It was discussed in international circles that our government was indirectly backing Hilary Clinton against Donald Trump, because Clinton and Obama helped to achieve a regime change in Sri Lanka in January 2015. The government should depend on highly inte
the United States?
The LTTE diaspora fabricated the canard that 40,000 Tamil civilians were brutally and intentionally done to death in the last stages of the war. This fanciful figure of 40,000 civilians was thought of when Navi Pillay was UN’s Human Rights Chief. The present UN Human Rights Chief is now blindly following the same pattern, without any justification. The new chief is Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, a Jordanian Prince and a muslim who has repeatedly excoriated Trump, saying his threat to ban muslims travelling to the US is grossly irresponsible. He included Trump and Le Pen of France as populist demagogues and political fantasists. Zeid will naturally be mindful of what happened to Boutros-Boutros Ghali who clashed with the US and therefore was denied a second term as UN’s Secretary General.
Whether Zeid will have the guts to put his wild threats to practice is yet to be seen. Or will he gradually wilt, for the greed of staying in office for another term? Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin himself stated that Zeid is overstepping his limits, from time to time. It is left to be seen if Zeid is getting too big for his boots.
Quoting the Sunday Times of 25.12.2016, the Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte heaped scorn on Prince Zeid thus, “you are just an employee of an office there, whose subsidy comes from the pockets of the member states. You strut around as if you are a sovereign idiot. Go back to school. You do not know diplomacy. You do not know how to behave to be an employee of the United Nations. You do not talk to me like that, you son of a bitch. I am a member sovereign state. Please shut up because you lack brains. You are just an employee there by appointment. Tell him if he wants to come here, I will slap him, you devil” (Courtesy – ibtimes.co.uk)
As regards the charge by the US (while Hilary Clinton was the Secretary of State) that Sri Lanka had intentionally killed 40,000 innocent Tamils in the final stages of the war, Zeid should pose the question to the accusers:
Can the Sri Lankan forces kill 40,000 Tamils and make their bodies disappear into thin air? Where are the bodies? Where are the graves? Where are the incinerators, if the bodies were destroyed?
There was no denying even by the accusers (the western countries) that Sri Lankan Forces had saved the lives of 300,000 innocent Tamil civilians who were being kept as human shields for the protection of the LTTE, from the advancing forces. There was no denying even by the accusers that these human shields were kept like cattle, moved from place to place without food and water. Zeid and the US must now consider whether 300,000 of the self same refugees would have run for protection to the side of the army, if the same army had killed 40,000 of their own herd.
Not a word of praise from the west for saving the lives of 300,000 Tamils by the Sri Lankan forces, who put their own lives in harm’s way to protect these Tamils, during the last days of the war, when these Tamils were running away to escape being killed by the LTTE.
After the death of Prabhakaran and his cohorts, we fed the refugees, clothed them, medicated them and sheltered them. Every conceivable precaution was taken for their well-being, while the Tamil diaspora contributed nothing to look after their own displaced people. Yet, the Sri Lankan forces are being accused of killing innocent civilians.
This is why it is often said that friendship with the west can be revoltingly rewarding, while enmity can be revealingly reviling.
As regards violation of human rights by the US (our accusers), targeting and killing hordes of civilians by unmanned drones in Afghanistan, this is what a US Federal Judge had to say while delivering a judgement, “there is a painful conflict between human rights and national security. Fundamental human rights have to be sacrificed at theh altar of national security”. This shows that there is one law for the US, and another for their adversaries.
It is hoped that the US under Donald Trump will exonerate the Sri Lankan forces of all charges that have been foisted by the previous US administration, and it is also hoped that Zeid, the UN Human Rights Chief will have the guts to tell the US to drop all their false human rights violation charges against Sri Lanka.