The circus in Geneva

By S L Gunasekara

The Country was agog, not long ago, with the news that an alleged dignitary of the State Department of the United States of America named Blake had said that the United States of America would support a resolution against Sri Lanka that would be moved by some European States in the Human Rights Council. Today, however, we find that contrary to what Blake said, the resolution has been proposed by the United States of America itself with the support of some European States, and that it is using all its resources on a canvassing spree to inveigle the members of the Human Rights Council to support it. One of the first things that follow from this is that either Blake did not know what he was talking about, or that he lied deliberately, either on his own or at the behest of his patroness at the State Department, Clinton. In either event, these facts prove that we should not place any degree of reliance on what Blake says and indeed not welcome him to our shores at any time.

Blake and his utterances, however, are of no consequence whatsoever to the circus being staged in Geneva. There can be little doubt that the Resolution before the Human Rights Council was borne, not out of any kind of concern whatever for human rights or justice, but out of the limitless pique of the West that we `WOGS’ had what they deem to be the ‘impertinence’ or ‘insolence’ to spurn their advice to commit national suicide by declaring a ‘ceasefire’ when we were on the point of defeating the LTTE, and that we succeeded in defeating them and restoring a very significant degree of peace in our land whereas the West has only failures to show for their endeavours in those countries which suffered from their ‘tender ministrations’ - the wholly chaotic situations that exist in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc. etc. where assassinations and the explosion of bombs and other explosive devices in crowded city centres on a daily basis bear eloquent testimony to the ‘peace’ that clearly ‘passeth all understanding’ bestowed on those unhappy countries by these ‘angels of destruction’ of the West. Had we too been faced with such a chaotic situation and masses of our citizens were being murdered and crippled on a daily basis, none of these Western Nations now displaying a wholly fraudulent and hypocritical devotion to ‘human rights’ would have cared one whit – as they did not care two hoots when India trained and armed Sri Lankan citizens to commit acts of terrorism on our soil, murdering our citizens and destroying our property.

The resolution is, therefore, purely an exercise in political ‘one upmanship’ designed to fulfil the over-weening desire of the West to subvert our independence and subject us to their pseudo colonial rule. The vote in Geneva will therefore be based not the intrinsic merits of the Resolution, but on the success or otherwise of the efforts at wholly unprincipled ‘electioneering’ of the West with all its power and influence on the one hand and little Sri Lanka on the other. The presence in Geneva of Jon Snow, the Director/Presenter of the notorious anti-Sri Lankan video clips telecast by Channel 4 for the benefit of Sri Lanka’s enemies, bears testimony to the depths to which the West has sunk and is prepared to sink in their ‘crusade’ against us. It is pertinent here to pose the question whether Channel 4 would telecast any video clips of matters of current public interest such as the foul murders of 16 Afghan civilians by an American War Veteran, the regular murders of Pakistani and Afghan Civilians by American ‘Drones’, or the murder of an unarmed man named Osama Bin Laden in his house in Pakistan by some heavily armed American Illicit Immigrants with the blessings of their shamelessly sanctimonious Government, the leaders whereof, including Obama, Clinton and their leading Generals watched this gory scene live on television with unconcealed delight! The answer to this question is clearly ‘NO’ because America is rich and powerful and therefore out of bounds to the so-called ‘intrepid and public spirited journalism’ of Snow and his colleagues while little Sri Lanka is poor and weak and hence ‘fair game’ to these prostitutes of the noble profession of journalism.

The Indian statements that their stance on the Resolution will be dependent on considerations of their long standing relations with us and the sentiments of Tamil Nadu bear further testimony to the fact that the merits of the content of the Resolution will be largely irrelevant to the outcome of the vote.

The reactions of foreigners apart, what is most tragic is the inability of the several sections of our community to unite in the face of our foreign foes. Thus, we find both the Government and many a party in the Opposition seeking to make political capital out of this tragedy. The Government has used it to divert the attention of the People from its utter disregard for their sufferings caused by the ever escalating cost of living while its members increasingly indulge in the profligate extravagance with public funds, vain ostentation, waste and corruption, as well as to ‘drum up’ support for itself by some nonsensical staged demonstrations. The Opposition on the other hand uses this tragedy to ‘drum up’ hatred of the Government, create chaos and even to justify the horrendous resolution. Some have even expressed the stupid view that the Resolution is innocuous and only calls for the implementation of the LLRC Report. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Resolution which commences with a long, rambling and self-serving preamble which, would leave whoever is gullible enough to regard it with any degree of seriousness with the wholly nonsensical belief that the United States of America is a ‘knight in shining armour’ to which championing decency, fair play and human rights is second nature!!!

This seemingly innocuous resolution is in three parts.

The 1st "calls upon the Government of Sri Lanka to implement the constructive recommendations" in the LLRC Report as well as to "take all necessary additional steps to fulfill its relevant legal obligations" and "commence credible and independent actions to ensure justice, equity, accountability and reconciliation for all Sri Lankans"

The first matter that stares one in the face is that the LLRC being a Commission appointed by the Government of Sri Lanka to advise it, the Government is not in any way bound to comply with any of its recommendations. It is the Government of Sri Lanka and not the United States of America or the Human Rights Council which the people elected to rule this country. Thus, the question of what recommendations of the LLRC the Government should implement, and which it should not, are entirely matters for the Government of Sri Lanka and its sole masters, the People of Sri Lanka. It is certainly no business of the United States of America however rich or powerful it may be. It is worthy of mention that Article 2 (1) of the Charter of the United Nations provides that:-

"The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its members"

Thus, the acceptance of this Resolution will set a precedent for the United States of America as well as other rich and powerful nations to interfere in the internal affairs of the poor and the weak. The havoc that would be caused by the acceptance of such a precedent can readily be imagined. Let not the members of the Human Rights Council forget that while the target of the United States of America and its ‘poodles’ of the West is Sri Lanka today, it could be any of them tomorrow.

A circumstance that makes manifest the fact that the object of this Resolution is not to protect human rights but to pave the way for the West to control the poor and the weak in impoverished parts of the World such as Asia, and Africa is to be found in the very vague and broad terms in which the Resolution is couched. It does not accuse Sri Lanka of having committed any specific ‘war crimes’ or breaches of ‘international law’ but proceeds on the unspoken premise that it has done so, leaving the alleged violations unspecified and hence open to later allegations. It does not call upon the Government to implement all or any specific recommendations of the LLRC but only those which it describes as "constructive recommendations" while maintaining a deafening silence about what those are or who will decide what recommendations are "constructive". Can any one have any doubt that with its over-plentiful quantum of arrogance, it is the United States of America which will, according to its devious designs, decide which are the hitherto unspecified "constructive recommendations" which the Resolution requires us to implement. It is the same with the "relevant legal obligations" and the "credible and independent actions" referred to in that first limb.

By the 2nd limb, the Resolution " `Requests’ [i.e. commands] our Government "to present………….a comprehensive action plan detailing what action the Government has taken and will take to implement the recommendations made in the ………..report and also the alleged violations of international law." In short, the United States of America proceeds on the unconceded presumptions that we [who never sent armed illegal immigrants to another sovereign state to murder one of its unarmed residents] violated the international law and are subject to the supervision/superintendence of the ‘lily white’ United States of America and its lap dogs in respect of the internal governance of Sri Lanka.

By the 3rd limb, the United States of America has had the brazen effrontery to demand that we subject ourselves to obeying the orders of Ms Navi Pillay couched in the form of "advice and technical assistance" even though the People of our Country never voted for and never will vote for this Pillay to be a kind of overlord of our Country for it states that it "Encourages" Pillay "and relevant special procedure mandate holders to provide and the Government of Sri Lanka TO ACCEPT, advice and technical assistance on implementing the above-mentioned …."

Thus, while arrogating to itself [and its lapdogs] the right to interfere in our internal affairs in total breach of the Charter of the United Nations, the United States of America sets itself up to be the supervisor and pseudo colonial over-lord of Sri Lanka and appoints its stooge Navi Pillay as its agent to be the de facto Governor of Sri Lanka, as that odious little Indian Dixit once was.

If ever there was a Resolution brought before an allegedly responsible body like the Human Rights Council that was fraught with danger for the Country targeted by it, and for any others who would not obey implicitly the ‘commands’ of the United States of America couched in the garb of advice or requests, this is it,

Today it is Sri Lanka. Who will it be tomorrow?

TheIsland

2012-03-20