Taking up the ‘Non-White Man’s Burden’: President Rajapakse should not miss this unique opportunity
Posted on October 18th, 2013
Shenali D. Waduge
“White man’s burden” was a phrase coined by author Rudyard Kipling in 1899. It referred to the idea that white races in Europe and the United States had a responsibility to educate and Christianize “uncivilized” and “primitive” peoples of the world. -ËœBurden-â„¢ implied a moral rationale lending it a Christian duty to justify British and American imperialism overseas at a time wherein British sphere of colonial influence spanned the globe.
The geographical reach of the British Empire led to the metaphorical statement that -Ëœthe sun never sets on the British Empire-â„¢. The underlying notion has always been that colonized indigenous people of Africa, Asia, North and South America, South Pacific and the Caribbean were incapable of self-government. Yet, even as a satire the poem denotes the arrogance of the Christian West to presume they could take charge of the destiny of other people. It was also a warning that European nations would bring blame and hatred -” it did and still continues. The Eurocentric view of the world prevails unfortunately even amongst non-Western nations and particularly among those non -” whites who embraced the white man-â„¢s religion selling their birthright for a mess of pottage.
If White Christian West thought it was their moral responsibility to civilize cultures of non-Europeans it is now time for a leader to emerge on behalf of the discriminated, plundered nations to represent the black, brown and yellow man in taking up the -Ëœnon-white man-â„¢s burden-â„¢ and President Rajapakse who defied West-â„¢s orders to halt the military offensive against LTTE should not miss this great and unique opportunity to proclaim the close of a chapter of mental servitude born out of centuries of western imperialism. President Rajapakse should show defiance by calling for a public apology and due reparations from the colonial west, and ‚ in raising the standard of the oppressed become a hero throughout the world in defense of the non-white man and woman.
Kipling-â„¢s -ËœWhite Man-â„¢s Burden-â„¢ -” Rajapakse-â„¢s Non-White Man-â„¢s Burden
Incidentally, the -ËœBlack Man-â„¢s Burden-â„¢ was written by H. T. Johnson just 2 months after Kipling-â„¢s poem was published. Johnson goes on to say that the Europeans were overly violent and seeking to take over the world with -Ëœbullets, blood or death-â„¢. To Johnson the Black Man-â„¢s Burden was to deal with Europeans who were trying to conquer them whereas Kipling seems to think the reward the Europeans got for trying to civilize the -ËœBlack Man-â„¢ was -Ëœhate of those ye guard-â„¢.
Adding a bit of satire was Ernest Crosby who wrote -ËœThe Real White Man-â„¢s Burden-â„¢ http://www.learner.org/courses/amerhistory/resource_archive/resource.php?unitChoice=16&ThemeNum=1&resourceType=2&resourceID=10142.
The black man-â„¢s struggle and suffering has never encapsulated accurately the feelings and emotions of people forced to live as they did under the jackboot of the Christian Western nations. Slavery was just one aspect of the horrific inhumane treatment meted out to a race of people, stolen from their homelands, broken apart from their families and thrust into a lifestyle that inhibited their every move.
The whites were quick to stereotype non – white people. We cannot fathom the mindset of these slave owners yet remain puzzled that these crimes have never taken the international stage of accountability and in the least acknowledgment. Almost always the European response is to claim these crimes belong to history and close the chapter. Yet, white people have ensured that no part of their role in colonial history has ever been passed down to their children and very few are aware how European countries gathered to divide Africa amongst themselves without consulting anyone from Africa. Tribes, people and families were simply divided by a line or border.
The Europeans did the same to Asia. Today school children in England, France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, among western countries have very little idea of the dark chapter of 500 years of western colonialism, and of the genocide and crimes against humanity committed against non -” white races by their forefathers. What is made available to school children in Europe and USA is a totally white -” washed history of European colonialism which is very much in step with the anachronistic world view presented in verse by Rudyard Kipling.
Western society also engages in “intellectual protectionism” the argument that only those within the western culture could usefully discuss it. That is why the writings of non -” white intellectuals never become part of teaching material for school children in England and other western countries, and the opinions of non -” whites are rarely published as leading feature articles in the western media. Racism against non-whites very much prevails though we are foolish to fall for exterior whitewashing. We now need to wake up to reality. Placing a handful of non-white officials on the international arena is useless if these non-whites are functioning to ONLY white agendas? UNHRC head is just one good example, present and former UN head is another.
European nations went on to -Ëœcolonize-â„¢ the world-â„¢s information, painting Europe as the shining beacon of good, noble and everything that was right, while the rest of the world was painted as dark, savage and desperately in need of enlightenment. This theme is best articulated in Orientalism (1978), by Edward W. Saƒ¯d and later followed by several others.‚ It was first published as a foundational text for the academic field of Post-colonial Studies, wherein the denotations and connotations of the term -Orientalism- were expanded to describe what Saƒ¯d saw as the false cultural assumptions of the -Western World-, facilitating the cultural misrepresentation of the -The Orient-, in general, and of the Middle East, in particular.‚
Saƒ¯d, interpreted the term Orientalism as describing the -subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-“Islamic peoples and their culture-; cultural prejudices that were derived from a long tradition of romanticized images of Asia and of the Middle East, and which, in practice, functioned as implicit justifications for the colonial and the imperial ambitions of the European powers and the U.S.
-ËœSepoy-â„¢ Press in Sri Lanka
The Asian press and particularly in Sri Lanka never deal effectively with issues on colonialism, apology and reparations. Further the local media suppressed international news concerning demands made by 14 former colonized countries in Africa and the Caribbean seeking compensation from European countries for plunder and exploitation including mass murder.
Is this not why the local Sri Lankan media is increasingly being referred to as the -Ëœsepoy press-â„¢ ever ready to betray their own country and people?‚
Challenging the rules of Law: Colonial Crimes
It is now time for the non -” white countries in the Commonwealth to consider showing mettle and calling quits if need be. Finger pointing cannot be a one-way street. If former colonies led by Great Britain can point fingers they should be ready to accept fingers pointing back at them. There are many fingers to do so -” in fact virtually 80% of the world had been oppressed at one stage or the other. For 500 years or so the non-whites have been subjected to repeated cultural rape and have been victims of racism, apartheid and slavery with the white man continuously demonstrating their raw cognitive, military and social superiority using everything from fire to religion. This became the white man-â„¢s doctrine for Africa, Asia, Northern, Central and South America.
Demography is turning against the white man
There are approximately 1.376 billion ‘white’ people in the world, approximately 20.25% of the world’s population. 80% of the global population is non -” white. The percentage of the whites is rapidly diminishing and it is said that their global percentage would decline to a single digit within the next fifty years. Liberal theories have ended up denting progeny further with white men marrying men and women marrying women causing further chaos and states and nations foolish enough to legally endorse such. The non-white nations must not be fooled into adopting the same in their nations.
White man created the modern economic system in the 17th century. The white man also created the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of Capitalism translated it meant an arrogant greed, exploitation of labor and land and genocide of indigenous people through enslavement. These white men continue to think themselves as heroic and virtuous and rarely like to admit their wrongs and instead have chosen to blame the victims. It is they who indulge in the finger pointing blame game making it into a fine art.
It was no surprise that with each conquest the white man proceeded to impart on all of his conquered subjects the white man-â„¢s will – his science, his art, his philosophy, his language, his governance structure, the appreciation of his women as the de facto standard of beauty, his technology, his education, thereby matriculating the rest of the world over the next 400 years into his standards. The world thus became defined by European White-Standards. The white man has changed the way we think according to how they want us to think. Thus our education systems, our politics, our governments, our clothing, the technology we use, the sports we play and new western cultures including music are all following European white standards. Thus, they have succeeded in making the playing field uneven. But it has also resulted in an inferiority and superiority complex with non-whites always wanting to measure up and please the white-man.‚ This is best illustrated among Indian expatriates and Indian politicians of the ruling party as well as a handful in Sri Lanka and their identities are not too difficult to miss.
Should we then be surprised how the legal system, i.e. municipal and international, has been designed to pursue post -” colonial crimes but totally ignore the colonial crimes of Europeans? The criminal justice system cannot exclude taking to trial leaders of western nations simply because the laws in use are designed by them!‚
Commonwealth Values cannot exclude Colonial Crimes
There are more skeletons in the closet of the Christian West than they have us believe. It is now opportune to bring those out for the rest of the world to know. The crimes of Europe and America should no longer be kept hidden from the younger generation of the West. They must know how their ancestors treated fellow humans in such inhuman ways.
Thus, their school syllabus must include these home truths just as the history books of former colonies must cover every act of crime committed by the colonial rulers and the manner the native heroes defended their lands and people. Sri Lanka-â„¢s history books for public and international children must re-align the history of the country and give its due place to the indigenous culture and these texts must be written not by liberal or secular academics but by patriots who love Sri Lanka and not another country. A relook at all officials currently designing the school textbooks is a must.
Equally important is to ensure that the consultants and advisors to Sri Lanka-â„¢s education ministry are not of the same anti-Sri Lanka category either. The Jewish children are taught by their elders to never forget the Holocaust (committed by European Christians). This principle holds true for other subject races also.
Human Rights cannot exclude Colonial Crimes
The laws of prescription do not apply to war crimes and crimes against humanity. There cannot be a time bar or perpetrator exclusion for criminal justice and as such the human rights of millions of people across 2/3 of the world need to be upheld in international fora dealing with international crimes.
It was the European Christians who killed the Jews. It was these same European Christians who murdered and plundered Africa, Asia, Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean and these very same people are now without any qualm of conscience, preaching to the world about human rights totally ignoring their crimes repeated across continents over 100 of years. Where is the justice for these crimes? When will be the justice for these crimes and should it not be opportune to now refuse to accept Western hegemony, West-â„¢s bogus formulas of peace, reconciliation, accountability and transparency unless these same terminologies are used on them to demand their accountability first.
We need a leader to make that call in defense of the world-â„¢s oppressed and on behalf of the millions murdered by the West, nations plundered and nations-â„¢ borders redrawn and divided according to the West-â„¢s opportunistic requirements.
We need a leader to stand up on behalf of the entire oppressed world and use the West-â„¢s own international forum and platform to make that rallying call and President Rajapakse would well do to take up that challenge.
By remaining silent and quiet we are simply behaving as most of our forebears did during the colonial period and collaborating with this dark past.
We need to change the colonial narrative.
We need to break free from the trappings of colonialism and neo -” colonialism.
We cannot claim to have come of age as a free, independent sovereign country unless we are prepared to speak the unspeakable and call spade a spade.
The Greatest Good comes after the Greatest Evil
The white man has now reached the end of his rule. Number of white men on earth is plummeting by the day. It is predicted that they will be just 9% of the total world population by 2060 (down from 27% in 1950) -” study by Mark Stradley/National Policy Institute. The black, brown, yellow people are now rising to reclaim what is truly theirs.
The people of the former colonies have been victims of white rule both during colonial rule and thereafter as targets of western economic systems and now presently being subject to bogus accusations of human rights violations being another avenue for oppression. It is now time to say we have had enough. With none of the white man-â„¢s crimes coming into the open, investigated, oppressors held accountable and put on the dock and without moral inclination or imperative to even do so what good does a one-sided international legal system serve?
In hosting the Commonwealth of Heads in Sri Lanka, the President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapakse needs to go beyond pomp and pageantry, simply to make a spectacle of pleasing the White West that we are following to the word their creed and cult.
We must make best use of the opportunity on behalf of all the oppressed nations and demand that equality of justice means that Britain and all other colonial rulers including the Catholic and Protestant Church admit, account and apologize for their crimes and compensate 80% of the world.
The world has been in search of a leader conscious of traditional cultural roots, representing the indigenous natives and proud of the civilizational heritage to stand up and say loud -Ëœrectify your criminal past first-â„¢ ‚ -Ëœaccount for your crimes first-â„¢.
Sri Lanka must now break free of the -Ëœbayagulla-â„¢ gutless, spineless, cowardly diplomacy that has stalked the corridors of the Ministry of External Affairs since the grant of -Ëœindependence-â„¢ in 1948. ‚ ‚ ‚
President Mahinda Rajapakse, like former Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev, who on ‚ February 25, 1956, at the 20th Communist Party Congress held in Moscow, delivered a speech, ‚ ‚ denouncing Stalin’s purges and thereby ushering in a less repressive era in the Soviet Union, ‚ must table without fear or hesitation the crimes committed by Britain upon the members representing the Commonwealth of Nations and demand justice for these crimes as well as crimes committed by the British in Sri Lanka. He will be surrounded by nations who had ben victims of colonial oppression and they would salute and regard him a hero for doing so.
Recommended reading:
Yurugu: An African Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior by Marimba Ani -” unmasks the global white supremacy.
King Leopold-â„¢s Ghost : A story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild -” history of the Belgian colonization of Congo.
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October 18th, 2013 at 3:51 pm
Lets NOT turn to this WHITE-NON WHITE thing.
That is NOT the problem.
The problem is SOME WHITE and MORE ENDIANS are against us. It has NOTHING to do with race or skin color. It is to do with ENEMY NATIONS and friendly nations.
SL has MIXED UP who the friends are and who the enemies are.
GB, Endia are ENEMIES.
China is the best friend.
Russia (the MOST white country) is a good friend.
That BLACK man in the white house is also a shady character who is not a friend.
Blacks in SL (Tamils) are also not friends of SL.
October 18th, 2013 at 3:56 pm
We should use this CHOGM to SHOWCASE war crimes, plunder, etc., etc. done by the British not just in SL but throughout its empire.
Endians should be shown how 1 million Endian women were sexually assaulted by British army.
Just imagine the embarrassment of Brits and their henchos when we show this.
But going by past performance MR will WINE and dine with them!! He will NOT allow any such reminder of British war crimes.
October 18th, 2013 at 6:36 pm
I don’t think what Shenali expects from President Rajapakse would happen. Church, whether it is Catholic or any other denomination of other over 38000 churches, they all work for the common goal.
In Sri Lanka, Buddhism is losing. Remember even in the Past, King’s association helped strongly to establish a religion in any country.
Christians have centuries of experience in exansion in foreign countries and they are using it very wisely.
Only Lord Buddha showed by example how to over come it. It needs the Rulers’ help as well as Buddhist monks walking out and reaching to those who don’t know it. Buddha made Maha Bharatha, which was far larger India, to become Buddhists when Brahmins were very hostile.
October 18th, 2013 at 8:02 pm
Gomin has asked GOSL to be ready to answer a barrage of questions on human rights violation ect during CHOGM time. They have already discussed these issues in the house of commons in UK critisizing even the British government for leniency. Our leaders should have the backbone to ask the representatives of UK or any other country to show proof of these violations without quoting unsubstantiated allegation. They should ask why they give sanctuary to Adele and others who openly trained bombers to kill SL citizens who also have human rights. If they cannot give satisfactory answers after accusing SL army, they should be asked to leave.
October 18th, 2013 at 8:14 pm
“But going by past performance MR will WINE and dine with them!! He will NOT allow any such reminder of British war crimes.”
Shenali, thank you for your consistency. Yet it is Lorenzo’s thought that will prevail.
You highlight genuine historic facts that cry to the heavens for vengeance. However our war time Maha Raja now turned peace time Maha Ranee does not have the guts of African leaders such as those of Zimbabwe and Gambia. He has been courting African nations but does not have the moral fiber of Mugabe and Yahya Jammeh. He has lost direction completely. His infrastructure building is akin to heaping massive concrete blocks on the back of a nation turned into one big donkey. The PC system is such an unbearable ‘concrete’ burden that has already crushed the nation and brought it to her knees.
Physical strength and Moral fiber are as distinct as the earth and the sky. MR is like “a body builder forced to play the accordion” for the pleasure of the Indo-White power block. We all know what a body builder would do with an accordion!
The way MR is going about things is ‘shameless’ Just consider the Tangalle murder case. A case that was becoming a marathon event was suddenly transformed into a frenetic sprint when the Brits decided to bring up the matter at the CHOGM. The motto now is: CHOGM at all cost, to hell with the nation’s honour and dignity. He is being buffeted and re-buffeted by Man-Moron but our man is exposing his front side and back side to be kicked at will. When you have no clothes to wear walking naked in the daylight is a triviality. MR has taken the nation over the confines of shame into the realms of shamelessness.
Considering Sri Lanka’s history, this nation has not fallen so low as under the MR regime. What began with the BANG of the war victory is ending with a servile whimper.
So now let him do the only thing left to be done: kaapalla beepalla joli karapalla. Heta marunath hithata sepay ada joly karala.
Mario Perera
Kadawata
October 19th, 2013 at 1:20 am
Maha Raja has become the likes of Korale Mahattaya. He is afraid of his Christian Hamine’ and has come to identify with the Christian Colombian values. He will not make the White Masters unhappy!
October 19th, 2013 at 2:20 am
Despite all the griping by Canada, the attempts by the UK to preach about its “core values” which seem to be meant only for small nations like Sri Lanka to follow, and NOT for the UK itself; and the coy stance of the Indian PM sadly succumbing to Tamil Nadu pressure —
Shenali is right that this opportunity should not be missed by Pres. Rajapakse. The CHOGM members must be clearly shown what Sri Lanka has achieved in the brief 4yr post-conflict, as compared with ALL other nations in post-conflict situations.
The UK, India and Canada cannot be allowed to get away with thinking that EXTERNAL PRESSURE is what succeeds in getting this government to act righteously by the peoples of this nation.
This regime has stood up to them before.
There is no reason that they cannot do it again.
October 19th, 2013 at 10:56 am
The article is a good thesis on the use of power but did not prove its point that this power was solely a racial issue. The question is whether whites suffered from the rise of military and technological power as did the non whites. Examples such as the rule of Tsarist Russia into the Communist Soviet Empire spans a period of savage brutality that when taken in total makes the acts of Nazi Germany fade in comparison which by itself is another example of whites committing massive genocide on people non whites would consider Whites. The carpet bombing of Axis cities mainly German cities were so intense that the firestorm they caused was considered far worse than the nuclear attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Both World wars were fought mainly between Whites where the suffering of whites by their fellow brotheren has few parallels across the globe even if one factors in slavery. Slavery in the US often depicted as the whip lash of the White man on the back of the black man is but a caricature. Slaves were divided according to the role they played. “House slaves” lived as members of the white family and seldom if ever were beaten or ill treated. They were the substitute mothers of white children and mistresses of the White man. Many were so loved that in New Orleans an entire neighborhood (the fourberg Marigny) was built to house these “creole” women (black mistresses of mixed blood)
Europe’s bloody history is marked with each new advancement in military technology. When the US civil war broke out in 1861 and ended in 1865 or just four years, weapons of mass destruction were liberally used such as the Gatling Gun that mowed humans by the hundreds in just a few minutes, the repeating rifle, the submarine, the art of trench warfare, etc. exacted the lives of 625 thousand soldiers in a span of only four years. The infamous “General Sherman’s march to the sea” exacted another 400 thousand lives of innocent white citizens. The civil war was not fought over slavery but over keeping the Union together. In a famous speech by President Abraham Lincoln he stated he was more than willing to compromise or even allow slavery if that meant the union of the states. Only by constant persuasion did slavery become part of the reason for the American civil war.
Another horrendous Revolution by the white man against his own was the French Revolution or otherwise known as “the reign of terror” where the french invention called the Guillotine or the “national razor” was an efficient killing machine that lopped of the heads of the entire French aristocracy and those who were found guilty of supporting them. When the Chinese premier Chou En Lai was asked in the 1950’s what is his opinion of the French Revolution meant to him, he replied “it is too soon to tell”
One can go back as far as the Roman Empire and their efficient military whose use of advanced technology of its time and military methods unique to the Roman military was used to slaughter its way into acquiring more and more of Europe.
In many ways one can see the same pattern between nonwhites as one Empire with more power would use it to conquer and annex another. The actions of Emperor Ashoka against the kingdom of Kalinga is part of Buddhist teachings. The rape and plunder done by non White Muslims against others is another mark in history. It is estimated that within three centuries the Muslims killed around 80 million Hindus. The atrocities that are commited in so many African nations even before the arrival of the white man shows to all that violence and control is not a trait singularly seen among the White races.
When China annexed Tibet she destroyed 6 thousand monasteries which were Tibet’s repository of her culture, arts, and literature. After the (non white) Chinese destroyed so many monasteries they went on to massacre the population. China’s great leap forward and the cultural revolution took the lives of tens of millions because again Beijing had the power to do so. This can be stated of another non white nation where Pol Pot’s genocidal acts killed a quarter of Cambodia’s population.
An example where a non white nation took on the Europeans and never succumbed to their power is Japan who even in the 16th century refused the Europeans from entering their land and only gave them a port where they can trade with Japan. Japan also emerged as the first Asian nation to copy the Western technology and use it against the West and thereby winning a war in 1905 against Russia showing all of Asia that the Europeans can be conquered.
It is convenient to blame the Europeans for their arrogant and ignorant approach to non white cultures which they easily conquered using their superior military technology and treachery but one must point out that they would not have been able to do so if the non white cultures also had the same level of technology.
In the modern world every non white nation has equipped itself with the same military instruments where its predecessor was used to conquer them. NO non white nation has rejected these instruments of death by taking a more noble stand by condemning them as the handiwork of the “evil” white man. Instead non white nations are going out of their way to buy or use the technology created in the White man’s culture to strengthen their own power. A classic example of a non white nation who stood to the principles of the Buddha and hardly had an army to defend her borders was Tibet and because of that “noble” gesture she was rewarded by being annexed.
October 19th, 2013 at 11:32 am
One more point: Africans enslaved Africans long before the Europeans enslaved Africans. Non white Arabs were one of the first non Africans to enter into the market of capturing Africans and enslaving them and again this was done centuries before the Europeans entered into the slave trade. Within Africa there were tribes that also practiced Cannibalism.
When the African slaves rebelled against their Arab masters in Baghdad the male Africans were slaughtered and from that point on they only imported African slaves. Recently a report was released that of the 29 million modern day slaves (in the classical sense of the word slave) half of them are in India or around 14 million. Which white nation has this unenviable distinction?
In the new world in the north American continent the native Americans were far from peace loving people. they engaged in invasions butchery and slaughter and enslavement of other tribes. Some of these “killer” tribes included the Sioux, the Mohawk, the Apache. Most of the North American tribes were violent and brutal. Only a few settlements were peace loving. Further south in Central America the Aztec, Mayan and Inca civilizations engaged in ritualized human sacrifices and some engaged in Cannibalism.
In the 20th century Imperial Japan’s atrocities against fellow Asians was legendary. The rape of Nanking being but one of the examples. When the Ethiopian King Haile Selassie 1 of Ethiopia appealed to the UN what was not mentioned was that Ethiopia was one of the last bastions of slavery where Africans enslaved Africans. What I have written are facts that can be backed with historical evidence. The article would have served a better purpose if it did a study of human nature and the use of power regardless of race.
October 19th, 2013 at 11:34 am
correction: They only imported Female African slaves
October 19th, 2013 at 11:45 am
Tiger Nominated Agents of the TNA are DESPERATE to get the Army out of the North and East so they can REVIVE their terrorist activities and gun running again.
The ARMY should not budge ONE INCH from the North & East … instead the Army PRESENCE should be increased TENFOLD settling Armed Forces Personnel PERMANENTLY in those areas.
This NATION belongs to the Armed Forces TOO; they have every right to be stationed anywhere necessary to defend it.
They are NOT ALIENS, but citizens of Sri Lanka with and INALIENABLE RIGHT to be ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE in Sri Lanka, pre-textual accusations NOTWITHSTANDING!
………….
Sri Lanka military strongly rejects allegations of sexual violence in North
ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Oct 19, Colombo: The Sri Lanka Military has strongly denied the allegations made by a right group that its troops are responsible for insecurity experienced by the women in the Northern and Eastern Provinces.
Army spokesman Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasooriya speaking to media Friday said there have been repeated attempts to pin incidents of sexual violence on minority women in the North on the troops while in majority of these cases perpetrators are of Tamil ethnicity.
“In a majority of cases, the perpetrators had been close relatives or neighbors of the victim and had been of Tamil ethnicity,” the spokesman told media.
The spokesman vehemently denied a recent report released by the London-based Minority Rights Group (MRG) that the militarization of the north and east from 2009 has contributed to continued insecurity for minority women.
The MRG recently released a report titled “Living with insecurity: Marginalization and sexual violence against women in north and east Sri Lanka”. In its report the group says that Tamil and Muslim women in the North and East of Sri Lanka are increasingly marginalized and face chronic insecurity due to presence of security forces and government actions.
The report alleged the Sri Lankan government of “actively contributing to insecurity and rights violations through the pervasive militarization of the north and east, with negative consequences for the safety and freedom of minority women.”
Brigadier Wanigasooriya said the right groups and other interested parties are repeatedly trying to draw a non-existent correlation between the security forces presence in the North and insecurity of women in the region.
According to the military spokesman a study of incidents of sexual offences occurred in the North between January 2007 and May 2012 had shown that during the conflict period from January 2007 – May 2009, seven security forces personnel were involved in five incidents of sexual violence.
The figures were out of a total of 125 persons accused in 119 incidents reported in the entire Northern Province. The ethnicity of the victims of these cases was 4 Sinhalese and 1 Tamil. In the post conflict period (May 2009 – May 2012) ten Security Forces personnel were reported as being involved in six incidents of sexual violence in the North. This is out of a total of 307 persons accused in 256 incidents for the entire Northern Province. The ethnicity of the victims is 2 Tamil, 1 Muslim and 3 Sinhalese.
Brigadier Wanigasooriya pointed out that the Security Forces personnel were involved only in 11 incidents out of a total of 375 during the whole period from January 2007 to May 2012. As a percentage, the total accused is 5.6 percent in the conflict period and 3.3 percent in the post conflict period clearly showing a decline after the war.
“The decline clearly demonstrates that the allegation that the presence of the security forces in the North contributes to the insecurity of women and girls is a myth”, Brigadier Wanigasooriya was quoted.
he Spokesman further noted that the government has taken legal action in all the cases the Security Forces personnel have been involved and those implicated have been discharged or punished.
He further said that the Sri Lankan military does not condone such actions by its troops against women and any perpetrators will be strictly punished if proven guilty.
October 19th, 2013 at 4:09 pm
Thank you Shenali and all others for the suggestion of a core theme for GoSL to respond to Cameron et-al when they point fingers at Sri Lanka during the CHoGM. I hope that in the name of the Sri Lankan nation, the response by MR is so devastating that it will grind Cameron into the dust and leave an indelible record in the CHoGM history marking the utter hypocrisy of Britain for all the World to see! – S de Silva – London
October 20th, 2013 at 11:15 am
One final comment: Present day India is roughly the size West Europe and if one were to compare the carnage between these two land masses where India has a larger population and always did when it came to Europe It is in Europe that the White man created hell on earth in countless wars against his own race.
In comparison what the Europeans did in India pales in comparison to the sheer scale of brutality that Europeans did to each other. India was never “conquered” by any European power. Maybe sections were such as Goa but by and large the European powers especially the British were literally given land by the Indian Maharajahs to enter the Indian world. Once the East India company was established a good deal of India was annexed by trade and treaties. It took the Sepoy Rebellion for the East India company to hand over her holdings to the British crown and then forming the British Empire. India now wants the famous Kohinoor diamond back. Before the discovery of the world’s largest diamond in Africa the Kohinoor Diamond held that title. Again it was not stolen or expropriated by the British. All it took was a request from the British Viceroy to present the Kohinoor to Queen Victoria and the child Mogul Emperor simply handed this symbol of Mogul power over to the British.
Even in Sri Lanka there wasn’t a concerted effort to remove the Western powers and whatever wars the Sinhalese waged against the British it was done with military instruments that were technologically inferior to the Europeans.
October 21st, 2013 at 11:30 am
Why should Sri Lanka be demonized and isolated? For Liberating itself … at great cost in blood and treasure … from the grip of murderous terrorism and internecine war?
Western nations who did their utmost to hinder a military solution to LTTE’s reign of terror, thereby extending the conflict over 30 years, killing and maining several hundreds of thousands of people, and setting back Sri Lanka’s economic development by that many decades, do not have the MORAL HIGH GROUND to PIOUSLY PONTIFICATE to Sri Lanka for freeing itself!
I ACCUSE these Western nations … who liberated themselves from the scourge of Nazi terror in World War II, and suppressed its revival with the iron of MILITARY OCCUPATION of Europe for nearly half a century … of the DEATH and IMPOVERISHMENT of these Sri Lankan citizens, by refusing to allow Sri Lanka to do the same for its citizens, and aiding and abetting by allowing the Eelamists to raise funds, buy arms, and providing safe havens in their countries.
ASK US NOT to RECONCILE with these UNREPENTANT MURDERERS by continued diplomatic support for them. You asked for the support of the world against facism in your hour of need … and we provided it willingly! Today you plead for more support against terrorism when it invades your own countries; but you are DEAF to our pleas for support and aid, when the lives our people are threatened by the same intolerant, racist, murderous ideologies.
NO! Sri Lanka SHOULD NOT RECONCILE with the Murderous Unrepentant Eelamists still striving for their separatist state by any means fair or foul.
Instead, like the Allied nations of Europe who stamped out the scourge of Nazism with an IRON FIST, Sri Lanka should PROSCRIBE all Eelamist parties and STRIVE to DEMOLISH & ERADICATE the Eelamist Idealogy from every corner of Sri Lanka.
The need is not for RECONCILIATION and ABJECT APPEASEMENT with Racist Murderers, but for SUPPRESSION of their Murderous Idealogy by EVERY AVAILABLE LAWFUL MEANS until the cows come home, and this generation of brainwashed jaundiced Eelamists pass forever from the firmament!
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Sri Lanka deserves support
The Australian
October 21, 2013
SADLY, pressure for a boycott of next month’s Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Sri Lanka is gathering significant momentum. India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, is now considering joining the campaign to stay away. The campaign has been spearheaded by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper over Colombo’s alleged human rights abuses.
British Prime Minister David Cameron is also under pressure not to go, following a demand by the House of Commons’ all-party Foreign Affairs Committee. Tony Abbott should ignore the clamour whipped up by the well-organised Tamil diaspora and maintain the firm opposition to a boycott he expressed after meeting Mr Harper at the APEC summit. Legitimate concerns do exist about human rights in Sri Lanka. That is hardly surprising after a civil war of exceptional brutality that lasted 30 years and saw 100,000 civilians killed. But the process of reconciliation, now demonstrably under way, would be seriously impaired by a boycott of what will be the biggest international event held in Sri Lanka since the 1976 Non-Aligned Summit. The Tamils inevitably would be blamed by the Sinhala majority for any failure, with potentially dire consequences.
What Sri Lanka needs is more of the Tamil participation seen in the successful provincial elections just held in what was the war’s main fighting zone – with a remarkable 68 per cent voter turnout and the main Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance, winning 30 of the 36 seats. Increasingly, the Tamil diaspora – especially in Canada, which has the largest Tamil community outside Sri Lanka – seems at odds with the Tamils at home, whose priorities are reconciliation and reconstruction, not retribution. Australia’s interests would be best served by assisting that process, not in contributing to communal tensions, which would be the likely consequence of a CHOGM boycott. Stability and an assured place for Tamils in a prosperous and peaceful Sri Lanka would also cut the ground from under people-smugglers bringing asylum-seekers across the Indian Ocean. And it would make it easier for our government to hasten the repatriation of Sri Lankans already here.
Mr Harper has sacrificed his place in a major forum with the potential to exert real influence on Colombo. Dr Singh and Mr Cameron should not follow him. Sri Lanka needs assistance on reconciliation, not isolation.