Asoka Weerasinghe (Mr.) Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester . Ontario . K1J 6G1 . Canada.

12 February 2021

Mr. Antony Blinken
US Secretary of State
2201 C Street NW, Room 206
Washington D.C 209520-2204
US.

Dear Mr. Blinken:

It was with special interest that I read the announcement of 8 February that the U.S. is rejoining the United Nations Human Rights Council to re-engage immediately and robustly with the body to pursue a foreign policy centered on democracy and human rights.

That is indeed a challenge and honourable on the part of President Biden’s Administration instructions.

However, Mr. Blinken, your involvement won’t be that easy to unhook, thousands and thousands and thousands of members of the Sri Lanka-Sinhalese Diaspora community from the bold words of Nikki Haley who said, that the UNHRC is a cesspool of political bias, and a self serving body that makes a mockery of Human Rights, and pulled out US being part of that body. And not even wanting to touch it with a barge pole.  I am one who got hooked as she was so absolutely right.

As for USA’s record of human rights back-drop, I for one cannot forget your former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright calmly asserting that U.S. policy were worth the sacrifice of half a million Arab children during the US-Iraq war,  My stomach is still doing somersaults of anger and sadness.  If that is indeed the US stance on Human Rights, killing more innocent children than who died in Hiroshima  during the attack of Iraq on a lie, then may God forbid!

How do you expect us to erase that from our memory? It is nice to tell us that you want to engage with the UNHRC robustly, but will you be able to win my trust?  That is the bottom line Mr. Blinken after all that was said by Madeleine Albright.

The  recent-American history of Human Rights is defined by the sentencing to death, the 46 year old African-American, George Perry Floyd Jr, to die in 8 minutes and 46 seconds choked by one of your ‘white’ policeman’s kneeling knee on his neck.  This sentencing of death was for having passed a counterfeit $20 bill in a Minneapolis Store.

You know Mr. Blinken, you’re a Dad and so am I.  What is brutal about this killing was how this Dad was not given a chance to hug one of his daughters to say ‘good-bye’ and telling her, 

Listen, sweetheart, I am sorry, I did something wrong and I am sentenced to die. I am leaving you and won’t be coming home for ever. Tell Mummy, I am sorry, and that I love her genuinely and deeply, and all of you.  Lead a good life angel and have fun.  Be nice to Mummy. She is the best Mummy in the whole world,  Give me a hug and don’t cry.  And give Mummy a Hug from me when you get home.  I love you and I have always loved you.  Good-bye!”  

Mr. Blinken, your  American robust human rights didn’t give Floyd that humanitarian last chance, and that was wicked, and that was brutal. So

much of the US, Human Rights that you are hoping to sell me.

Mr. Blinken, I didn’t know this guy.  All I knew of him was that he was a Dad and an American Black.  As a Dad I cried my heart out – and I wrote this therapeutic poem.  I had to and I want you to read it.

                                 Tears of Blood

(for George Floyd)

Just now a cloud 

of screaming black ravens

flew over Minneapolis, 

perched on the leafless trellis

of branches

of trees at the Powderhorn

Community and shed tears of blood

from their paining red eyes

and I sighed

O my brother George

O my people.

It was no more a faceless horror

that got you

it was a knee of a white-man

in a blue-serge uniform who

 forced pressure

on your neck

Please

Please 

I can’t breathe

Mama

Mama

I can’t breathe.”

It is this irrational white-terror

O my God

I can’t breathe

don’t kill me officer,

Come on man

I cannot breathe.”

And the clock keeps ticking’

every minute,

it is  5…6…7…8

that finally caught up with

Him and he couldn’t run.

Where is Oprah Winfrey 

Martin Luther King,

Barack Obama

                                        are you not going to give me

a spoon full of water?”

O my brother

O my people

What have you done to meet

 this whiteman’s savagery’

in a country that you too

helped to build.

‘It’s my face man 

I didn’t do nothing serious man

Please, please man

I can’t breathe.”

The clock counts minute 8

and 46 seconds,

and George Floyd is gone.’

He is dead!

I join the ravens singing

from the trees.

We shall overcome

Some day, 

we shall overcome 

some day,

O deep in my heart,

 I do believe

We shall overcome 

one day.”

And the ravens flew

 away cawing loud

in an angry black cloud.

Brother George Floyd,

 watch out for me, when

I will meet you in heaven,

Keep me a comfortable nook

and I promise I will look

forward to share my ration

of the spoon full of water.”

(Asoka Weerasinghe

2 June 2020)

Mr. Antony Blinken, when you re-engage with the United Nations Human Rights Council immediately and robustly”  the alleged Human Rights violations in Sri Lanka during the last five months of the Eelam War will

be on your table for your American opinion and voting.  I hope and pray that you will be robust” with Your honesty too, and ask  the UNHRC members to be honest too like you:

1. Tell them,  I know what terrorist wars are all about.  We are still fighting the Talibans in Afghanistan.  If you talk of alleged killings of Tamils by the Sri Lanka Armed Forces on their way to annihilate the most ruthless terrorists in the world, on March 19, 2009, where the numbers have been bandied from 40,000 to 100,000s being killed.  Why is it that we are not talking of the casualties of 80,000 to 200,000 Tamils,  struggling, to walk, hopping with the help of crutches and sticks, bandaged like mummies, soaking with blood,  moving in single file along the roads for safety.   Why?  Is it because the alleged killings” are an exaggeration, or perhaps it never happened.  May I have the truth, and nothing but the truth as an answer.”

Madam Bachelet, could you also tell me, how did the 80,000 casualties manage in a sliver of land at Nandikadal, on improvised crutches, bandaged like mummies in blood soaked bandages,  and hopped over 40,000 dead Tamil bodies?  Can you explain to me in detail,  Madam Michelle Bachelet.  We are now talking of the real Eelam war-theatre and not a surreal FairyTale War theatre.  Who is it that sustained these 80,000 casualties with food and water?;  Let’s be honest.  Who organized these war theatre logistics.  Sounds surreal to me!

Is this why Nikki Haley called your outfit a cesspool of political bias and a self serving body that makes a mockery of human rights.”

This is quite an indictment, and I believe that there is no smoke without a fire!.”

• Why is that we, at UNHRC, have not acknowledged the Classic Textbook example of a major rescue mission inside a theatre of war.

          The Sri Lankan soldiers rescued, which is a recorded fact, 295.873

          Tamil refugees who were used as a human shield for 6 months by the

          Tamil Tiger terrorists, marching them from the west coast to the east 

          coast under  a  scorching Jaffna-Killinochchi sun, like a herd of 

          unwashed cattle.   Why?

          Madam Bachelet, if your UNHRC is the police that is monitoring world’s 

          human rights violations, why was it  that UNHRC  found it not that

          important and justified to recognize an amazing act of humanitarianism 

          when Sri Lanka housed the 295,873 Tamils who were rescued by their 

          soldiers in a temporary ‘White Camp-village”, and sustained them by 

          preparing a million hearty meals of breakfasts, lunches and dinners 

           every day.  Why..why not? 

           Is  this not the very reason why Nikki Haley was bold enough to

          tell the world that your United Nations Human Rights Council was a

          Cesspool of political bias, and a self serving body that makes a 

          mockery of human rights”.

Mr. Blinken, when you announced that the US will be rejoining the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to re-engage immediately and robustly” with the body to pursue a foreign policy centered on democracy and human rights”, a light was switched on in my honest democratic psyche” and I thank you for that serendipitous moment.

The  honest answers to the above probing  questions will be a good start not to harass the national heroes in khaki, blue-serge and whites, of 20.5 million peoples in Sri Lanka,  who gave back to them their right-to-life which had been hijacked by the Tamil Tiger terrorists who were aided and abetted by several forign countries like India, US, UK, Canada, Norway, France and so forth, for 30 bloodying years.   That is no secret.  And, of course,

the World Police of Human Rights, UNHRC, did nothing about it.

Mr. Blinkin, if you are honorable enough to clean the UNHRC, the cesspool of poilitical bias, who have an ingrained habit of  cherry-picking their choice targets in support of their funding international clients, for them to gain support from specific groups in their countries, like the Tamils in the Greater Toronto Area in Canada, you take my word, that I will unhook myself from Nikki Haley’s strong rightful indictment of the UNHRC,  and  join you in your walk forward to create a Louis Armstrong world of – 

The colours of the rainbow

So pretty oi the sky,

Are also on the faces

Of people going by.

I see friends shaking hands

Saying ‘how do you do’

they are really saying, 

‘I love you’

What a wonderful world.”

And you can be sure of one thing,  that Madam Michelle Bachelet at UNHRC won’t be in my this year’s list to send Valentine greetings to celebrate Saint Valentine’s Day in two days.

Mr. Antony Blinken, my right palm is on my heart, to show my honour and sincerity when I say to you, Congratulations on your appointment as the US Secretary of State, Good Luck and God Bless!”

Asoka Weerasinghe (Mr.)

Ottawa, Canada.