Fight for withdrawal of UNHRC resolution
Posted on February 13th, 2019
P.S.MAHAWATTE Colombo 5. Courtesy The Island
This relates to The Island of 7th Feb, article captioned “UK urged again to bring closure UN Resolution, Lord Naseby reminds UK govt. of US pullout from Geneva body”.
Lord Naseby further states addressing the House of Commons “My Lords, it is my privilege to introduce this debate this evening. In doing so, I declare an interest in that I started The All Party Parliamentary Group on Sri Lanka in 1975 and had the privilege of being made its Honorary President four years ago”. He continues “I have done a great deal of Research. Nearly three years ago I made a request under the Freedom of Information Act and secured the publication of Colonel Gash’s dispatches to the United Kingdom. I have 40 pages of them here and some of which have been totally redacted, and I shall quote from one this evening”. He concludes “I submit that Her Majesty’s Government should show some leadership, bring closure to the UN Resolution and in doing so make it quite clear that there were not 40,000 civilians killed- and if it helps, I will give all the evidence I have to my noble friend on the Front Bench, so that he can be totally convinced that that is indeed the case”.
In The Island of 8th February captioned “UK demands full implementation of Geneva Resolution on Lanka” by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and says “US pullout from Geneva body irrelevant”.
How can it be irrelevant? the US pulled out of the UNHRC and the US Ambassador Nicky Hayley condemned it as “A CESSPOOL OF POLITICAL BIAS AND AS A HYPOCRITICAL AND SELF SERVING BODY”.
In an earlier letter of 19th Jan., I suggested that “Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was deprived of his effort to get a General Election, could now devote his efforts to get this damning UNHRC Resolution withdrawn by the sponsors”. He cannot get a better ally than Lord Naseby, who has enough evidence to establish that our security forces never killed 40,000 civilians.
I remember seeing in TV news during the war, that our courageous young men, attached to TV companies, taking pictures of young and old men and women carrying little children escaping from the LTTE, most of them pregnant and hardly able to walk, being assisted by our women security forces personnel to carry these little infants, and our men soldiers carrying old women and offering their own rations of water and food to these escapees!
The parliamentary opposition instead of shouting about Drug Menace, new constitutions, etc., which are well planned diversions to avoid holding elections, could use their positions and time to saving the reputation of our valiant security forces, who succeeded in destroying the most ruthless terrorists which the sponsors of this resolution warned could not be destroyed, and visited in hoards, to persuade then President Mahinda Rajapaksa to stop the war!
Why I have written about this subject several times is because as long as this damning resolution exists, it will be impossible to bring about the reconciliation with all communities, which we all communities want but is being used as the beggars wound (Hingannage thuvale vagey)!
P.S.MAHAWATTE
Colombo 5.
February 13th, 2019 at 7:42 pm
Why is there no resolution against England for the gruesome crimes against humanity committed in all those countries they invaded, mass massacres of native people, robbing their wealth and livelihoods. German, Japan and Iraq had to pay compensation for their for their war crimes. The Queen still has jewels in her crown taken from these helpless countries. But now Britain want to punish Sri Lanka for defeating the most dangerous terrorist in the world. LTTE money talks.
February 14th, 2019 at 9:08 am
Mr. Mahawatte agrees with you. Our politicians are crooked without an iota of patriotism. They will gladly sell the country if they can keep their positions till they die. Ranil was following a plan to crash the economy and sell off everything. He kept taking loans and using the money to import luxury cars for our corrupt politicians. We would have ended up like Greece. Luckily our current President Sirisena and former President MR saw the danger and made the country aware of the danger. We have to realize that the superpowers we are dealing with are ruthless and have no mercy towards anyone they can bully. We need strong people like MR in power not weaklings like Mangala and CBK who will gladly sell the country to keep themselves in power. We must have this UNHRC resolution withdrawn so that the country can move forward towards reconciliation. The Tamil politicians like Sampathan and Wigneswaran do not want reconciliation. They want to keep the conflict going as they did for 30 years so they can benefit. Now that the USA is dependent on Sri Lanka ports we should use it as leverage to get USA help in withdrawing this meaningless resolution.
Earlier when David Cameron was in power he was running all over the place trying to help the LTTE. Why because of the GBP 400,000 he received from the LTTE groups. With all his Oxford accent high-minded talk he was just a cheap politician who took money from LTTE terrorists. Finally, the British people saw through the front and threw him out. Let us hope Sri Lankans also see through our local version of Cameron, Ranil Wickremasinghe and throw him out. Justin Trudeau should also beware that the same fate does not befall him. Please see the two links below.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/the-french-connection?utm_term=.ukyMgJbeBx#.pckV1NlBJG
https://ltteagents.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/david-cameron-and-team-meets-with-the-tamil-tiger-diaspora/
Please read the book “Breaking India” by Rajiv Malhotra/ Aravindan Neelakandan (Author). (i) Islamic radicalism linked with Pakistan (ii) Maoists and Marxist radicals supported by China via intermediaries such as Nepal (iii) Dravidian and Dalit identity separatism being fostered by the West in the name of human rights. This book focuses on the third: the role of U.S. and European churches, academics, think-tanks, foundations, government, and human rights groups in fostering separation of the identities of Dravidian and Dalit communities from the rest of India. The book is the result of five years of research and uses information obtained in the West about foreign funding of these Indian-based activities. The research tracked the money trails that start out claiming to be for education, A” “human rights,” empowerment training, A” and leadership training, A” but end up in programs designed to produce angry youths who feel disenfranchised from Indian identity. The book reveals how outdated racial theories continue to provide academic frameworks and fuel rhetoric that can trigger civil wars and genocides in developing countries. The Dravidian movement’s 200-year history has such origins. Its latest manifestation is the Dravidian Christianity” movement that fabricates a political and cultural history to exploit old fault lines. The book explicitly names individuals and institutions, including prominent Western ones and their Indian affiliates. Its goal is to spark an honest debate on the extent to which human rights and other empowerment” projects are cover-ups for these nefarious activities.
The short-sighted demand for a separate state by the Tamils leaves Sri Lanka wide open for the above-described activities of the West. I believe India which was earlier supporting Tamil separatism in Sri Lanka has now recognized the danger and have withdrawn their support to the Tamils. Dr. Subramanium Swami’s request to the Tamils to be Sri Lankans first is a sign of this change of India’s policies and also the pressure against Ranil and the UNP gang in spite of Ranil’s support of trade with India.
February 14th, 2019 at 4:51 pm
Mahinda will not take it up.
Although Lord Naseby’s efforts are reasonable we must not forget he is serving the interests of the UK (not Sri Lanka).
It is not possible to prove war crimes, etc. based on the hilarious 40,000 number. However, war crimes, genocide, etc. may be proven based on a smaller number agreed to by Sri Lanka. This is what he is trying to do.
Even if the UK pulls out support for UNHRC resolution 30/1, it still stands. Same goes for other resolutions (2012, 2013 and 2014). However, Lord Naseby is proposing that the UK plays a leadership role towards its former colony to break the deadlock over the numbers and agree to a number Sri Lanka will agree. Thereafter war crimes trials can begin.
February 14th, 2019 at 7:47 pm
Whether it is 40,000 people or 2 people it does not matter. Under UN and International law if there is an internal conflict by a group of terrorists and a democratically elected Govt is forced to take action to put it down there is no question of war crimes since there was no war. There were many articles written by many people who were erudite lawyers who have pointed this out. The entire basis of the UNHRC resolution was flawed from the beginning. When Ban Ki-Moon had a report for his own information done by an expert panel which he proceeded to release to the public which was against all UN protocols. UNHRC report was developed on the numbers which were in this concocted report. Basically, in principle, this UNHRC resolution is a concocted one to put pressure on Sri Lanka to accede to the requests of various superpowers. Were any such UNHRC resolutions brought forward to bring culprits to justice in case of killings of civilians in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen etc? Why only Sri Lanka when all the Lanka govt was trying to do was put down an internal terrorist group. How about the killing of about 80,000 Sinhala youth in 1988 by the UNP Govt led by the present PM who was found guilty by the Batalanda Commission which recommended that his civic rights be removed.