The Murdoch stable is uniting to help the Times Online debacle
Posted on June 1st, 2009

Ajit Randeniya

Rarely has an attempt by the Western media to throw mud at a developing country vanished to thin air in the manner the Times Online ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”expose’ of the 20000 civilian casualties in the Sri Lankan war went limp. Upon the exposure of the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”creative’ calculation method used to reach the 20000 figure, the article by Catherine Philp was promptly deleted from the website.

But Ms Philp obviously didn’t want to cut her holiday (at Rupert Murdoch’s expense) short, and she is now concentrating on the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”China angle’, from Colombo.

The Western media has been trying hard for the last three or four weeks to bring China to the equation. The ulterior motive here is to curry favours with India for their regional game plan involving ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”partnership’ with India, and as a bonus, to turn India against Sri Lanka: their noses are seriously out of joint following the failure to enforce a ceasefire and to get the UNHRC in to action and attempts to turn India is going to bring in lots of advantages to the US.

The story they are orchestrating is that India better beware; Sri Lanka won the war with Chinese weapons, and China’s building of the Hambantota port is part of their ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”string of pearls’ strategy in the Indian Ocean. This scare campaign has been accelerating with each of the setbacks they received. Catherine Philp has begun to beat this ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”dead donkey’ after her 20000 story fizzed out; she wrote an item titled “Sri Lanka’s crucial role in Indian Ocean power struggle” on 1 June edition of Times Online.

Her opening sentence reflects the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”sour grapes’ approach to the story: she complains that “For a tiny, teardrop-shaped fragment in the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka punches far above its weight.” This is followed by an intended insult in the form of “its location… may have put it right in the line of the 2004 tsunami…After these preliminary complaints and insults she gets on to an imagined “growing geopolitical struggle in the Indian Ocean”. Nothing very surprising here because creating these kind of tensions is the foundation of the British foreign policy and the British embassy would have given this particular interpretation.

Then the tried and tested strategy of reinforcing a lie through repetition: she reproduces the following paragraph which appeared in various forms in at least ten to fifteen so-called news items over the last few weeks: “China’s role in the Sri Lankan civil war is well known. Its deal to build a major port at Hambantota in southern Sri Lanka is part of a regional strategy to create a “string of pearls” of friendly harbours in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma, along key shipping routes through the Indian Ocean”.

Then she is trying to stir the pot by belittling India’s ego, by implying loss of influence and attempting to further aggravate it by bringing in the arch enemy Pakistan too! She writes: “China’s entry into Sri Lanka has put India in an awkward position…Any pressure India might try to exert on Sri Lanka is cancelled out by Chinese acquiescence, and – worse still for India – Pakistan’s acquiescence. Pakistan has been selling arms to Sri Lanka with China’s encouragement throughout the last stages of the civil war.”

She ends her rubbish, not much better than the 20000 story, with the remark, “Sri Lanka’s prime location in prime maritime real estate has elevated it to the jewel in the crown of the new Indian Ocean paradigm.” Sour grapes indeed!

In the true spirit of Zionist unity at the Murdoch stables, this empty rattle is supported by Amanda Hodge, an Australian colleague of Philp. Amanda Hodge, who seems to have become an ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”expert’ on Sri Lanka from the moment she landed there a few weeks ago, has chosen to focus on the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”Sinhalisation’ of the north and the east.

She has consulted with another ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”expert’ from the funded International Crisis Group (funded by that thief George Soros), and has spoken with the living Tiger R. Sampanthan, and quotes numerous unnamed ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”diplomats’, ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”Rights campaigners’, ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”health officials’ and ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”aid workers’. So much for credibility.

In a totally baseless campaign (which is not going to travel very far), she cites roadside posters in Colombo and the Government pursuit of Tiger “sleeper cells” as an ominous sign of things to come”. She is predicting that there’s “going to be” a lot of people vulnerable to denunciations as Tamil Tigers, and it’s “almost certain” that process is already under way.

She makes the extraordinary claim that: “now that the LTTE is gone there’s a ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”fear’ that they are powerless against what ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”many’ might see as a different form of terror.” This woman must be kicked out of the country immediately!

The following is one of the most cynical and dishonest portrayal of an issue only to be expected from a Murdoch rag: “In Trincomalee district last year, 97 people were reported missing. Many are suspected victims of rival Tamil paramilitary groups. The ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”aid worker’ said he knew 15 people who disappeared in the past two years. Three of them were found dead, two of them with bullet wounds to the head and their hands tied behind their backs. All bore signs of torture.” See the dishonest manner in which the Tamil paramilitary involvement is hidden in the middle so that the reader misses it and assumes that the government is behind the disappearances!

Hodge is also crying about the slap they received at the UNHRC: “Those responsible can be only emboldened by the failure of Western nations within the UN Human Rights Council last week to force an investigation of alleged war crimes by both sides.” This is an indirect way of blaming the disappearances on the government.

They also seem to be having problems with the Sri Lankan army plans to bolster its force with an additional 100,000 troops. The ICG ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”expert’ calls it “classic military Keynesianism – military spending as a job program and economic driver”. The expert’s real anger is based on the fact that it will allow government “control of the north and prevent it from being reinfiltrated by LTTE”: the very reasons why the process of bolstering the army needs to be accelerated!

The reason for quoting extensively from this woman’s dishonest item was to demonstrate the cynical, dishonest and criminal Zionist campaign being launched with the aim of showing the world that Israel is not the only “Pariah” country in the world. Now they are concentrating on turning India against Sri Lanka by talking about a non-existing tension in the Indian Ocean and Sri Lanka’s friendship with China.

This woman is hiding behind ghosts to justify her allegations, inferences and predictions. Coming from Australia, she has no business to concern herself with human rights in other countries because, on 1 June 2009, the ABC of Australia reported that in a squalid aboriginal camp in Alice Springs, Central Australia, a child had cockroaches breeding in his ear! Our IDPs are doing a lot better.

3 Responses to “The Murdoch stable is uniting to help the Times Online debacle”

  1. Raj Says:

    Dear Ajit,
    Fantastic article Sir!. Please send some of your articles to: Evening Standard, National Post, and Daily Mail. Who knows

  2. Sanath Jayasuriya Says:

    The media seems to continually try to bring the government of Sri Lanka into disrepute like the Ozzie Daryl Hare trying to destabilise Murali Muralithuran.
    It’s about time we stood up against the Western media.
    Lets get to the bottom of it for once and for all.

    The statistic of 20,000 civilian dead is inaccurate. Does anyone out there have justified figures for approximately how many civilians were killed in the final push to eradicate terrorism from this magnificent island?

    I would put the figure at the most at 9,000, what do the fellow readers think?

  3. Siri Says:

    It is Time the Sri Lankan people and the Government started investigating how these dishonest Journalists come to the country and write lies abut it. They should be expelled and Blacklisted never to be allowed into the country again. Today the newspapers and magazines are hard hit to sell papers because most people do not waste their time with them. The TV and Radio give all the news you want to hear. The newspapers will die a natural death. These journalists are scambling to write interesting stories and grab headline. They are creating too many unnecessary problems in the world.

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