{"id":113343,"date":"2021-04-07T16:31:08","date_gmt":"2021-04-07T23:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=113343"},"modified":"2021-04-07T16:31:08","modified_gmt":"2021-04-07T23:31:08","slug":"unhrc-march-21-sessions-britain-turns-a-coveted-eye-at-its-ex-colonies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/04\/07\/unhrc-march-21-sessions-britain-turns-a-coveted-eye-at-its-ex-colonies\/","title":{"rendered":"UNHRC March 21 sessions -Britain turns a Coveted Eye at its Ex. Colonies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Palitha Senanayake<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Britain,\nno longer Great, and75 years after it was forced to renounce its colonies with imperialism  identified to be the cause of World Wars, and\nincreasingly finding itself in a rather insignificant role in world  affairs, \nappear to indulge in some nostalgic glory turning a coveted eye at its\nformer colony Ceylon, at the recent UNHRC sessions. Well, Ceylon could well be\nthe get- away to the South Asian continent, which was once the \u2018jewel of the\nImperial crown\u2019. Many centuries ago Britain did it then, to \u2018civilize\u2019 these\ncountries and profited enormously, and today, in a more sophisticated world\nscenario, it may well try its hand so subtly, to impose \u2018Human Rights\u2019 on these\nvery same countries!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes,\nBritain love these small Asian nations more than the citizens of those\ncountries love their own nations, just as a wolf would a rabbit. For Sri Lanka\nis a democracy with a Government overwhelmingly elected by its people with the\nright to depose same if needs be. Yet Britain and its \u2018core\u2019 partners know better,\n\u2018Hey listen, the Government you elected is violating your Human Rights and\nhence we are moving a resolution to apply international pressure on your\ncountry\u2019. This \u2018pretext\u2019 would appear more appropriate  when Sri Lanka had only 6 % literacy among\nits citizens at the time Britain washed its hands off Ceylon back in 1947 in\nthe face of world communist onslaught. But now with the country\u2019s literacy rate\nat 90%, the present day Sri Lankan\u2019s, in Britain\u2019s perspective, are not good\nenough to know what is good for them. Hence Britain has assumed the role of an\narbiter to \u2018sought them out\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nreminds us of similar European colonial acts of \u2018charity\u2019 towards small nations\nin the history of human kind; as they offered to educate Aborigine children in\nAustralia, to civilize Maoris in New Zealand and to provide accommodation to\nInuit people in Canada. However, it was the offer to distribute blankets to the\nRed Indians \u2018to save them from the extreme climatic conditions\u2019 that take the\ncake, and they all were infected with the small pox virus! Today, all these communities,\nhaving availed this charity of Britain and its \u2018core\u2019 group\u2019, belong to world history.\nTherefore, just as Tony Blair opined that there were \u2018Weapons of Mass\nDestruction\u2019 in Iraq, Britain today opines that there are \u2018Human Rights\nviolations\u2019 in Sri Lanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nis mainly because they are concerned about the minority Tamils in Sri Lanka,\nthe same Tamils they brought to Sri Lanka as indentured labor to Ceylon, en\nmass in shiploads under conditions akin to transport of cattle. These indentured\ncargo, once unloaded  in Ceylon\u2019s coast,\nwere made to travel to the country\u2019s highlands, a distance exceeding 400 miles,\nthrough the jungle by foot and those who die of exhaustion and ill health in\nthe process were thrown to the wolves. Then their new aboard in Ceylon was a\nline room of 10 feet by 20 feet for each family with a common toilet for 20\nfamilies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nimport of mass labor was the result of Britain\u2019s failure to convert the\nindigenous population of Ceylon in to slave labor for the estates they started\nin Ceylon. Having destroyed the indigenous cultivations and the livelihood of\nthe native Sinhalese they imposed Pol tax and Dog tax on the natives. The\nbrutal atrocities committed on the Sinhalese by the British, led by Brownrig\nand Torrington in the 19th<\/sup> century is well documented even in the US\narchives. They deprived the natives of their staple diet, rice, and ordered\n\u2018every tree that bore fruit\u2019 in populated areas such as \u2018Welllassa\u2019, be chopped\ndown. That is not all, and they lynched the death sentence on every able male\nin those rebel areas. The colonial masters also realized the threat of Ceylon\u2019s\ntraditional irrigation system of water tanks and irrigation and dumped dead\nbodies in to tanks to poison those while also converting those to be sources of\nmalaria to contain the rebelling Sinhalese.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gun\npowder was first discovered by the Chinese in the 9th<\/sup> century but it\nwas not called \u2018gun powder\u2019 then as the Chinese used it only to make fire\ncrackers. The moment it was brought to the West by Arab traders, the fire\ncracker powder was made in to \u2018Gun powder\u2019 by the west and that was the beginning\nof colonial inquisition in to peaceful and idyllic small nations by the western\npowers. Thereafter, the West obeyed the \u2018Bulls\u2019 from the Catholic Church to\n\u2018civilize\u2019 all nations that did not believe in the GOD of their Church. Thus\nthey not only \u2018civilized\u2019 those nations but converted their lands to be sources\nof raw materials for the West\u2019s industrial revolution.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Divide\n& Rule\u2019 is not a policy to administer colonial properties only but it will\njust as well suit in the maintenance of the post war status quo in world\naffairs. There are very few homogenous countries in the world and hence the\nbest way to keep these \u2018up and coming\u2019 nations at bay is to decimate them.\nInveigle the minorities in every country with \u2018human rights violations\u2019 and\nprevent their nation building and that way you can continue to make their\ndevelopment only a dream thereby preserving the post- colonial status quo. The\nchallenge today is to prevent the ushering of the Asian century as predicted by\nmany experts on world evolution. What would be the status of Europe and its\naccess to world raw materials, if the middle classes in China, India and the\nrest of Asia achieve similar standards of living? Therefore, exacerbate their differences\nand create new ones where needed and \u2018violations of human rights\u2019 is just the\nmodus operandi for all that. Bifurcating Sri Lanka could be a water shed event\nthat will disintegrate India and with that there will be no more Asian century\nto usher in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus\nNATO\u2019s humanitarian wars across Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria and Ukraine are just\ndesigned in decimating nations. Keep them small and manageable as against\nthreatening mega nations like China and Russia! That is why a few hundred\nUighur Muslims in China is more important than millions of Muslims killed in\nIraq, a few thousand privileged Tamils in Sri Lanka deserves attention over\nthousands of women and Children killed in Yemen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Britain\u2019s\neconomy today, devoid of its \u2018commonwealth\u2019 plunder, no longer enjoy the\nmanufacturing status it ones did.  80 %\n0f the British economy is of the service sector and that is thanks to tourism.\nThere are still people who like to see the splendor of their once colonial\nnerve center. However, British economy leaped frogged the Indian economy this\nyear and that is mainly due to its war supplies to Saudi Arabia to kill Yemeni\nwomen and children. Britain is the chief armament supplier in the war against\nYemen. No, the human rights of Yemenis will not be violated because they will\nbe no longer among the living!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To\nuse the term \u2018free world\u2019 to describe the victors of WW11 is an euphemism.\nGermany and Japan fought against the colonizers in Asia and Africa. The true\ncharacters of the victors were that they were ex-Slave traders and ex-\nImperialists. Thus the world today is run according to the wishes of the\nex-slave traders and ex- imperialists. Once an imperialist, always an\nimperialist! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri\nLanka is a country that suffered from terrorism for 33years with civilians of\nall communities being subjected to the jack boot of the world\u2019s most ruthless\nterror outfit. The death rate then was approximately 14 people every day. That\nhowever, did not bother Britain as the \u2018divide and rule\u2019 status quo in its\nformer colony was triggering all that killings in a process to establish its post\nindependent communal hierarchy.  But now\nthis hierarchy has been established and now there is peace and development in\nits former colony. This certainly is a cause of concern for Britain now. They\nare not fighting anymore and if the Tamils eventually get assimilated as Sri\nLankans that should mean a birth of a nation. This certainly is a threat to the\ncurrent world status quo, and hence demands that Britain should step in, to\ninveigle the minorities. Dangle \u2018human Rights\u2019 before them and it should work\nto create chaos again!  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Palitha Senanayake Britain, no longer Great, and75 years after it was forced to renounce its colonies with imperialism  identified to be the cause of World Wars, and increasingly finding itself in a rather insignificant role in world  affairs,  appear to indulge in some nostalgic glory turning a coveted eye at its former colony Ceylon, at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}