By Nalin de Silva

Enough is enough. Stephen Rapp the prosecutor came to Sri Lanka as an official of the USA. He visited the Northern Province with the ambassador in Sri Lanka for USA and gave a judgment. It was a case of the prosecutor becoming the judge, aptly described by the Sinhala saying “naduth hamuduruvange baduth hamuduruvange”. The embassy of USA in Sri Lanka tweeted that Sri Lanka forces had used cluster bombs and also engaged in chemical warfare. In fact they had identified St. Anthony’s ground in Pudumathalan, as the place where people had died as a result of shelling by the Sri Lankan armed forces in January 2009. The Bishops Rayappu Joseph of Mannar and Saundranayagam of Jaffna told the Americans of chemical warfare and cluster bombings. This reminds one of allegations of chemical warfare by the Americans and the English before they attacked Iraq. The governments of the UK and the US lied to their own people in order to attack Iraq.

The US and England have lied to the world throughout history in order to attack other countries and maintain their Anglo Saxon Christian hegemony for centuries. Thus the charges of chemical warfare, cluster bombings, shelling of civilians against Sri Lanka does not come as a surprise and the only question that has to be answered is why it took so many years for the Americans and the Bishops to come out with the charges. If somebody had thought about it before May 2009 the US could have attacked Sri Lanka on the pretext of the armed forces engaging in chemical warfare. If Sri Lanka had resorted to chemical warfare, cluster bombings etc., surely the Catholic Bishops would have come to know of it then, and they would not have refrained informing the west of such horrendous acts. Then why did the LTTE keep silent during that period? It is clearly a fabrication and it is known that the Sri Lankan armed forces were not in the vicinity of St. Anthony’s ground area during that particular time in January 2009.

All knowledge is created by people and in the case of charges against Sri Lanka there is a further dimension. We have been saying for years that the west is determined to take revenge against the President and the Defense secretary for defeating their ally and pet LTTE. They wanted the President to stop the operations and applied pressure to the government. The president was not in the country during the last few days of the operations, and it was known that the west wanted to send a ship to rescue Prabhakaran and his cohorts. Now more than four years after the event, the minister DEW Gunasekera has come with the information on how USA, England had given telephone calls to the government to stop the humanitarian operations, and how the President resisted all those demands. The interesting fact is that all these charges on violation of human rights of the civilians began after the defeat of the LTTE.

It is clear that these stories on human rights have only one objective. That is to remove the “Rajapaksa Regime” in the words of the pundits and Ranil Wickremesinghe, and send the Rajapaksa brothers Mahinda and Gotabhaya to the guillotine. We have been telling this since 2009 and by the time of the Presidential elections in 2010 we suggested that Sarath Fonseka in spite of his services rendered to the Sri Lanka Army, should be arrested for his “sudu kodi kathava” (white flag story), the first step in war crime charges. Though Fonseka was the commander of the army towards the end of the humanitarian operations his name is never mentioned in connection with “war crimes” by the west.

The west never thought that the LTTE would be defeated, and they had thought by applying pressure to the government, they could rescue Prabhakaran, and work towards establishing an Eelam in exile during the last week of the operations. Had they knew that the LTTE would be defeated, the west would have brought charges on “war crimes” during the operations, and as in Iraq would have attacked Sri Lanka on bogus charges. The war experts never thought that the LTTE would be defeated and we were spared of drones without pilots. The pundits never believed us when we said that the LTTE could be defeated by the Sri Lankan armed forces, and what they lacked was a determined political leadership, which was finally provided by the President Rajapkse.

Now, the story tellers are working overtime to take punitive action against the Sri Lankan government to effect a “regime change” and send the two Rajapaksas to the guillotine. The visits by Navi Pillais, Stephen Rapps and others are for reciting stories with the assistance of some clergy from the Catholic and Christian churches. We could expect economic sanctions and other “punishments” for keeping the SLFP led UPFA in power, but unlike few “educated” ignoramuses in Colombo, Kandy and few other towns who are grouped into various “enlightened” fora, the vast majority of the Sinhalas do not consider these threats of punishment for worth of two cents, and would not allow a “regime change” to the dismay of the England led west, Ranil Wickremesinghe and the educated ignoramus. We should expect more stories in time to come and should not be much concerned with what England and USA are up to in Geneva. All that we have to do is to defeat their resolutions if possible with the assistance of non western countries and pave the way for a strong organization of non western countries.

We should never try to appease the west or India by promising to implement the thirteenth amendment or inquiring into the so called violations of human rights of the civilians during the humanitarian operations. Rapp has now extended these “violations” to January 2009 and soon they would be talking of the entire period of operations against the LTTE not confining themselves to the last two weeks. They are so desperate for a “regime change and the west would be directly involved in achieving their objective. Rapp is only the forerunner of the change of policy by the west.

Though we should never agree to any investigation internal or external (so-called international) investigation on “violation of human rights” we need some other investigation by a committee consisting mainly of Sinhala educated people including Maha Sangha. The educated ignoramuses should be shunned out from this committee as they would be only the mouthpieces of the western theorists. (Incidentally a seminar on “western science is pattapal boru – blatant lies” will be held on 23rd January in Kandy where leading members of some enlightened fora reside). The committee should come out with a report on what action should be taken regarding the story tellers on human rights violations. The two Bishops, Rapps and others should not be allowed to escape with these “war crime” stories without providing evidence. They hide behind anonymous eye witnesses, and the prosecutors take the easy path of becoming the judges themselves. We know that one of the Bishops gave the statue of Holy Mary in Madhu to the terrorists depriving many Catholics the opportunity of going on pilgrimage to Madhu and praying there. Defamation of individuals is a punishable offence even under the Roman Dutch Law, and when it comes to the defamation of a country, a nation and the leader of state, the law as handed over to us by the colonials seems to be silent. The prosecutors should be forced to come out with a list of so-called eye witnesses and they should not be able to say that the information would be provided after twenty years. What is at stake is the honour of the nation, the state, the armed forces and the Commander in Chief, and if the law lags behind in these matters, it is necessary to bring in legislation to punish the self appointed punishers. Let the prosecutors be prosecuted.