hypocritical protagonists of Commonwealth principles

3 December 2013 06:16 am - 2 - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

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The controversial CHOGM meeting has drawn to a close and we have heard ad nauseam, the term `Commonwealth Principles/values’ and of the alleged need for us to change our ways and abide by them.  Among the most vociferous of these ‘holier than thou’ protagonists of the Commonwealth principles/values are the formerly `Great’ Britain, Canada, India and Mauritius.   Lately, two Sri Lankans of the United National Party namely Mangala Samaraweera and Tissa Attanayake have jumped on to this `bandwagon’ and Samaraweera is alleged to have invited a foreigner, Kamalesh Sharma, the Secretary General of the Commonwealth to intervene and to bring pressure to bear on us to make us abide by the Commonwealth principles/values.

Two of the unasked questions that comes to mind upon hearing this cacophony of voices seeking to accuse us of horrific crimes against humanity and exhorting us to reform ourselves and follow the Commonwealth principles/values, are what is the record of these holier than thou purported protagonists of human rights on that very matter, and whether they are in a position to ‘cast the first stone’.  Let us ask those questions now.

The Commonwealth is said to be a `family’.  This was said repeatedly by Sharma to whom Samaraweera appealed recently.  One significant thing about a family is that members of that family stick together and would join hands to repel the invader of their home or any person who seeks to visit any violence on any member of that family.  Has that happened in the case of the Commonwealth?

Little Sri Lanka was attacked.  Not from without but from within by a bunch of Tamil thugs who styled themselves the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam who were armed and trained by the Indians.  Was it in keeping with the Commonwealth principles/values for India to train and arm Tamil thugs to commit murder and mischief on our soil? Later when India sent its Army of Occupation euphemistically called the “Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF)” into Sri Lanka, those Indian invaders committed numerous atrocities on the Tamil civil population. These atrocities included an armed invasion of, and multiple armed attacks on, including the murder of patients, medical officers, nurses, attendants and even ambulance drivers within, the precincts of the General Hospital Jaffna. Some of these atrocities are well documented in the book `Broken Palmyrah’ which unlike the fictitious teledramas about Sri Lanka [labeled “documentaries” by their producers] of “Channel 4”, was written and published contemporaneously with the commission of such feats of `valour’ by the Indian troops!

To our knowledge, no inquiry was held into any of these unpardonable atrocities that were committed by the Indian invaders.   Was any of this in accord with the Commonwealth principles/values?  Yet one finds obese twins of Tamil Nadu - Jayalalithaa and Manmohan Singh through abject fear of Karunanidhi, boycotting CHOGM as a mark of alleged protest against Sri Lanka’s alleged violation of human rights! The conduct of this pusillanimous politician would have been comic had it not been tragic.

It is as though to Manmohan Singh training and arming thugs of the neighbouring country to commit murder and mischief on its soil, to send an army of occupation into that country [no doubt on the `invitation’ of its senile  President] which committed all kinds of atrocities on the Tamil civil population do not constitute violations of human rights. This is not all.  If any single entity is to blame for the thousands of Tamils who were herded together in a corner in the Northern part of the Mullaitivu it was India, because it was India that prevented Sri Lanka from destroying the Tigers root and branch in 1987 by their infamous invasion with bags of dhal escorted by fighter jets.  Yet India has the absolute impertinence to find fault with us for the suffering of the Tamils which would never ever have happened but for India’s interference in our internal affairs way back in 1987.

Today, Manmohan Singh, hungry for the votes of Tamil Nadu speaks in glowing terms about India’s affection of the Tamils of Sri Lanka, its concern about their welfare and about how India would do everything to help them.  Yet what has Manmohan Singh done about the Indian robbers of our fish in our territorial waters off our Northern and Eastern costs where fish abound?

Rather than seeking to prevent this kind of completely unpardonable  theft of the means of livelihood of the indigent Tamil and Moor fishermen of the North and the East,  Manmohan Singh has, at every turn, sought to help those unconscionable thieves and become, thereby particeps criminis in their criminal acts.  Was the stealing of the livelihood of the civilians of any race an act contrary to human rights or not? If so what right has Manmohan Singh to take a `holier than thou’ attitude towards Sri Lanka and choose to boycott CHOGM purportedly in view of our so-called human rights record?

Sri Lanka is to blame for this set up.  Why has Sri Lanka not taken the offensive in these matters? Why has Sri Lanka continued to utter the monstrous fib that India is our elder brother and our friend? Surely it is time that we took the offensive and told the world the truth by exposing India’s hypocrisy.  What of the rest of the so called Commonwealth `family’, including Britain, Canada and Mauritius? What have they done by word or deed to restrain India from its unpardonable assaults on Sri Lanka’s sovereignty, independence and the well-being of its citizens of all races in general and the Tamils and Moors in particular? The answer is nothing. When we needed help what did the Commonwealth of Nations do?  Nothing.

Let us now take the once ‘Great’ Britain.  This is a country that has now become and has been for sometime the `lapdog’ or `poodle’ of the U.S.A.  and follows the U.S.A. right or wrong.  Cameron’s Britain is a country that was particeps criminis with the United States in invading Iraq upon the false pretext of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction.  The millions of deaths of civilians which they caused by that unpardonable invasion is now common knowledge. Yet has Cameron to this date, accused the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair of acting against Commonwealth principles/values by following Britain’s leader the U.S.A. to invade a sovereign state on a false pretext?  The answer is a resounding ‘No’.

Britain’s toadyism of the United States does not end with this.  Today, when the United States sent some armed thugs from their Navy called “Seals” to enter Pakistan illegally without visas or without notice to Pakistan and to murder a resident in that country named Osama Bin Laden, did Britain voice any protest?  Once again the answer is No. Has Cameron once found fault with the  U.S.A. for murdering residents of foreign countries within the shores of such countries using `Drone’ aircraft; or has Cameron, now posing as a champion of press freedom, once criticized the USA for its unpardonable persecution of Snowden, or Manning ? Once again the answer is No.

These acts of the once ‘Great’ Britain are clearly acts that are completely contrary to the Commonwealth principles/values and yet they continue to commit them and have the impertinence to accuse us of human rights violations and demand that we adhere to Commonwealth principles/values!

Two other heads of Government that have evidently taken a purportedly strong stand in respect of this matter are Steven Harper the Prime Minister of Canada and the Prime Minister of Mauritius whatever his name may be.  To this unholy foursome of Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of Mauritius, Harper and Cameron, are added to our own political losers Mangala Samaraweera and Tissa Attanayake.  They too seemed wholly untouched or unmoved by the malodorous records of those countries now seeking to sit in judgment over us.

It was surely the duty of those countries to help us in the hour of our need. Did they do so? No. Neither they nor anybody else did so. They all looked the other way.  Perhaps through fear of antagonising India which is an emerging market from which they could gain much.  Sri Lanka has done enough by way of turning the other cheek and even permitted those journalistic prostitutes from the once unknown television channel called Channel 4 [which is now famous because of its persecution of Sri Lanka] to  come to this country and roam about freely while hatching diabolical plots to persecute us further.

It is time that we took the offensive and attacked the Commonwealth for its failure to give us assistance to defeat the Tigers and particularly those countries like India, Britain and Canada that materially assisted the Tigers.  Let neither Cameron nor the world forget that that fiendish nurse Adele Balasingham who indisputably committed crimes against humanity by aiding, abetting  and instigating little Tamil children to commit grisly acts of terrorism and commit suicide if arrested, lives freely in Cameron’s country while he, preaches rubbish to us pretending to be the leader of a country that `counts’.

Why is it that we cannot take the offensive?  True enough we have a weak foreign minister who like his predecessor Hameed believes in following the path of least resistance and seeking to please everybody he possibly can; but President Mahinda Rajapaksa is made of sterner stuff.  Why cannot Mahinda Rajapaksa, as he told the foreigners such as Clinton, Moon, Miliband, Kouchner etc. in effect to fly a kite when they sought to make us commit suicide by declaring a ceasefire when we were in the point of defeating the Tigers tell our present tormentors off in like fashion?

Why cannot Rajapaksa ask Cameron why he with his purported devotion to human rights has yet to cause Adele Balasingham to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity? or to condemn Obama and his partners in crime for the murder of Bin Laden and so many foreigners on foreign soil as well as for the persecution of Snowden and Manning ?

Sri Lanka has now, by reason particularly of seeking to take the path of least resistance and be friends with all, lost our position as a free and independent nation, and all kinds of countries including little Mauritius and the formerly   `Great’ Britain have the impertinence to purport to sit in judgment over us and tell us that we should reform ourselves.  It is time that we put an end to this nonsense.  It is time that we asserted ourselves and told other countries that are supposed to belong to the purported family called the Commonwealth to concern themselves more about the beam in their own eyes than about the mote they claim to see in our eyes.

When one examines the allegations made against us it is as though [and probably it is so], those foreigners are angry with us for having defeated the Tigers.  They are angry with us for saving thousands upon thousands of lives of Sinhalese, Tamils, Moors Burghers, Malays and so on by defeating the Tigers.  By defeating them we have effectively halted the spate of bombs and explosive devices that were being exploded in crowded city centres, the kidnapping of Tamil children for slave labour in the Tigers’ terrorist cadres, the extortion by the Tigers of money from Tamil adults and so on.  Had the Tigers been yet free to commit murder and other crimes at their whims and fancies, these foreigners would not have interfered.

Evidently they have neither interfered nor been concerned about any of the atrocities committed by the Tigers.  It is time that Sri Lanka told the world; that if this is what is meant by the so-called family called the Commonwealth we want no further part in it  [whatever the likes of Samaraweera and Attanayake may think about it, and ask them to remain with their hypocritical friends]. At the very lowest, if we wish to remain in this nonsensical `club’ should we not insist on the expulsion of countries like India, Britain, Canada and Mauritius wherefrom as a condition precedent to our remaining a member?

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Comments - 2

sammy cooper Tuesday, 03 December 2013 08:31 AM

The usual blah, blah from a well known racist. The sad reality of Sri Lanka, institutionalized racism. Sri Lanka could have been a great place if not for Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism. Sadly people like SLG just go on and on with their misrepresentations of the truth. And Gota's son is not buying any of his nonsense, is he?

Gamarala Wednesday, 04 December 2013 07:27 AM

I say AMEN.

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hypocritical protagonists of Commonwealth principles

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