{"id":83102,"date":"2018-11-12T18:46:21","date_gmt":"2018-11-13T00:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=83102"},"modified":"2018-11-11T17:19:45","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T00:19:45","slug":"western-superpowers-should-hang-their-heads-in-shame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/11\/12\/western-superpowers-should-hang-their-heads-in-shame\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Superpowers should hang their heads in shame"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne\u00a0 former G.A. Matara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Instead of reflecting back on their ignominious past, the Ambassadors of the UK, the USA among others have thought it fit to at first declare that the decision of the President of Sri lanka to remove the Prime Minister and replace him with another as unconstitutional. Later once our President had dissolved Parliament, they yet state that it was unconstitutional. According to the Constitution it is only the President that has the right\u00a0 to change or appoint a Prime Minister. Former Supreme Court\u00a0 Chief Judge Sarath Silva and Minister Wijeydasa Rajapaksa have proved that the Presidents decisions are in keeping with the Constitution.<\/p>\n

.\u00a0 If a Prime Minister appointed by the President\u00a0 is not acting in the interests of the country and its people, by opening up the country for foreigners and foreign countries to rule, selling family silver, \u00a0neglecting the masses- relegating them to the depths of poverty, then is it not better\u00a0 that the President\u00a0 took action before the masses had their say in an open revolt by storming the Bastile. Sri Lanka experienced mass uprisings in 1971 and again in 1987. That bloodbath had better be avoided.<\/p>\n

The Ambassadors of the countries-the USA, the UK, the EU etc should actually be hanging their heads in shame, if they only know their past.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0 riches of the USA was built on the sweat and blood of the slaves from Africa. The real inhabitants of the USA, The Native Indians, from whom the land of the USA was wrested, are yet\u00a0 held in reservations and\u00a0 even today suffer from severe hardship- deprived of basic health and education. Deprivation was\u00a0 etched into my batchmates that came to Michigan State University from among the American Indians..<\/p>\n

The UK\u00a0 of all countries should realize that their wealth today was derived from the riches accumulated from the colonies. In my words, the accumulation of wealth from the colonies was vast\u2026 When\u00a0 Robert Clive, of the East India Company, acting on a charter from\u00a0 Britain, defeated the rule of Bengal,\u00a0 2750 million pounds sterling\u00a0 was sent to Britain\u2026. in the first eight years of company rule, 5.9 million pounds was extracted out of Bengal\u2026.In the 1770 famine when a third of the Bengal population died, more tax was collected than in the earlier year.”From How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development)<\/u><\/p>\n

In Sri Lanka the colonial British were ruthless. When the people rebelled in 1918, the British adopted a scorched earth policy killing all cattle, destroying paddy fields and tanks(reservoirs). They killed all males over 18. years of age.<\/p>\n

That is all in the past, a past that can never be forgotten or forgiven.<\/p>\n

In most recent times too the major powers have,\u00a0 when they decide,\u00a0 ignored democracy. Take the 2000 US Presidential Election, where the victory\u00a0 was clinched by the US Supreme Court decision to stop the counting of votes in Florida. As Alexander Cockburn said, Back in the 1980s we radicals used to write about\u00a0 \u2018demonstration elections\u2019\u00a0 conducted in countries like El Salvador at the instigation of the US management and micromanaged by the CIA…. We have just had a peaceful and non lethal version of these \u2018demonstration elections\u2019 in Florida and no calls for closure will erase that national disgrace, least of all in the minds of those\u00a0 who were denied their democratic rights.\u201d(LA Times, Dec 15, 2000)(From Garvin Karunaratne: The Administrative Bungling that hijacked the 2000 US Presidential Election(The University Press of America)<\/u><\/p>\n

This disgrace was followed by an additional disgrace in the 2004 US Presidential Election when the election was decided by faulty voting machines. It was clear that the voting machines were really doing the voting and not the people who voted. Though it was evident there was no back up documents to check. The winner was decided by the Voting Machines. My book: The Electronic Stealing of the 2004 US Presidential Election (Amazon.com) <\/u>\u00a0tells it all.<\/p>\n

The USA as well as the UK stand tainted with being the most undemocratic countries one can find when it is in their interests. Read through what the USA did when they wanted to grab the islands of the Chagossian Archipelago in the Indian Ocean to build up a naval arsenal:<\/p>\n

The Chagossian Islanders were the original inhabitants of the Chagos islands in the Indian Ocean. They\u00a0 were thrown\u00a0 out of the Chagossian Islands\u00a0 when Britain decided to have an uninhabited island to hand over to the USA\u00a0 to have a military base Britain then moved 2000 Chagossians by force from 1967 to 1973 first to Peros Banhos, a hundred miles away and later to Mauritius. By a Court Judgement, Justice Ousley of the High Court denied the right of the Islanders to return to the Chagos islands.. This was overturned by the High Court on May 11, 2006 and the islanders were authorized to return to the islands. At last it looked as if the islanders won to get beck to their homes. But the British Government\u00a0 appealed to the House of Lords against that decision and the Court of Appeal on October 22, 2008 and the Law Lords ruled that the islanders had no right to return.<\/p>\n

Let me quote the accepted British Journal, The New Statesman<\/u>:<\/p>\n

\u2026\u201dNo sooner do the Chagossian islanders achieve victory in one legal case, then the Government (of Britain) appeals and the heavy legal machinery once again clunks into gear. And this time the reason as the Foreign and Commonwealth office spokespersons are very keen to explain to anyone prepared to listen, is that there is an urgent need to defend the\u00a0 status of all British overseas territories including Bermuda, Gibraltar and Cayman Islands.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0 Court of Appeal Judgement in May this year ruled that the British Government had abused its power in evicting the Chagossians from their paradise islands.\u201d\u009d(New Statesman 20\/11\/2007)<\/u><\/p>\n

The United States of America yet rules the waves of the Indian Ocean with its base at Diego Garcia, equipped now with the 30,000 lbs bunker buster bombs loaded onto B2 bombers, while the Chagossians- 2000 of them are lingering in far off countries as refugees- now in their second generation. This is the Human Rights Record of Great Britain and while all this did happen the United Nations did not move one finger to help them. Please read the New Statesman: \u2026\u201dA resolution to the long running British injustice to the Chagos islanders could have signaled a switch in UK Foreign Policy\u2019.20\/11\/2007<\/p>\n

It would behove of our Ambassadors to speak on the democratic rights of people, after finding facts. It is on record that the USA\u00a0 spent\u00a0 $ 585 millions to subvert the voice of the people in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Sri Lanka(Statement by John Kerry in 2016:Quoted in The Island:7\/11\/18). It was to get Sri Lanka to change towards Western ideals, rather more to make our Third World countries to continue to contribute to the wealth of their countries by following the Open Liberalized Economy forced on the countries since the days of President Ronald Regan and Margarate Thathcher. Following that IMF teaching has made countries like Sri lanka that did not have a foreign debt to become debted so that they can be controlled like colonies once again- this time the conquest was not with the gun but with financial missiles. (From: How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development(Kindle)<\/u><\/p>\n

It would be good for our Ambassadors from the USA, UK, Canada, the EU and Australia to realize that by your current actions too you are subverting the democratic voice of the people.<\/p>\n

It would behove of all countries to respect the sovereignty of independent countries.<\/p>\n

Garvin Karunaratne,<\/strong><\/p>\n

PhD Michigan State University\u00a0\u00a0 10\/11\/2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

Author of:<\/p>\n

The Administrative Bungling that Hijacked the 2000 US Presidential Election,(The University Press of America)<\/u><\/p>\n

The Electronic Stealing of the 2004 US Presidential Election (Amazon.com)<\/u><\/p>\n

How the IMF Sabotaged Third World Development(Godages\/Kindle)<\/u><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne\u00a0 former G.A. Matara Instead of reflecting back on their ignominious past, the Ambassadors of the UK, the USA among others have thought it fit to at first declare that the decision of the President of Sri lanka to remove the Prime Minister and replace him with another as unconstitutional. Later once our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-garvin-karunaratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83102","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=83102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}