indeed, Helgesen and his Oslo missioners plan to go to Utrecht, Holland, where Communist Supremo Joma Sison and NDF leader, ex-Father Luis Jalandoni, are holed up, running the "revolution" here by remote control, through fax-machine or e-mail, and cellphone.

Ed Ermita, who has wisely begun to grow skeptical of even the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) phoney-baloney noises about a "ceasefire", observed that he felt funny each time he had to contact Jalandoni, because is reality, he was negotiating "peace’ in the Philippines with a "foreigner".