{"id":87041,"date":"2019-04-07T22:45:14","date_gmt":"2019-04-08T04:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=87041"},"modified":"2019-04-07T15:27:45","modified_gmt":"2019-04-07T22:27:45","slug":"mangala-samaraweera-gets-nothing-out-of-licking-bachelets-boots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/04\/07\/mangala-samaraweera-gets-nothing-out-of-licking-bachelets-boots\/","title":{"rendered":"Mangala Samaraweera gets nothing out of licking Bachelet\u2019s boots."},"content":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Mangala Samaraweera\u2019s speech apologising to UNHRC High\nCommissioner, Michelle Bachelet was rather difficult to read on my PC because\nmy screen was blurred with his crocodile tears shed for human rights.\nSimultaneously, his tears were interspersed with scorn and anger against the\nSri Lankan delegates who dared to challenge the questionable and unworkable\nfoundations of his Resolution 30\/1. He had also pitched his speech at a high\nspiritual and moral level to make it sound as if he was the New Messiah standing\non Mt. Sinai, announcing the New Commandments, in addition to the existing Ten\nCommandments, for universal human conduct. But beneath the pretentious piety\nwas his humiliating and unwarranted political objective: to prostrate before\nBachelet and let her know that he has not abandoned (1) her, (2) Samantha\nPower, his patron saint in US, and (3) his Resolution 30\/1 selling the nation\ndown the river. It is apparent that the speech was written more to appease his\nmasters\/mistresses abroad than to find solutions for the victims referred to in\nResolution 30\/1 at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking up cudgels on behalf of those in the UNHRC\ncesspool\u201d, already abandoned with utter contempt by Samantha Power, he says:\nAs the person who held the portfolio of Foreign Affairs when resolution 30\/1\nof 01 October 2015 was adopted, I feel that it is my duty to respond to some of\nthe malicious arguments being made and misrepresentation of facts.\u201d Here the\nknight in shining armour from Matara was announcing his battle cry in defence\nof the damsel in distress at the UNHRC. With that pronouncement he engages in a\nlengthy exercise to paint himself as an obedient abith-thaya, bending in two,\nto please Ms. Bachelet. He says:\u201d I offer an apology to High Commissioner\nMichelle Bachelet, a true friend of Sri Lanka\u2019s people, a champion of the\nGlobal South, and herself a survivor of the horrors of torture. (\u201d Really! A\ntrue friend of Sri Lanka?). Why should we apologise to Bachelet for exercising\nthe right to challenge the myths, inaccuracies and fictitious numbers which she\nis touting to push her anti-Sri Lankan offensive? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then \u2013 hold your breath! — he adds: High\nCommissioner Bachelet, you did not deserve the misrepresentation of your\nstatements.\u201d  OMG! This friend of Sri\nLanka\u201d accuses and indicts the Sri Lankan forces as murderers of 40,000 Tamils\n\u2013 a fabricated figure challenged and disproved by Lord Naseby who has\nestablished on British documentary evidence that those killed in the last\nstages of the war were around 5,000 \u2013 7,000. So who is misrepresenting\u201d the\nfacts and figures? Since Ms.Bachelet refuses to accept the most reliable\nfigures documented in the unimpeachable British secret files I personally would\nlike to tell her: High Commissioner Bachelet, like everyone else, you deserve\nevery bit of the consequences of your refusal to accept the facts \/ truth\nstaring in your face!.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the consequences of her intransigent refusal to\naccept the verifiable facts and figures is to place the future of UNHRC in\njeopardy. Already America, one of the sponsors of the Resolution 30\/1 has left\nUNHRC condemning it as a cesspool\u201d. Ms. Bachelet is facing an uphill task in\nrestoring the UNHRC as a moral agency capable of living up to the expected  standards of decency and morality  \u2013 i.e., defend and protect human rights with\nfacts and truth. She cannot win the confidence of the international community\nwith lies. The first step she should take to maintain the dignity, integrity\nand the credibility of her office is to get her facts and figures right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By now she should have enough incontrovertible evidence\non her table to know that she cannot defend, promote or protect human rights in\nSri Lanka on unchecked figures packaged by Darusman whose sources have not been\nmade transparent for the accused parties to check and accept his secret\ndocuments as the legal basis to pursue a case against Sri Lanka. That medieval\nsystem of accusing and punishing the accused on anonymous and secret sources\nwent out with the Star Chamber and the Inquisition. That pernicious and unfair\npractice of convicting accused people violates all basic principles of human\nrights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides, the fact that the figure of 40,000 mentioned in\na UN report doesn\u2019t make it true or reliable. UN reports, particularly those\nthat are secret, are not the final repositories of the truth \/ facts necessary\nto formulate constructive policies, or to initiate legal action for violating\nhuman rights. She must be aware that the biggest crime against humanity\ncommitted by the UN was when it accepted the lies of Colin Powell accusing Iraq\nof being in possession of WMDs. It was also on a UN-sponsored resolution that a\nnaval cordon was thrown round Iraq to block the supply of medical and other\nessentials \u2013 a criminal act that killed 600,000 children of that ill-fated\nnation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lies are vital for Big Powers and institutions like UNHRC\nmanipulated by Big Powers, to bully small nations. For instance,  Ms. Bachelet who is so worked up about Sri\nLanka is not likely to work with the same urgency and perseverance  to take action Israel\u2019s war crimes in\nPalestine or India\u2019s violations of human right in oppressing the people of\nKashmir. Nor will she open up a file to investigate the brutal massacre of\nunarmed doctors, nurses, and helpless patients in the Jaffna hospital by the\nIndian army \u2013 an incident well documented. Her bravado will be directed only at\na small like Sri Lanka. Besides, Ms. Bachelet, who has brilliant academic\nrecord, should know by now that she could never leave behind a legacy of being\na defender of human right if she pursues a partisan agenda that ignore the\nfacts and truths. She should know that the UN charter was set up to achieve its\nnoble objective only through scientific and verifiable truths and not on voodoo\nlies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 In fairness to her\nit must be mentioned that she has been a progressive leader of Chile. She was a\npopular leader who was elected twice as President by the Chileans. There was,\nof course, the case of her romantic relationship with Alex Vijokovic Trier of\nManuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front, an armed group which was engaged in violence\nagainst the military dictator, Gen.Pinochet. When she was accused of being an\nactivist in this Front she denied engaging in violence. And when she was\nPresident her son was accused of getting a bank loan of $10 million dollars to\nfinance a land investment of his wife. Once again she denied knowing anything\nabout it. But her popularity plummeted to a new low. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was also at the receiving end of Gen. Pinochet\u2019s\nbrutal violence. So she should be equipped with ample knowledge not only to\nreceive violence but also to give it back. She also knows how to dispense\npoliticised justice like the way she goes after the Sri Lankan soldiers on fake\nfigures. But all this is acceptable to Samaraweera. because he thinks she is a\nfriend of Sri Lanka\u201d. Backing her, he says, quite blithely:: The Human Rights\nCouncil is not a court of law. That is not the place to argue and debate over\nthe number of dead or missing. All these including the information obtained by\nLord Naseby are matters for Sri Lankan processes including the Sri Lankan\njustice system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two arguments here: 1. UNHRC is not the place\nto argue and debate the numbers dead or missing (Where in the UNHRC is this\nwritten?) and  2.Lord Naseby\u2019s figures\nare matters for Sri Lankan processes and not for discussion in international\nfora. . (Really!) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Re.1: He is\ncraftily attempting to remove, or downplay the impact of numbers from the\ninternational debate now that  Lord\nNaseby had exposed the fact that the Sri Lankan forces had not killed 40,000\nTamils in the last days of the longest running war in Asia. Resolution 30\/1,\nwhich he co-sponsored, would gain credibility only if the figures are inflated\nto prove that the Sri Lanka forces have been brutal killers of Tamils on a mass\nscale \u2013 somewhere in the region of tens of thousands. Anything less than ten\nthousand doesn\u2019t carry weight to convince the public that there has been a\ngenocidal massacre\u201d \u2013 the line plugged by the Tamil lobby to gain political\nmileage. In fact, Resolution 30\/1 gained international attention on the\nfictitious figure of 40,000.Even the international community will sit up and\ntake notice only if the dead are in the region of tens of thousands and not\nbelow 10,000. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The INGOs ignored the thousands killed throughout the\n34-year-old war and focused only on the last three months because the Tamil\nlobby and their allied NGOs, who attempted to save Prabhakaran from humiliating\ndefeat, raised the bogus cry of a mass massacre in the final assault. And when\nthe end came the NGOs had nothing to fall on except to run berserk with their\nown cooked up figure of 40,000 dead. A typical example is the UN Representative\nin Colombo, Gordon Weiss, who estimated the dead to be 7,000 when he was in\nColombo and jacked it up to 40,000 when he returned to his home in Australia to\nmarket his book, The Cage. Later, when questioned, he reduced the figure to\n10,000. I e-mailed him and requested an interview. He agreed at first and then\nbacked out like all pro-Tamil propagandists. Even M. Sumanthiram and C. V.\nWigneswaran who distort history, politics, and facts and figures backed off\nwhen they were pressed for a debate or an interview. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is Lord Naseby\u2019s figures dug out from the British\nsecret files that nailed the Tamil propagandist and Resolution 30\/1. His\nfigures punctured the hot air balloon floated by the Tamil propagandists. His\nfigures do not fit into their fiction of a genocidal war\u201d, or anti-Sri Lankan\nresolution at the UNHRC.  The political\nagenda of Samaraweera too demands a figure of 40,000 or more. Now that he does\nnot have the figures to prove the Tamil claim of a genocidal massacre\u201d he says\nfigures are not valid for debates at the UNHRC. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the UNHRC is not the place to debate the numbers dead\nor missing in the armed conflict in Sri Lanka then why did Samaraweera go all\nout to sponsor the UNHRC Resolution 30\/1 which, among other things, is aimed at\nsetting up judicial mechanism with foreign judges to take punitive action\nagainst Sri Lankan soldiers accused by him, his friend\u201d Bachelet, and also his\nfriends in the Tamil Diaspora, of violating human rights? He didn\u2019t agree to\nhybrid courts to judge a cricket match between the warring parties, did he? His\nResolution refers to investigation of serious crimes involving human rights\nviolations, or violations of international humanitarian laws\u201d?  These charges cannot be prosecuted or tried\nwithout counting the dead and the missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is also the central issue in the Resolution raised\nand pushed hard by the anti-Sri Lankan Tamil and Western lobbies. Samaraweera\ntoo was quick to pick the fictitious figures of the dead and missing to justify\nthe sponsoring of his Resolution. Embarrassed by Lord Naseby\u2019s revelations he\nis now on his back foot struggling to save his face. He is now singing a\ndifferent tune. He is saying UNHRC is not the place to argue and debate the\nnumbers dead or missing. Ha! Ha!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the fictitious figure of 40,000 cooked up by\nDarusman, a man with a grouse against Sri Lanka, that clinched the argument for\nthe anti-Sri Lankan lobby to vote against us. The case against Sri Lanka would\nnot have got off the ground if the figures of Lord Naseby figures were\navailable in 2015 when Resolution 30 \/1 was passed by UNHRC. Lord Naseby\u2019s\nfigures have been an embarrassment to Ranil-Mangala move to tie the hands of\nSri Lanka and parade the nation as genocidal killers who must tried in hybrid\ncourts. In fact, the Ranil-Samaraweera government refused to revise or, reject\nResolution 30\/1 based on the hard evidence of \nLord Naseby\u2019s figures invalidating the rationale on which they\nco-sponsored the Resolution in 2015. Besides, it is the fake numbers accepted\nby Samaraweera which makes him and his Resolution 30\/1 a total betrayal of Sri\nLanka\u2019s national interests. If he thinks he can build peace, reconciliation and\nstability on fake figures then he got another think coming!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Re.2: In the same breath, he says that figures are\nmatters for Sri Lankan processes and not the UNHRC. According to him the local\nTruth Commission is going to be a Sri Lankan made instrument for Sri Lankans to\nconfess their crimes.  If and when it\nbegins it is likely to question him on the various causes and events  the war, including the last stages which has\nbecome the critical focus of human rights activists. Will not the dead and the\nmissing feature prominently in that process? And when that issues is raised\nwhose figure will he present? Darunu-man\u2019s or Lord Knows-be\u2019s? The Tamil lobby\nis having a field day, nationally and internationally, gaining maximum\npolitical mileage by vilifying and denigrating the nation with the fictitious\nfigure of 40,000. And what does he do? Sweet llaregub!. (This neologism was\ncreated by one of my favourite poet\u2019s, Dylan Thomas, to be read backwards). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One has to go way back in time to Don Juan Dharmapala, to\nfind stooges of the West like the Ranil-Mangala combo. They are two masochistic\nmaniacs who are prostrating at the feet of the Western masters and mistresses\npleading with them to whip them more and more. Their appetite to receive\nhumiliating whippings from the West is insatiable. The history of\npost-Independent foreign policy, however, runs contrary to the cringing roles\nof this duo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s begin with the role of Sir. John Kotelawela at the\nfamous Bandung  Non-aligned meeting. When\nPandit Nehru asked Sir. John Kotelawela why he didn\u2019t show his pro-American\nspeech before it was delivered he retorted: You didn\u2019t show me yours. Why\nshould I show you mine if you didn\u2019t show me yours!\u201d (This is only a\nparaphrasing!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that\u2019s how he asserted his status as the leader of a\nproud nation, though small. Tarzie Vittachi, who was my first editor in The\nObserver, won the plaudits of even the Marxist Left when he threw out the\nAmerican embassy press attach\u00e9 from his office when the Yankee walked into to\ndictate the editorial policy. President Ranasinghe Premadasa taught India a\nlesson in foreign policy when it decided to boycott the SAARC meeting hosted by\nhim because the Indians were plotting for a regime change. Instead of going\nbegging to India he got on the phone and persuaded all other regional nations\nto attend. When they agreed to follow President Premadasa\u2019s lead India had no\noption but to join, though humiliated by his courageous counter-move. He is\nalso the first leader of the nation who dared to kick Britain in the butt by\ndeclaring David Gladstone, the British High Commissioner who was a descendant\nof the famous British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, persona non grata, for\nattempting to interfere in the domestic elections. Lakshman Kadirgamar also\nthrew out two diplomats for overstepping their mark. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Ranil-Mangala duo are behaving like two political\nponies who take great delight in giving their backs for the West to ride on.\nWhat is worse, they seem to enjoy every minute of giving the White men a free\nride on their backs!. The people are entitled to ask one straightforward\nquestion: Are they political leaders, or are they political poltroons ever\nwilling to sell the country to foreigners? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his speech Samaraweera makes a farcical attempt to\nimpress that he is a man of high moral values with a scholarly background.\nThough his speech is sprinkled with reference to Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed and\nMani, the founder of Manichean doctrine, there is a touch of starchy\nartificiality in the laboured attempts to impress his greatness and nobility.\nHe fails because the facts facing him debunk his own fictions. One can see\nthrough the pompous attempts of Samaraweera to pose as an intellectual when he\nquotes Mani, the founder of Manichean doctrine. But those who know Samaraweera\nwill agree that no light has come out of the black hole in his head. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though in his speech he invokes the values of the highest\nmoral and spiritual authorities it can never erase the hypocrisy of a man who\nstood on the floor of the House and abused Sri Lanka\u2019s first female Olympian in\nhumiliating filth. Sprinter Susanthika Jayasinghe, the Olympian bronze\nmedallist, was ridiculed in abusive language for not yielding to one of his\nCabinet colleagues\u2019 sexual appetites. He treats a Sri Lankan heroine with utter\ncontempt, but he crawls on his fours to lick the boots of anti-Sri Lankan\napparatchik at UNHRC who has no compunction in whipping Sri Lankans<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He piously preaches human rights to create feel good\nsounds in the ears of Samantha Power and Bachelet. In the same breath he has no\nreservations about condemning his mate Mahinda Rajapakse, accusing him of\noperating a white van culture\u201d. However, he slyly omits the role played by\nSudath Chandrasekera, who described himself as Ranil\u2019s rathu thol pook kolla\n (red-lipped ass boy). Chandrasekera has confessed in his letter of\nresignation how he thrashed with kurundu polu\u201d (cinnamon poles) the opposition\nactivists marching through Samaraweera\u2019s electorate in Matara. Did Samaraweera\nutter one word in sympathy with the victims of his leader\u2019s thugs going on the\nrampage, attacking political activists protesting against his leader and his\ncorrupt government? He allows his leader\u2019s thugs to beat the day lights out of\ntheir political opponents in his own backyard and expects us to believe that he\nis a compassionate disciple of Lord Buddha. Does he expect us to believe his  hypocrisy as one of the four noble truths? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With all this boru-shoke\u201d doesn\u2019t Samaraweera\u2019s ali-keli\nfit neatly into the old Sinhala adage: Lo-keta pera-kashay; gedetta\nmara-gar-thay\u201d?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala Mangala Samaraweera\u2019s speech apologising to UNHRC High Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet was rather difficult to read on my PC because my screen was blurred with his crocodile tears shed for human rights. Simultaneously, his tears were interspersed with scorn and anger against the Sri Lankan delegates who dared to challenge the questionable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-h-l-d-mahindapala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87041","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=87041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87041\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}