By Susantha Goonatilake

That ƒ¢¢”š¬…”gentlemanƒ¢¢”š¬‚, wanted to marry Navi Pillay. This would not even fit in to the category of ƒ¢¢”š¬…”beauty and the beastƒ¢¢”š¬‚ because she definitely is not a beauty. But the ƒ¢¢”š¬…”beastƒ¢¢”š¬‚ part ƒ¢¢”š¬- I will let you decide that. But into our problems,she has definitely married most acutely.

Navi Pillayas part of her UNHRC job spent the longest time of any country in Sri Lanka. She was herebecause the US had sponsored a successful resolution against Sri Lanka. But behind these human rights verbiage,there is geopolitics. Our former ambassador in Geneva Tamara Kunanayakam, an ethnic Tamil,pointed out that 80% of UNHRC funding comes from the US and its allies and many of its officers were former Foreign Service employees of these very countries. What Tamara failed to mention was that the UNHRC is obliged also to listen to NGOs who themselves are funded by the West and so act as another Western Foreign Service front. They are not like the People’s movements in the West, for example the American Civil Rights Movement which saw hundreds of thousands of people marching or for that matter, our own trade unions and our other vociferous organs which take to the street or climb a tree in protest far more than in any Western country (and I have seen to many of the latter).

And the US when it suited it, had treated the likes of UNHRC with disdain. The International Criminal Court (ICC), another such human rights organ is anathema to the US and refused to join it. The ICC on the other hand has been accused of only hunting out Africans from which continent NaviPillay, although an ethnic Tamil hails.

While Pillay spent the longest time in any country in Sri Lanka,parts of the rest of the world were actually burning. No she was no Nero and definitely not mad. There was purpose in her refusal to see the looming big problems elsewhere. Let us begin withher own country -South Africa. She said that the women and girls ofSri Lanka particularly in the North were vulnerable to sexual harassment and abuse, especially in female-headed households. I do not know how she got these figures. But she forgot to mention that they became widows becausetheirmenfolk were kidnapped by the LTTE to fight for the local Hitler. Every family had to yield a member which even Hitler did not ask for and in the final stages, this forced recruitment went far further.

In her own land, the sexual harassment and abuse is far, far worse. In South Africa,ƒ¢¢”š¬…”the average woman is more likely to be raped than complete secondary school. A 2009 survey found one in four South African men admitted to raping someone and another survey found one in three women surveyedsaid they had been raped in the past year.ƒ¢¢”š¬‚ Her admonishment for Sri Lanka that ƒ¢¢”š¬…”a more holistic approach is needed to provide truth, justice and reparations for people’s sufferingƒ¢¢”š¬‚ is far more urgent in her own South Africa.

And what of the USA,the country that sponsored the motion against Sri Lanka and whose obedient instrument she now is. 15% of female war veterans screened in the US said that they had been sexually assaulted in the military.Pillay also lectured us on an assumed lack of democracy and authoritarianism in Sri Lanka.

But last week the Chicago Tribune headlined on authoritarianism ƒ¢¢”š¬…”Obama, the most imperial presidentƒ¢¢”š¬‚ as he was ƒ¢¢”š¬…”rejecting all limits on his war-making power.Obama came as an anti-war candidate but is now following Bush. In the US exercise over Iraq, reliable sources like the medical journal Lancet put the numbers killed directly and indirectly around 1 million. In Afghanistan in pursuit of Bin Laden and afterwards the US killed thousands. I am no lover of either Bin Laden or Saddam, both of whom in comparison were far less fanatical than our other Pillay, VeluPillayPrabakaran. As the West withdraws from these two destroyed countries, they leave chaos behind. The killings still goes on as bombs explode every day in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The authoritarian tendency, she claimed in Sri Lanka was far more to see in the warmongering of the West. The Iraqi exercise was undertaken amidst massive protests in Britain. And that is why the British Parliament voted recently against a new Syrian adventure. The war powers of the US allow it to be the most authoritarian regime as far as the external world is concerned (in polite terms the ƒ¢¢”š¬…”world’s policemanƒ¢¢”š¬‚ or if you will, Wild West gunman). And in the current frenzy to attack Syria (hardly a democracy like the far more authoritarian theocratic Saudi Arabia) one finds the US public very much against it. France hasa very authoritarian Gaullist regime which grants huge powers to its President. But in the face of two thirds of French people against attacking Syria, the French war president is now wavering.

The democracy of Sri Lanka is not perfect. Once, there was a system where every 5 years, we threw one set of political rascals out and brought in another set. But this was changed into its present format by JR Jayawardana, considered a US puppet. This was probably on advice from the US at a time when the US was encouraging right wing dictatorships around the world. Under the cover of democracy, the Sri Lanka system was changed into what was called a Gaullist system under the advice of the pro-TULF A.J. Wilson. The UNP when Pillaymet them objected to the elimination of the 17^th amendment (which amendment I personally believe should be revisited), but this amendment was brought in to change some of the elements of the JR Gaullist Constitution.

Democracy requires a viable opposition and the possibility of changing governments. The present government with its many faults have been elected and re-elected very many times. The reason for this is that the UNP is no opposition lacking leadership,and the JVP has pushed itself into irrelevance. And if democratic reform is needed, it should be in the UNP itself whose constitution is so undemocratic that no nationally electable leaders can now emerge. Mahinda Rajapakse has a people’s image of moving freely among people and doing what politicians do, namely kissing babies, talking to parents and feeling at home among them. Unfortunately the UNP under its current Constitution cannot produce a similar politician.And while democracy demands regular changes of government, the first step should be to change the authoritarian Constitution of the UNP. The UNP, the most right-wing and pro-West party in Sri Lanka has also apparently run out of money and ideas. May be while complaining before Pillay and other foreigners, like Tamil separatists have been doing for decades, they should take a leaf out of the US. The US has (unlike for example the UK)today become a very selective democracy where lobbyists with huge sums of money back candidates for election. This guarantees that their business interests would be safeguarded even against claims of the people. In fact, recently the US Supreme Court decided that such massive bribery by billionaires was only a part of the ƒ¢¢”š¬…”right to speechƒ¢¢”š¬‚.

Pillaywas also complaining that the persons who had spoken to her in Mulllaitivu were later questioned by security authorities. If so, this was stupid. If one suspected them of being pro-LTTE; it would have been far easier to tap into their mobile phones. KeheliyaRambukwellacountered Pillayby asking for evidence. But the US,Pillay’sbacker was far more adept at finding out secrets,including definitely having her own telephone calls monitored as well as those in her office.

Last week several sources pointed out that the US Secret Service; the National Security Agency(NSA) was tapping into internal UN documents and conversations. U.N. spokesman FarhanHaq responded by noting “the inviolability of diplomatic missions, including the United Nations and other international organizations [were] well-established international law”and should be respected. This inviolability was now being transgressed by the West including very probably tapping into Pillay’s own conversations ƒ¢¢”š¬- of course to guarantee that she was properly on their leash.

In the meantime, the Presidents of Brazil and Mexico (presumable good friends of the US) were condemning the US for listening to all their telephone conversations. Much of this has come from revelations by Edward Snowdon the NSA whistleblower who has given extensive details reported in the Washington Postof US infiltrating and disrupting foreign computer networks. Snowden revealed thatthe NSA (which reports to the ƒ¢¢”š¬…”non-authoritarianƒ¢¢”š¬‚President of the US) was routinely lying to Congress. The US was becoming an authoritarian country with mass surveillance as caricatured by George Orwell in his novel 1984. (Footnote: I am a friend of the US, especially I love New York).

This authoritarianism is done through a totalitarian program called PRISMƒ”š‚ which gathers almost all electronic communication in the world, store it and allow it to be analysed for US government purposes. And if you think your Internet bank account transactions or email are safe, think again, they are all being examined by the US. No wonder the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced that these actions will ƒ¢¢”š¬…”further erode not only the United States’ reputation as a global champion of civil liberties and privacy but the economic competitiveness of its largest companies.ƒ¢¢”š¬‚

But the US designates certain countries as authoritarian like at present Syria and earlier Iraq, but ignores equally authoritarian theocracies like Saudi Arabia. In Iraq, it cooked up falsities before its attack. Earlier it had supported Iraq when it launched chemical attacks against Iran. The whole of the Middle East was once peppered with authoritarian US puppets and the US was caught on the wrong foot with the Arab Spring. With this particular Springnow beginning to unravel with the Egypt’s military takeover, the US forgot to call it a coup as this would imply cutting off US aid to Egypt’s authoritarian military rulers. And for most of US military adventures,as in the Iraq attack,it got support from a pliant UN. And now our Pillay rejects the allegations that the UN was biased. But how could she not, Pillayas Tamara Kunanayakam implied must sing appropriately for their supper given by Western donors.

NaviPillay on her visit to Nandikadalwas to lay a wreath in memory of the other Pillay who died there, VeluPillayProbakaran. Fortunately she was stopped.NaviPillayclaimed that her Tamil ethnicity did not count but she met one of the widows of a dead LTTE leader. Yet she had no time to meet relatives of countless innocent others ƒ¢¢”š¬- Tamil, Sinhalese and Muslim slaughtered by the LTTE. She falsely claimed of government occupying land but ignored that almost all land title deeds in Jaffna Kachcheri wereburnt by the LTTE. No wonder to prove the traditional homelands concept.

Pillayclaimed that she had only been once to Sri Lanka to attend, of all places the ICES whose Director Rama Mani (another Tamil) was later deported during the war for advocating R2P ƒ¢¢”š¬- in effect bringing foreign troops to the country.The ICES and similar NGOs are not civil rights organisations in the Western sense with mass participation. They had overlapping leaders at the top and often made similar antinational statements. The ICES was special in that its once leadership NeelanTiruchelvam was a Politburo member of the TULF, and in fact one could say the ICES functioned as a partial proxy think tank for that political party. And this ICES linked TULF had once published a book in Tamil Nadu saying that Sinhalese ate Tamil meat, in fact that Colombo butchers had carried signs saying “Tamil meat for sale”. If you look closely at the half truths made by Pillay, you will see a close connection with statements made by NGOs. With only a one-week visit, she could not have got all these half-truths by herself. Although pretending disinterested objectivity,Pillay had clearly been obsessed by Sri Lanka in comparison to far more urgent places requiring human rights attention. She clearly has been reading all what had been written on her in Sri Lanka when she remarked ƒ¢¢”š¬…”that some media, ministers, bloggers and various propagandists in Sri Lanka have, for several years now, on the basis of her Indian Tamil heritage, described her as a tool of the LTTE.ƒ¢¢”š¬‚ Pity she has not read the infinitely more material written on the human rights violations of her paymasters in the West.

But it was another ethnic Tamil Dr. Subramanian Swamy from Tamil Nadu who made the correct assessment. He said ƒ¢¢”š¬…”that in any war, there will be collateral damage especially if the civilians are used as human shields as the LTTE did.ƒ¢¢”š¬‚ He added ƒ¢¢”š¬…”To single out Sri Lanka for human rights violations and that there should be an international investigation is absurdƒ¢¢”š¬‚. He pointed out the obvious ƒ¢¢”š¬…”Tamils in Sri Lanka are safeƒ¢¢”š¬‚. Swamy was a professor at Harvard University where Pillay, her bio tells us, studied. Pillay listen to your US Tamil professor, not to your US paymaster.

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