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Sri Lanka has reported 05 more coronavirus-related deaths, the Director-General of Health Services confirmed today (March 29).
As per the Department of Government Information, all five victims are male patients.
The new deaths bring the number of COVID-19 related deaths witnessed in Sri Lanka to 566 in total.
Sri Lanka has registered 71 more positive cases of Covid-19 today (March 29), the Ministry of Health confirmed.
Thereby, Sri Lanka has detected 166 new positive cases of COVID-19 within the day.
As per statistics, the total number of Covid-19 infections confirmed so far in the country now stands at 92,303.
Recoveries from the virus meanwhile climbed to 88,914 earlier today, as 291 more patients regained health.
However, 2,823 active cases are still under medical care at selected hospitals and treatment centers located across the island.
Total lives claimed by the pandemic outbreak sits at 566 at present.
Yet it remains the case that if Nigerian public and private sector players doing business with the Chinese elephant could improve their negotiating skills and be more ambitious about their negotiating positions, making better use of Nigeria’s ‘superpower’ qualities to minimise the drawbacks of its antlike ones, the future of Nigeria–China relations could be brighter and more beneficial for Nigeria than their past – South African Institute of International Affairs
Human rights violations allegedly committed by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the government of Sri Lanka are antlike compared to the Elephantine violations committed by giants in the world including the USA.
The UNHRC and the West so concerned about the Ants, looks totally disinterested when the Military in Myanmar mows down innocent civilians fighting for their human rights. They have not raised a finger or even a finger nail to do anything tangible to halt the Military juggernaut from killing more people and subjugating them to the power of guns and other military hardware. Military might has replaced human rights and the world looks on issuing useless statements from UN pulpits. The duplicity and differential treatment being meted out is sickening.
Yet, these human rights champions are concerned about internal matters of Sri Lanka, but not concerned about the Muslim extremists who killed more than 300 people during the Easter bombings in 2019 and prior to that the marauding LTTE who killed hundreds and thousands of innocent children, women, old men and women. The dark history of the LTTE has been inconsequential for the UNHRC or the West.
Much has been written about the plight of the poor in the US who have no rights if they are poor. The world knows how rights are violated in Saudi Arabia, protected by the US. They know about the violations in Israel, again protected by the US. Palestinians have been trampled, walls built around them, and basic living conditions denied to them.
Some of the member countries of the UNHRC, who voted against Sri Lanka have appalling human rights records. Some others who sat on the fence too would not have a place to hide if their records are exposed. Others who sat on the fence did not have the guts to either side with the Elephants or support the Ant who was being trampled.
Sections of the Tamil Diaspora, the beggars with the wound that will never heal, provided plenty of falsehoods to the Core group and the US, and the world media big shots sponsored the case against Sri Lanka basing their accusations on such falsehoods, and also infringing on Sri Lanka’s sovereignty as if Sri Lanka was still one of their colonial outposts.
It is high time Sri Lankan Tamils who wish to call Sri Lanka their home divorced themselves from the LTTE and their supporters overseas, and also kicked out their politicians from their electorates and elected a set of politicians who would help to develop their areas and improved their lot.
They must ask themselves what these politicians have done for them since independence. They must ask themselves what development support the Tamil Diaspora, barring a handful, have done to improve the economic wellbeing of Tamils in the North and the East by investing, and creating jobs or improving agriculture and agri industries so that people would have had more self-employment opportunities. Had they done this, the private sector in the North and East would have been booming today.
Instead they contribute to fill the coffers of the LTTE rump, who in turn puts money in the pockets of politicians in the West to continue their fake allegations about their hopeless” fate in Sri Lanka. This money goes to keep LTTE atrocities under the lid and make the world think that the LTTE was a lily white set of freedom fighters without any blemish.
The current President Gotabaya Rajapaksa may have his faults. After all he is human. But, few seem to remember that had it not been for him and the service commanders at the time including Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka, who led very brave Forces personnel, and the political leadership provided by President Mahinda Rajapakse, the island of Sri Lanka would have had two Nations by now. There are of course those with short memories, who owe their freedom to talk, write and act because the LTTE were defeated militarily in 2009, and others with an objective that is still uppermost in their minds, and that is to create a separate nation in the North and the East.
Tamil people will have to make a decision whether they wish to be in one nation called Sri Lanka, along with the Sinhalese, Muslims and other ethnic groups, or whether they wish to live in a separate Nation. Such a decision however cannot be just the decision of Tamil people, it has to be a decision of all people of Sri Lanka including the Sinhalese, Muslims and other races, as they all have ownership of the one country and island where everyone lives.
If the Tamil people in the North and East and others living in the rest of the country wish to advance and work towards the concept of one country for all, they have to choose a different set of leaders who would pursue such a concept and work towards addressing how the road blocks that might be impeding the one country concept may be overcome. It has to be clear to the Tamil people that their leadership has failed them, and they have not benefited by the divisive politics practiced by their leadership. Solutions lie in compromise and consensus decision making by all people as no group could have aspirations that disadvantage another group. In particular, majority groups need to compromise more than minority groups as majorities can and they do create imbalances simply on account of their numerical strength.
Muslim people of Sri Lanka too need to make a decision about their future in Sri Lanka and whether they wish to replicate extremism practiced in countries like Saudi Arabia or whether they wish to practice moderation as the Prophet himself articulated very well in his teachings. Extremism cannot have a place in the country. Politicians who advocate extremist ideologies should be rejected by the Muslim people.
The UNHRC vote gave a clear indication as to who were with Sri Lanka and who had the self-respect to defend their sovereignty as this resolution was clearly aimed at infringing on the sovereignty of small, poor and developing nations by those powerful ones who had become the pseudo defenders of human rights. In saying this, there is no inference whatsoever that any violation of people’s human rights should not be opposed. It must be. However, such a condemnation has to be proportionate to the alleged or actual violations, and also dealt in equal measure irrespective of a country’s wealth or power. This is not the case today as evidenced by how the rich and the powerful treat some nations differently to others.
The Nigerian simile mentioned at the outset of this article rings true when it comes to Sri Lanka too. China is the Elephant in the room which has got the Western power block which includes India, to take measures against Sri Lanka and corral it using a UNHRC resolution, hoping that Sri Lanka will yield to such international pressure and cave into their demands.
Despite the uphill task, Sri Lanka should not cave in as that would be the end of the country’s sovereignty. Sri Lanka should however very aggressively and purposefully pursue alliances with countries in similar situations to counter the threats from not just the Western power block, but even from China at a future point in time. A very aggressive China, pursuing its own agenda of being the next super power of the world, could potentially become the Elephant that tramples nations like Sri Lanka if it felt that an Ant was standing in its way.
Sri Lanka no doubt wants and must have the support of all nations to improve their economic and social wellbeing of their people. It needs investments from all corners and not loans and handouts. Sri Lanka’s development and self-sufficiency has to come from the confidence it generates to attract investments. In this regard, many initiatives being taken by the Rajapaksa government has to be lauded and encouraged, while those opposed to the government should offer constructive criticism of government policies and practices. A democratic opposition should not resort to spreading fake news to pursue a genuine political agenda unless that agenda is also as fake as the fake news.
Colombo, March 27 (Daily Mirror) – Sri Lanka yesterday said talks to purchase coronavirus vaccines from Pfizer-biontech have been successful and a final agreement is expected to be reached soon. State Minister of Production, Supply and Regulation of Pharmaceuticals, Prof. Channa Jayasumana said that the US based company has offered to supply vaccines in special storage equipment during transportation.
The Pfizer vaccine requires storage facilities with minus 70 degrees
refrigeration, a facility which the Sri Lanka Government does not have.
However, Prof. Channa Jayasumana said that the matter had been discussed with the manufacturer and the manufacturer has now offered asolution.
He said that the company is ready to provide facilities to transport the vaccines to storage facilities while maintaining the minus 70 degrees refrigeration.
Professor Channa Jayasumana also said that it has been found that vaccines manufactured by the company can be stored in normal refrigeration for approximately a week.
As a result, he said that steps will be taken to import the vaccines from Pfizer-biontech to Sri Lanka soon.
Meanwhile, Pfizer and Biontech announced a breakthrough yesterday
(Friday) saying that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved storage of the Pfizer manufactured COMIRNATY® vaccine at -25°C to -15°C for a total of two weeks based on data showing the stability at these temperatures in standard pharmaceutical freezers. COMIRNATY® is manufactured by Pfizer Europe and efficacy shown in clinical trials in participants with or without evidence of prior infection with SARS-COV-2 and who received the full series of vaccine (2 doses) was approximately 95% based on a median follow-up of two months.
Pfizer said the new data is a testament to the companies’ ongoing commitment to developing this vaccine further and collecting data in order to support broader and more flexible vaccine distribution and inoculation.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa accused the previous government led by Maithripala Sirisena of betraying the country’s sovereignty by co-sponsoring the UN rights resolution in 2015
Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Sunday stated that the recent UNHRC resolution against his country was the doing of local and foreign forces which do not want Sri Lanka to progress. He even vowed that his government would not succumb to such pressures.
On Tuesday last week, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted a resolution against Sri Lanka’s rights record, giving the UN body a mandate to collect evidence of crimes committed during the country’s brutal three decade-long civil war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Speaking at a gathering in the southern rural district of Matara on Sunday, Rajapaksa said: We will never succumb to (such) pressures (UNHRC resolution); we are a free nation. We will not be a victim of big power rivalry in the Indian Ocean.”
The president said the UNHRC resolution was the doing of foreign and local forces” which cannot see his government making progress.
Rajapaksa accused the previous government led by Maithripala Sirisena of betraying Sri Lanka’s sovereignty by co-sponsoring the UN rights resolution in 2015.
The resolution titled Promotion of Reconciliation Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka was passed despite heavy lobbying by Sri Lanka. India was among 14 countries which abstained from voting.
India has said its stand on the matter is governed by two considerations: support to the minority Tamils and stability and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka.
The resolution calls upon the Lankan government to ensure prompt thorough and impartial investigation, if warranted, prosecution of all alleged crimes relating to human rights violations and serious violations of international human rights law during the country’s three decade-long civil war. The Tamil minority has welcomed the resolution.
According to the Lankan government figures, over 20,000 people are missing due to various conflicts including the three-decade brutal war with Lankan Tamils in the north and east which claimed at least 100,000 lives.
The Tamils alleged that thousands were massacred during the final stages of the war that ended in 2009 when the government forces killed LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran.
The Sri Lankan Army denies the charge, claiming it as a humanitarian operation to rid the Tamils of LTTE’s control.
At the end of the civil war, the United Nations accused both sides of atrocities, especially during the conflict’s final stages.
International rights groups claim at least 40,000 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed in the final stages of the war, but the Sri Lankan government has disputed the figures.
The Epidemiology Unit of the Health Ministry says that another 69 persons have tested positive for COVID-19 increasing the total number of cases reported within the day to 237.
This brings the tally of coronavirus cases identified in the country to 92,088 thus far, while the total recoveries have reached 88,623.
Presently there are 2,906 patients who are being treated for Covid-19 at hospitals and treatment centers.
Sri Lanka has reported 02 more coronavirus-related deaths, the Director-General of Health Services confirmed today (March 28).
As per the Department of Government Information, the victims are two male patients from Colombo 15 and Mawanella areas.
The new deaths bring the number of COVID-19 related deaths witnessed in Sri Lanka to 561 in total.
01. The deceased is a 60-year-old male resident from Colombo 15. He died on 01.02.2021 on admission to Base Hospital Mawanella. The cause of death is mentioned as COVID-19 infection and chronic renal failure.
02. The deceased is a 35 old male resident from Mawanella. He died on 29.12.2020 on admission to Base Hospital Mawanella. The cause of death is mentioned as COVID-19 infection and acute diabetes.
An explosion ripped through a Roman Catholic cathedral compound in the eastern Indonesian city of Makassar on Sunday morning, shattering the calm of Palm Sunday, a holy day for Christians.
Unverified video said to have been taken at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Cathedral showed smoldering wreckage and palm fronds scattered on the ground.
Father Wilhelmus Tulak, a priest at the cathedral, told Metro TV, an Indonesian network, that a parking attendant had been burned as he tried to stop a suicide bomber. Ten people were injured, the priest said.
The cathedral was between Masses when two motorcyclists approached, looking suspicious, Father Wilhelmus told Metro TV.
Mohammad Ramadhan Pomanto, the mayor of Makassar, a multifaith port city of about 1.5 million people on the island of Sulawesi, told Metro TV that body parts were found as far as 200 meters away. He said no churchgoers had been killed.
South Sulawesi police chief told reporters that based on initial findings, one person died during the blast at the gate of the church compound. Five church staffers and four worshippers were injured and taken to nearby hospitals, he added.
What we can be sure of is that there is one body, allegedly the suicide bomber,” he said as quoted by Kompas TV. The body was attached to a motorbike, apparently (he) had yet to descend because he was stopped by a church officer.
He noted although the bombing was high explosive”, there was no significant damage at the church.
The police have set up a cordon around the church and a disaster victim identification team is investigating the incident.
Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, has a significant Christian minority. In recent years, Southeast Asian affiliates of the Islamic State have targeted Christian places of worship there and in the mostly Catholic Philippines.
In 2018, three Christian churches were bombed in Surabaya, the second-largest city in Indonesia, leaving a dozen bystanders dead. The suicide bombers were a married couple and their four children. Within days, members of two other families also set off bombs in Surabaya, blowing themselves up.
Last year, a Roman Catholic cathedral was bombed for the third time on the island of Jolo in the southern Philippines, killing at least 14 people. As with the Surabaya bombings, a local affiliate of the Islamic State claimed responsibility for that strike. A 2019 suicide attack on the same cathedral, which killed more than 20 people, was carried out by an Indonesian couple.
-Agencies
In a lofty speech delivered via video to the 75th General Assembly of UN (September 2020) – the first of its kind initiated in the wake of the pandemic — Prime Minister Narendra Modi took great pains to explain a range of issues from India ’s Neighbourhood First Policy” to the new dimensions of the Indo-Pacific region. Among the achievements he highlighted was this unusual factor peculiar to India only: In the same period (i.e., within 4-5 years),” he said 600 million people have been freed from open defecation. This was not an easy task. But India has achieved it,” he said with pride.
The entire SAARC neighbourhood joins India in celebrating this achievement. But what baffles the SAARC partners in the region is why India continues to defecate in the neighbourhood so openly and unashamedly? The biggest shock of being a SAARCian is that no one ever knows when India would decide to defecate either in your front yard or backyard. There isn’t a single SAARCian that is not working ceaselessly to keep their patch free from India faeces. India’s do-as-I-say-and-not do-as-I-do policy” has been a fundamental flaw in India’s foreign policy. The failure of SAARC to progress as a regional bloc – the only regional bloc to stagnate so far — is due solely to India’s pursuit of self-interest at the expense of its neighbours. If there is a problem in SAARC you can be sure that India is somewhere in it. And yet Prime Minister boasted in the same speech: We have always worked for the interests of humankind and not driven by our own self-interests.”
The Gandhi-Nehruvian idealism that inspired the Non-Alignment Movement went out with India defecating in and around its neighbourhood. Cleaning up India was long overdue and Modi deserves credit for achieving this Herculean task. Which reminds me of the cynical story that circulated after the visit of Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Premier, to India in 1960. An eye-sore to Khrushchev, the story went, was the Indians defecating in public and on one of his long train rides he chided Nehru for letting his people dirty both sides of the railway track. Nehru’s pride was wounded and he remembered it well and on his return visit to USSR (as Russia was known then) he was out to get even with his counterpart. He thought he found one at last in one of his long train rides across Siberia when he saw in the open distant a squatting man defecating. He quickly summoned Khrushchev and pointed to the ugly scene which, naturally angered Khrushchev. Immediately, he pulled the chain and stopped the train and got his NKVD to bring the culprit before him. It was Nehru who was chagrined again because they discovered that the defecator was none other than India’s ambassador to Moscow!
Well, SAARCians are well aware that the South Bloc in Delhi is a factory that produces these incontinent specimens who should not have been let out of Indian toilets. J. N. Dixit, the noted Mr. Fix-it” who was sent by Mrs. Indira Gandhi, to execute her excremental mission in Sri Lanka, was full of regret later when he realised, rather late, that it was India’s biggest mistake. The entire mission was undertaken on the assumption that India could fix the domestic problem of Sri Lanka by using its superior military, political and Big Brother muscles. In the end it was driven away by the very forces that welcomed them as their saviours. And the LTTE boasted that they had beaten the fourth largest Army in the world.
Each defeat diminishes India’s stature as a reliable guide, partner and leader in the global competition for power and influence. India’s rivals are asserting and making their presence felt with more credible and viable use of power. In short India is losing its grip in the neighbourhood – let alone the India Ocean Rim — by the day to its powerful rival China. India is drifting away from its neighbourhood – its nearest and vital mates needed for its defence – to depend on distant power blocs like the QUAD. Consequently, India is forced to rely on the Pacific friends” with a common interest in containing China, which questions the validity of India’s Neighbourhood First Policy”. And the more it alienates its neighbours the more it is compelled to rely on LOCs and LACs. How many frontiers must it maintain just to survive in the neighbourhood, dissipating its military energies on mini-wars and skirmishes from time to time, sometimes going to the brink? Is India going to live on tenterhooks for the rest of its life by hanging on to controversial legacies and self-serving interventions?
India of course rushes into places where angels fear to tread ( e.g., Sri Lanka) believing that it is a problem-solver. But the records show that she ends up as a problem-exacerbator, not knowing how to get out of it without exiting in body bags. Invariably, India’s foreign forays boomerang on her blinkered bureaucrats in the South Bloc. India has this penchant also to bite more than what it can chew. And, in the process, she gets choked. That is what happened to her in Sri Lanka. Had India allowed the Sri Lankan forces to finish off the LTTE in the Vadamarachchi operation in the 70s the needless internal war would not have dragged on till 2009. It could have been nipped in the bud. But Big Brother India had to come in and worsen the situation for all concerned – mostly to India. Had India allowed Sri Lanka to solve its problems in their way India could have saved face without having to experience the humiliation of its forces being driven out with their tails between their legs.
India’s latest diplomatic thrust at the UNHRC against Sri Lanka is typical of India’s duplicitous diplomacy. It is the absolute lack of moral finesse that makes India a despicable figure in the eyes of those who know India’s role in sabotaging and destabilising her neighbour and friend for thousands of years. It is the nearness that makes India both a friend and an enemy. As a neighbour with thousands of years of relations with Sri Lanka, we cannot remain untouched by developments in that country and will continue to remain engaged in this matter,” said Dilip Sinha, India’s High Commissioner in Geneva in 2013. In other words, India is saying that it will not let Sri Lanka be independent and handle its domestic affairs or foreign affairs according to its national interests. India gave a new meaning to Neighbourhood First Policy” by imposing Article 370 and wiping out the independent status of Kashmir violating international agreements and UN resolutions and absorbing the Muslim state into Indian Hindustan. India would not have hesitated by now to make Sri Lanka its 29th state if it had the power to do so.
The Neighbourhood First Policy” is a rather belated approach to mend broken fences. But India can’t live up to its own commitments. India’s lobbying against Sri Lanka in Geneva, roping in Nepal, is not the best way to pursue policy that gives priority and confidence to the neighbourhood. Pakistan and Bangladesh, the two big neighbours, were not with India. Isn’t this another sign that meddlesome and interventionist India cannot coexist with its neighbours? Of course, the Modi government was under pressure in Tamil Nadu to prove that they are with the Tamils in Sri Lanka. Selling Sri Lanka is another way of winning votes in the Tamil Nadu election due on April 6. Modi is boasting that he is the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Jaffna. He is also claiming blood relationship with the Tamils by and referring to them as his brothers and sisters”. No doubt, this is electoral rhetoric. That is for domestic consumption. But the consequences of this rhetoric go beyond the borders to impact on Indo-Sri Lanka relations. India is literally pushing Sri Lanka into the arms of China – the last thing that both sides want to happen. Both sides are sensitive to possibility of Sri Lanka, swinging away from India. India is openly wooing the Tamils partly to keep the pot boiling for it to intervene and partly to keep them as the Fifth Column to provoke and pressure the GOSL. Indian diplomats on the ground are stirring the pot, playing ball with the Tamil parties. Driven by Indian funds, patronage and interventionist policies the local Tamil parties too are only too happy to go along with Indian manoeuvres. In doing this India is playing with fire again. Playing with divisive politics is a risky gamble. Foreign powers tend to join with the locals to exploit divisions to their advantage. But it doesn’t go according to plan in the best of cases. Vietnam for USA and Sri Lanka for Indians prove that it can go the other way.
India finds Tamil aspirations” a good excuse to intervene. So it should not be surprised to find the Sri Lankan aspirations” too compelling the Sri Lankan policy-makers to seek their comfort/security zones abroad. So far, India’s handling of Tamil aspirations” has not satisfied the Tamil aspirants. Velupillai Prabhakaran went against India because he felt that India was pushing its own neo-colonial program more than that of the Tamils. Right now India has moved into UNHRC to push its neo-colonial interventions. Apart from power politics, what makes the Indian adventure in Geneva so obnoxious is its blatant lies and immorality. Of course, India makes a big issue of trying to present its role as neutral middle-man guaranteeing territorial integrity to Sri Lanka and in the same breath guaranteeing Tamil aspirations” which it says is in the interest of Sri Lanka. In other words, India will follow the policy of rocking the cradle and pinching the baby. But the sudden and arbitrary application of Article 370 to Kashmir – a kind of final solution to the vexed issue since Pandit Nehru created it at Independence – proves that India is not shy of redrawing the political maps according to its whims and fancies. India is provocative. It is aggressive. And threatening regional peace and stability with each big move. A counterweight is needed to balance India’s arrogant approach to its neighbours. If an alternative counterweight is not forthcoming, perhaps, an alliance of non-Indians in the region to lock in India – if achievable — would be the answer to put India in its place
In other words, somebody must stop India running wild. Take the case of Sri Lanka. India exploited the simmering internal stirrings in its very early stages to recruit derelict Tamil youth to be India’s covert arm to destabilise Sri Lanka. It provided training, finance, military equipment, political patronage, diplomatic cover, the use of its territory to export terrorism to its thousand-year-old friend and neighbour. Eventually it forced its way into Sri Lanka on the promise of solving the problem. When the Tamils realised that the Indians had come in to exploit them they turned against the IPKF. In response the IPKF sprayed bullets indiscriminately targeting civilians. The Indian committed the most heinous war crime by raiding the Jaffna Hospital and slaughtering doctors, surgeons, nurses and patients and all others who stood in the way. And it is this India – this hypocritical India — that is asking Sri Lanka to give justice, dignity, equality and peace for Jaffna Tamils in Geneva.
Three parties engaged directly in finding a military solution and all the human rights issues arose from the military engagements of the three forces : 1. The quasi-Tamil state of the LTTE which came out of the declaration of war by the Tamil leadership at Vadukoddai urging the Tamil youth to take up the gun in pursuit of establishing a Tamil state.(2) the democratically elected state of Sri Lanka which fought to defeat the Tamil Pol Pot and liberate the Tamils from Tamil tyranny and 3. The state of India which intervened military to impose its will assuming its power to find a solution. All parties violated human rights and committed war crimes. The UN resolutions repeatedly refers to violations of human rights by the GOSL and the LTTE but never by the state of India. Why? In their reports to UNHRC all the High Commissioners have been quick to pick on GOSL. But not a single report has ever dared to raise the violations of the Indian forces in Sri Lanka. Why? Are they above the law? Or are the High Commissioner, as usual playing the hidden games of exempting the powerful and flaying only the powerless – and that too on flimsy excuses compared to what India had done to Sri Lanka from the beginning? The scale of India’s criminality in creating, promoting, financing, legitimising the killing machine of its agents in Jaffna is unforgivable. India has no moral leg to stand on and accuse Sri Lanka of anything after what it has done to its thousand-year neighbour and friend. On the contrary, India should have accepted guilt for paving the path to crimes that killed innocent lives in Sri Lanka and legally forced to pay compensation to the victims. Apart from kick-starting the killing the Tamil killing machine and exporting it to Sri Lanka it is India’s direct military intervention that prolonged the war leading to thousands of deaths and violations of human rights. After that, after committing those inhuman crimes what right has India to pontificate to Sri Lanka on dignity, peace and justice? After promising to restore peace and reconciliation India departed disgracefully, leaving Sri Lanka in bloody shambles.
Not only India, the entire Core Group led by UK and the West should hang their heads in shame for hiding the facts that undermines the veracity and the validity of their fake resolution against Sri Lanka. Their secret files contain the truth and they will not reveal them because it blasts their accusations to smithereens. Lord Naseby’s revelations knock the bottom out of the resolution that was sponsored by the Core Group. His tireless efforts to dig up the truth and expose the concocted resolution, full of inaccuracies, exaggerations, distortions and denials confirm that UN and its agencies are manipulated by mendacious agents who have the least respect for basic and decent values needed for delivery of justice. Michelle Bachelet has not failed to imitate Colin Powell with deadly accuracy. Both should be awarded honorary degree for deliberately lying to mislead and deceive the public.
Reading Lord Nasby’s account of what happened in Geneva one is forced to conclude that the whole episode was a farce enacted by liars, hypocrites, conspirators and plain criminals presenting themselves as human rights activists. It was UK that Chaired the Core Group and the evidence was with Lord Ahamad, the Minister for Human Rights, who had purposely and consciously withheld robust evidence” of utmost importance being sent to the UNHR…. He should have sent them unredacted to create an informed Report. The action is made even worse by UK Chairing the Core Group and is absolutely reprehensible. It is unforgiveable and is a black day for my UK Government,” said Lord Naseby.
He added: I find it unacceptable that the senor UK Minister responsible for Human rights policy should state that the UNHRC did not ask for these Dispatches. The Minister knew how crucial the contents of these Dispatches are to the truth.” One of the objectives of the UNHRC resolution is to find evidence of the human rights violations in Sri Lanka. Shouldn’t the UN begin with the office of the UK Minister for Human Rights and then with Ms. Bachelet’s office? In failing to obtain the necessary information before presenting her report to UNHRC isn’t she guilty of criminal neglect of duty?
The emerging evidence is exposing the calculated manipulation that had operated, with the hidden plotters in the NGOs and officials in key places hiding evidence, concocting evidence and distorting realities on the ground. For instance, the UN produces accusations against Sri Lanka with evidence from nameless, faceless accusers who will remain anonymous for the next thirty years. And Sri Lanka is forced to face the consequences of mysterious evidence kept hidden in the UN archives. India which was a prime conspirator in financing and honing the Tamil killing machine turns up at UNHRC as a pious preacher of humane values and lobbies against its victim demanding justice. UK which presides over the Core Group hides the evidence that goes against its own resolution. Ms. Bachelet who is the Chief Officer responsible for coordinating and presenting the evidence for the resolution goes along with the lies, deception and the conspiracy to indict Sri Lanka. Put together all this adds to one big calculated move to indict Sri Lanka no matter what the truth is. What chance had Sri Lanka against such massive plotters?
Sri Lanka will receive 600,000 doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccinations on March 31 and priority will be given for Sri Lankan citizens when administering the vaccines while only 1 percent of the total amount to be delivered will be for Chinese nationals residing here, an official from the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka said.
The Embassy official told the Daily Mirror that the vaccines were a donation to the Sri Lankan government from China and it was the Sri Lankan government who offered the vaccines to the Chinese nationals residing in the country.
China’s Sinopharm vaccine is produced by the China National Biotec Group (CNBG) – a subsidiary of China National Pharmaceutical Group Corporation. Clinical trials run by the Sinopharm showed that it had an efficacy rate of 79 percent.
However the Sinopharm has run into controversy in the country after State Minister of Production, Supply and Regulation of Pharmaceuticals Prof. Channa Jayasumana said recently that it had received approval for emergency use by the NMRA.
However this approval is yet to be officially conveyed to the State Pharmaceutical Corporation who is the main institution placing orders with countries to purchase the vaccines.
Death toll from the COVID-19 outbreak in Sri Lanka reached 559 as the Director-General of Health Services confirmed another fatality today (March 27).
According to the Department of Government Information, the deceased, who was residing in Colombo 06 succumbed to the virus infection on Thursday.
He was transferred to Mulleriyawa Base Hospital after testing positive for coronavirus at the Colombo National Hospital.
The cause of death was recorded as COVID pneumonia and ischemic heart disease, the Department said further
Ministry of Health on Saturday (March 27) confirmed 115 more new cases of the COVID-19 in Sri Lanka as the daily cases count reached 278.
The new development has brought the total number of COVID-19 confirmed in the country thus far to 91,839.
According to the Epidemiology Unit, 2,893 patients infected with the virus are currently under medical care at designated hospitals and treatment centres.
Total recoveries from the virus infection have reached 88,388 while the death toll stands at 558.
Sri Lanka has no intention of intervening in the power struggles of the giants in the Indian Ocean region, says President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
We have no desire to propagate the neoliberalism of some countries or to intervene in the power struggles of the superpowers in the Indian Ocean.”
He stressed the sovereignty of Sri Lanka will not be betrayed by allowing these countries to achieve their geopolitical needs by introducing separatism under the guise of power devolution.
The President made these observations addressing the ‘Gama Samaga Pilisandara’ programme held at Pitabeddara earlier today (March 27).
Government is prepared to face the international challenges, the President added.
Speaking on the government’s move to withdraw from the co-sponsored resolutions of the UNHRC, the President said the resolutions had adversely affected the sovereignty and freedom of the country.
The President also stated that his tenure in office so far was spent on righting the wrongs of the previous government which in turn cause various issues.
Ministry of Health on Saturday (March 27) confirmed another 163 fresh cases of the novel coronavirus in the country.
The new development has brought the total number of COVID-19 confirmed in the country thus far to 91,724.
According to the Epidemiology Unit, 2,778 patients infected with the virus are currently under medical care at designated hospitals and treatment centres.
Total recoveries from the virus infection have reached 88,388 while the death toll stands at 558.
Colombo, March 26 (Daily Mirror) – The State Pharmaceutical Corporation (SPC) has begun discussions with Britain to purchase the Astrazeneca doses from the UK, especially since authorities are doubtful if the Serum Institute in India can now supply the remaining 8.5 million vaccinations which had initially been requested, the Daily Mirror learns.
The SPC had initially requested Serum Institute in India for 10 million vaccination doses however the Institute had agreed to supply 1.5 million doses. While these doses will come in as scheduled, the SPC is doubtful if Serum Institute can supply the remaining 8.5 million doses with its new export restrictions on the dosages.
An official from the SPC said it had begun discussions to procure the remaining 8.5 million doses from Astrazeneca in the UK and had requested them to send the necessary documents for the approval of the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA).
Although it is the same company, it is manufactured from different companies in separate countries. Therefore, we need the approval of the NMRA to use it under emergency use in the country which is why we have requested for the necessary documents which will be sent to us,” the official said.
If emergency use approval is granted by the NMRA, the SPC will move fast to place an order as millions of citizens in the country are yet to be vaccinated.
The Astrazeneca doses would be purchased at $5.25 per dose from the UK, the same as India as the price for this vaccination is the same maintained globally.
The Daily Mirror learns that discussions are also ongoing with Johnson and Johnson to see the possibility of purchasing this vaccine if NMRA approval is granted.
The SPC has already requested for the necessary documents from Johnson and Johnson which once received will be forwarded to the NMRA.
Meanwhile, the official said in the immediate future, they also expect Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine to arrive in the country as cabinet approval had been granted to purchase 7 million doses. The Sputnik V will be purchased at $9.95 per dose. (Jamila Husain)
Colombo, March 26 (Daily Mirror) – Sri Lanka’s Health authorities have gone on alert after a new double mutant of the Coronavirus has been detected from some samples in India with scientists studying if this new strain is more infectious or less affected by the vaccines.
Sources from the Health Ministry said that Sri Lanka was randomly checking the samples of foreigners entering the country for all the new foreign variants of the COVID19 but authorities were now on alert for this new double mutant virus as well.
Randomly we check the samples of the foreigners. We have been doing this for some time as all foreigners are subjected to a PCR test upon arrival to the country. There are many new strains of the COVID19 globally so we are taking all the precautions. We are now on alert for the new variant detected in India as well,” Health Ministry sources said.
Several parts of India are facing a staggering rise in the number of COVID19 infections with India’s Health Ministry stating that this new double mutant variant of the virus had now spread to 18 states after it was first detected in Maharashtra’s Nagpur in December last year.
Cases have now been reported from Delhi, Gujarat and Punjab, among other places. (Jamila Husain)
Colombo, March 25: Yazhpanam P.S. Balamurugan had to cancel nearly a dozen performances in India last year, after the pandemic made it impossible to travel from Jaffna, where he lives, in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province.
I participated in some online events, and in another instance recorded a performance here and shared it with organisers there, but there’s nothing like a live performance in front of an eager audience,” says the nagaswaram artiste, who has a steadily growing fan base in south India.
Those who heard him play Charukesi at a Chennai concert over two years ago have neither forgotten the rendition nor been able to appreciate other Charukesis since, without being reminded of his. The robust sound emanating from his wind instrument, sustained by long, full breaths, brimming with life and emotion, casts a spell on audiences.
For Sri Lankan artistes like him, performing in India defied the usual logistical complications of going abroad. The relatively friendly visa regime, innumerable flight options, and the short travel time — a Colombo-Chennai flight takes less than an hour, and a Jaffna-Chennai flight was introduced in 2019 — made travel fairly simple. I can’t wait to travel and perform there again once borders open up,” says Balamurugan.
Kandyan dance exponent and guru Upeka Chitrasena has performed across the world, but the audience in India, especially Chennai, is something else,” she says. Rows and rows of elderly people and children sit through performances, keeping taal and responding with spontaneous applause when they like something. It is rare to see that sort of engagement and passion.”
Collaboration with Nrityagram
The stronger magnet pulling her, however, is some 370 km away from Chennai. When she says she dearly misses India, she means she misses Nrityagram, the Odissi dance village near Bengaluru that has been second home for the renowned Sri Lankan artiste since 2003. This is the longest she has been away, given that she usually makes five or six trips a year. I stopped performing in 2011 and only teach now, so seeing dancers at Nrityagram learn and rehearse gives me the energy of my own performance days,” she says.
Artistes from the Colombo-based Chitrasena Dance Company, named after Upeka’s father, Sri Lanka’s pioneering Kandyan dance exponent, and the Nrityagram group have been collaborating for a decade now. Two productions, ‘Samhara’ (2012) and ‘Ahuti’ (2019), bring the two very different but delightfully complementary traditions, Kandyan and Odissi, in conversation. The pandemic meant that the two groups missed some joint performance tours last year, but they have stayed in touch all through. Their long professional and artistic collaboration has birthed precious friendships — like Chitrasena’s with Nrityagram’s artistic director and Odissi exponent Surupa Sen. Several trips across the Palk Strait from both sides, both planned and impromptu, have strengthened these ties.
It was 2019; artistes from the two dance schools were rehearsing for ‘Ahuti’ in Bengaluru. Surupa had casually mentioned to Chitrasena’s artistic director, Heshma Wignaraja, and principal dancer, Thaji Dias [both Chitrasena’s nieces], how lovely it would be to have Upeka Chitrasena for Guru Poornima the next day. I got a call on a Saturday evening from my nieces about this. And by 5 p.m. on Sunday, I was at Surupa’s doorstep, surprising her. I cannot forget her expression when she saw me there,” says Chitrasena, adding: So many memorable rehearsals, performances, conversations, and birthdays together — I miss all of those!” Her mother, the senior Kandyan dance exponent, choreographer and guru, Vajira Chitrasena, was chosen for the Padma Shri award in India last year, but the pandemic meant she could not travel to New Delhi to receive the honour.
Colombo-based Bharatanatyam artiste and teacher Thivya Sujen has had different reasons to go Tamil Nadu every year. If she was not taking her Abhinayakshetra School of Dance’s productions there, she was visiting to work on the music score. It was our honour to collaborate with composers like Lalgudi G.J.R. Krishnan and Rajkumar Bharathi for our productions. I would spend about a fortnight there for the recordings,” she says.
Thivya also took her students who were preparing for their maiden stage performance to Chennai for the photoshoots and to get their costumes done. But what the dancer misses most is visiting her guru, C.V. Chandrasekhar, the veteran Bharatanatyam exponent. She had been especially looking forward to meeting him on his 85th birthday last May, but travel was shut down. She decided to mark the occasion in Sri Lanka by setting up the Global Association of Sri Lankan Bharatanatyam Artistes, a platform bringing together performers and teachers who were forced to leave the country during the anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983. She also organised online lectures with Indian artistes, such as Priyadarsini Govind, and began a virtual ‘Nattuvangam’ course, again periodically roping in Indian artistes. I believe the relationship between artistes of Sri Lanka and India must continue online until we can meet again in person,” she says.
Literary meets
No one expected this sort of break,” says ‘Kambavarithy’ Ilankai Jeyaraj, a renowned Tamil scholar, who founded and helms the Kamban Kazhagam in Sri Lanka. Other than frequently travelling to India to participate in literary meets or to deliver lectures — sometimes even five times a month — Jeyaraj has been a prime force bringing senior Indian artistes and scholars to Sri Lanka every year. The Kamban Kazhagam’s ticket-free arts festivals, held in Colombo and Jaffna, are known for the huge crowds they draw. Their last festival was in early 2020, when playback singer S.P. Balasubrahmanyam was honoured.
We have invited Indian artistes since the mid-1990s, and over the years they have built a special bond with audiences here. They stay in our homes, eat with us, spend time with us… only such strong relationships built over time can brave an unprecedented situation like this pandemic,” says Jeyaraj.
Along with its branch in Australia, the Colombo Kamban Kazhagam held its literary meet online and has also begun sharing videos from its archives on its website. Meanwhile, Jeyaraj is remotely working with musician Bombay Jayashri, a regular and much-loved performer in Colombo and Jaffna, on an album of devotional verses.
Both artistes and audiences are yearning for interaction,” Jeyaraj says, hoping a physical festival might become possible this year.
This was why India abstained from voting. UNHRC will turn to India with the same set of demands very soon and India is keen to avoid an embarrassing situation by being party to it.
https://undocs.org/A/HRC/46/L.1/Rev.1
The paragraph about devolution of political authority must have sent a chill down India for sure. India revoked even limited devolution of political authority enjoyed by the people in Jammu and Kashmir. Now both states come under direct Indian central government rule. How can India preach devolution to Sri Lanka when India is reversing devolution against its own minorities!
India has not earned the Colombo Port Western Terminal in exchange for UNHRC support. It must be revoked.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the attack dog of the UNHRC, has this to say about grave human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir (in addition to the devolution matter).
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/IN/KashmirUpdateReport_8July2019.pdf
Sounds familiar? Isn’t it a carbon copy of the OHCHR report on Sri Lanka? India has not implemented any of these since July 2019 and that is a good guide for Sri Lanka too.
Quoted from the report.
OHCHR recommends: To the Human Rights Council: Consider the findings of this report, including the possible establishment of a commission of inquiry to conduct a comprehensive independent international investigation into allegations of human rights violations in Kashmir.
To the authorities in India:
(a) Fully respect India’s international human rights law obligations in Indian-Administered Kashmir,
(b) Urgently repeal the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990; and, in the meantime, immediately remove the requirement for prior central government permission to prosecute security forces personnel accused of human rights violations in civilian courts;
(c) Establish independent, impartial and credible investigations to probe all civilian killings which have occurred since July 2016, as well as obstruction of medical services during the 2016 unrest, arson attacks against schools and incidents of excessive use of force by security forces including serious injuries caused by the use of the pellet-firing shotguns;
(d) Investigate all deaths that have occurred in the context of security operations in Jammu and Kashmir following the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court of India;
(e) Investigate all cases of abuses committed by armed groups in Jammu and Kashmir, including the killings of minority Kashmiri Hindus since the late 1980s;
(f) Provide reparations and rehabilitation to all individuals injured and the family of those killed in the context of security operations;
(g) Investigate and prosecute all cases of sexual violence allegedly perpetrated by state and non-state actors, and provide reparations to victims;
(h) Bring into compliance with international human rights standards all Indian laws and standard operating procedures relating to the use of force by law enforcement and security entities, particularly the use of firearms: immediately order the end of the use of pellet-firing shotguns in Jammu and Kashmir for the purpose of crowd control;
(I) Amend the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978 to ensure its compliance with international human rights law;
(j) Release or, if appropriate, charge under applicable criminal offences all those held under administrative detention and ensure the full respect of standards of due process and fair trial guaranteed under International law;
(k) Treat any person below the age of 18 who is arrested in a manner consistent with the Convention on the Rights of the Child;
(l) Investigate all blanket bans or restrictions on access to the Internet and mobile telephone networks that were imposed in 2016, and ensure that such restrictions are not imposed in the future;
(m) End restrictions on the movement of journalists and arbitrary bans of the publication of newspapers in Jammu and Kashmir.
(n) Ensure independent, impartial and credible investigations into all unmarked graves in the state of Jammu and Kashmir as directed by the State Human Rights Commission; if necessary, seek assistance from the Government of India and /or the international community. Expand the competence of the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission to investigate all human rights violations and abuses in the state, including those allegedly committed by central security forces;
(o) Ensure people from Kashmir are not targeted or legally harassed in other parts of India on the basis of their actual or presumed identity;
(p) Ratify the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and its Optional Protocol,
(q) Introduce enabling domestic laws as recommended during India’s UPR in 2008, 2012 and 2017;
(r) In line with its standing invitation to the Special Procedures, accept the invitation requests of the almost 20 mandates that have made such requests; in particular, accept the request of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and facilitate its visit to India, including to Jammu and Kashmir; and
(s) Fully respect the right of self-determination of the people of Kashmir as protected under international law.
[Unquote]
Few countries can boast of anything close to the track record of Britain when it comes to gross human rights violations. Genocide and monumental plunder have marked the history of that country and indeed have been the main source of the wealth and sway its citizens and governments, respectively, have enjoyed over several centuries.
It is ironic then that this global bully (or rather the side-kick of the worst rogue state on earth, the USA) has led moves against Sri Lanka in Geneva. These moves can be traced back to the USA’s direct involvement (the involvement, following the ‘cesspool of bias’ descriptive of the UNHRC, has been largely behind-the-scenes stuff) in various vexatious allegations based not on evidence but hearsay. The evidence, as such there were, for example the missives of military attaches of the USA and UK in Colombo as well as the ICRC were disregarded and are still left out of the narrative.
Now, as it was then, it is about strategic interests. Then it was just the USA’s designs on the region. Now, in reduced circumstances it is the interests of the infamous ‘QUAD’ (USA, India, Japan and Australia) in counterpoint to the’Chinese Footprint Gonibilla.’ Ironically, the terrorist rump now masquerading as champions of human rights, i.e. the ex-LTTE groups who have rebranded themselves after the military defeat of the terrorists in 2009, are unhappy with the Resolution passed early this week. In that sense they find themselves in the same camp as the Sri Lankan government!
However, the reasons for dismay are different. Sri Lanka believes it is vexatious persecution. The Government won’t say this, but it is really vexatious persecution by rogue states with sordid histories who turned the Human Rights Council into a kangaroo court.
The Tiger-rump is unhappy because the resolution hasn’t gone ga-ga with the now tired ‘Tamil genocide’ story but has instead been an exercise to further Quad objectives. The resolution is, admittedly, about the here and now. In other words it is about targeting the present government. If ‘war crimes’ was what it was all about then it is immaterial whether or not a US/UK friendly government is in power; it is a matter of principle, nothing else. However, the degree of vexation indicates clearly that things in Geneva are politically motivated.
The here and now. That’s an interesting factor. In the here and now the UK is almost at the tail end of a process to legislate the protection of service personnel in overseas operations. Not that they haven’t got away with all manner of crimes against humanity in the past of course. However, if tomorrow, the UK decides to invade Switzerland and some British soldier took Michelle Bachelet hostage, subjected her to torture (as advocated in interrogation manuals for British and US troops) and shot her thereafter, that country can resist censure at home by citing what is called the Protection from Vexatious Prosecution Bill. Vexation, after all, is a subjective term. As for censure in multilateral forums such as the Human Rights Council, it is about who calls the shots. There’s a cartel of rogue states who are ready to close ranks. They did so just the other day in what was essentially an Europe and North America combine against the rest of the world affair, buying off or silencing the objectors through bribe and threat just as was done in the infamous Green Rooms just prior to a vote being taken to bury the General Agreement on Trade and Tariff and to set up in its place the World Trade Organization.
What’s pertinent is that in the here and now, given the vexatious prosecution legislation, the Human Rights Council played dumb and dumber. It played blissfully ignorant or else knowingly pernicious. No one bothered to ask the British representatives if they’ve heard of the adage ‘charity begins at home.’ That’s international political economy, folks.
The further harassment of Sri Lanka that was legitimated is not about turning Sri Lanka into some kind of paradise when it comes to protecting human rights. It’s about arm-twisting the government into submitting to mechanisms that further Quad objectives or, failing which, wreck things to the point that destabilizes the country and as per top priority in the wish-list result in bringing in a pliant and indeed servile government.
The Human Rights Council has been hijacked by bullies. Sorry, the Human Rights Council was made by bullies, for bullies and with bullies. Bullies can keep changing goal posts until they can score.
All of this makes it all the more important for the government and the people of this country to get some basic things right. A government without the support of the people on Counts A, B and C, cannot defend the country and people on Count D. It goes without saying that a government that cares not about Count D will subject people to shameless servility. Of course they’ll call it some nice name. Like yahapalanaya. Or, as the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (which played dumb, dumber and dumbest when in power to allow the then government to compromised sovereignty via Resolution 30/1 in 2015) would put it ‘a balanced foreign policy.’ Such garbage is cheap.
We might end up there. This is why national security is inextricably linked to livelihood sustainability, protection of resources and an improved score on the Happiness Index.
The government has got the intelligence part of the equation right. The entire apparatus was almost dismantled by the previous government and to add insult to injury no stone was left unturned to demoralize the personnel in the intelligence services.
If anyone has any doubts about the success of this aspect of things, just consider the fact that countries like the UK, France, Germany and Italy are in lockdown right now, despite the bucks and vaccines. And the USA? A basket case if ever there was one, over and above the absolute misery that Washington inflicts on minorities in that racist and thieving trigger-happy nation.
Yes, they all voted against Sri Lanka, except the USA (the behind-the-scenes string-puller for European marionettes). How about Sri Lanka? The number of active Covid-19 cases have dropped from 10,000 to a little over 2,000. Things are getting back to normal. This would not have been possible if not for the tireless, 24/7 work ethic that marks the State Intelligence Service which readily accepted the burden of tracking and tracing, effectively complementing the excellent work of the health authorities in the state sector. STATE sector. Yes, that’s an emphasis that says something about private healthcare and privatization.
And yet we have people like Nalin Bandara (MP-SJB) who will go out of the way to disparage the intelligence services. The likes of Bandara, knowingly or unknowingly play into the hands of anti-Sri Lankan (or, put another way, pro-Quad) forces for whom vexatious persecution is second nature. The relevant officers have taken Bandara to task, sending him letters of demand for damage caused. We won’t say anything more on the matter because it’s all about courts from now on. We don’t have to say anything more.
That kind of ‘security’ however is only one side of a many-sided story or rather a multi-faceted approach to national security. We need to, as mentioned above, ensure food security. We need the economy back on track. We need to set up and strengthen development banks and cooperative banks. We need models that are not crafted by people and nations interested only in furthering their interests and whose proposals, while hiding the fact, market servility as programs of prosperity. We need to take care of our resources. We need a new development model.
We cannot do any of this if we don’t have comprehensive knowledge of all things relevant to development, data most of all. If there are gaps they need to be filled. If reliability is an issue it has to be addressed. It can be done. It must be done.
Yes, managing foreign relations is important. It has to be framed by what can be done, what cannot be done, what should be done and what should not be done. The diplomats are well-equipped to do all this. They need to advise the politicians and more importantly politicians should be guided by the diplomats.
Citizens are not diplomats. Neither are political commentators. However, they all have the right to air their views. For example, on India. INDIA DID NOT STAND WITH SRI LANKA. India, in this crucial vote, by virtue of abstaining, was complicit. India did speak and the words were obnoxious. India harped about the 13th Amendment. The 13th Amendment was the issue of a marriage between Indian thuggery and Sri Lankan acquiescence, the former represented by Rajiv Gandhi and the latter by J R Jayewardene, one of the grandfathers of the SJB. India reneged on its part of the bargain but has the gumption to demand that Sri Lanka fulfill agreements made by a government in decline under duress!
India, geographically challenged, stood with the West, square in the middle of the Atlantic. Sri Lanka has nothing to gain by agreeing to terms of engagement slanted in India’s favor simply because the ‘friendship’ or ‘go-easy’ this might yield is in fact capitulation. It would compromise territorial integrity and sovereignty.
And in this context of India picking the West, it would not be imprudent for Sri Lanka to pick her West. The Western Container Terminal. A you keep yours, we keep ours kind of position.
As for the other Kangaroos, well they’ve all named themselves, haven’t they? Arms length, ladies and gentlemen, not closer! As for missives and statements and tweets, we don’t have to describe them each and every time, but here’s a word that would well inform policy maker and citizen: balderdash.
malindasenevi@gmail.com.
[Malinda Seneviratne is the Director/CEO of the Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute. These are his personal views].
The vote on the resolution against Sri Lanka was adopted on Tuesdays at the 46th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. That slant was reflected in the vote as well. The resolution was passed 22-11 with 14 abstentions.
First let us examine the story told by the numbers. There were 40 co-sponsors, 12 of whom had voting rights. The vast majority of the co-sponsors were from Europe and North America. In essence, then, it was a WHITE Move (note: the history of white people when it comes to plunder, cultural erasure, genocide etc is known and it is NOT a thing of the past).
The move was by rich, powerful and armed nations. It was a country-specific resolution. If it was a matter of principle that was being voted on, the result can be interpreted as a defeat for the architects. With all the bucks and guns at their disposal which can be and often are used as bait or threat, they ought to have secured near unanimous support. They did not. Here’s another number that’s gone under the radar: 42 of 46 nations in the Human Rights Council were plundered and victims of massive human rights violations by the 47th, the United Kingdom.
Now it can be argued that the majority (36) did not stand with Sri Lanka. The Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) has put it down to a foreign policy failure by the current government: ‘The incumbent government has managed its foreign relations extremely irrationally. Instead of embarking on a careful and thoughtful process of diplomatically convincing the world that Sri Lanka is willing to take its human rights obligations seriously, it embarked on an obnoxious and intransigent campaign. The government lacks coherence, competence, and good faith in dealing with the international community.’
Interesting, considering that Sri Lanka was forced to do a back-to-the-wall battle principally on account of the foreign policy of the yahapalana government, in which the SJB’s previous avatar, the United National Party, was the key player. What the SJB stalwarts supported between 2015 and 2019 was anything but rational. If there was care and thoughtfulness it was about how best to capitulate. A government can tell the truth and if it is not to the liking of its detractors, home and abroad, that exercise can be called ‘obnoxious’ and ‘intransigent.’
The SJB’s boys and girls played ‘good boy and good girl’ (meaning, ‘yes, we will submit to your version of our reality, good lords and ladies’). They weren’t called intransigent for obvious reasons. They toed the line. They were coherent in genuflection. They were competent slaves. They purchased happily the good-faith rhetoric of the bad-faith bosses. One cannot expect anything from the SJB other than this kind of crude and obnoxious salivation. If they truly believe the UNHRC narrative then they should take issue with Sarath Fonseka, the Commander of the very Army that is accused of wrongdoing. The very same individual who received the vast majority of votes cast by the so-called victims, the Tamils in the North and East, in the 2010 Presidential Election.
It is part of a carefully designed, thoughtful vexatious persecution exercise with a clear end-point: a Sri Lanka that cheers and supports US-led strategic interests in the region. This is why the US Ambassador pleaded with the likes of the former Northern Province Chief Minister to go easy on the previous government (yes, ‘human rights’ is a political tool and that’s its principal function in Geneva, especially with respect to Sri Lanka).
Let’s move to the implications. The US Government, which called the Council ‘A cesspool of bias’ not too long ago has immediately moved to capitalize on the resolution. US State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Jalina Porter has said a mouthful: ‘The United States co-sponsored this resolution and together with the international community calls on Sri Lanka to safeguard the rights of ethnic and religious minorities, human rights defenders, and civil society actors, and to take credible and meaningful steps to address its past, promote reconciliation, and guarantee equal access to justice for all its people.’
This statement can be rubbished on account of absolute absence of morality, coming from a country with a long and sordid past and and equally horrible present with regard to safeguarding rights of ethnic and religious minorities, civil society acts and equal access to justice for all its people. She has said that the long-term security and prosperity of Sri Lanka depends on respecting human rights today and committing to peace and reconciliation for the future. Clearly, security and prosperity in the USA, by the same token, calls for utmost pessimism. Jalina Porter should know. She’s from Louisiana and she’s African American.
Porter has, not unexpectedly, saluted the resolution’s requirement for the OHCHR to ‘collect and preserve evidence for future accountability.’ This, after all, was a key element of the resolution.
Now, let’s backtrack a bit. The resolution was built on a long and vexatious process of mal-intent beginning with the Darusman Report. The principal sources quoted extensively in that report will not be released into the public domain until 2031. In other words it was essentially a trial in absentia or rather a trial in anonymity. Reliability cannot even be questioned until then! On the other hand, the Darusman Panel as well as all other groups which have since ‘reported’ to the Council have deliberately and vexatiously REFUSED to take into account the missives of the ICRC and the military attaches of the US and UK missions in Colombo.Rest assured, Sri Lanka’s version of matters will not be heard. So much for those who say ‘Sri Lanka did not do enough to convince the member states.’ Sri Lanka could get god him/herself (if such an entity exists as believed by and constitutionally affirmed by some of the nations that stood and continues to stand against Sri Lanka) to tell the truth, to no avail.
There will be more to come, not that this resolution (non-binding though it is) has been passed. There will be oodles of bucks to collect, collate and creatively present all manner of lies. Individuals will be targeted by individual countries. Matters will be moved to the General Assembly. The circus will go on.
What can Sri Lanka do? Two things.
First, the government has to realize one important truism: Only a government that has the full backing of the people can resist these kinds of vexatious prosecutions. Such backing can only be obtained if the government trusts the people, listens to the people and takes care of the people AND the land. In other words only a government that affirms in word and deed notions of sustainable livelihoods and the security of all the natural resources of the land can protect such a people and indeed itself.
Second, the government should realize that one way of winning over other countries similarly persecuted or are potential victims of similarly pernicious moves is to take a strong and principled stand against vexatious persecution. In other words is the cesspool of bias wants to compile lies, then Sri Lanka could compile all the truths that have not even been footnoted in Geneva, not just in relation to this country, but all the countries in the world. A vast repository can be developed.
And therefore, a proposal to set up an International Center on Vexatious Prosecution headquartered in Sri Lanka, should be seriously considered.
malindasenevi@gmail.com.
It is a wonder that the 1956 government was able to achieve anything at all, considering the obstacles the MEP government had to face, said analysts. First, there were natural disasters. An unprecedented drought in 1956 and unprecedented floods in 1957.
Then there were two ethnic riots, the Gal Oya riots of June 1956, and two years later the 1958 riots, starting in May 24 1958. Emergency rule was declared from May, 1958 to March 1959. There was Press censorship and all night curfew.
There has been government meddling in these riots. Merril Gunaratne reported that the IGP Osmund de Silva had stormed into a cabinet meeting after 1958 riots and submitted his letter of resignation, accusing government MPs of having interfered with the lawful actions of the police during the riots.
The MEP itself was very unstable. Bandaranaike had cobbled together all sorts of disparate groups into one coalition. MEP was not a political party it was a Peramuna, consisting of an assorted group of parties and persons, explained Meegama. MEP did not last long as a political party. It started in 1956 and was dissolved in 1959.
Meegama observed that VLSSP was a party of socialists. Its two ministers, Philip and William Silva were both veterans of the international socialist movement. They looked at problems in a systematic and scientific manner. The SLFP on the other hand was a home grown populist party, muddling through crises as they came.
The 1956 Cabinet was also an impossible mixture of opposites. Philip Gunawardene, William Silva, and TB Ilangaratne were socialists who wished to make radical changes. They were opposed by W.Dahanayake, CP de Silva, and Stanley de Zoysa. CP de Silva has worked closely with DS Senanayake on his Minneriya project and had been persuaded to join the SLFP by H Sri Nissanka. Stanley de Zoysa was a business man. Stanley de Zoysa sported a monocle and wore stylish English cut clothes.
Bandaranaike was also in the peculiar position of finding himself opposed by both the Left (LSSP) and the Right (UNP) simultaneously. This is probably quite rare. From the day the MEP government was formed, the right mobilized all its forces to topple the MEP government, observed Meegama. By 1958, Dudley and JR were regrouping the UNP to comeback into power.
LSSP was equally active. There was a spate of strikes organized by the LSSP and CP in the port, postal and telecommunication services and in the tea estates. Labor unions controlled by LSSP and CP and estate unions controlled by CWC and DWC participated. These unions were restive. They had not received what they had hoped for.
Within the MEP, also there was similar dissatisfaction. Changes were not taking place fast enough. There was rising heat against Bandaranaike at the annual SLFP convention held in Kurunegala in 1959. The Maha Sangha was also getting restive and impatient. They were exasperated with Bandaranaike‘s inability to deliver.
The Eksath Bhikshu Peramuna had a meeting at Punchi Borella In 1959 , presided over by Bandaranaike. Ven. Talapavila Seelawansa, Baddegama Wimalawamsa, Mirisse Gunasiri and Mapitigama Buddharakkita were present on the stage.
Talapavila Seelawansa made a powerful speech. Three years have gone by only two more left. The government has not honored a single one of its pledges. Work in government office is done in English. We have got him down day to teach him how to do his job properly, not to chant pirit. This government the lacks the strength to implement its policies, said Talapavila Seelawansa.
SWRD got up, interrupted the speech and asked angrily, Did you call me here to scold me. Seelawansa stopped speaking and sat down. SWRD was persuaded to stay, reported Evans Cooray. If he had not stopped the discussion, Bandaranaike would have had to listen to a barrage of criticism.
SWRD found it impossible to get anywhere, due to the political storms he encountered every week, observed Tarzie Vittachi. Particularly in the third quarter of 1958 things began to become very difficult for Bandaranaike. There were frequent convulsions in the cabinet, said Bradman Weerakoon.
The right wing members of the MEP were strongly opposed to Philip Gunawardene’s socialist reforms. Bandaranaike tried to pacify them, by taking away some subjects from Philip but this was not enough. They wanted Philip out, and it appears that they wanted him out before Bandaranaike was assassinated. Philip may have replaced SWRD as Prime Minister.
Philip Gunawardene’s policies were unpopular with the mercantile sector as well. Sunday Times May 17 1959 said that mudalalies, shop owners and others in trade circles are rejoicing over the removal of Food Department from Philip.
Matters came to a head over the Cooperative Development Bank Bill present by Philip Gunawardene to Cabinet in November 1958.This Bill would set up a fund to assist the hundreds of MPCS that Philip’s ministry had set up throughout the country. For the first time a Left party would have a rural base. There was mounting opposition, but Philip would permit no compromise.
On 6th May 1959 there was a revolt in the Cabinet. 10 ministers led by Stanley de Zoysa said they would not attend Cabinet meetings until Philip was dismissed. The Cabinet meeting scheduled for May 13 1959 was cancelled. Stanley de Zoysa and Dahanayake were threatening to resign unless Philip left.
Philip Gunawardene and William Silva resigned on May 19.1959. When Philip resigned, all 12 members of the VLSSP left. This included Hela Havula . Seven members of the SLFP also left. That was the end of the MEP.
A cabinet of 16 ministers consisting of only SLFP MPs was sworn in on June 9 .The Government continued with a slender majority. It lacked the power to rule effectively as it lacked the votes. Government could barely hold its own in Parliament and depended on 5 nominated members. The Right though victorious was disturbed, said Meegama. Bandaranaike also had to be eliminated. Bandaranaike was assassinated in September 1959.
Evans Cooray observed that Bandaranaike had one foot among the masses and the other foot among the bourgeoisie. [He made the mistake of] attempting to pacify both extremes. He should have taken a position between these two extremes, said Evans.
SWRD was a man besieged, standing all alone, fighting with his back to the wall, with whatever resources he had which were miniscule, compare to the massive forces of the right, the left and the English speaking westernized elite range against him, said HLD Mahindapala. (Continued)
Former Chief Justice Sarath Nanda Silva (1999-2009), on Thursday (18), alleged that the British government had suppressed diplomatic cables sent by its wartime Defence Attaché Lt. Colonel Anthony Gash from the British High Commission, Colombo, because they ran counter to the claims made by the western bloc as regards Sri Lanka at the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
Appearing on ‘Get Real’ on Derana 24×7, anchored by Johnney Mahieash, the 41st CJ explained the British, in spite of being a member of the UNHRC in addition to spearheading the Core Group, had no option but to suppress credible information as part of the overall strategy to sustain the campaign against Sri Lanka.
The UNHRC consists of 47 countries divided into five zones with the UK categorised along with Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands (Western Europe and other States). A vote on the Core Group’s resolution, backed by the US, is expected early next week at the end of the 46th session of the UNHRC on March 23. The session commenced on Feb 22.
Displaying a set of highly censored British diplomatic cables that dealt with the situation on the Vanni front in 2009 (January-May) made available by Lord Naseby, who obtained them following a protracted legal procedure, the former CJ expressed shock and dismay at the British choosing to suppress information provided by a person who enjoyed diplomatic status.
Silva said Lt. Colonel Gash had been stationed in Colombo during that period to provide information sought by the British pertaining to the conflict. Having perused the documents and examined the context in which they were written, the former CJ asserted that the Gash papers gave an accurate picture.
In an exclusive interview with The Island, in Sept 2019, Lord Naseby said that he struggled for nearly three years to secure the dispatches from the UK government after making the first formal request in Nov 2014.
Responding to another query posed by Mahieash, the former CJ questioned the rationale in the UK depriving a House of Lords member material relevant to an issue the UK government was deeply concerned about. The outspoken former CJ explained that for the British the dispatches from Colombo couldn’t have posed any security concerns though their disclosure was certainly detrimental to their Geneva agenda.
Referring to Gash dispatches again, former CJ Silva said that in spite of blackening sections of the reports from Colombo, the person assigned the task carelessly left some crucial words intact one could comprehend what had been censored.
Lord Naseby told The Island that he personally handed over sets of Gash reports to the then President Maithripala Sirisena’s administration as well as the Joint Opposition (now SLPP) in 2017. The Conservative Party politician regretted the disclosure of the vital material hadn’t been properly utilized by Sri Lanka. Lord Naseby revealed the existence of the Gash papers on Oct 12, 2017 in the House of Lords.
Comparing the LTTE with the Irish Republican Army, the former CJ pointed out the wartime British Defence Attaché’s comment on the LTTE employing foreign mercenaries to mount air attacks in Colombo and the Katunayake airbase, where Sri Lanka’s precious fighter squadrons were based at. The former CJ referred to specific reference to the LTTE targeting the Israeli supplied Kfir aircraft based at Katunayake at a crucial time of the war against the LTTE. Reference was also made to the LTTE having seven airstrips in the northern theatre of operations and its failure to use a fourth aircraft in its arsenal in the absence of a mercenary.
Sri Lanka brought the war to a successful conclusion in May 2009.
The former CJ said that another reason for the British to suppress Gash papers was that the British official officially assigned the task of keeping London informed of the developments here, presented a picture of the Sri Lankan military quite opposite to what they propagated. In the wake of Gash/Lord Naseby disclosure, the UN Panel of Experts (PoE) report based on unsubstantiated allegations was in tatters, the former CJ said.
The PoE issued its report on March 31, 2011.
The former CJ said that British diplomatic dispatches on the basis of UN reports explained how the LTTE deployed forcibly recruited ‘unwilling recruits’ in its desperate counter offensives as the fighting entered the final phase.
The former CJ stressed that the British should have disclosed all available information to ensure a free and fair inquiry. Sarath Nanda Silva was responding to the British declaration in February this year that they didn’t furnish Gash reports to the UNHRC nor did the Geneva body asked for them.
The former CJ alleged that the British were pursuing a politically motivated agenda. In the wake of his interview with Derana 24×7, The Island sought the former CJ’s opinion on measures that could be taken to ascertain the truth as regards the primary allegation namely the killing of 40,000 civilians (PoE, paragraph 137). The UK led Core Group which includes Germany and Canada could call for dispatches from Defence Advisors/Defence Attaches from other countries having diplomatic missions in Colombo. They could easily verify the Gash reports by comparing them with dispatches from other missions, the former CJ said, pointing out that the UN and ICRC, too, could furnish their reports.
The former CJ said that the British government actions had in fact embarrassed the ordinary people who believed in their supposed sense of justice and fair play.
The former CJ said that he was appalled by the PoE placed the number of dead at 40,000 in spite of UN report that dealt with the situation therein from August 2008 to May 13, 2009 having asserted only 7,721 perished on the Vanni front (both civilians and combatants/paragraph 134). He also pointed out the PoE declaration the unsubstantiated accusations that led to Geneva actions couldn’t be examined till 2031 (paragraph 23) revealed that due attention hadn’t been given to the high profile anti-Sri Lanka project. The PoE/UN prohibited the examination of accusations for a period of 20 years from 2011. Pointing out the discrepancy in varying figures quoted by interested parties, the former CJ said that wartime US Defence Advisor Lt. Col. Lawrence Smith’s revelation at the 2011 Colombo Defence Seminar could be utilized along with Gash reports to carefully re-examine the accusations.
The US official denied alleged war crimes, including battlefield executions, the former CJ said, pointing out that the US denial was made just a couple of months after the release of PoE report widely called the Darusman report. In fact, Geneva should have asked member states and other countries especially the US and India to provide their defence advisors’ dispatches to help its investigations. The Tamil Diaspora demanding justice never asked for those reports because all knew what would happen to politically motivated Geneva actions if the reports reached the public.
The former CJ also referred to a Wikileaks revelation that ICRC told the US in 2009 Sri Lanka military could have finished off the LTTE if the civilian factor was not taken into consideration. The bottom line is that the case against Sri Lanka had been exposed by the officials of the same countries, the former CJ said, urging the government to take a fresh look at all available information/evidence.
The former CJ told Derana 24/7 that cases shouldn’t be won by suppressing information/evidence. The former CJ further pointed out how a section of the media in early 2007 revealed the UN suppressing the LTTE detaining two UN Tamil employees for helping civilians to escape to the government controlled area. The UN acknowledged that New York was not briefed of the developments here, the former CJ said, urging those shedding crocodile tears to revisit Sri Lanka accountability issue.
The government yesterday told Parliament that the recently ratified UNHRC resolution against Sri Lanka was illegal.
Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena said that the resolution was an attempt to interfere in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs. Sri Lanka considers the resolution unwarranted. This resolution against Sri Lanka is illegal.”
Minister Gunawardena said that Sri Lanka was a sovereign state and the government would protect the country’s sovereignty.
Gunawardena said that the new resolution had not been backed by a majority of the UNHRC members.
Minister Gunawardena tabled the resolution in Parliament along with details of the co-sponsors of the document.
However, the Minister said that Sri Lanka would continue to engage with the UN agencies.
The resolution co-sponsored by the former government had been a great betrayal, the Foreign Minister said, adding that the Government would address accountability issues in Sri Lanka through a domestic mechanism.
Given below is the full speech the Foreign Minister made in Parliament:
The United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva adopted by a vote, the draft Resolution titled Promoting reconciliation, accountability, and human rights in Sri Lanka” (A/HRC/46/L.1/Rev.1) tabled by a ‘Core Group’ of countries, on 23 March 2021 during its 46th Session. Out of the 47 Members of the Council, 22 countries voted in favour, 11 voted against and 14 abstained. It is implicit from the voting result that the majority of the Council did not support this Resolution.
At this meeting, Sri Lanka, as the country concerned, reiterated its position on this Resolution against the country, and the politically motivated process behind it, as has been briefed to the Human Rights Council before, including through my statement at the High-Level Segment of the 43rd Session, in February last year. Sri Lanka rejected this Resolution which had no consensus and requested the Members of the Human Rights Council to reject this Resolution by a vote.
I have provided a briefing on this matter to the Cabinet of Ministers itself.
Sri Lanka considers the draft resolution to be unwarranted, unjustified and in violation of the relevant Articles of the United Nations Charter, in particular Article 2(7) and relevant Sections of the United Nations Resolution 60/251 that provides for the mandate of the Human Rights Council. For the above reasons, this Resolution against Sri Lanka is illegal.
The very first sentence of the Resolution states: Guided by the purpose and principles of the Charter of the United Nations…” Having said so, the Resolution goes on to violate Article 2 (7) of the Charter which states: Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state…”
This intervention denies a state the right enshrined in the Charter and other UN instruments in respect of the right of its People to choose its system of governance, developing the institutions to govern it, and developing arrangements to meet national challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic in keeping with its civilizational values within provisions of the Constitution.
Acting beyond the Mandate granted to the UNHRC by UN Resolution 60/251 and recognize the importance of preserving evidence. Instead, to promote and protect Human Rights; to make recommendations relating to human rights violations; and be guided by universality, impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity”.
To address accountability through a Domestic Mechanism and address violations of International Humanitarian Law, and derogated International Human Rights laws within the context of International Laws acceptable to the Community of Nations.
This Resolution against Sri Lanka is pushed forward at the behest of a few countries, representing one part of the world without the consent of Sri Lanka. It is therefore unhelpful and divisive. There is no moral right to interfere into affairs of a sovereign country in this manner.
No country has a greater interest in bringing about reconciliation among its peoples than Sri Lanka – a point that has repeatedly been emphasized during proceedings of the Human Rights Council.
The list of co-sponsors of the resolution amply demonstrates the divisive nature of such country-specific” initiatives and it is clear from the result of the vote that there is no consensus within the Council on this resolution.
The resolution adopted on 23rd of March is intrusive of the sovereignty of the people of Sri Lanka and the core values of the UN Charter. It will have an adverse effect on the ongoing efforts to maintain peace, reconciliation and economic development in the country. It will lead to polarization of Sri Lankan society, contrary to the insistence of its proponents that it will bring about reconciliation.
Sri Lanka categorically rejects the unprecedented proposal in this resolution to expand the role of the OHCHR. This sets a dangerous precedent and will have wide ranging implications for all countries. The Council cannot assume tasks not assigned to it by the UN General Assembly in resolution 60/251 or subsequent resolutions.
This Resolution is based on the rejected report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Sri Lanka presented to the 46th Session of the HRC which violates the principles of sovereign equality of all states and non-interference in internal affairs. The Government of Sri Lanka has rejected this Report pointing out that, among other things, it is one-sided and exceeds the mandate of the UN Human Rights Council. It contains sweeping recommendations unsubstantiated and unwarranted comments of essentially political nature which no self-respecting sovereign country can accept. It has been compiled within months after the formation of a new Government in Sri Lanka, without any field visit, while the whole world was grappling with the ongoing global pandemic.
A well-orchestrated propaganda campaign was launched against Sri Lanka ahead of the 46th Session of the Human Rights Council. This campaign was carried out with extensive focus on Sri Lanka while reports pertaining to the situations in over 10 other countries were presented at the 46th Session of the HRC. The synchronized content of the propaganda against Sri Lanka and the exploitation of the OHCHR mechanisms in doing so, demonstrated a clear case of a pre-meditated endeavour.
I wish to recall that last year I have briefed this House of the reasons which led to the withdrawal from the co-sponsorship of the HRC Resolution 40/1 and its preceding Resolutions 34/1 and 30/1, which was announced at the 43rd Session of the Human Rights Council in February last year. It is unfortunate that the unconstitutional action of co-sponsorship of a resolution against Sri Lanka by the previous Government brought to a halt the comprehensive post-conflict development process which included a domestic reconciliatory process.
This new Resolution in an unwarranted manner seeks to interfere in all matters that are domestic affairs of a sovereign country. We questioned the members of the UN whether Sri Lanka represents a case warranting the immediate attention of the Human Rights Council. Sri Lanka has only defeated a secessionist terrorist campaign, and acted within its legal rights to defend its territorial integrity.
Sri Lanka regrets that this Resolution seeks to create a perception of discrimination and marginalization of its people which is far from the truth. Issues affecting the people of Sri Lanka are common to all people irrespective of their ethnicity or religion. The Government is determined to achieve its main targets to improve the lives of the poor despite these distractions.
No sovereign government is bound to work according to external prescriptions but be guided by the democratic aspirations of its own people. Sri Lanka has a well-established, time-honored legal system which is capable of ensuring dispensation of justice according to the constitution of Sri Lanka.
The government remains committed to protect those who have made immeasurable sacrifices to neutralize terrorism, protect the territorial integrity of the country and to regain for all people in Sri Lanka the most cherished of all rights, right to life.
It is regrettable that the proponents of the Resolution seek to create an ambiguous mechanism with funds of millions of USD at a time of severe financial constraints faced by the UN. We call upon the proponents of this Resolution to divest the money allocated for the implementation of this unprecedented proposal to improve the lives of the people affected by the conflict. This huge amount of funds is sufficient to build thousands of houses in the areas affected by the conflict, possibly to vaccinate the population of the entire Jaffna peninsula against the Covid19, or to provide to a whole Province, drinking water.
As I mentioned earlier, I made the position of the Government on this politically motivated process on the country clear, and undertook deliverable commitments in keeping with Sri Lanka’s domestic and international obligations, at the 43rd Session of the UN Human Rights Council. The Council has been well briefed on all measures taken and the progress made under challenging circumstances amidst a global pandemic within the relatively short period of time since then. We have provided detailed updates to the OHCHR in December 2020 as well as in January 2021 on the progress of implementation of commitments that Sri Lanka had undertaken such as continuity of the existing mechanisms, appointment of a special commission of inquiry headed by a Supreme court judge, achieving the SDGs, progress made in returning lands, demining and creating new avenues of livelihoods.
Reasons for this political campaign against Sri Lanka may vary from their domestic electoral compulsions to geopolitical interests. It is regrettable that countries with vested interests seek to achieve their political and strategic ambitions either through political destabilization or economic deprivation of the less influential countries of the global South, using the Human Rights Council as a tool.
We are aware that some of the countries which stood by Sri Lanka at this vote withstood immense pressure on them in doing so. We thank all countries who braved such adversity to reject the Resolution.
We are also mindful that some of Sri Lanka’s sincere friends were constrained to abstain. We thank them also for sharing with us their principled stands, and remaining neutral. In this context, Sri Lanka is of the view that this vote provided an opportunity for the member countries of the United Nations to re-assess whether the Human Rights Council is keeping with its guiding principles or not.
Despite the vote of this Resolution against Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka will pursue its domestic mechanisms aimed at bringing about reconciliation and a lasting peace. As briefed earlier Sri Lanka will continue to engage constructively with the UN and its agencies in the same spirit of cooperation that have stood for over six decades for the betterment of its people, including through the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals, in keeping with domestic priorities and policies as well as international obligations and undertakings.”
The Director General of Health Services confirms one more Covid-19 related death while this brings the death toll due to the virus pandemic in the country to 558.
The deceased is 70-year-old male from Mathugama who had been transferred from the Kalutara District General Hospital to the Homagama Base Hospital after testing positive for Covid-19.
He had passed away at that hospital on March 25 due to heart disease and Covid-19 pneumonia.
The Epidemiology Unit of the Health Ministry says that another 94 persons have tested positive for COVID-19 increasing the total number of cases reported within the day to 260.
This brings the tally of coronavirus cases identified in the country to 91,561 thus far while total recoveries has reached 88,145.
Presently there are 2,859 patients who are being treated for Covid-19 at hospitals and treatment centers.
The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) has arrested two Madrasa school teachers on charges of giving weapons training to school children in Puttalam.
The arrests were made following a directive from Attorney General Dappula De Livera, the AG’s coordinating officer said.
The Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI) today rejected as totally fabricated and false” the allegations in the media and social media claiming that senior officials of the SLSI had authorized the sale of unhealthy coconut oil imported to the country by four importers.
SLSI, being the standards body for quality to the nation, will not compromise the set standards for any commodity or material that will be detrimental to the lives and livelihoods of Sri Lankans, its Director General Dr. Siddhika Senaratne said.
SLSI continuously conducts laboratory testing for Aflatoxin in coconut oil imported into the country by all importers to ascertain that it conforms to the set standard of 10micro grams/Kg.”
The statement said that contrary to false social/media reports, 13 containers of Coconut oil have not been approved for sales to consumers by any authority, namely DG SL Customs, DG SLSI and Health Ministry (Food Control) unit.
The Consumer Affairs Authority is also carrying out a stringent watch on these imports,” the DG said.
The 4 said importers namely Ali Brothers Put Ltd, Sena Mills Refineries, Edirisinghe Edible Oils and Katana Refineries are long standing importers of Oil and their samples are under test for which results will be released within a few days.”
Based on the test results, SLSI together with the Ministry of Health (Food Control Unit) will provide the necessary instructions to SL Customs for sale or re-export of the above imports.”
Russia has decided to resume commercial flights to six countries including Sri Lanka from the 1st of April, the country’s emergency response centre said on Thursday (March 25).
Accordingly, commercial flights to Germany (Frankfurt-Moscow/St Petersburg-Frankfurt/ Moscow-Berlin), Venezuela (Moscow-Caracas), Syria (Moscow-Damascus), Tajikistan (Moscow-Dushanbe), Uzbekistan (Moscow-Tashkent) and Sri Lanka (Moscow-Colombo) will recommence from the aforementioned date.
Reportedly, regular international roundtrip flights between Moscow and Colombo are scheduled to operate once a week.
The Russian government reached the decision after a discussion on the epidemiological situation in individual countries and in agreement with Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
Russia suspended international flights in March last year following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic but has since resumed a selected number of routes.
-with inputs from agencies
The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China March 2021
Foreword
“I can’t breathe!” — George Floyd
“The scenes (the U.S. Capitol building violence) we have seen are the result of lies and more lies, of division and contempt for democracy, of hatred and rabble-rousing — even from the very highest levels.” — German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc around the world, posing a major threat to human security. The virus respects no borders, nor does the epidemic distinguish between races. To defeat the epidemic requires mutual help, solidarity and cooperation among all countries. However, the United States, which has always considered itself an exception and superior, saw its own epidemic situation go out of control, accompanied by political disorder, inter-ethnic conflicts, and social division. It further added to the human rights violations in the country, the so-called “city upon a hill” and “beacon of democracy.”
— The epidemic went out of control and turned into a human tragedy due to the government’s reckless response. By the end of February 2021, the United States, home to less than 5 percent of the world’s population, accounted for more than a quarter of the world’s confirmed COVID-19 cases and nearly one-fifth of the global deaths from the disease. More than 500,000 Americans lost their lives due to the virus.
— Disorder in American democratic institutions led to political chaos, further tearing the fabric of society apart. Money-tainted politics distorted and suppressed public opinion, turning elections into a “one-man show” of the wealthy class and people’s confidence in the American democratic system dropped to the lowest level in 20 years. Amid increasing political polarization, hate politics evolved into a national plague, and the Capitol was stormed in post-election riots.
— Ethnic minority groups suffered systematic racial discrimination and were in a difficult situation. People of color made up about one-third of all minors under the age of 18 in the United States but two-thirds of all of the country’s imprisoned minors. African Americans are three times as likely as whites to be infected with the coronavirus, twice as likely to die from COVID-19, and three times as likely to be killed by the police. One in four young Asian Americans has been the target of racial bullying.
— Gun trade and shooting incidents hit a record high, and people’s confidence in social order waned. Americans bought 23 million guns in 2020 against the background of an out-of-control epidemic, accompanied by racial justice protests and election-related conflicts, a surge of 64 percent compared with 2019. First-time gun buyers exceeded 8 million. More than 41,500 people were killed in shooting incidents across the United States in the year, an average of more than 110 a day, and there were 592 mass shootings nationwide, an average of more than 1.6 a day.
— George Floyd, an African American, died after being brutally kneeled on his neck by a white police officer, sparking a national outcry. Widespread protests for racial justice erupted in 50 states. The U.S. government suppressed demonstrators by force, and more than 10,000 people were arrested. A large number of journalists were attacked and arrested for no reason.
— The gap between the rich and the poor widened, with the people at the bottom of society living in misery. The epidemic led to mass unemployment. Tens of millions of people lost health insurance coverage. One in six Americans and one in four American children were at risk of hunger. Vulnerable groups became the biggest victims of the government’s reckless response to the epidemic.
The U.S. government, instead of introspecting on its own terrible human rights record, kept making irresponsible remarks on the human rights situation in other countries, exposing its double standards and hypocrisy on human rights. Standing at a new crossroads, mankind is faced with new, grave challenges. It is hoped that the U.S. side will show humility and compassion for the suffering of its own people, drop hypocrisy, bullying, “Big Stick” and double standards, and work with the international community to build a community with a shared future for humanity.
I. Incompetent Pandemic Containment Leads to Tragic Outcome
The United States claimed to be most abundant in medical resources and healthcare capacity, yet its response to the COVID-19 pandemic was chaotic, causing it to lead the world in the numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases and related deaths.
Incompetent pandemic response led to dire consequences. A tally by Johns Hopkins University showed that as of the end of February 2021, the United States has registered more than 28 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, with related deaths exceeding 500,000. With a population of less than 5 percent of the world’s total, the United States accounted for more than 25 percent of all the confirmed cases and nearly 20 percent of the deaths. On Dec. 20, 2020, CNN reported that the state of California alone had reported 1.845 million COVID-19 cases and 22,599 deaths, which translates to roughly 4,669 known cases and 57 deaths for every 100,000 residents. Even these numbers don’t give the whole picture of the state, because many cases, including mild or asymptomatic infections, had not been diagnosed. Had the American authorities taken science-based measures to contain the pandemic, this could have been avoided. But since they had not, the pandemic, as epidemiologist and former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) William Foege had put it, is “a slaughter” to the United States.
National leaders ignored warnings from experts and downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic. According to the timeline of COVID-19 pandemic in the United States released by media outlets including The New York Times and The Washington Post, the Trump administration had repeatedly ignored alarms regarding the risks of the pandemic. In early January 2020, a National Security Council office had already received intelligence reports predicting the spread of the virus to the United States. In a Jan. 29, 2020 memo, then White House trade adviser Peter Navarro projected that a coronavirus pandemic might lead to as many as half a million deaths and trillions of dollars in economic losses. A number of health officials, including then Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, and medical experts also warned of the possibility of a pandemic in the United States. None of the aforementioned warnings brought the imminent pandemic to the Trump administration’s attention. Instead, the administration focused on controlling the message, and released misleading signals to the public by claiming “the risk of the virus to most Americans was very low,” suggesting that the coronavirus is no worse than the common flu, and stating the virus will “miraculously go away” when the weather gets warmer. Thus, the country lost crucial weeks for pandemic prevention and control. An article published on the website of The New York Times on April 13, 2020 commented that, then American leader’s “preference for following his gut rather than the data cost time, and perhaps lives.”
Government inaction led to uncontrolled pandemic spread. “There’s no need for that many to have died. We chose, as a country, to take our foot off the gas pedal. We chose to, and that’s the tragedy.” So commented David Hayes-Bautista, a professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, after the pandemic death toll hit 300,000 in the United States. Disease modelers with the Columbia University also estimated that, if the United States had begun locking down cities and limiting social contact on March 1, 2020, two weeks earlier than most people started staying home, about 83 percent of the nation’s pandemic-related deaths would have been avoided. An editorial from the website of medical journal The Lancet, published on May 17, 2020, commented that the U.S. government was obsessed with magic bullets — vaccines, new medicines, or a hope that the virus will simply disappear. At the same time, it noted that only a steadfast reliance on basic public health principles, like testing, tracing, and isolation, would see the emergency brought to an end. Even when the pandemic is spreading in a vast area in the United States, the administration was hasty to restart the economy due to political concerns. According to news website Vox on Aug. 11, 2020, in April and May last year, several states rushed to reopen and caused the virus to shift to the South, West and eventually the rest of the United States. In addition, despite that experts had recommended people wear masks in public, the then American leader and some state officials had been extremely reluctant to issue any decree to make wearing masks mandatory.
Chaotic pandemic control and prevention measures caused confusion among the public. An article published by CNN on May 9, 2020 called the U.S. response to the pandemic “consistently inconsistent,” and noted that there were no national guidelines and no organized efforts to reopen the country beyond what measures states had taken. The article also said that in terms of pandemic control and prevention, public health officials say one thing while governors say another and the national leader says something else entirely. In addition, after the experts called for federal leadership, the then American leader left it to cities and states to solve national problems with testing and hospital supplies by themselves. When the federal government released a phased plan for reopening, the leader called on states to reopen faster. After the CDC recommended that people wear masks in public, the leader refused to do so for months. Even more ridiculously, the leader at one point advocated injecting bleach as a treatment.
National leaders shirked their responsibility out of arrogance. Despite one ludicrous idea after another, the then American leader refused to admit any fault. Instead, the leader invented all sorts of excuses to gloss over his mistakes while shirking from responsibilities. For one, the then leader insisted that the U.S. leads the world in COVID-19 cases because it tested more than any other country in the world. When asked about testing problems and rising deaths, the leader claimed he “doesn’t take responsibility at all.” However, White House adviser and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci admitted that the numbers didn’t lie and the United States had the worst coronavirus outbreak in the world.
Senior citizens fell victims to the government’s incompetent response to COVID-19. Senior citizens are a group more susceptible to the pandemic, yet they have been further marginalized in the U.S. pandemic prevention and control chaos, with their lives becoming valueless and their dignity trampled upon. On March 23 and April 20, 2020, Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, told Fox News that he would rather die than see public health measures damage the U.S. economy and there are more important things than living. Furthermore, an Aug. 18, 2020 report published on The San Diego Union-Tribune website found that residents in long-term care facilities account for less than 1 percent of the U.S. population but more than 40 percent of COVID-19 deaths. A May 9, 2020 article from The Washington Post website called the U.S. pandemic control efforts “state-sanctioned killing,” where “the old, factory workers, and black and Hispanic Americans” were deliberately sacrificed.
The poor faced greater threat of infection. Researchers found that the Gini Index, an economic barometer that ranks income inequality from 0 (total equality) to 1 (total inequality), was a strong predictor of COVID-19 deaths. New York State, which had one of the highest Gini Index numbers also had the highest number of fatalities in the nation by a margin. The Guardian website reported on March 21, 2020 that in the wake of the epidemic, it’s the wealthy and powerful first get coronavirus tests, while low-paid workers, most of whom have no paid sick leave and can’t do their work from home, put themselves at greater risk of contracting the virus in order to earn a living. Public health officials said, in Los Angeles County, residents of low-income communities are three times more likely to die of COVID-19 than those in wealthier neighborhoods, according to a report published on the Los Angeles Times website on May 8, 2020. A Gallup survey revealed that one in seven American adults said that if they or their family members developed symptoms related to COVID-19, they would probably give up medical treatment because they were worried that they could not afford the costs. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, also pointed out that the poor in the United States were being hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic. Low-income and poor people face far higher risks from the coronavirus due to chronic neglect and discrimination, and a muddled, corporate-driven federal response has failed them, he observed.
The handicapped and the homeless were in dire straits. A study released in November 2020 by the nonprofit FAIR Health found that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are three times more likely to die of COVID-19, compared to the general population. The website of the Los Angeles Times reported on May 14, 2020 that with the coronavirus-induced shock to the economy crippling businesses of all sizes and leaving millions of Americans out of work, homelessness in the United States could grow as much as 45 percent in a year. Many of the homeless Americans are elderly or disabled people. Given their originally poor physical health and bad living and hygienic conditions, they are susceptible to the virus. During the pandemic, the homeless were evicted and pushed into makeshift shelters. The website of Reuters reported on April 23, 2020 that the crowded shelters across the United States made it impossible for the homeless who lived there to maintain social distance, which made it easier for the virus to spread. The New York Times website reported on April 13, 2020 that in the New York City, a crisis has taken hold in homeless shelters, as more than 17,000 men and women are sleeping in group or “congregate” shelters for single adults, with beds close enough for people sleeping in them to hold hands. The Boston Globe website reported on May 4, 2020 that, about one-third of the homeless people who were tested have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
Outbreak in jails threatened lives of inmates. ABC News reported on Dec. 19, 2020 that at least 275,000 prisoners have been infected, of whom more than 1,700 have died, and nearly every prison system in the country has seen infection rates significantly higher than the communities around them. One of every five prisoners in facilities run by the federal Bureau of Prisons has had coronavirus, according to data collected by The Associated Press and The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the criminal justice system. They also found that 24 state prison systems have had even higher infection rates. Half of the prisoners in Kansas have been infected with COVID-19 — eight times the rate of cases among the state’s overall population. In Arkansas, four of every seven have had the virus.
Out-of-control pandemic brought Americans psychological pressure. The Trump administration’s reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected Americans more than the virus itself, which has left people stressed and isolated. In a study published by the CDC on Aug. 14, 2020, due to stay-at-home orders, 40.9 percent of adults reported at least one adverse mental or behavioral health condition, 30.9 percent reported either anxiety or depression and those numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. The same CDC study showed that 13 percent of people surveyed by the CDC during the same time said that they started or increased their substance use and 11 percent seriously considered suicide. A separate study released in June 2020 showed calls to suicide hotlines went up 47 percent nationwide during the COVID-19 pandemic with some crisis lines experiencing a 300-percent increase.
II. American Democracy Disorder Triggers Political Chaos
Touting itself as the beacon of democracy, the United States has wantonly leveled criticism against and oppressed many other countries under the guise of upholding democracy, freedom and human rights. However, the U.S. society has been plagued by deep-rooted money politics, unchecked public opinion manipulation and rampant lies, and American democracy has further aggravated social division instead of bridging the increasingly polarized political differences. As a result, the American people enjoy their civil and political rights in name only.
Influence of money in electoral politics essentially makes it a money-led election. Money is the driving force of American politics. America’s money politics has distorted public opinion, turning elections into a “one-man show” for the rich. The amount spent on the 2020 U.S. presidential and congressional campaigns hit nearly 14 billion U.S. dollars, more than double what was spent in the 2016 election. The presidential campaign saw a record high of 6.6 billion U.S. dollars in total spending, while congressional races finished with over 7 billion U.S. dollars. According to a Nov. 1, 2020 report on the website of CNBC, the top 10 donors in the 2020 U.S. election cycle contributed over 640 million U.S. dollars. In addition to publicly registered election donations, a large amount of secret funds and dark money flooded the 2020 U.S. elections. According to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, dark money groups poured more than 750 million U.S. dollars into 2020 elections through ad spending and record-breaking contributions to political committees such as super political action committees.
Public trust in U.S. elections was in crisis. According to Gallup’s figures released on Oct. 8, 2020, only 19 percent of Americans say they are “very confident” about the accuracy of the presidential election, the lowest Gallup has recorded in its trend dating back to 2004. According to a commentary carried by the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 9, 2020, the 2020 U.S. election can be seen as the culmination of a two-decade period of decline in faith in the basic building blocks of democracy.
Political polarization grew. Disagreement between Democrats and Republicans has gradually changed from policy differences to identity battles with increasingly obvious political tribalism. The two parties have ended in deadlocks on many major public issues, thus leading to inefficient and incompetent state governance. Power plays between rival politicians in dogfights have become the hallmark of American politics, which saw a variety of shows featuring ugly attacks and vulgar smears. Voters supporting different parties are at loggerheads under the instigation of extreme politicians. Dominated by growing political fanaticism, the two camps are increasingly harder to talk to each other. Hate politics raged through the country and became the root cause of constant social unrest and division. According to a Nov. 13, 2020 report by Pew Research Center, America is exceptional in the nature of its political divide. There has been an increasingly stark disagreement between Democrats and Republicans on economy, racial justice, climate change, law enforcement, international engagement and a long list of other issues. The 2020 presidential election exacerbated these deep-seated divides. A month before the election, roughly 80 percent of the registered voters in both camps said their differences with the other side were about more than just politics and policies, but also about core American values, and about 90 percent in both camps worried that a victory by the other would lead to “lasting harm” to the United States.
Power checks and balances have mutated into veto politics. The bipartisan divides intensified the veto practices inherent in the American system. The separation, check and balance of power have turned into vetoing each other. The two parties engaged in ferocious battles, paralyzing the Congress and deadlocking the decision-making. While the outbreak of COVID-19 went out of control, the two parties not only brawled with each other on multiple issues, but also took the bill for the second round of COVID-19 relief measures as their campaigning tool for election. The two parties filibustered and stalled each other for votes, leaving millions of grassroots people in livelihood predicament. The veto politics has caused acute confrontations between the Congress and the administrative system, as well as between the federal and state authorities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, frequent contradictions have taken place between the Republican president and the Democrats-dominated House of Representatives, and between the federal government and Democratic “blue states.” The federal government competed with the states in the scramble for anti-virus supplies, and was often at odds with the “blue states” in epidemic response policies, thus causing people to be at a loss. Massachusetts once arranged to buy 3 million N95 masks for urgent needs, but federal authorities seized them at the Port of New York.
The post-election riots highlighted the American democracy crisis. The election did not resolve the political differences in the United States, but heated up social confrontation. A Nov. 4, 2020 report on the website of the Guardian noted that whoever won the 2020 election, America would remain a country bitterly divided and the politics of anger and hatred would be the legacy. Claiming that the election was tainted by fraud, the defeated Republican camp refused to accept the presidential election results and filed lawsuits in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia, calling for a recount of ballots to overturn the election by pressuring and intimidating local election officials. Donald Trump repeatedly insisted that he would never accept the election defeat, calling on his supporters to protest against the congressional certification of the election result in Washington, D.C. The election dispute eventually turned into riots.
On Jan. 6, 2021, tens of thousands of protesters who refused to accept the election defeat staged a “Save America” rally in Washington, D.C. A large number of protesters breached security and stormed into the Capitol building, where they tussled with police officers. Members of the U.S. Congress were hurriedly evacuated wearing their gas masks, as the police fired tear gas and shot to disperse the protesters. Protesters acted recklessly after occupying the venue. The riots resulted in multiple injuries and an interruption of the congressional certification of the electoral victory. Washington, D.C. imposed curfew and entered a state of emergency. On Jan. 7, 2021, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund said that thousands of individuals involved in violent riotous actions attacked officers with metal pipes, chemical irritants and other weapons, injuring more than 50 police officers. The police arrested more than 100 people in total. On Jan. 7, 2021, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a statement that the attack on the U.S. Capitol demonstrated clearly the destructive impact of sustained, deliberate distortion of facts, and incitement to violence and hatred by political leaders.
The political chaos in Washington shocked the world. American media called it the first time in modern American history that the power transfer has turned into a real combat in the Washington corridor of power. They blamed that violence, chaos and vandalism had shaken the American democracy to the core, dealing a heavy blow to America’s image as a democratic beacon. The French daily Le Figaro commented that the violent incident stoked up the resentment and distrust among different camps in American society, plunging America into an unknown situation. The Foreign Policy said in a commentary that the United States has become what its leaders used to condemn: being unable to avoid violence and bloody destruction during transfer of power. Lebanese diplomat Mohamad Safa commented via social media, “If the United States saw what the United States is doing in the United States, the United States would invade the United States to liberate the United States from the tyranny of the United States.”
III. Ethnic minorities devastated by racial discrimination
In the United States, racism exists in a comprehensive, systematic and continuous manner. Former U.S. President Barack Obama said helplessly that “for millions of Americans, being treated differently on account of race is tragically, painfully, maddeningly ‘normal’.” In June 2020, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet made two consecutive media statements, emphasizing that the protests triggered by the death of George Floyd, an African American, highlighted not only the issue of police brutality against people of color, but also inequality and racial discrimination in health, education, and employment in the United States. The grievances need to be heard and addressed if the country is to move on from its tragic history of racism and violence. On June 17, 2020, the 43rd session of the UN Human Rights Council held an urgent debate on racism. This was the first time in the history of the Human Rights Council that an urgent meeting on the human rights issues of the United States was held. On Nov. 9, 2020, the United States was severely criticized by the international community for racial discrimination when it was in the third cycle of Universal Periodic Review by the United Nations Human Rights Council. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination of the United Nations and other institutions pointed out that racism in the United States is horrific. The white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and the Ku Klux Klan overtly use racist slogans, chants and salutes to promote white supremacy and incite racial discrimination and hatred. Political figures increasingly use divisive language in attempts to marginalize racial, ethnic and religious minorities, which amounts to inciting and fueling violence, intolerance and bigotry. Tendayi Achiume, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, believes that for black people in the United States, the domestic legal system has utterly failed to acknowledge and confront the racial injustice and discrimination that are so deeply entrenched in law enforcement.
Rights of the American Indians were violated. The United States has carried out systematic ethnic cleansing and massacres of Indians in history, and committed countless crimes against humanity and genocides. American Indians still live a life like a second-class citizen and their rights have been trampled over. Many indigenous peoples, such as the American Indians, who live in low-income communities in the United States, suffer from higher rates of cancer and heart diseases from toxic radioactive environments. Many indigenous people live near hazardous waste disposal sites and have an abnormally high rate of birth defects. On Aug. 5, 2020, the report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes, submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 36/15, decried the situation of indigenous peoples in the United States. They are exposed to toxic pollutants, including nuclear waste, released or produced by extractive industries, agriculture and manufacturing. The soil and lead dust pollution from mining waste poses a more significant health threat for indigenous peoples in the United States than other groups. The report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief in accordance with General Assembly resolution 74/145 found out that the United States had opened up the lands of indigenous communities, including the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, to investment without the communities’ consent or in contravention of their customary and collective land ownership. The report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, released in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 43/14, said that some of the most devastating effects of COVID-19 had been felt by racial and ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples. The hospitalization rate of Native Americans was five times that of non-Hispanic white Americans. The death rate of Native Americans also far exceeded that of white Americans.
Bullying against Asian Americans escalated. Since the pandemic began, the incidents of Asian Americans being humiliated and even assaulted in public have been found everywhere, and some American politicians have misled the public on purpose. “It’s very lonely to be Asians in the United States during the raging pandemic,” said a report published on the website of the New York Times on April 16, 2020. A survey of young Asian Americans showed that in the past year, a quarter of young Asian Americans became targets of racial bullying; fueled by the racist remarks of the then American leader, nearly half of the respondents expressed pessimism about their situation, and a quarter of the respondents expressed fear about the situation of themselves and their families, according to a report published on the website of the National Broadcasting Corporation on Sept. 17, 2020. Tendayi Achiume, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, said on March 23 and April 21, 2020, that politicians of relevant countries took the initiative to make open or suggestive xenophobic remarks, adopting alternative names with ulterior motives for the novel coronavirus. Their remarks that associated a specific disease with a specific country or ethnicity were irresponsible and disturbing, according to the Special Rapporteur. U.S. government officials openly incited, induced, and condoned racial discrimination, which was tantamount to humiliating modern human rights concepts.
The high level of hate crimes highlighted the deterioration of race relations. An FBI report released in 2020 showed that 57.6 percent of the 8,302 single-bias hate crime offenses reported by law enforcement agencies in 2019 were motivated by race/ethnicity/ancestry. Of these offenses, 48.4 percent were motivated by anti-black or African American bias; 15.8 percent stemmed from anti-white bias; 14.1 percent were classified as anti-Hispanic or Latino bias; 4.3 percent resulted from anti-Asian bias. Among the 4,930 victims of racial hate crimes, as many as 2,391 were of African descent. Some Americans blamed the outbreak of the pandemic on Asian Americans, and there had been an increase in the number of hate crimes and incidents of harassment and discrimination against Asian Americans, according to a report published on the website of USA Today on May 20. Statistics from the civil rights organization Stop AAPI Hate showed there were over 2,300 anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.S. during the first seven months of 2020.
Unchecked police violence led to frequent deaths of African Americans. On March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American woman, was shot eight times and killed by police in her own home. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American was killed after a white policeman kneeled on his neck in the street. On Aug. 23, 2020, Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old African American, was severely injured after police officers shot him seven times in the back when Blake was getting into a car. At the time, Blake’s three kids were in the car, witnessing the horrible act. American police shot and killed a total of 1,127 people in 2020, with no killing reported in just 18 days, according to Mapping Police Violence. African Americans made up 13 percent of the U.S. population, but accounted for 28 percent of the people killed by the police. African Americans were approximately three times more likely than white people to be killed by police. From 2013 to 2020, about 98 percent of the police involved in shooting cases were not charged with a crime, and the number of convicted was even smaller.
People of color were more harmed by the epidemic. The infection rate and death rate of COVID-19 in the United States showed significant racial differences, with the infection rate, hospitalization rate and death rate of African Americans being three times, five times and twice that of white people respectively, according to a report delivered by the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent to the UN Human Rights Council on Aug. 21, 2020. “Nothing brings into sharper relief America’s color disparities than life and death in the Great Lockdown,” said a report published on the website of the Financial Times on May 15, 2020. Racial disparities in the epidemic extend to children, according to a report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Aug. 7, 2020. Latino and black children were hospitalized with COVID-19 at a rate nine times and six times that of white kids, respectively. Barbara Ferrer, director of public health for Los Angeles County, said the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on black and Latino residents is rooted in the impact of racism and discrimination on the access to the resources and opportunities that are needed to good health, according to the website of the Los Angeles Times on July 10, 2020. COVID-19 kills far more people of color than white Americans, which could be attributed to America’s unequal education and economic systems that disproportionately leave people of color out of higher-wage jobs, discrimination in housing that corralled people of color into tightly packed neighborhoods, and environmental policies designed by white power brokers at the expense of the poor, an article by USA Today said. Of the 10 U.S. counties with the highest death rates from COVID-19, seven have populations where people of color make up the majority, according to data compiled by USA Today. Of the top 50 counties with the highest death rates, 31 are populated mostly by people of color.
People of color faced an even greater threat of unemployment. The Guardian commented in an article on April 28, 2020 that the “last hired, first fired” phenomenon was the most frustrating reality for African Americans. A report released by the U.S. Department of Labor on May 8, 2020 revealed the unemployment rate of African Americans and Latinos soared to 16.7 percent and 18.9 percent respectively in April, both the highest on record. The Washington Post reported on June 4, 2020 that after the Great Lockdown in spring, fewer than half of all black adults had a job. Figures released by the U.S. Department of Labor in September showed the jobless rate for the black people almost doubled that for the white. The Christian Science Monitor reported on July 20, 2020 that trade union leaders called for a national workers strike in more than two dozen U.S. cities to protest systemic racism and economic inequality that had only worsened during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Systemic racial discrimination existed in law enforcement and justice. The Courier Journal reported on its website on Dec. 17, 2020 that although black people make up about 20 percent of Louisville’s driving-age population, they accounted for 57 percent of police searches, even though the police were far more likely to find contraband in searches of white people than black people. In the past three years, black people made up 43.5 percent of arrests by the Louisville Metro Police Department. African Americans made up around 13 percent of the U.S. population, but represented almost a third of the country’s prison population, which meant that there were more than 1,000 African-American prisoners for every 100,000 African American population. People of color constitute approximately one-third of the U.S. population under 18, but two-thirds of incarcerated minors, according to a report by the National Conference of State Legislatures on July 15, 2020. Iowa Public Radio News reported on Dec. 18, 2020 that in Iowa’s prisons, black Iowans were imprisoned at a rate 11 times that of white Iowans. Black people were probably sentenced to a longer jail term for the same offense. The Los Angeles Times reported on Sept. 15, 2020 that black people have been over-represented on death rows across the United States and killers of black people are less likely to face the death penalty than people who kill white people. Davis Vanguard reported on Dec. 4, 2020 that people of color account for a disproportionate 43 percent of executions in the U.S. since 1976, and 55 percent of defendants currently awaiting execution are people of color. “We live in a country where our criminal justice system is defined by the size of your wallet and the color of your skin,” said an article published by the Miami Herald on Dec. 18, 2020.
Workplace racial discrimination was deeply rooted. According to a CBS News report on Oct. 7, 2020, over 20 current and former black agents interviewed all described some sort of racial discrimination while in the FBI. Of the top 10 leadership positions in the FBI, all are currently held by white men. Currently, only 4 percent of the 13,000 FBI agents around the world are black, and black women only account for 1 percent, a number that has stayed virtually the same for decades. There were long-standing problems at the FBI such as the disproportionate weeding out of black applicants during the training process. As head of the FBI’s Black Affairs Diversity Committee, Eric Jackson called it “institutionalized racism.” According to a report by the Los Angeles Times on July 2, 2020, Facebook Inc. was accused of systemic discrimination in hiring, compensation and promotion of black people. Facebook’s own figures showed just 1.5 percent of employees in technical roles in the U.S. were black in 2019, and 3.1 percent were black among senior leadership. Those percentages have barely budged even as the company’s employees grew by 400 percent over the past five years.
Social discrimination against ethnic minorities was widespread. A poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News on July 9, 2020 found that 56 percent of the U.S. voters believe American society is racist and blacks and Hispanics are discriminated against. The Los Angeles Times reported on July 14, 2020 that after the death of George Floyd, more white Americans recognized the serious racial discrimination in the United States. A July 2020 survey showed that compared with February, white respondents are 18 percentage points more likely to believe black Americans are discriminated against frequently (from 22 percent to 40 percent), 10 percentage points more likely to believe Latinos are discriminated against frequently (from 22 percent to 32 percent), and 13 percentage points more likely to believe Asians are discriminated against frequently (from 7 percent to 20 percent).
Inequality between races worsened. According to researchers from the University of Chicago and University of Notre Dame, the U.S. poverty rate jumped by 2.4 percentage points from June to November 2020, while the poverty rate among black Americans went up by 3.1 percentage points. Statistics showed the median white household has 41 times more wealth (measured as the sum of assets held by a family minus total household debt) than the median black family and 22 times more than the median Latino family. Citing data released by the Federal Reserve, the Associated Press reported on Oct. 13, 2020 that only 33.5 percent of black households owned stocks in 2019, compared with 61 percent for white households. USA Today reported on Oct. 23, 2020 that in the first quarter of 2020, the national homeownership rate for white households was 73.7 percent, but only 44 percent of black households owned a home. The Washington Post reported on June 4, 2020 that more than one in five black families now report they often or sometimes do not have enough food — more than three times the rate for white families. ABC News reported on Oct. 11, 2020 that 15.7 percent of Latinos lived in poverty in 2019, a percentage more than double that of the white people.
IV. Continuous Social Unrest Threatens Public Safety
The government failed to maintain proper law and order, and shootings and violent crimes, which were already high in incidence, recorded new highs during the COVID-19 pandemic, causing panic among members of the public. The police’s unrestrained use of violence in law enforcement triggered waves of protests that swept across the country. The police had abused their force to suppress protesters, and attacked and arrested journalists on a large scale, further fueling public anger and continuous social unrest.
Crime rates were on the rise amid the pandemic. While outdoor activities were down drastically as a result of various epidemic response measures, the crime rates were up in large cities amid the pandemic. According to the FBI’s Preliminary Uniform Crime Report released in September 2020, in the first half of 2020, the number of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter offenses increased 14.8 percent year on year, with cities with populations of 250,000 to 500,000 reporting an increase of 26 percent. During the same period, the number of arson offenses increased 19 percent year on year, while such offenses rose 52 percent in cities with populations of 1 million and over. Murders in Chicago spiked by 37 percent, while arson in the city was up 52.9 percent. New York City recorded an increase of 23 percent in homicides, while Los Angeles saw murders rise by 14 percent.
The number of violent crimes remained high. According to FBI reports released in 2020, more than 1.2 million violent crimes occurred in the United States in 2019, including 16,425 murders, 139,815 rapes, 267,988 robberies, and 821,182 aggravated assaults, translating to five murders, over 40 rapes, 80 robberies and 250 aggravated assaults per 100,000 inhabitants.
Gun sales and shootings hit record high. A study from the University of California, Davis found a significant increase in firearm violence in the United States associated with the coronavirus-related surge in firearm purchasing. A new destabilizing sense as virus fears spread had been motivating even people who had considered themselves anti-gun to buy weapons for the first time. The Washington Post reported on its website on Jan. 19, 2021 that, COVID-19 lockdowns, anti-racism protests and election strife had led to record gun sales of about 23 million in 2020, a 64 percent increase over 2019 sales. The 2020 numbers include purchases by more than 8 million first-time buyers, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation. USA Today reported on its website on Dec. 18, 2020 that, with regard to gun homicides, the United States has historically reported a rate about 25 times higher than other wealthy nations. According to data from Gun Violence Archive, more than 41,500 people died by gun violence in 2020 nationwide, an average of more than 110 a day, which is a record. There had been 592 mass shootings nationwide, an average of more than 1.6 a day. Shootings in Chatham County of North Carolina, Riverside County of California, and Morgan County of Alabama each claimed seven lives. A deadly weekend in Chicago came at the end of May, when 85 people were shot, 24 fatally. In the afternoon of Jan. 9, 2021, 32-year-old Jason Nightengale went on a random shooting rampage in Chicago, leaving three people killed and four others wounded.
George Floyd’s death from police brutality sparked unrest. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man from Minnesota, died after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for eight minutes during an arrest for forgery. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said what he saw was “wrong on every level,” noting, “Being black in America should not be a death sentence.” Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said in a statement, “This abusive, excessive and inhumane use of force cost the life of a man who was being detained by the police for questioning about a non-violent charge.” Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said, “The depths of despair are enormous right now for black people in this country. You pile on unchecked police violence and it makes for a perfect storm.” The police brutality sparked visceral outrage, leading to protests in support of Black Lives Matter throughout the United States, as well as in other countries. The unrest escalated across the nation, with protesters blocking the streets and building barricades to confront the police. A large number of police stations, public institutions and shopping malls were looted. The Guardian reported on its website on June 8, 2020 that, since George Floyd’s death at the hands of police, about 140 cities in all 50 states throughout the United States have seen protests and demonstrations in response to the killing.
The demonstrators were suppressed by force. In the face of visceral public grievances, the then U.S. administration leader added fuel to the fire by deploying a large number of National Guard soldiers across the country and calling for shooting. Targeted with flying rubber bullets and tear gas on site, the public were horrified and the society fell into chaos. U.S. federal agents had been grabbing protesters seemingly without cause. More than 10,000 individuals had been arrested, including many innocent people. The disclosure of the shooting death of Breonna Taylor, an African-American woman, during a police raid fueled a renewed wave of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, with the city of Louisville alone reporting arrests of 435 individuals during the movement. The Guardian reported on its website on Oct. 29, 2020 that, at least 950 instances of police brutality against civilians and journalists during anti-racism protests had occurred since May 2020. The police had used rubber bullets, tear gas and “unlawful lethal force” against protesters.
Journalists had been subject to unparalleled attacks by law enforcement. There were at least 117 cases of journalists being arrested or detained while on the job covering anti-racism protests in the United States in 2020, a 1,200-percent increase from the figure in 2019. The Guardian reported on its website on June 5, 2020 that, reporters were beaten, pepper-sprayed and arrested by police in numbers never before documented in the United States. There were 148 arrests or attacks on journalists in the country within one week after the George Floyd incident, which was more than what was recorded during the previous three years combined. The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement on Dec. 14, 2020 that, U.S. journalists faced unprecedented attacks in 2020, the majority by law enforcement.
V. Growing Polarization Between Rich and Poor Aggravates Social Inequality
The COVID-19 epidemic plunged the United States into the worst economic downturn since World War II. A large number of businesses shut down, workers lost their jobs, the gap between rich and poor widened, and the lives of the people at the bottom of society were miserable.
The rich-poor divide further widened. The website of Bloomberg reported on Oct. 8, 2020 that the 50 richest Americans now hold almost as much wealth as the poorest 165 million people in the country. The richest 1 percent of Americans have a combined net worth that is 16.4 times that of the poorest 50 percent. The epidemic has aggravated wealth inequality. The website of Forbes reported on Dec. 11, 2020 that over the past months of the pandemic, the collective net worth of America’s 614 billionaires has increased by 931 billion U.S. dollars. America’s poverty rate jumped to 11.7 percent in November 2020, up from 9.3 percent in June, according to researchers from the University of Chicago and University of Notre Dame.
Out-of-control epidemic led to mass unemployment. The speed and magnitude of business closures and job losses defied comparison, according to a report on the website of The Washington Post on May 9, 2020. Some 20.5 million people abruptly lost their jobs, which was roughly double what the nation experienced during the entire financial crisis from 2007 to 2009. In April 2020, the unemployment rate soared to 21.2 percent for people with less than a high school degree, surpassing the previous all-time high set in the aftermath of the Great Recession. The website of USA Today reported on Aug. 8, 2020 that 33 U.S. metro areas had a jobless rate of over 15 percent in June 2020. About 11.5 million American women lost their jobs between February and May 2020.
Tens of millions of people were in food crisis in the epidemic. More than 50 million people — one in six Americans, including one in four children — could experience food insecurity in 2020, according to an analysis report updated in October 2020 by Feeding America. The website of the Guardian reported on Nov. 25, 2020 that nationwide, demand for food aid has plateaued at about 60 percent higher than pre-pandemic times. Millions of Americans must rely on charity to put Thanksgiving dinner on the table in 2020.
Health insurance coverage plummeted. America has no universal health insurance because of political polarization and the number of people enjoying health insurance has shrunk sharply due to the epidemic. From March to May 2020, an estimated 27 million Americans have lost health insurance coverage in the pandemic. In Texas alone, the number of uninsured jumped from about 4.3 million to nearly 4.9 million, which means that three out of every 10 Texans are uninsured.
The digital divide aggravated educational inequality. In 2018, nearly 17 million children lived in homes without internet connection, and more than 7 million did not have computers at home, according to a report that analyzed census data for that year. The website of Politico reported on Sept. 23, 2020 that one in three students in Baltimore city, which is only an hour’s drive from the U.S. Capitol, has no computers. One in three African American, Latino or American Indian families do not have home internet. Virtual learning became a mainstream education pattern during the epidemic. Compared with their wealthier peers, low-income and minority children are less likely to have appropriate technology and home environments for independent study because of their family backgrounds and therefore are at a disadvantage in e-learning, further aggravating the educational divide caused by poverty and racial inequality.
VI. Trampling on International Rules Results in Humanitarian Disasters
At a time when global unity is needed to fight the pandemic, the United States, however, persists in pursuing an agenda of “America first,” isolationism, and unilateralism, imposing sanctions wantonly, bullying and threatening international organizations, and treating asylum seekers cruelly, thus becoming the biggest troublemaker to global security and stability.
The United States withdrew from WHO. In order to shirk its responsibility for its disastrous anti-pandemic measures, the Trump administration tried every means to scapegoat the World Health Organization (WHO) by fabricating false charges against the organization. On April 14, 2020, the U.S. government announced its suspension of paying dues to the WHO, which was widely criticized by the international community. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement on April 14, 2020, saying that when the world was fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, it was inappropriate to reduce the resources required by the WHO or any other humanitarian organization for operations. President of the American Medical Association, Patrice Harris, stated on April 15, 2020 that combating the pandemic required international cooperation and halting funding to the WHO at this critical moment was a dangerous step in the wrong direction. On April 15, 2020, an online article of the Guardian commented that when the world desperately needed to jointly overcome this threat that the world had never experienced before, the suspension of the WHO dues by the U.S. government was an act that lacked morality and disrupted the international order, and was a horrible betrayal to global solidarity. In July 2020, the U.S. government brazenly announced its withdrawal from the WHO despite the opposition of the international community.
The United States walked away from its commitments to and withdrew from the Paris Agreement. The United States, as the largest cumulative emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, should bear the greatest share of emission reduction based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. However, the United States ran counter to the trend of the times and officially withdrew from the Paris Agreement on Nov. 4, 2020, becoming the only country among the nearly 200 contracting parties to quit the treaty. The international community generally believed that the U.S. move was politically short-sighted, unscientific, and morally irresponsible. “Having the U.S. pull out of Paris is likely to reduce efforts to mitigate, and therefore increase the number of people who are put into a life-or-death situation because of the impacts of climate change,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, a coauthor of UN science reports on global warming.
Bullying actions threatened international organizations. On June 11, 2020, the U.S. government authorized economic sanctions and travel restrictions against workers of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and their family members for investigating American troops and intelligence officials for possible war crimes in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The U.S. sanctions targeting ICC staff were “a direct attack on the institution’s judicial independence,” according to an article on the website of UN NEWS on June 25, 2020. On June 19, 2020, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution strongly condemning police brutality that led to the death of African American George Floyd. Citing remarks from human rights groups, the AFP said that the final version of the resolution removed the call for further investigations and stripped away any mention of the racism and police brutality in the United States due to “hard lobbying.” By bullying other countries, the United States watered down the text of the resolution, escaped from international probes for another time, and ran counter to the African descent in the United States and victims of police violence, said the American Civil Liberties Union.
Unilateral sanctions aggravated humanitarian crisis. At a critical time when COVID-19 spread globally and endangered human life, health, and wellbeing, all countries should work together to respond to the pandemic and maintain global public health security. However, during this pandemic, the U.S. government still imposed unilateral sanctions on countries such as Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and Syria, which made it difficult for the sanctioned countries to obtain needed anti-pandemic medical supplies in a timely manner. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said on March 24, 2020, that in the case of a global pandemic, sanctions would hinder medical work and increase risks for everyone. She argued that to maintain global public health security and protect the rights and lives of millions of people in sanctioned countries, sanctions should be relaxed or suspended in certain sectors. A group of 24 senior diplomats from various countries urged the U.S. government to ease medical and humanitarian sanctions on Iran, noting that such move “could potentially save the lives of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iranians,” according to a report on the website of the Guardian on April 6, 2020. On April 30, 2020, UN human rights experts said that the U.S. embargo on Cuba and sanctions on other countries seriously undermined international cooperation to curb the pandemic and save lives. The experts called on the United States to implement UN resolutions, lift its economic and financial embargo on Cuba and withdraw measures that prevent Cuba from financing the purchase of medicine, medical equipment, food and other essential goods. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, the Special Rapporteur on human rights for safe drinking water and sanitation, and the Special Rapporteur on the right to education issued a joint statement on May 6, 2020, saying that the U.S. sanctions on Venezuela were seriously harming the human rights of the people in the country. They urged the United States to immediately lift sanctions that exacerbated the suffering of the people when the pandemic raged in the country. On Dec. 29, 2020, Alena Douhan, United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights, called on the United States to remove unilateral sanctions against Syria, noting that the sanctions would exacerbate the already dire humanitarian crisis in Syria and run roughshod over the Syrian people’s rights to live, health, and development.
Asylum seekers were treated cruelly. According to a report of CNN on Sept. 30, 2020, in the 2020 fiscal year, 21 people died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, which was more than double the number of deaths in the fiscal year 2019 and marked the highest annual death toll since 2005. A report published on the website of the Los Angeles Times on Oct. 30, 2020 noted that a huge number of migrant children were stranded in custody for the long haul. Data showed that of the 266,000 migrant children held in government custody in recent years, over 25,000 had been detained for longer than 100 days, close to 1,000 migrant children had spent more than a year in refugee shelters, and some of them had spent more than five years in custody. As reported by multiple U.S. media outlets, dozens of women from Latin American and Caribbean states have filed a class action lawsuit in federal court in Georgia, claiming that they were subjected to unnecessary gynecological surgeries without their consent while in ICE custody, including uterus removal in some cases. They said these unwanted surgeries caused severe harm to their physical and mental health. The Guardian website reported on Oct. 22, 2020 that Cameroonian asylum seekers were threatened and forced to sign their own deportation orders. Those who refused to sign were choked, beaten, and pepper-sprayed, with some put in handcuffs to have their fingerprints forcibly taken in place of a signature on orders of removal, by which the asylum seekers waive their rights to further immigration hearings and accept deportation.
Forced deportation of immigrant children continued during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to data tallied by the ICE, as of Jan. 14, 2021, a total of 8,848 detainees had been confirmed as COVID-19 cases. According to a report on the website of the Los Angeles Times on Nov. 18, 2020, the U.S. government had expelled at least 8,800 unaccompanied immigrant children despite serious protection risks during the COVID-19 outbreak. According to UNICEF, migrant children who returned from the United States to Mexico and Central America were facing danger and discrimination.
The United States pardoned criminals slaughtering civilians in other countries. On Dec. 30, 2020, the Working Group on the use of mercenaries, a mechanism of the United Nations Human Rights Council, issued a statement, saying that the then U.S. President’s pardon of four Blackwater contractors convicted of war crimes in Iraq violated U.S. obligations under international law. The statement called on all states to the Geneva Conventions to condemn the U.S. action. The four Blackwater contractors were found to have committed a massacre at Nisour Square in Baghdad in 2007, which left 14 unarmed civilians dead and at least 17 people wounded, according to the statement. Pardoning the Blackwater contractors was an affront to justice and the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families, said the Chair of the Working Group. Pardoning them “contributes to impunity and has the effect of emboldening others to commit such crimes in the future,” said Marta Hurtado, a spokesperson with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Reconciliation and accountability. These are the two words the international community imposed on Sri Lanka since it defeated Tamil terrorists in 2009. However, it was a one-way street; or, two one-way streets. Only Sri Lanka had to do reconciliation while Tamils always torpedoed it. Only Sri Lanka was pushed for accountability while Tamils were off the hook. This was why Sri Lanka lost the UNHRC vote in 2021. Sri Lanka had no bargaining chips, let alone trump cards. Tamils on the other hand had all trump cards against Sri Lanka.
UN Thinks It Was a One-Sided War!
UN including its agencies consider what happened in Sri Lanka as a one-sided war. Sri Lanka was fighting a war against Sri Lankans! This absurd view is because Sri Lanka failed to present its case officially to the UN. Officially. To the UN and UN agencies. Making videos, documentaries, etc. for the consumption of the general public is different to presenting the UN with facts and figures of Tamil war crimes. It was not done.
Tamil war crimes are two-fold – LTTE war crimes and war crimes by Tamil civilians. Sri Lankan government mostly failed on highlighting LTTE war crimes and totally failed on war crimes by Tamil civilians.
How can one blame the UN for taking the side of Tamils when Sri Lanka failed to present its case against Tamil war crimes?
War Crimes by Tamil Civilians
Beating the dead LTTE is important but does not give Sri Lanka a bargaining position. As all UNHRC sessions proved, it is a matter of bargaining and negotiating based on bargaining power. Highlighting war crimes by Tamil civilians would have put Sri Lanka in a commanding position. Unfortunately, it was never done!
War crimes by Tamil civilians and India include (but not limited to),
1. Tamil mono-ethnic political parties arousing anti-Sinhala and anti-Muslim racism since 1922. This has not ceased. In fact, hateful statements by Tamil politicians against Sinhalas have worsened since 2009. Tamil youth were driven to violence because of these hateful statements and slogans. Tamil politicians have also not given up on their demand to divide the island nation based on ethnic lines.
2. Tamil civilians robbed the land belonged to Sinhalese in Jaffna District in 1977 when more than 20,000 Sinhalese lived in Jaffna District. Tamil civilians occupy these lands to this date! Tamil civilians robbed the land belonged to Muslims in Jaffna District in 1990 when a large population of Muslims lived in Jaffna District. Tamil civilians occupy these lands to this date! Displaced Muslims had to be resettled in the Wilpattu national forest reserve because Tamil civilians would not let them return to their original homes. As a result, the Jaffna District has suffered two events of ethnic cleansing.
3. Tamil Diaspora in western nations remitted over $300 million a year to the LTTE, a proscribed terrorist organization in those countries. Financing a foreign terrorist organization is a crime.
4. Indian troops in Sri Lanka killed, raped and abused locals, particularly Tamils from 1987 to 1990. Various pro-Indian military groups including the Tamil National Army were also involved in these. India financed and armed Tamil terrorist groups.
5. Tamil civilians (and foreigners) facilitated the recruitment, training and passing out of Tamil terrorists including suicide bombers and child soldiers.
Where is accountability for these war crimes? The world must know the nature of the elements Sri Lanka dealt with and still dealing with.
Sri Lanka must submit official statements with facts and figures to UN bodies and other nations about Tamil civilians’ war crimes. That will force them to come to a compromise. Sadly, it was not done and as a result, they do not see the need for a compromise. Why should they!
Post-UNHRC Resolution Remedies
As a result of Sri Lankan government not highlighting Tamil war crimes, the UNHRC resolution is lopsided. It only blames Sri Lanka. It must be balanced with remedial action that must be taken by the Sri Lankan government.
These include implementation of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, introducing new laws to ban and punish hate speech, new laws to punish separatism and the LTTE ideology, removal of Thesawamali, Muslim and Kandyan laws, re-demarcation of district and provincial boundaries of Trincomalee and Ampara districts to better align with modern ground realities, ethnicity based proportionate university admission that is fair for all ethnic groups and overhauling the parliamentary election system to reflect equity in parliamentary representation nationally.
UN agencies and other nations must be presented facts about Tamil war crimes (LTTE and Tamil civilians’ war crimes). Let them be forewarned about the gory nature of Tamil Elam if it ever becomes a reality. Made them feel disgusted about continuing Tamil racism that will put them off from supporting Tamil separatism. A Tamil nation would be a living hell of Tamil war crimes, so it must not be supported.
Conclusion
Unless Sri Lanka regains powerful bargaining chips and preferably trump cards on the matter by calling out Tamil war crimes, UNHRC, etc. are going to push Sri Lanka around all the time.
Reconciliation must be a two-way street. It cannot be a tool to tie down Sri Lanka while the other party can continue with separatism and racism. Since the UNHRC has put accountability ahead of reconciliation, Sri Lanka must do the same. Sri Lanka must demand accountability and punishment for Tamil war crimes.
Can Sri Lanka rise above petty politics and do these? If not, war heroes whose action that already saved 47,400 lives since the war was won in 2009 at 3,950 lives saved annually for 12 years, will be punished for doing the right thing. And real war criminals will get away. It will also lead to dividing the island into multiple nations disproportionately benefitting aggressors at the expense of the silent majority. But most importantly, it will let down and undermine the true friends of Sri Lanka that stood by and trusted Sri Lanka at the UNHRC voting.
The world must hear Tamil war crimes, some of them continuing.
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