{"id":99513,"date":"2020-03-01T18:01:49","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T01:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=99513"},"modified":"2020-03-01T18:01:49","modified_gmt":"2020-03-02T01:01:49","slug":"michelle-bachelet-needs-a-tutor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/03\/01\/michelle-bachelet-needs-a-tutor\/","title":{"rendered":"Michelle Bachelet needs a tutor"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A year\nago, UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet made the following\nobservation in her report on Sri Lanka (tabled on March 8, 2019):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018On 29\nMay 2018, human skeletal remains were discovered at a construction site in\nMannar (Northern Province). Excavations, concluded with the support of the\nOffice on Missing Persons, revealed a mass grave from which more than 300\nskeletons were recovered. It was the second mass grave found in Mannar\nfollowing the discovery of a site in 2014. Given that other mass graves might\nbe expected to be found in the future, systematic access to grave sites by the\nOffice as an observer is crucial for it to fully discharge its mandate,\nparticularly with regard to the investigation and identification of remains.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pointing\nout that the said mass grave has been dated back to 1499-1719 CE, as per tests\ndone by Beta Analytic Institute, Florida, USA, I made the following\nobservation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Bechelet\nmay have not known (which indicates sloth) or knew very well (which indicates\nshe\u2019s toxic) when she tabled that report. Those who were ecstatic when these\ngraves were discovered and may have uttered equivalents of \u2018Pay dirt, baby!\u2019\nare playing ostrich right now.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s\nbeen no apologies or explanations. Not then, not since. Not about the mass\ngrave nor about the blatant lies and tendentious claims she dished out in her\nreport, clearly refuted by then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tilak Marapana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year\nlater, Bachelet revisits. No mention of mass graves. Instead she offers a\nwhine. Read on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\ncontributing factor to a lack of delays in implementing human rights reform\nappears to be a lack of common vision among the country\u2019s highest leadership,\ndeadlock on important issues is an addition and an avoidable problem with\ndamaging impact on victims currently from all ethnic and religious groups and\nsociety as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wordy,\nmuch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does\nshe mean by \u2018common vision\u2019? Before we answer that, there are a couple of\nthings we need to deal with. First, \u2018leadership\u2019. Contrary to her claim, there\ndoesn\u2019t seem to be disunity. The Yahapalana regime was brought with division.\nThere was a maverick Minister of Foreign Affairs (before Marapana) who was like\na law unto himself, bullishly co-sponsoring an anti-Sri Lanka resolution (30\/1)\non behalf of a Government led by two individuals in a coalition of two parties\nthat had been going hammer and tongs for more than half a century and was too\nbusy with petty political fights to figure out what he was up to. Indeed THAT\nGovernment, at THAT time, had all but lost its mandate, having been routed in\nthe local government elections a year before. In stark contrast, the current\nregime does not seem to be suffering from any vision impairment on account of\ndisunity with regard to these issues. \u2018One Voice\u2019 is what we have now. We can\ntell her something like this: There\u2019s no deadlock miss; ask the UNP\u2019s\nPresidential candidate Sajith Premadasa what his views are on Resolution 30\/1.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ndisunity we see comes from differences among different political\nparties\/coalitions. That\u2019s natural. That\u2019s why there\u2019s \u2018government\u2019 and there\u2019s\n\u2018opposition\u2019. It\u2019s about having power and wanting power. However, today, the\nmain Opposition United National Party (UNP) doesn\u2019t seem to have any issues\nwith the position that the ruling party, the SLPP (Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna)\nhas taken vis-a-vis Resolution 30\/1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when\nBachelet talks of \u2018common vision\u2019 we need to unpack \u2018vision\u2019. Whose vision? Is\nshe dismayed because a nation appears to be unwilling to inhabit her version of\nits reality? Probably. But what\u2019s her vision and what is it based on?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her\nelaboration on Sri Lanka, Bachelet says, \u2018the recent appointment to a senior\nposition in the SL army of Major General Shavindra Silva implicated in alleged\nserious violations of national humanitarian rights law is a worrying\ndevelopment.\u2019 Key word: \u2018alleged\u2019. Then she laments \u2018lack of progress\u2019 in\n\u2018setting up special judicial mechanism to deal with the worst crimes committed\nin the 2009 conflict.\u2019 That\u2019s not allegation, it\u2019s conclusion and condemnation.\nA quick shift, that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s\nalso mentioned \u2018an important next step\u2019: \u2018legislation and the establishment of\nan independent truth and reconciliation commission.\u2019 Aha! So we need to\nlegislate. This seems to be an acknowledgment of the frivolous and pernicious\nnature of Resolution 30\/1 where Sri Lanka (well, Mangala Samaraweera, actually)\npledges to violate her own Constitution! Naturally, new laws would have to be\nmade. Now that promise was made without any mandate for constitution-violation.\nToday, Bachelet says \u2018legislate!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has\nbeen minimal progress on accountability, she says. True. Of the UNHRC, sections\nof the UNP, the Tamil National Alliance and various I\/NGOs with absolutely no\nstanding in civil society but whose word has been taken as biblical truth by UN\nagencies, the USA and the UK. They lied. The lies were picked up and agreed\nupon by the charlatans commissioned by former UN Secretary General, Ban-ki Moon\nto advise him on Sri Lanka. Lies were agreed upon. Based on these very same\nlines, \u2018vision\u2019 was produced. Now that the whole edifice is askew on account of\na weak foundation, people like Bachelet wail, \u2018there\u2019s no unity among leaders\nin Sri Lanka!\u2019 They use \u2018allegation\u2019 and treat it as \u2018guilt\u2019. They talk of\n\u2018damaging impact on victims,\u2019 interestingly \u2018from ALL ethnic and religious\ngroups and society as a whole.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wow!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Has\nBachelet done a survey of some sort? And who are these \u2018victims\u2019? Yes, all\nethnic and religious groups suffered. \u2018Society as a whole\u2019 suffered too.\nHappens when a rabid terrorist outfit holds country and community hostage for\ndecades. The victims are those who suffered have been all but discounted by the\nUNHRC and people like Bachelet. Resolution 30\/1 kicks them in the teeth, so to\nspeak simply because it infringes upon their sovereignty, makes light of their\nsuffering and attempts to force them to submit to someone else\u2019s version of\nwhat they\u2019ve suffered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when\nBachelet talks of \u2018deadlock,\u2019 it is essentially disagreement between the people\nof Sri Lanka and the UNHRC\u2019s (or should I say \u2018Uncle Sam\u2019s\u2019) notions of Sri\nLanka\u2019s past, present and future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since she\ntalks of \u2018all ethnic and religious groups and society as a whole,\u2019 she needs to\nunderstand that Resolution 30\/1 panders to the pernicious designs of a small minority\nof a single ethnic group that has been whipping communalism for decades. That\u2019s\nwhat legislation a la Bachelet would do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I\nsaid Michelle Bachelet needs a tutor it was tongue-in-cheek. She knows stuff.\nShe knows stuff and knows her job. Upholding human rights is her official job,\nbut the United Nations being a creature of North America and Europe, that job\nis framed, more or less, by the interests of the relevant nations. Sure, the\nUSA has called it a \u2018cess pool of bias\u2019. That\u2019s correct. Bias in favour of the\nglobal political formations mentioned above. Sure, the USA quit the UNHRC, but\nno one\u2019s fooling anyone. The US can operate (read, \u2018arm-twist\u2019) directly or\nthrough proxies. And Bachelet seems to be playing her part in that game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This must\nend. Soon. Sri Lanka has been hauled over the coals by countries that have the\nworst human rights records and their apologists. Sri Lanka should not be held\nto ransom on account of the stupidity of an inept government utterly servile to\nthe designs of the USA. Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans should not be held to ransom\njust because a maverick Minister suffers from a postcolonial condition that\nmakes victim hate him\/herself and believes fervently in the \u2018curative power\u2019 of\nvilifying and destroying his\/her community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enough.\nWe need closure on this. Bachelet, we must not forget, is someone who refused\nan audience to the victims of the US-sponsored coup that ousted the\ndemocratically elected government of Salvadore Allende during two separate\nterms as President of Chile. She can\u2019t pretend to shed victim-tears for tears\nshe did not have to shed for victims in her own country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need\nclosure on spin. No tutors required for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

malindasenevi@gmail.com<\/a>. www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE A year ago, UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet made the following observation in her report on Sri Lanka (tabled on March 8, 2019): \u2018On 29 May 2018, human skeletal remains were discovered at a construction site in Mannar (Northern Province). Excavations, concluded with the support of the Office on Missing Persons, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99513","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\/99513","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=99513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}