A hypocrisy called the United Nations!

There is a quiet anger spreading across much of the world. It is not the loud kind that fills streets with protests, but a deeper, more painful frustration felt by ordinary people who are watching global justice collapse under the weight of hypocrisy. At the centre of this failure stands the United Nations, an institution created to protect humanity, now increasingly exposed as one that protects power instead.

For Sri Lankans, this hypocrisy is not theoretical. It is personal. Years after a brutal war ended, the country continues to be dragged before international forums, threatened with sanctions and subjected to travel bans. All this because Sri Lanka defeated the LTTE, a terrorist organisation that terrorised the island for nearly three decades. An organisation that bombed buses and trains, assassinated leaders, recruited children and silenced even its own Tamil community through fear and murder.

Sri Lanka did not choose war. War was forced upon its people. Mothers buried children. Children grew up to the sound of gunfire. Entire communities lived in fear, unsure whether they would survive the next day. Ending that war was not an act of cruelty. It was an act of survival. Yet today, Sri Lanka is treated as if it committed an unforgivable crime by refusing to remain trapped in terror.

What makes this treatment unbearable is the silence that follows far greater crimes committed by powerful nations. The United States speaks loudly about democracy and human rights, yet faces little global outrage after illegally abducting a Venezuelan leader, a clear violation of sovereignty and international law. Imagine the consequences if a smaller nation had done the same. Condemnation would have been immediate. Sanctions would have followed. Headlines would have screamed of tyranny. But when a superpower acts outside the law, the world is asked to accept it as geopolitics. At the same time, Gaza burns. Women and children are being killed daily. Families are buried under rubble. Hospitals and refugee camps are destroyed. Parents hold lifeless children in their arms while the world watches through screens. These are not statistics. These are human beings. Yet Israel continues its military campaign with little more than statements of concern from the international community. Vetoes silence accountability. Investigations stall. Justice is postponed again and again.

For people watching from countries like Sri Lanka, the message is painfully clear. Human rights matter only when the violator is weak. International law applies only when power allows it. A child killed in Gaza is no less innocent than any other child in the world, yet their deaths are treated as unfortunate consequences rather than crimes demanding justice.

The United Nations was meant to stand above power. It was meant to be the conscience of the world. Instead, it has become a mirror reflecting global inequality. Small nations are scolded and punished. Powerful nations are excused and protected. This is not justice. This is convenience dressed up as morality. Sri Lanka knows what real suffering looks like. Tamil civilians trapped between a terrorist group and a battlefield. Muslim families expelled overnight from their homes. Sinhalese villagers massacred in cold blood. None of this finds equal weight in UN resolutions. Context is ignored. Terrorism is downplayed. History is rewritten to suit global narratives.

What hurts most is the moral arrogance. Travel bans imposed years after the war ended. Sanctions threatened against a struggling nation. Lectures delivered by countries whose hands are stained with the blood of far larger and ongoing conflicts. It feels less like concern for human rights and more like punishment for refusing to remain weak and divided.

This selective outrage does real damage. It destroys faith in international institutions. It breeds resentment and cynicism. It tells victims across the world that their suffering matters only if it fits a political agenda. That justice is not universal but negotiated behind closed doors. This is not a rejection of accountability or reconciliation. Sri Lanka must continue to heal its wounds and face its past honestly. But that process cannot be dictated through hypocrisy. True healing comes from within a society, not from pressure applied by institutions that refuse to hold the powerful accountable.

If the United Nations wants to regain even a fraction of its moral authority, it must find the courage to apply the same standards to all nations. It must be willing to question the United States when it breaks international law. It must be willing to hold Israel accountable when women and children are massacred in Gaza. Without this consistency, every resolution it passes against smaller nations will ring hollow.

A world where rules apply only to the weak is not a rules- based order. It is a warning. And until this hypocrisy ends, the promise of global justice will remain exactly that. A promise betrayed.