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It is a matter for happiness that saner counsel prevailed at last and Minister Wimal Weerawansa abandoned his death fast owing to President Mahinda Rajapaksa`s intervention on Saturday. Last Tuesday`s ruckus and Wimal`s subsequent fast were ill-conceived and rather na ve to say the least, as we have pointed out in these columns. While everybody`s right to stage peaceful demonstrations should be recognised there are aggressive protests near the venues of G-8 summits as well Wimal took it a bit too far by trying to trap the UN personnel inside their Colombo compound. It was the police who saved the day for the government by using force to help the UN workers leave.
Wimal, unlike the pseudo patriots who, for political reasons, pooh-poohed his fast, backed the country`s war on terror and played a major role in maintaining political stability during the war years while the Opposition went all out to dislodge the government and thereby derail the war effort at the behest of the western powers sympathetic to the LTTE. But, in handling the present human rights witch hunt against this country, Wimal made two huge blunders. His rash action provided the anti-Sri Lankan forces with a fresh rallying point and a great deal of diplomatic ammunition.
The US and some EU countries lost no time in issuing a joint statement on Friday expressing dismay at what they chose to term the blockade of the UN-compound. Wimal`s other faux pas was that he did not know the enemy he was fighting . He got hold of the tail of a rattlesnake! Fed on a steady diet of ideological shibboleth from a tender age, he has remained blind to geopolitical realities in the modern world.
Before Wimal launched his protest, someone in the government should have told him to study the history of the countries pulling UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon`s strings. He should have known that those forces could not be shooed away with boisterous protests or death fasts as they would not care even if hundreds of people were to commit self-immolation. Many Vietnamese liberation activists committed suicide demanding an end to American invasion but the US did not heed those protests.
One`s mind boggles at the US-EU joint statement. They are making a diplomatic mountain out of a political molehill! When large areas in the North and the East became inaccessible to democratically elected governments of Sri Lanka, whose writ simply ceased to run in that part of the country, we did not have any western government urging this country to take steps to clear `blockades`, restore democracy and ensure the movement of people there. The diplomatic missions vehemently protesting against last Tuesday`s incident did not bay for Prabhakaran`s blood for abducting UN personnel, storming the UN compound in Kilinochchi and forcibly making scores of UN workers and their families part of its human shield at the war front. Worse, later, they went all out to save the perpetrators in trouble, albeit in vain!
The likes of Wimal cannot counter Ban Ki-moon`s war crimes witch hunt. It is too sophisticated a task for them to handle. Now that the UNP-led UNF has said in no uncertain terms that it is against the UN advisory panel at issue, let the government have a resolution passed in Parliament condemning the UNSG. After it gets its act together on the political front, it can step up its on-going diplomatic offensive against the UN chief and his string pullers with the help of Sri Lanka s UN allies including China and Russia.
Meanwhile, the credentials of the three members on the Moon Panel must be questioned as they are lackeys of some western governments or have a history of being anti-Sri Lankan. Its chairman Marzuki Darusman was part of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) involved in a presidential commission that probed some alleged violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in Sri Lanka. Those eminent persons had a row with the government and left in a huff. Steven R. Ratner has exposed his bias against Sri Lanka in a book he co-authored with Jason S. Abrams, Accountability for Human rights: Atrocities in International Law-Beyond the Nuremberg Legacy, in which it is argued that the ban on apartheid should be invoked in responding to `the plight of Kurds, the Tamils, the South Sudanese, Japanese of Korean origin` etc. As we argued in these columns on June 24, we do not intend to contest Ratner`s view. Nor do we question his right to express it. But, the fact that he holds that view is demonstrative of a glaring bias which is sure to prevent him from carrying out his duties as a member of the Moon Panel with an open mind. Yasmin Sooka is the Executive Director of the Foundation for Human Rights in South Africa. Her outfit is heavily dependent on EU, which has allocated 25 million Euros for one of its programmes for a period of three years until 2012. She is obviously singing for her supper and cannot afford to be independent of the EU, which is hostile to Sri Lanka.
It is hoped that the government will tread cautiously on the issue of UN panel and act wisely in defeating the UNSG`s sinister move without being an embarrassment to the reasonable UN allies who have pledged solidarity with beleaguered Sri Lanka.
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LankaPride
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 856
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 14 Jul 2010 01:30:42 GMT Report for Abuse
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Edited....
Edited By - LankaPride - 14 Jul 2010 01:31:01 GMT |
AnuD
Senior Member
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 42784
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 14 Jul 2010 03:51:25 GMT Report for Abuse
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Your Emglish is mixedwith French.
I remember some Colombo girls who used the word Fivf instead of five.
It is no point of blaming everybody.
KOHONa was happy whe he got to investigate ISrael and that and this. He should have stayed in his office whould have checked what is planning against Sri Lanka.
Imstead, he was roaming around, another political lackey who did not know anything was there to keep the office open.
Now,blame the whole world and not our own stupidity.
Edited By - AnuD - 14 Jul 2010 03:54:27 GMT |
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