When genocidaires come for tea

LAST week, Sri Lanka received a brief visit by the United Kingdom’s Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy.

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By all official accounts, the visit was cordial. Photographs were taken, hands were shaken, and diplomatic pleasantries were exchanged. From a purely bilateral perspective, there is little value in manufacturing friction. Sri Lanka remains economically vulnerable. It relies on multilateral goodwill, trade access, tourism flows, and diplomatic cooperation. In such a context, governments act with caution. Protocol demands courtesy and diplomacy demands restraint.

But governments are not peoples. And citizens are not bound by diplomatic choreography.

Sri Lankans, unlike their officials, are not required to perform the niceties of statecraft. They are free to judge visiting dignitaries not by smiles in Colombo but by actions on the world stage. And in the case of David Lammy, that record demands scrutiny.