By Dr. Kamal Wickremasinghe Courtesy Island

The Prince was also showing the tip of a ‘stick’ to Sri Lanka by recommending to the United Nations system and all member states should initiate investigations and prosecutions against Sri Lankans under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction.The neocons and their lapdogs at the UN have found the Sri Lankan government delegation they had to deal with, the foreign minister in particular a ‘babe in the woods’.

The recently released UN report that accuses Sri Lanka of “crimes of interest to the international community” such as war crimes and crimes against humanity recommends the establishment of a special hybrid court, integrating international judges, prosecutors, lawyers and investigators, as an essential step towards delivering justice.Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights who announced the order described the report on Sri Lanka including the setting up of a hybrid court of the kind as “rather unique”.

The Sri Lankan government, as well as its new foreign minister in particular, has hailed the role played by the US, Sri Lanka’s chief accuser of heinous war crimes since 2009, to apparently “tone down” the findings of the report in favour of Sri Lanka, as well as to grant us the concession of getting away with a hybrid court of the type ordered. So pleased was the foreign minister that he enthusiastically supported and jointly sponsored the fresh draft resolution moved by the US at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Sep. 30. All current indications are that the Sri Lankan government is enthusiastically embracing the proposed hybrid mechanism involving significant foreign involvement, labelling it a ‘domestic mechanism’ for political expediency.

The government is yet to address how to deal with road blocks such as the Article 4 of Sri Lanka’s Constitution which lays down that the judicial power of the people shall be exercised by Parliament through the courts, tribunals and institutions created and established, or recognised by the Constitution, or created and established by law. The fact that the concept of “hybrid” courts does not appear to have got a guernsey by the drafters does not appear to concern the new regime at this point in time; granting constitutional recognition to the proposed mechanism under these circumstances would be a ‘neat trick’!

President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera are each giving fresh literal meaning to the notion of “brown nosing” in meekly accepting this Trojan horse of a proposal as a wise foreign policy decision.They seem to be rationalising their acceptance as a requisite foreign policy decision to ‘mend fences’ with the West.

Numerous commentators have analysed the UNHRC report including its would-be future repercussions on the sovereignty and integrity of the Sri Lankan state. The purpose here is to throw some light on the appalling levels of ignorance which seems to form the basis of the new government’s enthusiasm for the report and the UNHRC ‘order’: the government’s position reminds of the quip by François-Marie Arouet (better known as Voltaire) that “more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom.”

A sensible analysis of the mechanisms being deployed by the American and European neocon forces—otherwise known as the international community—takes us to the realms of theories of international relations that attempt to examine state behaviour: for the purposes here, suffice it to know that such analysis is typically based at systemic level – assuming that characteristics of the international system govern state behaviour, with the power of a state within the system being the key variable – and at state level that attempts analysis in terms of cultural characteristics of every state, defined by the unique historical legacy, the religious and social traditions, and the economic and geographic nature of the state.

The secret of success of American neocons in gaining global domination over the last 60-70 years can be explained by their mastery of state level analysis of international behaviour to an art form, coupled with the deployment of subtle techniques to influence and change unique traditions of individual states to serve ‘their’ purposes rather than pursuing the national interest of the state in question. Now, we move on to the particular techniques the neocons employ to direct policy in countries that interest them.

Few Sri Lankans today may be aware of the existence of the Fabian Society, Britain’s oldest political think tank or its ideology, aims, influence and power: Founded in 1884, the Fabian Society continues to be at the forefront of developing political ideas and public policy for global consumption. Some early notable Fabians included Karl Marx’s eldest daughter Eleanor Marx, prominent British socialist, theosophist Annie Besant, and Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw.The Fabian Society however, has become synonymous with the names of two young Colonial Office clerks Sidney Webb and Sydney Olivierwho joined the Society in 1885 at Bernard Shaw’s invitation.

The Fabian Society derives its name from the third century BC Roman general Quintus Fabius-made famous by his strategy of delaying a frontal attack on the invading Carthaginian Hannibal’s army until the right moment. Fabians, unlike Marxists, claimed to be pursuing a similar gradual, non-revolutionary transition to socialism globally. They named their technique‘evolutionary socialism’ and proposed to use the power of local government and trade unionism to effect change.

Many Fabians played in the foundation of the British Labour Party in 1900 and four Fabians, Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Graham Wallas, and George Bernard Shaw founded the London School of Economics (LSE) with a bequest of £20,000 left to the Fabian Society for “propaganda and other purposes” by the architect Henry Hutchinson.

The LSE flourished and continued to associate with Fabian academics including Harold Laski (the godfather of Sri Lanka’s LSSP), the social administrator Richard Titmuss and economist Brian Abel-Smith. Many of the reforms of the 1945 Labour government of Clement Attlee had been first developed in Fabian essays or pamphlets.

Since its early stage however, the Fabian Society has attracted attention due to its controversial attempts to hide the true purpose and meaning of its mission. The most stunning choice of a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ as the Fabian Society’s coat of arms certainly would not have helped their image. Their policy of ‘permeation’, of existing institutions, parties and Parliament by its members and supporters in order to carry out social and economic reforms drew equal suspicion – with purist users of the English language suggesting the word “Infiltration”! The strategy of “permeation” was used successfully by the Fabians by getting elected to various governing bodies from the London County Council to the House of Commons.

At the same time, they were found to have close associations with the South African mining companies owned by the then notorious Milner Group, like the Anglo American Corporation that owned half of the world’s newly mined gold and De Beers Group who held a virtual monopoly on the price and marketing of diamonds,and other key resource companies controlled by the Milner Group and its associates such as British Petroleum (BP), Royal Dutch Shell, and Standard Oil. The same interests also controlled banking and finance through a worldwide network of financial firms. The Fabians faced accusations of modelling itself on the Milner Group’s British South Africa Company, cynically aiming to capture the heart and mind of the unsuspecting masses.

A review of the rise of Tony Blair within the British Labour Party structure and his subsequent performance in delivering Britain to serve the global agenda of the neocons help confirm the initial suspicions of the ‘true colours’ of the Fabians and their agenda.

In the 1990s the Fabian Society came to be a major force in the so-called modernisation of the British Labour Party, developing many of the ideas that would later characterise New Labour; They introduced Tony Blair, son of a known Conservative to the Labour ranks and built a coalition of voters under ‘A New Constitution for the Labour Party’, helping Labour to its historic 1997 victory. After Tony Blair’s landslide victory in 1997, over 200 Fabians sat in the House of Commons, including many of the Cabinet.

The 2006 opening of a famed stained glass window designed by Bernard Shaw, showing Fabians “Sidney Webb and ER Pease… helping to build the new world” at the LSE drew the attention of many a sceptic.

The Fabian methodology of gradual permeation of a nation’s fears, concerns and deeply held beliefs provide a possible platform for the critically analysis of the UNHCR order to create hybrid courts in Sri Lanka.They would have fully gauged the fierce resistance within the mainstream Sri Lankan population to any kind of war crimes inquiry against those who saved them, after 30 years of suffering. America found that the barrier put up by the last regime against international intervention too formidable, especially with the ultimate support that would have come from China and Russia. So, the current ‘compromise’ engineered by the US and European neocons following the January regime change is designed to break the will of the nation in a measured way: that is the reason for a hybrid rather than a full international inquiry!

To a lesser extent would be America’s contingency-led need to ‘course correct’ their position on Sri Lanka, led erroneously by overbearing former agents like Robert O. Blake, Patricia A. Butenis and Michelle Sisson, aided by the pro-Israeli lobby at the State Department constantly scanning the world looking for diversions from Israeli atrocities.

The reasons for the order given by the Prince such as: “the unfortunate reality is that Sri Lanka’s criminal justice system is not yet ready”; “the absence of any reliable system for victim and witness protection; the inadequacy of Sri Lanka’s domestic legal framework to deal with international crimes of this magnitude; and the high levels of mistrust in State authorities and institutions by broad segments of Sri Lankan society” are all puerile and contrived to make Sri Lanka swallow a pill it does not require.

The Prince was also showing the tip of a ‘stick’ to Sri Lanka by recommending to the United Nations system and all member states should initiate investigations and prosecutions against Sri Lankans under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction.The neocons and their lapdogs at the UN have found the Sri Lankan government delegation they had to deal with, the foreign minister in particular a ‘babe in the woods’.