{"id":52502,"date":"2016-03-01T16:02:30","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T23:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=52502"},"modified":"2016-03-01T16:02:30","modified_gmt":"2016-03-01T23:02:30","slug":"farah-mihlar-and-others-tossed-cats-out-of-the-bag-in-geneva","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/03\/01\/farah-mihlar-and-others-tossed-cats-out-of-the-bag-in-geneva\/","title":{"rendered":"Farah Mihlar and others tossed cats out of the bag in Geneva"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

They say that if you give some people enough rope they will hang themselves with it.\u00a0 On March 19, 2012, in Geneva, no one needed give any rope to several individuals who came to talk about \u2018Rule of law and human rights violations in Sri Lanka\u2019.\u00a0 They came with enough rope and a scaffolding to boot, so to speak.<\/p>\n

The event was one of the many side-shows at the 19th<\/sup> Sessions of the UN Human Rights Council.\u00a0 It was \u2018show\u2019 alright and began before it all began.\u00a0 Fahrah Mihler, who I have met just a couple of times and who, courtesy a mutual friend, invited me for dinner in Geneva during the Govt-LTTE talks in Celigny, 2006, came and said hello.\u00a0 She said she had watched me debate Callum Macrae (Channel 4) and Bob Templer (International Crisis Group) on the Sri Lankan conflict in an event hosted by the Asia Society in New York in December 2011 (I participated via skype).<\/p>\n

I said \u2018they were spouting a lot of bullshit\u2019.<\/p>\n

Farah agrees: \u2018I know!\u00a0 In fact I was in my mind thinking out the responses you should make.\u2019<\/p>\n

So Farah agrees that what Macrae and Templer said was bullshit. And what did they say?\u00a0 Macrae regurgitated Channel 4 lies (agreed upon, I should add) and Templer spat out stuff that Channel 4 and the Darusman Panel had stuffed down his gullible (I am being generous here) throat.\u00a0 In short, taking as fact the claims made by unreliable witnesses, believing exaggerations, having no regard for the principles of proportionality and showing rank ignorance of or showing no respect whatsoever to that little uncomfortable thing called \u2018context\u2019.\u00a0 Farah knows context.<\/p>\n

Then came the next show which was a no-show.\u00a0 The moderator announced that the much anticipated screening of Channel 4\u2019s latest \u2018production\u2019 on Sri Lanka was not going to happen.\u00a0\u00a0 Now that \u2018new\u2019 film was nothing more than a re-hash of the earlier \u2018documentary\u2019 called \u2018Killing Fields\u2019 whose toilet-wash worth was more than revealed in \u2018Lies Agreed Upon\u2019, where Channel 4\u2019s collusion with the LTTE rump and its long history of glorifying terrorism was laid out without frill or clever juxtaposition and splice.\u00a0 Perhaps the organizers knew that there were people in the audience who knew better than to believe anything anyone says and had evidence in hand to counter all the claims made in that second film including the stories of the tall-story spinners showcased.<\/p>\n

\nThen came Farah\u2019s main show, which began with another classic disclaimer.\u00a0 Ms. I Agree That Channel 4 Is Spouting Rubbish says \u2018I am not against Sri Lanka\u2019.\u00a0 What was coming was apparent.\u00a0 There was a \u2018but\u2019 to come of course, but not before it made me think that it\u2019s like a sodomiser telling intended victim \u2018this is good for you..enjoy!\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\u2018We are supporting the US Resolution on Sri Lanka\u2019 she said, not surprisingly; the apologies, caveats, shy-making twisting, turning and squirming fooling few.<\/p>\n

\nRepresenting Minority Rights Group, London, Farah did the now boring tokenism number, glossing over LTTE atrocities.\u00a0 This fluent operator was slick enough to toss out numbers tossed out before in the lie-construction industry, but as a doctoral student she slipped because she showed she had never heard the words reliability.\u00a0 If one were to believe her argument, then we wouldn\u2019t have seen people walking out of the No-Fire Zone (rendered a joke by the LTTE moving heavy weapons into the area and firing on the Government troops from there and then shooting to kill civilians held hostage as they sought to flee); no, we would have seen ghosts or skeletons.\u00a0 \u00a0She\u2019s such a meticulous researcher that she missed the endorsements and words of praise accorded to the Government by the ICRC and top UN officials (Ch 4, by the way, continues to treat as biblical truth the opinions of disgraced UN officials, most of them clearly sympathetic to the LTTE and having axes to grind on account of preferred outcome not materializing).<\/p>\n

Farah\u2019s presentation seeks to give some \u2018first hand\u2019 evidence.\u00a0 When the frills are taken out, however, it\u2019s all hearsay, littered with \u2018I was told\u2019, and nothing at all by way of numbers; just random statement that are not offered with even a semblance of substantiation.\u00a0 There was nothing to indicate anything systemic or policy-driven.\u00a0 If that\u2019s being \u2018academic\u2019 then I seriously question the credentials of her supervisors, especially those who taught her research methodologies.<\/p>\n

\nHere\u2019s more context she missed:<\/p>\n

\nSri Lanka is emerging after a brutal war against terrorism.\u00a0 It is easy for a globe-trotting, neither-here-nor-there fly-by-night operator to pick and choose juicy bits that will titillate the ears of the uneducated and misinformed, but for us here in Sri Lanka, it makes absolutely no sense to defer in favour of sorry as opposed to safe.\u00a0 Considering the virulent hate-mongering of Farah\u2019s think-alikes (namely the LTTE groups in the West), the delicate that is post-war Sri Lanka cannot be underestimated.\u00a0 Demilitarization is a process and the relevant time-table cannot be set by those who necessitated militarization and certainly not by their apologists.\u00a0 Like Farah.<\/p>\n

\nShe spoke of rape and vulnerabilities.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t mention that soldiers found guilty of rape\u00a0 have been tried and punished (not whitewashed like Staff Sgt Robert Bales, who is not being media-pardoned on account of insanity).\u00a0 She fails to make the case that these alleged violations were systemic or widespread or of a magnitude that is above national average or at levels exceeding those in similar situations elsewhere in the world.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t say a word of the insecurities and vulnerabilities these very same women had to suffer at the hands of the LTTE.\u00a0 She knows, but will not admit, that life pre-Mat 2009 was hell.\u00a0 She expects Sri Lanka to move from hell to heaven in record time.<\/p>\n

\nHere\u2019s \u00a0more context.<\/p>\n

\nThe United States, which tabled the resolution which she so ardently supports, walked into Iraq in search of non-existent weapons of mass destruction and is still there almost a decade after Saddam Hussein was overthrown.\u00a0 The USA overthrew the Taliban years ago and is still discharging hell-bombs.\u00a0 Sri Lanka is targetted though.\u00a0 \u2018For her own good,\u2019 she reminds us.<\/p>\n

Farah was followed by Anna Van Gall of the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, Berlin.\u00a0 Anna talked about gender-based violence.\u00a0 Anna probably has no idea of geography for had she even the slightest clue, she\u2019d be camped out in places like Saudi Arabia instead of going for easy pickings.\u00a0 Unlike Farah, she can be excused for she has no idea what Sri Lanka is about, the status of women, the problems of women, what\u2019s being done and what needs to be done.\u00a0 It\u2019s the same song: nothing is perfect is Sri Lanka so everything must be wrong.<\/p>\n

Theodor Rothgeber of the Forum for Human Rights, Geneva, was a treat.\u00a0 The man said that he himself could not have come up with as \u2018soft\u2019 a resolution as the one the USA came up with.\u00a0 Again, his annoyance is sourced to unreliable and corrupt \u2018evidence\u2019 trotted out by the likes of Colin Macrae and Bob Templer, the people who Farah agreed \u2018talk rubbish\u2019.\u00a0 \u00a0The man needs to do some reading about the history of resolutions, country-specific and otherwise, find out who has vetoed what, voted against what\/whom, and how \u2018softer\u2019 resolutions and indeed no-resolutions led to monumental crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n

Now all three panelists and the moderator kept talking about their \u2018colleague\u2019 Sandya Ekneligoda\u2019s presentation, but she was saved for the last.\u00a0 There was a reason, which I will come to; just wanted to flag that.<\/p>\n

Next came Ms. Giyoun Kim of the Asian Forum of Human Rights, Bangkok.\u00a0 Poor lady.\u00a0 She let her colleagues down badly and I am convinced that this is because she was honest.\u00a0 Na\u00efve yes, but honest.\u00a0 She admitted that she was brought along for the show in order to indicate to the world that it was not a \u2018West\u2019 thing.\u00a0 Poor thing, she didn\u2019t realize that she had been tagged to give a \u2018global\u2019 look to a Western project, just like South Indian forums in the West always have a token Pakistani, Sri Lankan or Bangladeshe (key word: \u2018or\u2019) amidst a host of Indian, just to make it look non-Indian.<\/p>\n

\nMore interestingly (and hilariously too), she found herself \u2018getting emotional\u2019 as she begged (yes!) Sri Lankans in the audience not to \u2018attack\u2019 her beautiful\/wonderful partners in the human rights advocacy racket in Sri Lanka.\u00a0 She named them: Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Sunila Abeysekera and Nimalka Fernando.\u00a0 The little girl didn\u2019t know that all of them have been amply exposed as frauds.\u00a0 \u00a0Giyoun can be forgiven for ignorance but Farah cannot be, especially since the entire panel was so infuriatingly self-righteous from beginning to end.<\/p>\n

After the event, Giyoun was duly informed about the antics of these people, but she refused to believe they were anything less than angels.\u00a0 I will come to that later.<\/p>\n

Sandya Ekneligoda was introduced and re-introduced as the wife of Prageeth Ekneligoda (a \u2018journalist\u2019 who has disappeared).\u00a0 No one, including Sandya, mentioned that Ekneligoda had once self-disappeared himself. No one mentioned the fact that Ekneligoda was not a journalist or that his \u2018journalism\u2019 was limited to the occasional cartoon and a lot of irresponsible, unsubstantiated and tasteless fantasies that bordered on cheap pornography.\u00a0 No one seemed to have read the excellent undressing of what could be called the \u2018Ekneligoda Saga\u2019 by Uvindu Kurukulasuriya. \u00a0Now I\u2019ve written about the incident and the debate and I shall not repeat it all here (\u2018On Ekneligoda, in spite of Ekneligoda and his pals\u2019 in the Daily News of March 1, 2010: http:\/\/www.dailynews.lk\/2010\/03\/01\/fea02.asp<\/a>) where I touched upon the issue and noted, inter alia<\/em>, the following:<\/p>\n

\n\u2018What is interesting in this missive is that Ekneligoda deems it necessary to fall on his knees and worship, again and again, a man called Sunanda Deshapriya, a charlatan of the first order who made bucks out of activism and stole bucks from the Centre for Policy Alternatives and dares not step into Sri Lanka for fear of arrest for perpetrating numerous acts of fraud. \u00a0Sunanda is Ekneligoda\u2019s hero. Need I say more?\u2019<\/p>\n

That man Sunanda!\u00a0 Sunanda Deshapriya sneaked into the discussion at the tail end.\u00a0 \u2018The translator is here, the translator is here!\u2019 the moderator was clearly excited.\u00a0 Yes, he was to translate Sandya.\u00a0 The moderator might not have known, but Farah could not have not known what Sunanda has been up to.\u00a0 Had it been Farah who moderated and had she had any integrity, she might have said \u2018the translator-crook is here, the translator-crook is here\u2019.\u00a0 Sunanda\u2019s love for the LTTE aside (the LTTE killed his driver, but he never once pointed a finger at Prabhakaran) his stubborn refusal to subject himself to the accountability doctrine he so vociferously espouses (he robbed money from Saravanamuttu\u2019s organization and the lovely man Sara, Giyoun should know, cited \u2018lack of clarity\u2019 when Sunanda was hoofed out) has been amply exposed by Uvindu Kurukulasuriya (http:\/\/www.thesundayleader.lk\/2012\/02\/26\/sunanda-saga-states-of-denial-and-ngo-accountability\/<\/a> and http:\/\/www.thesundayleader.lk\/2012\/03\/04\/how-sunanda-robbed-the-money-and-ngo-accountability-fmm-still-not-submitted-audited-accounts-for-rs-30-9-million\/<\/a>).\u00a0 There\u2019s more to come, I hear.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Sunanda\u2019s dollar greed and dollar theft has been facilitated by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its big names including Jacqueline Park.\u00a0 The IFJ is frequently cited as an authoritative source about media rights in Sri Lanka.\u00a0 Sunanda\u2019s \u2018Journalists for Democracy\u2019 (JFD) has apparently submitted \u2018evidence\u2019 (doctored, it has been proven) to Channel 4.\u00a0 And who endorses this evidence, but another JFD stalward, Rohitha Bashana who is said to have edited the LTTE\u2019s Sinhala paper \u2018Dedunna\u2019 (Rainbow).\u00a0 And who showcases Rohitha Bashana?\u00a0 Channel 4!\u00a0 The \u2018evidence\u2019 of a terrorist is aired to the world as though it\u2019s the word of some pious priest of unblemished virtue.<\/p>\n

\nSo Sunanda got late.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 The man had gone with camera in hand to photograph a demonstration against the US Resolution.\u00a0 The police were informed that his presence, with camera, was an act of provocation.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t disagree, knowing his links with the LTTE.\u00a0 He was duly taken away for questioning and got late.\u00a0 Hence the delay in getting Sandya to speak.<\/p>\n

Sandya told her story.\u00a0 The jist:\u00a0 my husband disappeared and if I, a Sinhalese can\u2019t find him, what more of Tamils who have loved ones that have gone missing?\u00a0 Valid point, but an incomplete story. \u00a0It took 2 years for a suspect associated with the attempt to assassinate the Defence Secretary was found, just to keep perspective.\u00a0 Those who disappeared in the middle of a brutal war will take finding.\u00a0 Some may have died in combat, some may have fled.\u00a0 Names and numbers are needed and exercises to this end are rubbished as though the rubbishers could do a better job themselves, which is what rubbish really is.\u00a0 Channel 4, for example, neatly clouds the source of some numbers trotted out (Official Census of 1981!), for if they didn\u2019t do that they would have to count \u2018in\u2019 those who fled the North and East (to the Western Province, USA, Canada, Europe, Australia and India in the main).<\/p>\n

Much needs to be done, no doubt, but as I have said before, just as much as Sri Lanka is no Paradise on Earth, neither is it the Hell on Earth that the likes of malicious and self-promoting individuals who lack integrity (Farah, for example) make it out to be.<\/p>\n

I feel for Giyoun, who was almost in tears.\u00a0 I feel for her because I think she was the only honest person on the panel.\u00a0 She does not know (and can be pardoned for not knowing) that Sunila\u2019s commitment to preventing gender-based violence was amply demonstrated when a close political associate beat his wife regularly.\u00a0 The wife had told Sunila and she had asked her to \u2018be patient\u2019.\u00a0 Anna Van Gill would be appalled to know.\u00a0 There are police records of complaints, I hear.\u00a0 As for Giyoun\u2019s darling Nimalka, the lady\u2019s venom against Sri Lanka is well recorded, bending backwards to a) legitimate the LTTE and b) get the Government to stop the military offensive, not to mention a concerted vilification campaign all over the world.<\/p>\n

\nNone of these three people would get more than a handful of votes in an election.\u00a0 They are not under any threat.\u00a0 No one needs to vilify them.\u00a0 They do a good job of it themselves.\u00a0 Most importantly, Saravanamuttu and Sunanda, both of who write regularly to newspapers (freely and without holding back punches) have never once responded to cogent critiques of positions taken and, more importantly, substantiated charges of wrong doing, including hanky-panky with finances.\u00a0 Giyoun can google, I am sure.<\/p>\n

The entire panel was bombarded with charges of duplicity and double standards.\u00a0 Farah and others were forced to say that they would not hesitate to take issue with human rights violations by the USA.\u00a0 Just two hours before this event there was another on human rights violations in Afghanistan (the panel included a Human Rights Watch representative and a UN official) where the blatant and horrific crimes against humanity perpetrated by the USA were pussy-footed around.\u00a0 None of the panelists were seen there.\u00a0 On the following day there was a similar discussion on Iraq where the Amnesty International representative beat a hasty retreat, fleeing when questioned about double standards.\u00a0 None of the panelists were seen at either event.\u00a0 So much for across-the-board concern for human rights.<\/p>\n

Farah said that if Sri Lanka or anyone else brings a resolution against the USA, she would support it.\u00a0 She said \u2018the resolution has been brought by the USA, yes, but 53 countries get to vote\u2019, in a sad exposing of rank ignorance about global political economy. \u00a0This lady still believes that the UN is about one member, one vote!<\/p>\n

Giyoun might learn and med her ways. Farah?\u00a0 I doubt it.\u00a0 She\u2019s thick.\u00a0 She knows what rubbish is (she admitted) but has no qualms about dishing it out as delicacies.\u00a0 It all came out in Geneva.\u00a0 Unintentionally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE They say that if you give some people enough rope they will hang themselves with it.\u00a0 On March 19, 2012, in Geneva, no one needed give any rope to several individuals who came to talk about \u2018Rule of law and human rights violations in Sri Lanka\u2019.\u00a0 They came with enough rope and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malinda-seneviratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52502","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=52502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}