Ambassador of India responds to Ms Navi Pillay’s remarks on Sri Lanka at the UN in Geneva

Courtesy : www.Lankamission.org

5-June 2009
Ambassador Gopinathan Achamkulangare of India, responding yesterday (4.6.2009) to the remarks on Sri Lanka included in the statement of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms. Navi Pillay said, “…it will be prudent to adhere to the outcome of the special session and be sensitive to the concerns expressed already, rather than take a position on contested proposals or controversial issues and ideas, which did not find eventual acceptance in the outcome of the special session.”

Full transcript of the Ambassador’s statement:

Thank you, Mr. President,

Mr. President, we thank the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms Navanethan Pillay for her statement this afternoon that provides useful updates on human rights themes and on situations of particular concern.

We wish to raise a matter of some concern to our delegation with regard to the remarks made by the High Commissioner on Sri Lanka and the recently concluded special session in her statement.

The High Commissioner has welcomed the special session and consequently, we consider it safe to assume that she also accepts its concomitant outcome. The High Commissioner and her office would be fully aware of the discussions and negotiations on the different elements of the outcome, and on the positions adopted by different member states and groupings on these elements.

It is important to recall and reaffirm that the outcome of the special session reflects an inter-governmental decision, adopted according to the rules of procedure of the council. What is more, it endorses the joint communiqu‚ issued at the end of the recent visit to Sri Lanka by the UN secretary General, which among other things, reaffirms the willingness of the government of Sri Lanka to address the issue of accountability in response to the concerns expressed by the UN Secretary General in this regard.

We feel that in these circumstances, it will be prudent to adhere to the outcome of the special session and be sensitive to the concerns expressed already, rather than take a position on contested proposals or controversial issues and ideas, which did not find eventual acceptance in the outcome of the special session.

It would be extremely unfortunate, if the inter-governmental decisions adopted by the human rights council, were to be ignored or set aside, and the High Commissioner and/or her office were to misinterpret them or willfully neglect them, or supersede them according to their convenience or in accordance with the agenda of some states, or unrepresentative or unaccountable organizations, or to pursue their own agenda.

In this regard, we would like to remind all concerned, that the independence of the High Commissioner cannot be presumed to exceed that of the UN Secretary General.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Double standards of the West

By: Nitin Gokhale – New Delhi, India The author, NDTV’s Defence Editor, reported the war in Sri Lanka from the conflict zone for the past six months

6 June 2009
If ever there was a proof needed about the double standards applied by the Western nations in dealing with Asia and Africa, there is no better example than their reaction to the developments in Sri Lanka over the last fortnight.

Here’s a nation that secured a hard-earned military victory over what was unarguably the world’s most dreaded and ruthless terrorist group–the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE. Banned in 26 countries across the globe, the Tamil Tigers, as the LTTE was also known, had a powerful naval arm, a rudimentary air wing and at least 25,000 infantry fighters backed like a conventional army with 155 mm artillery guns, multi-barrel rocket launchers, Universal machine guns and claymore mines among other small arms.

This was the outfit that gave the world the suicide vest and suicide belt that were responsible for the assassination of at least one President and a former Prime Minister across two nations, this was the group that killed and wounded at least 70,000 people over a quarter century; here was a group who’s writ ran large over one-third of a sovereign nation.

And to top it all, the LTTE had kept over 250,000 innocent, hapless Tamil civilians–women, children, the young and the old–hostage for over two years and mercilessly used them as an insurance against the advancing Sri Lankan army.

If ever there was a ripe case for a well-planned and executed military operation, here it was in Sri Lanka. President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his team went about prosecuting what, by all accounts, was a legitimate war. But the world, the Western world went into an overdrive to stop Colombo. Norway, Sweden, UK and to a lesser extent the United States put pressure on Sri Lanka by various means. Some threatened to move a resolution in the UN, others lobbied to prevent a bailout package mooted by the International Monetary Fund for the war-ravaged country. Now, many have called for war crime investigations into the conduct of the Sri Lankan military.

Had it not been for countries like Russia, China and to an extent India, Sri Lanka would have suffered grievously at the hands of the so-called liberal lobby, ably aided and abetted by the ‘bleeding-heart’ liberals among the western media who think they are the judge, jury and executors when it comes to dealing with Asian and African nations. All of them had tried to stop the war in Sri Lanka, ostensibly to safeguard the civilians but in reality the efforts were directed at rescuing LTTE chief Vellupillai Prabhakaran and his top associates.

The simple and bitter truth is: the Western world has not been able to digest the fact that a small, underdeveloped nation like Sri Lanka has managed to defeat a terrorist group, a feat that they have not managed despite deploying huge resources and manpower across the globe.

For years, the US and the NATO countries have been trying to vanquish the Al Qaeda and the Taliban, without much success. In the past decade, the US and other western militaries, operating in Iraq and Afghanistan to take just two recent examples, have killed and maimed scores of civilians. But except for cursory apologies, none of these nations or the defenders of human rights operating from the safe havens of western capitals have bothered to even acknowledge their gross mistakes.

So why is it that a small nation’s victory over terrorism “fit to be tried for war crimes,” but a big bully’s (like the US) blatant violation of human rights is part of a “necessary war on terrorism?” Why didn’t any one of these defenders of human rights put pressure on the LTTE when it was taking hundreds of thousands of civilians along with it as it retreated during the war?

If ever there is a clear case of the western nations’ hypocrisy, it is demonstrable here in India’s backyard, in Sri Lanka. Let Washington and London and Bonn and Ottawa first look at their own conduct before trying to prosecute a small country for doing what any sovereign nation has a right to do.

The SuperPower Bullies

By: Garvin Karunaratne, Ph.d. – Michigan State University

These are crucial days for Sri Lanka. Terrorism has been totally defeated on the battle field in Sri Lanka but the scene of action has been taken to an international arena where the famous International Superpowers who overtly state their cause against terrorism are covertly aiding and abetting the continuance of terrorism. It is sad that they are trying their level best to castigate and punish Sri Lanka for having annihilated terrorism.

Few can speak out more than me for the land in Sri Lanka. As a student of archaeology and history I have in the Fifties been to many jungle areas in the North and the East and have read for myself the inscriptions carved on rock in Sinhala Brahmi script dating back to the Third Century B.C. Again as an administrator I have worked in most districts and have travelled widely in the wilds of the Wanni, moving with farmers and fishermen from fisheries hamlets that were interspersed all over the coast in the East and the North. Anuradhapura was my pet district where I worked twice and when President Rajapaksa took office there was a twenty mile strip of the Anuradhapura District including Horowpotana under the terrorist’s clutches. Many do not know this fact. Three years ago I knew that the Government held only the town of Trincomalee in that District and I was sad to see the splitting up of my Motherland. But now all that is history. We have seen our Diyasena Kumaraya in action. In March I heard that there were people in Sri Lanka who lit lamps daily for our President. What he has achieved merits that.

But all is not well. We have to listen to the International Community of Superpowers and we have just been victorious at the Human Rights Council where the Third World waged a battle to support a country that tried to establish its authority on its own land.

I have been more a student of history and can stand up in place of our Professors of history who are resigned to silence perhaps due to dubious reasons. It is time that they tell us what history tells us.

History tells us in no uncertain terms of the work of the Bullies. Sri Lanka as the Sinhale is called today, we have had a history dating back to two thousand five hundred years. During those years we never invaded other countries. A few of our kings like Nissanka Malla and Gajaba raided South India but that was to teach invading armies a lesson. We were never a belligerent nation trying to embark on seas and fight an enemy five thousand miles away- like what the USA has embarked on today. It is alright and legitimate for the USA to invade Afghanistan eight thousand miles away from its shores, in search of a terrorist- Bin Laden, but it is not correct for Sri Lanka to wipe out terrorism within our own land!

Rohith was a doctoral student with me at Michigan State University. When we parted in 1979, he gave me an undertaking that if I were to step into Afghanistan he would take me everywhere on his circuits as he was a Director of Adult Education. Alas today that country thanks to International Bullies is in rubble and Rohith is lost. Few realize that the foray of the USA to Afghanistan is today totally destablising Pakistan. President Musharaff in his last days made a frank admission why he had to allow the USA to use his air space- he said that he was told firmly that Pakistan would be reduced to rubble if he disagreed. He had to save Pakistan!. Third World leaders should remember this bullying.

Now Pakistan is in disarray. The presence of US forces and the use of Pakistan land is having a backlash from Pakistani militants. As far as I know two large consignments of army supplies have been blown up. Now almost half of Pakistan is in sheer turmoil, with attacks everyday and it is reported that as much as 2.5 million are displaced- living under tents. A good20question is as to why the United Nations Human Rights monitors-including Navi Pillai who were crying about 250,000 being displaced in Sri Lanka is not concerned with as much as 2.5 million people being displaced, living under tents in Pakistan. No one including the UN or Aid Agencies are clamouring to have access.! The Aid Agencies are not agitating to send supplies to this 2.5 million people! They know what happened to Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street Journal. This shows that the International Community as well as their Aid Agencies are really up to mischief. In the case of Sri Lanka, they really want to allow the terrorists to resurrect. Pakistan is not in their globe!

The International Superpowers do what they like. They do not care even about their own top officials. The USA and the UK, when they wanted to attack Iraq made a case that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction. David Kelley was an expert in biological warfare and a United Nations’ weapons inspector. Kelley was of the opinion that Iraq did not have Weapons of Mass Destruction but was reported otherwise. Kelley disputed the report. Strangely Kelley went on an evening walk and never returned home- he was found dead. Many strange things happened-. The facts are:

An inquest should have been held into his death, but the case was taken away from the coroner

The Hutton Inquiry ruled that Kelley had committed suicide. Medical experts have contested the suicide theory Norman Baker, a Liberal democrat Member of Parliament who held a private inquiry hinted at a cover up involving Thames Valley police who carried out the investigation.

The Memorium on Dr David Kelley, April 6, 2009 states:

The biggest load of whitewash for Government disgrace in a generation. It was a massive cover up from start to finish.

Rowena Thursby in Dark Actors at the Scene of David Kelley’s Death mentions a riverboat coming on the scene and a helicopter on the night Kelley died: She states: possibly an SAS style assassination or clean up team. The riverboat itself was the designated hideout- the get away method for an assassination team.

Michael Shrimpton, a UK national security lawyer explodes the myth that Kelley had taken his own life. Shrimpton even gave evidence to the confidential briefing of the US Senate Intelligence Committee.

Kelley’s death is a shame on the UK, but Human Rights authorities were silent.

It is also important to note that David Kelley had contacts with one Mata Hari-( the cover up name ) , a US Army Intelligence Officer who was working under disguise as a translator in Iraq.

The International Superpowers are not the humanitarian people they pose to be. In the Lancaster House Agreement of 1979, Britain the country that had ruled Rhodesia from 1890 to 1965 agreed to pay compensation to white farmers who will be dispossessed of their land when the land will be taken over. This was actually land taken over by force- the land was sold to the whites including entire villages. In 1981, Britain pledged to pay œ 630 million as compensation, but when Mugabe decided to take over the farms to settle the people the Government of Tony Blair reneged on the commitment and paid only œ 44 million. Thus the real culprit for not paying compensation to the white farmers was the British Government of Tony Blair.

However Tony Blair or the British Government was not castigated. . Instead the entire International Community of Superpowers imposed the sanction of not giving Aid to Zimbabwe.

Mugabe became a follower of the IMF and the IMF imposed its Structural Adsjustment Programme on Zimbabwe which led to Zimbabwe becoming an indebted country. It is important to note that every country that implemented the Structural Ad justment Programme and this includes Sri Lanka has ended with high inflation and severe foreign debt. My book: How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka & Programmes of Success details how Sri Lanka was made indebted.

Faced with the sanction of no Aid and No Loans, Mugabe could survive only for a limited number of years with loans from friendly countries. In the meantime the International Superpowers had their say through human rights organizations and the opposition in the country. The Aid Agencies had a field day sowing seeds of discord. Production fell because the Government did not take full control and allowed foreign investors and Aid Agencies to play their dubious part.

Today Zimbabwe is in sheer trouble with an inflation rate of 100,000% in 2008, a totally failed production, starvation and severe poverty. Mugabe is held responsible for all this. But the real culprit is Britain who reneged on paying the compensation that was promised. The only action taken by Mugabe was to take over the lands occupied by the white farmers and he was entitled to do it because the local people had no land and were unemployed..(For full details on Zimbabwe, please see my article Mugabe’s Zimbabwe Today:The Stranglehold of the Superpowers and the IMF in Action: Lessons for Sri Lanka in Asian Tribune, 2008-07-21

Beware Sri Lanka! The International Community of Superpowers is yet gunning at you. The history of the past five centuries tells us that the Superpowers cannot be trusted. I can go on for ever writing details. It will be wise to look out for any ‘Mata Hari’ type of intelligence operatives among the staff of Aid Agencies.

It has to be a situation of total vigilance to survive. The International Community works through their own mechanisms- the IMF and the WTO and the United Nation’s institutions. Beware!

Physician heal thyself, hand over that nurse!- Island Editorial

Island Editorial -Courtesy: The Island

5-June 2009
Will a person with a skin disease ever want to consult, let alone follow the advice of, a dermatologist with a massive rash, scratching himself like mad? We don’t think so. (We hope good skin specialists won’t take umbrage; we are only trying to drive a point home.) Likewise, champions of global democracy with a deplorable human rights record cannot expect others to take them seriously.

Sri Lanka is being hauled over the coals–nay, an attempt is being made to barbecue it at the UN–for what the western bullies call ‘war crimes’. Some of the knights in shining armour joined forces in Geneva the other day to burn Sri Lanka at the human rights stake, albeit in vain. They pretended that they had been shocked by what happened in the run up to the final battle in Mullaittivu. Even thought a group of countries comprising over four billion people torpedoed a move to pillory and harass Sri Lanka in the name of human rights, some countries and UN bigwigs with Tiger links have not yet given up their vilification campaign.

‘War crime’ charges that the UK, the US and other international bullies were trying to press against the Sri Lankan government were speculative in nature. They were based on hearsay and some cock-and-bull photographs of the site of the final battle. But, the LTTE’s war crimes were proved beyond doubt such as child recruitment (for which the UN placed the outfit on the List of Shame), massacres, political assassinations and bombing civilian targets. For bombing the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, the LTTE leader Prabhakaran was sentenced to 200 years RI in Colombo. Therefore, before trying to haul up Sri Lankan leaders before international tribunals over ‘war crimes’, human rights champions must take action against the remaining LTTE leaders on their soil.

It is reported that Sri Lanka has asked Britain for prominent LTTE leader Adele Balasingham’s extradition. She has owned up to her involvement in the LTTE, which is banned in the UK and there is no reason why the British government should not hand her over to Sri Lanka. Adele, a nurse by profession, is believed to have helped the LTTE with producing human bombs and training LTTE killers. The British government stooped to the level of pandering to the whims and fancies of LTTE activists and rushing its foreign secretary here in a bid to save the trapped LTTE leaders. Now that a legitimate state — a Commonwealth member for that matter– wants the deportation of a key terrorist, the Brown government has to comply, if his government’s human rights concerns are genuine.

Sri Lanka must make similar requests from all other countries where LTTE terrorists have found refuge such as Canada, France, Switzerland, Norway and other EU countries. In the US, too, the LTTE is active and some American citizens are openly supporting its terrorist cause. Former Attorney General Bruce Fein has become the LTTE’s mouthpiece, though it is banned in the US as a foreign terrorist organisation. Would either the UK or the US have allowed any other country to protect Al Qaeda terrorists in that manner?

The US and the UK ably assisted by other western powers are unleashing hell on Afghanistan because Taliban are protecting Al Qaeda killers. Their ruthless military campaign is churning out death and devastation in that country. The reason they gave for bombing Iraq into the Stone Age and killing hundreds of thousands of people including children there was the threat of WMDs as well as the suppression of human rights. Ironically, while destroying other countries in search of their terrorists and in the name of human rights, the US and the UK themselves are harbouring terrorists responsible for far more heinous crimes! They are lucky that the countries looking for the terrorists they are shielding are not powerful enough to take them on militarily. Else, they would have suffered the same fate as Iraq and Afghanistan. However, they have invited nemesis in the form of terrorism which they are struggling to defeat!

Sri Lanka has a comprehensive list of LTTE killers operating in various parts of the world and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, who made a tremendous contribution to fuelling speculation that the Sri Lankan army had committed ‘war crimes’, is duty bound to help Sri Lanka have the LTTE leaders in the UN members states deported. Sri Lanka has officially requested Malaysia to extradite KP, the LTTE arms smuggler and fraudster, and Ban ought to intervene to secure his arrest and deportation forthwith.

Britain nursing a campaign to press ‘war crime’ charges against Sri Lanka now has a choice between handing over the murderous nurse and forfeiting its human rights credentials which suffered a huge dent from the manner in which it protected Chilean dictator Pinochet vis-…-vis a call for his extradition to stand trial for the killing of Spaniards during his killing spree from 1973 to 1990. Although Pinochet was arrested in 1998 in Britain, he evaded extradition. Former British PM Margaret Thatcher had the temerity to visit the much dreaded dictator, pledge solidarity with him and praise him for services rendered during the Falklands war. The then Home Secretary Jack Straw held that Pinochet was too old to be extradited and cited opinion of four doctors in justification of his claim. But, the sick old man miraculously recovered after returning home and Straw said he wondered whether he and his doctors had been duped. In fact, it is they who tried to dupe the world!

Adele is also likely to fall sick all of a sudden like Pinochet. A nurse, she knows how to feign sickness more than anyone else. And Miliband will declare her too sick to be deported. It is hoped that the Brown government will prove that the British democracy is not too sick to turn down Sri Lanka’s request for Adele’s deportation.

West’s cool reception to Sri Lanka’s victory

By: Dr. Chandrani Gunaratna

31 May 2009 -Over the weekend, Sri Lanka, the tiny third world nation made history when it wiped out the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a rebel outfit that pioneered the suicide jacket and got the honor from the FBI as the most ruthless terrorist organization in the world.

In history armed rebellions ended either when warring parties reached a ceasefire or some other power sharing agreement as in the case of IRA and PLO or by cession as in Kosovo or Chechnya. Never in the recent history has a democratic government been able to completely crush a separatist terrorist organization without ceding the country as Sri Lanka had successfully managed to do this past weekend.

Yet the Western world is silent on this achievement.

The West which spearheads campaigns against terrorism across the globe and bombs far corners of the world in the name of ‘war on terror’ is however yet to acknowledge Sri Lanka’s victory against the LTTE, the home-grown terrorist group that was responsible for 70,000 deaths and brought unimaginable misery to the 20 million people in the country for 30 years with suicide bombings, political assassinations, massacres and destruction of property and infrastructure.

The superpowers of the West, the US, the UK, and the European Union wanted Sri Lanka to halt the military operations against the LTTE, declare a truce, and negotiate a solution with the LTTE so that it can resurrect and prolong the misery for another three decades. These countries even urged the Sri Lankan government to let the LTTE terrorist leaders to surrender to a third party.

If the Sri Lankan government doesn’t heed the calls to cease military operations, Sri Lankan leaders would be charged with war crimes, they threatened. Or worse yet, they threatened to take hostage the economic relief the country is seeking for its rehabilitation and reconstruction of the war-savaged land.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ganged up with the British Foreign Secretary David Miliband to oppose the two billion dollar loan Sri Lanka was seeking from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“We think that it is not an appropriate time to consider that (loan) until there is a resolution of the conflict,” Clinton, who considered the LTTE as freedom fighters during her presidential campaign, declared.

The Sri Lankan government with its President’s determination to crush the LTTE’s remained resilient amid that extraordinary pressure and continued its humanitarian operation to extract the civilians who were held against their will. Hence the West’s cool reaction to Sri Lanka’s victory.

The powers, that initiated a war and continuing for years in Iraq in search of non existent weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and brought death to over a million civilians wanted to throw a lifeline to the LTTE. If Sri Lanka gave into the pressure and declared a ceasefire the untold suffering would have continued for another three decades. Perhaps the West would have found the missing WMDs in Sri Lanka’s Eelam land then.

It is ironic that US was trying to curtail Sri Lanka’s efforts to free the country from LTTE terror while the US, being the World’s police is leading anti-terror campaigns against Al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the support from Britain. Yet when it comes to LTTE the attitude was completely the opposite. The double standard these powers have shown was clearly visible.

Not only the economic relief is held as ransom, but the two countries together with the European Union and backed by the human right groups, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, two groups sympathetic to the pro-LTTE Tamil Diaspora, also proposed to bring war crimes charges against the President and the country’s military leaders.

On Monday (May 18) the European Union called for an independent inquiry to bring the alleged violators of the international humanitarian law and human rights law to justice.

The Sri Lankan government’s military offensive against the LTTE terrorists is responsible for the death and injuries of 50,000 Tamil civilians who were held as human shields by the LTTE and fired upon when they tried to flee, the Western powers said.

According to them, the military offensive on April 20th that allowed over 115,000 or so civilians to flee the LTTE terror and reach the safety of the welfare villages in government controlled areas is a war crime. Rescuing another 72,000 civilians during the military operations in the past four days is also a war crime by the Western standards whereas sending drones and bombing border villages of Pakistan’s Swat Valley causing deaths of hundreds of civilians is war against terror, not a crime against humanity.

Reportedly there have been 65 to 85 Afghanistan-based US drone attacks on Pakistan during the past three years, killing about 780 civilians and about 50 alleged terrorists. For US and other Western backers this is inevitable collateral damage and not war crimes. The Human Rights Watch and the Amnesty International are mum on these civilian casualties.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, either still unaware that the Sri Lankan troops have evacuated over 70,000 civilians, about 20,000 more than UN and everyone else expected or hopeful that LTTE still has a chance for survival, on Monday in Brussels talked about the “humanitarian situation for those unknown numbers who are still trapped in the conflict zone, as well as those displaced persons who are in refugee camps.”

Pro-LTTE protestors waving the red tiger flag of the banned LTTE block highways, attack Sri Lankan temples and missions brings traffic to standstill and disrupt the daily lives of the their citizens, with impunity. These pillars of democracies have turned a blind eye on those unlawful demonstrations.

Despite the death of LTTE in Sri Lanka, the Eelam movement is gaining grounds in these Western countries as the continuing pro-LTTE demonstrations in their cities show due to their unfriendly attitude towards the government of Sri Lanka.

The Sri Lankan government needs to develop conditions in the country so that another LTTE may not rise from the ashes in the no-fire zone. Without delay the government needs to meet the aspirations of those rescued hostages, who trusted the government and made the crossover, along with a long term political solution.

As Secretary Clinton has already illustrated with the conditions on the IMF loan, the West can greatly influence Sri Lanka’s future and economic development if Sri Lanka has to solely depend on these countries for assistance. Sri Lanka needs to strengthen ties with the countries like Russia, China, Japan and India who supported the country at all times while forming new bonds with other nations in the Europe, Middle East and Asia.