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WHAT MORAL RIGHT U.S.HAS TO PREACH HUMAN RIGHTS TO OTHERS?

(Part I)

A.A.M.NIZAM, MATARA.

Sri Lanka takes up a unique place in the contemporary world where it has become the testing ground for many newly invented neo-colonialist, supremacy and hegemonic projects. While such intrusions and diktats get condemned and rejected outright in any other country as each and every citizen in such countries value their country over and above all other interests, Sri Lanka has fallen prey to these innuendos since this country is plagued with the presence of grandsons, granddaughters and progenies of Don Juans and Dona Katherinas who betrayed this nation to the Portuguese, who betrayed this nation to the Dutch, and who betrayed this nation to the British Imperialists. These shameless blackguard progenies following the footpaths of their evil ancestors are crawling in front of foreign rabble-rousers and licking the boots of alien vile elements for political expediency and lucrative foreign currency payoffs competing with each other.

It was due to the assistance, connivance, and instigation of these shameless blackguards that Alan Rocks, John Holmes, Gareth Evans, Raja Manis, Dominic Chillcots, Louise Arbours, Robert Blakes and their despicable ilk swarmed this country, make ridiculous statements criticizing the country, and demand the government to dance blindly to their hoarse tunes ignornig people’s genuine aspirations and longing to free the nation from the terrorist atrocities and the menace that afflict the nation for the last thirty years. They make every wicked effort to force the government bend backward, appease the terrorists, and cease the Northern operation as one of the notorious treacherous progenies blindly and meekly obeyed during a two-year dismal period recently.

The latest to join this diatribe is the big bully United States which has blood stained not only in its hands but all over the body. It has no moral right at all to speak about human rights in other countries, and deliver sermons on human rights protections. In its 2007 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices released on 11.03.2007 it has condemned, and criticized Sri Lanka’s human rights record and the style of governance. The utterly biased report has been based on hearsay accounts forwarded by the American Embassy in Colombo which is infested with Northern terrorist and pro-NGO elements. As pointed out through an enlightening article by the Sri Lankan resident English writer Kath Noble (Island Midweek Reiveiw – 12.03.2008) on how the NGO hirelings spin and doctor information to satisfy their paymasters, no elaboration is required to realize to what extent the information given in the U.S. Report could have been spinned by these Embassy elements to discredit the government and the security forces.

The allegations listed under “Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life” in the Report are completely outdated and events which had been satisfactorily sorted out and cleared by the government, with due publicity in local and foreign media. Similarly, the assertions relating to “Disapperances” focus on the ordeal enacted by some vile elements for political expediency. The Report has detailed this ordeal despite the fact that the Presidential Commission appointed for this purpose cleared these allegations and convinced the masses about the fallacy and overseas visits that had been made by many of those purported to have been disappeared. Also, the government had proved its non-culpability on those purported events relating to disappearances. The government has also been accused without concrete evidence of indulging in torture, obstructing the activities of NGOs, helping Karuna and Pillayan groups, and for lack of progress on cases under investigation.

The Report has given a brief chronological list of some of the LTTE activities without the due condemnation on its continued child recruitments, its terrorism, its murder of innocent civilians outside the conflict areas through claymore mines and bus bombs, training of Sinhala mercenaries, attempts being made to smuggle dangerous arms to peaceful areas to destabilise peace and harmony in the country and instil a fear psychosis among the masses through the servile media and other electronic devices. Isn’t this a fair assment? This prompts us to ask the Americans “Why beholdest thou the mote that is in others eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thy own eye?”

Steps taken by the Government(the Foreign Ministry) to reject the Report as based on hearsay, innuendo and exaggeration and it had 'resulted in throwing a life line to the LTTE at a time when it was struggling to maintain its position both militarily on the ground and internationally' is a right step but lacks the force and the emphasis required. The Foreign Minister has summoned the American Ambassador to his office and is reported to have informed that the Ministry was in the process of preparing a detailed response on the issues raised in the U.S. State Department Report.

Issuing a communiqué on this meeting Blake has stood by the State Department report, which contradicts his own opinion. Months ago, in an interview with the Island Special Correspondent Mr.C.A.Chandraprema (Island - 01.06.07) Mr. Blake said that:

In Colombo 40% of the population is Tamil. So this is not an ethnic conflict per se. people have lived very harmoniously together and are capable of doing so.
The LTTE is a terrorist organization, that they are very intransigent, and that the notion of a negotiated settlement will be a non starter with them.
People in the Vanni are living under extraordinarily difficult conditions. There is a lot of forced recruitment going on, and its not a democracy as we understand it in that part of Sri Lanka.
Most Tamils would like to live in peace in Sri Lanka and not just in the North and East.
We hope that the Foreign Minister and Ministry officials will stand firm with country’s genuine interests and the Report claimed to be under preparation will expose the double standard being shown by Blake, and the hidden motives of Embassy officials.

In 2002 the United States Department of Defence completed a Top Secret Report on the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Armed Forces. In their assessment detailed in this report it said that the Sri Lankan Armed Forces, the Army, Navy and Air Force would be able to improve their performance and defeat the LTTE. The report made several recommendations including the need to carry out airborne attacks in the heart of enemy held territory. The report was given to the then Prime Minister, Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe, The Minister of Defense Mr. Tilak Marapone and the Secretary to the Ministry of Defense Mr. Austin Fernando. None of the recommendations made in this Report was implemented by the Ranil Wickremasinghe government as the terrorist outfit enjoyed total impunity from the then UNP Government.

Part II follows:

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