Cameron’s Camouflage Why British PM did shunned local media
Posted on November 21st, 2013
by Sanjaya Arachchige
‚ On May 3 , 1985 Air Lanka flight UL 512 arrived Bandaranayke International Airport (BIA) from Gatwick airport , London.‚ The next stop for the flight was Malƒ©‚ in Maldives . ‚ The US made Lockheed Tristar ‚ jet was about to take off after an unexpected delay at BIA ‚ , when a devastating bomb explosion‚ ripped the 276-seat aircraft ‚ into two pieces.
This was the time when the Sri Lanka government was still engaged in the first peace talks with Tamil terrorist groups conducted in Thimpu , Bhutan under the auspices of India. There was a ceasefire in operation at the time. Investigations into the attack revealed that the Tamil Tigers had set the clock of the time bomb to destroy the aircraft while airborne, ‚ killing all 128 passengers. The unexpected delay had averted the carnage. The attack marked the beginning of Tamil Tigers-â„¢ bloody tradition of breaking ceasefires with surprise attacks at civilian targets.
The ill-fated flight had 128 passengers onboard , mostly British, French and Japanese tourists. Twenty -“three of them were killed and 41 suffered injuries in the attack.
Mr.‚ Tim‚ Macpherson‚ his wife Mrs. Mouse‚ Macpherson (Deirdre Higham ‚ ) and their daughter , 20-year-old‚ Iona‚ Macpherson‚ were among the 25 British passengers in the aircraft. All three of them were killed and five other Britons were injured in the attack. ‚ Tim was a retired British Army officer and the managing director of the largest malting company in the UK at the time. His wife‚ Mrs. Mouse‚ Macpherson was an accomplished artist.‚ Their daughter Iona‚ was the younger sister to‚ Louise and‚ Kate.
One of the journalist of a prominent local English newspaper told me that he was going to ask a question similar to the following from Prime Minister David Cameron , at ‚ the media conference he appeared in Colombo recently :
‚
-Honorable Prime Minister , three British citizens of the same family was killed and five others were injured in a Tamil Tiger bomb attack at a passenger airplane in Sri Lanka 1986. Unless for a delay in the departure time , the flight would have been exploded while airborne killing all 25 Britons onboard . Today there is no fear of Tamil Tiger terrorism in Sri Lanka.
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As the British Prime Minister what do you have to say to the families of the British victims and the survivors of this terrorist attack ?
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Do you think that the justice have been served to them?-
However, the journalist was disappointed. During the said press conference , Mr. Cameron deliberately avoided local journalists and ‚ answered only few selected questions from the foreign journalists. Then, ‚ he said what he had long planned to say. He slammed Sri Lanka for Human Rights violations, called for an international probe for alleged war crimes, imposed a deadline to act ‚ and threatened with UN action.
Mr. Cameron-â„¢s statement was a huge hit for the ‚ mainstream Western media . It was ideal content for their one-sided reporting of the world affairs edited free by Mr. Cameron. ‚ But for the Sri Lankans , who were already irked by the sudden surge of organized smear campaign against their nation during the ‚ CHOGM, British Prime Minister-â„¢s behavior was no surprise. Mr. Cameron knew that he could not hide his hypocrisy over Sri Lanka had he allowed questions from local journalists.
In my opinion, Mr. Cameron’s deliberate elusion carries the important message to the Sri Lankans than his action before media on that day.
The message is, some Western powers do not consider a peaceful and stable Sri Lanka is in favor of their interests in the region. They are ready do whatever in their power to undermine the stability in our country ‚ .In simple terms , they need another bleeding nation , unstable and miserable in the world map strategically positioned in the Indian ocean. Unless we Sri Lankans get a rational understanding of this harsh reality of global power politics, there is very little assurance that our hard-earned peace would last long. ‚ The dichotomy between the -walk- and -talk- over accountability and human rights issues in Mr. Cameron-â„¢s own realm helps us to understand this reality.
Do Mr. Cameron and ‚ British government truly care about protecting human rights in Sri Lankan or human rights in anywhere in the world?
The evidence are that they don’t , not in the past or present. It took 15‚ years since the aforesaid Air Lanka bomb blast for the UK government to proscribe Tamil Tigers as a terrorist group. Until then, the government allowed this terrorist outfit to establish itself firmly in the UK soil through bogus asylum seeking and thrive in all sorts of illegal enterprises. Credit card scams , human smuggling, false charities and extortion rackets are just a few of them .
There is sufficient literature available , though never given publicity in Western mainstream media to show that there were no ‚ genocide or war crimes committed in Sri Lanka during any phase of the war. So , there is no point of wasting time over that here . Yet , we must not forget that we ‚ lost ‚ nearly 100,000 lives in the‚ internecine battle we fought for 26 years. Sri Lanka must engage in a meaningful exercise to find out what went wrong during this dark period of our nation and take necessary steps to avoid‚ recurrence‚ of similar situations.‚ ‚ But , Mr. Cameron who blocks an investigation into a slaughter of nearly half a million ‚ innocent people in nine years, certainly has no moral right to question Sri Lanka’s accountability or give deadlines to take action.
The latest research published in November 2013 on Iraq reveals , the US-UK led invasion on Iraq 2003 and subsequent occupation has killed 461,000 Iraq people in a 9-year span from 2003 to 2011. The research was undertaken by the volunteer researchers of University of Washington, Johns Hopkins University Simon Fraser University and Mustansiriya University with the cooperation of Iraqi Ministry of Health. ‚ The report further says, the US-UK led coalition forces are responsible for 35% of these deaths.
Irrespective of the fact that Ms. Navi Pillay of UNHRC never cared to lay wreaths in memory of innocent people killed in Iraq or Mr. Ban Ki-moon never ordered his international eminent person to write reports on the US-UK led offensive in Iraq, there is ample evidence to show the invasion was illegal. Then US President George Bush Jr. and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were accused of war crimes for ordering this invasion based on intelligence that they allegedly had the knowledge to be false.
Interestingly, Mr. Cameron who gives deadlines for Sri Lanka to do justice to an unfounded number of 40,000 people killed in Sri Lanka denies the justice for half a million people murdered due to ‚ a war waged on unfounded intelligence. ‚ ‚ Mr. Cameron has been accused of ‚ engaged in a foot dragging tactic to delay the proceeding of Chilcott inquiry setup by his predecessor Gordon Brown to investigate the UK-â„¢s excesses in Iraq invasion. Recent media reports reveal that Mr. Cameron has made it impossible to continue the investigation led by Sir John Chilcott by refusing to release government documents required by the inquiry. This includes 130 odd conversations between George Bush and Tony Blair plus 25 correspondences between the two and documents of 200 cabinet level discussions related to the Iraq invasion.
Now, that is enough evidence for us to see through Mr. Cameron-â„¢s camouflage and comprehend the true motives behind his behavior towards Sri Lanka.
What is important for us at the moment is to understand foreign interests in our nation rationally, so we can make informed decision as a nation before future challenges. That is to say, that we should not let us bog down to conspiracy theories with anti -“West sentiments or to get us stuck in a finger-pointing competition with our critics. What we should do is to embrace the reality and continue to support our nation-â„¢s progress and stability with resilience.
It is unrealistic to expect genuine support from Western powers for a stable Sri Lanka in the context of rising Chinese and Indian influence in the region. Tamil communalism is one trump that they can use to shatter India-â„¢s dream to be a super power if tactfully played. Also, a country plagued with terrorism the Indian ocean can slowdown encroaching Chinese economic power in the region.
On the other hand, we cannot expect people like Callum Macrae to apply their creative yellow journalism to Iraq invasion or Obama-â„¢s drone wars. They will not make money or win awards for such work. Also, we will not see any balanced reporting from Western mainstream media as long as Sri Lanka remain stable and continue to grow. Remember they used the word –hawkish- to describe President Rajapaksa even during his first presidential campaign when he promised an end to terrorism in Sri Lanka. Their script will not going to change unless their interests change.
Hence, we can confidently predict that the West will continue to promote instability by supporting ethnic and religious division, funding political dissident groups and ‚ recognizing negative campaigns against the country. They will continue to bully and embarrass Sri Lanka at international forums. To their support , they have a strong Tamil Tiger lobby with immense funds to buy enough politicians, journalist and -rights- activists to run the propaganda machine against Sri Lanka. Yet, a nation will not bleed unless its people make the blunder that the foreign interlopers want them to make.
If we look at the troubled nations added to the world map during the last 10 years or so, all of them have come to their present misery because of the blunders made by their leaders and their people. The foreign interlopers can only fan the fire but they cannot start it. We must not let outsiders to take advantage over our internal issues but find solutions among ourselves. Ultimately , it is us who would have to live together or to kill each other .
In my opinion, this is the lesson that our nation has learnt by being the most persecuted host of an international event in the modern history.
November 21st, 2013 at 7:11 pm
SANJAYA !!
THIS AH CAMERON LEFT THE UK, WITH A CONTRACT IN HAND, AND A GRENADE IN THE OTHER WITH A LOOSE PIN, WHICH HE THOUGHT HE WOULD USE ON THE AFFABLE SMILING SRI LANKAN COMMUNITY, TO CORNER THEM ON HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS. THE SAYING IS THAT, EVEN AN UNDERWORLD GUY WILL HESITATE TR DRAW THE PIN, WITH INNATE FEAR. THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS WHITE AH. HE FEARED TO USE THE PIN. YET HE MADE UP FOR IT WITH HIS TWISTING AND CURLING OF HIS LIPS TO PUT A PIGS ARSE SRTUCK BY LIGHTENENG INTO SHAME<ONE FACIAL EXXPRESSION REFLECTS THAT HE IS NEEDIG TO GO FO THE BIG JOB HE CUT A DOSAI FIGURE FOR THE TAMILS< BUT THE SINHALESE IT WAS NOT ACCEPTABLE. HE IS A BRITISH WHIT CLOWN TRYING TO BE SOMEBODY WE ARE WAITING TO SEE HE ENGAGEMENT WITH LAVI NAVI.
November 21st, 2013 at 9:17 pm
David Cameron is the Prime Minister of the country where 80,000 kids do not have a home, the one who took part in NATO’s criminal campaign in Libya and who tried very hard to start the same sort of campaign in Syria, before Russia smashed him back down to size, to start opining on human rights issues, or any others for that matter?
David Cameron is the Prime Minister of the country where streets are unusable after six o’clock p.m. because they are filled with marauding drunkards bawling obscenities or drug addicts kicking old ladies in the face on the pavement to steal their meager pension money.
David Cameron is the Prime Minister of the country where the corporations report profits of billions while farmers struggle to survive and old folk have insufficient money to keep warm in Winter.
David Cameron is the Prime Minister of the country where railway stations reek of excrement, whose trains are so splattered with graffiti that you can hardly see out of the windows, whose trains are decked knee-high in trash.
It is patently apparent that the world of David Cameron is a cosy little place in the Home Counties where “good chaps” get together and chortle over a bottle of port and sweeping policy-making decisions are taken by drawing lines on maps, settling the affairs of the world in a top-down, simplistic approach which runs along the lines of civilizing savages with the Bible and the bullet, what?
While NATO is based upon the same precepts, the rest of the world is not. Sri Lanka has its own institutions to deal with legal issues, as its President said in answer to his British upstart of a guest. David Cameron, for all these reasons, is not fit to represent the United Kingdom at the Commonwealth Summit, or indeed anywhere else.
David Cameron has questioned Sri Lanka’s human rights record is another example of the intrusive arrogance that goes hand-in-hand with NATO foreign policy, yet another example of sheer hypocrisy, insolence and chauvinism.
The pig-faced arrogance with which NATO committed war crimes in Libya, entering the country with boots on the ground in direct breach of UN Resolutions 1970 and 1973, the sheer callousness of its attacks on civilian targets without any regard for human lives or well-being, the strafing and cold-blooded murder of the Gaddafi grandchildren, roasted alive in their skins by a NATO coward-murderer in a military aircraft, sent a shiver down the spine of every single well-meaning, good human being on this planet.
The hypocrisy with which the United Kingdom entered the Libyan civil war was stunning, as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, presided over by William Hague, actively supported terrorists on its own list of proscribed groups, among these the LIFG, which despite claims by the FCO, was still on the lists when it was being supported as it committed atrocities against the Libyan civilian population.
The participation by the United Kingdom in the Libyan Civil War was in two words, a war crime. Those responsible for this human rights outrage are war criminals because they were actively engaged in financing, aiding, supporting, sponsoring or committing actions which occasioned murder, grievous or actual bodily harm to non-combatants, or to combatants outside a formal declaration of war, and destruction of property, mutilation, acts of terrorism and rape.
David Cameron was a key player in this human rights outrage, whether or not it is true that he was the one who gave the instruction to “get Gaddafi” like some spoiled prep-school boy preparing to gang-up on an isolated pupil in an act of bullying, or like some escapade by the stuck-up prigs of the Bullingdon Club, readying themselves to get drunk and trash a restaurant, destroying the jobs and livelihoods of those working there.
November 21st, 2013 at 9:41 pm
Please watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E70BwA7xgU#t=35
November 22nd, 2013 at 12:02 am
Britain’s and Christian West’s plan in Sri Lanka was very simple. They were to use Eelam as a stepping stone to balkanise India starting with Tamil Nadu. This why they are livid with anger at Sri Lanka for bungling their “Balkanise India” enterprise. Till the last moment they believed and promoted the “War is unwinnable” myth. With major plan for South Asia in disarray – now they want revenge. This is the simple truth.
India on the other hand while cognisant of what was about to happen used Sri Lanka as a cat’s paw to get Christian West / Prabhakaran’s Eelam project out of the way just by being non committal towards the end of the Eelam War. No sooner that part of the problem has been taken care of by Sri Lanka, the ungrateful Indian scum are on the way take Sri Lanka all the way to the Hague.
The Christian West has not given up the Eelam project. They think they can still revive the LTTE with the LTTE Rump. This is why Hillary Clinton visited Tamil Nadu recently. India must take heed if they are still to remain as one country!
November 22nd, 2013 at 3:25 am
Here is a typical Tamil.
“A Sri Lankan Tamil refugee accused of sexually assaulting and robbing a disabled woman on a Sydney train will spend Christmas behind bars.
Rasakumar Kanakaradnam allegedly got on the train at Mulgrave and sat next to the woman, who has Down syndrome, before sexually assaulting her.
It is further alleged that the woman moved to another carriage but he followed her and stole items from her handbag before indecently assaulting her.
The 19-year-old victim was travelling by herself from Richmond to Blacktown in Sydney’s west on the morning of November 1.
Kanakaradnam, 34, didn’t come out of the holding cell when his matter was mentioned at Penrith Local Court on Friday.
His lawyer didn’t apply for bail and it was formally refused.
The accused will make his next court appearance at Parramatta Local Court on January 15. (AAP)”
– adaderana.lk
November 22nd, 2013 at 9:19 am
David Cameron is a shameless.glory seeking hypocritical crude political opportunist to the core and the Olympic gold for political opportunism should go to David Cameron
David Cameron never had principled sense of direction and the opportunism he displays is very very deplorable. Mixture of desire for power with petulance and a very limited sense of the strategic marks David Cameron as a third grade Prime Minister who now drives UK into a cesspit
November 22nd, 2013 at 1:30 pm
“Lord” Parekh is a CONGENITAL HALF-WIT if he thinks “Our Prime Minister (David CAmeron) was right to visit Jaffna, commiserate with the Tamils, condemn the army operations which killed thousands of Tamils, demand an investigation into what actually happened during the war and afterwards, and meet the representatives of the Tamil group”!
By the same standards, “Our President Mahinda Rajapaksa should visit Dresden in Germany, commiserate with the Neo-Nazi Germans, condemn the British Airforce operations which killed thousands of Germans, demand an investigation into what actually happened during the war and afterwards, and meet the representatives of the Neo-Nazi group!”
It is only a question of WHOSE OX IS BEING GORED …. Isn’t it …. “Lord” Parekh? To these Neo-Colonialists Sinhala lives don’t matter …. only their global agenda and Tamil votes for local elections do … TO HELL WITH THE TRUTH!
When it is your OX being FATALLY GORED, it is DO TENFOLD UNTO Dresden, Germany AS DONE UNTO to Coventry, England …. Isn’t it … “Lord” Parekh?
BLOODY HYPOCRITES ALL WAVING DOUBLE STANDARDS!
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UK parliament reiterates PM’s edict on Sri Lanka
ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Nov 22, London: The UK parliament reiterated the Prime Minister’s call for an international investigation on Sri Lanka if the Sri Lankan government fails to conduct a credible and transparent independent investigation into allegations of war crimes to the satisfaction of the British government.
Debating the UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHIGM) in Colombo in the House of Lords Thursday, Lord Parekh commended the PM for the stand he took at CHOGM in Sri Lanka.
“He was right to go. I think that the Prime Minister of India was not right not to go. Our Prime Minister was right to visit Jaffna, commiserate with the Tamils, condemn the army operations which killed thousands of Tamils, demand an investigation into what actually happened during the war and afterwards, and meet the representatives of the Tamil group,” he said.
Baroness Warsi, the Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said the Prime Minister was right to attend the meeting in Colombo since “not talking to people is never the answer.”
“By going, the Prime Minister shone a spotlight on the situation there, and he was the first foreign leader to visit the north of the country since 1948. Because of his decision, journalists were granted access that would otherwise have been impossible to gain, and the local people – the families of the missing -were given an international voice,” she said.
The Minister said the PM was bold and blunt in his views and had a “frank and tough” meeting with the Sri Lankan President.
During the meeting, the PM clearly set out the need for Sri Lanka to make further progress in a number of areas, including a credible and transparent independent investigation into allegations of war crimes, Baroness Warsi said adding that the talks also covered a meaningful political settlement with the north, including demilitarization, and proper implementation of the range of Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission recommendations.
“If the Sri Lankan Government fails to do this, the UK will fully back an international investigation,” the Baroness stressed.
“However, I accept that more needs to be done, not just in Sri Lanka but to ensure that the principles of the Commonwealth charter are applied by the countries of the Commonwealth,” she emphasized.
The Sri Lankan government has flatly rejected Cameron’s call for an independent investigation and the March 2014 deadline saying that Sri Lanka has already set mechanisms in place to address the issues the PM raised and will take more than four years to achieve resolutions to the issues from a 30-year war.
The Indian government yesterday criticized Cameron’s ultimatum saying that it is counterproductive and not their style of handling such issues.
November 25th, 2013 at 4:20 pm
LORENZO !! Ninety three 93 SCHOOL GIRLS and their Teachers, have been Sexually abused by a gang of Men on a Train in INDIA.
The problem is India is looking after Sri Lanka Tamils only. Indian School children being sexually abused, is of no concern to India.