Western Real-Politic at UNHRC Sesions in Geneva, 2021

Chandre Dharma-wardana,24 March 2021, whose preferred title is “The Real-Politik behind the UNHRC Actions and What the West Aims to Achieve in Sri Lanka” …  … note PS at end….. End Notes are by Thuppahi

The core-group of Western countries behind the UNHRC resolution have their own highly developed intelligence sources of information on the Eelam War as it was of intense interest to the Western nations – in fact the foreign ministers of UK and France actually came to Colombo to intervene personally.[1] Given that level of interest, they had reams of information on the Eelam War. Lord Naseby has exposed the tip of this hidden iceberg of information possessed by the British Government alone.[2] The US, the Indians, the French, Germans, and most of all the Norwegians possessed first-hand information. None of that has been exploited by the UN, but remain hidden because, in all probability, what is in them are of little use to the agenda of the core group of nations behind the UNHRC resolution.

All such information is ignored by the “moral crusaders” who also try to claim that this was a war conducted without witnesses whereas there were many witnesses, and first- hand reports, from journalists like M. Reddy, representatives of the IRC, UN, TULF MPs who were in close contact with the LTTE, churchmen, and military observers of diplomatic missions who were working closely with some Western aid organizations and NGOs embedded in the Vanni. The existence of some of these NGOs depended on the existence of the Tigers. They had such a symbiosis with the Tigers that they even surreptitiously allowed the Tigers to use their earth-moving equipment to build earthen bunds to prevent the advance of the SL Army. Information from such sources was available to foreign missions. The Norwegians were personally close to Balasingham and other top Tiger operatives and knew the facts, and indeed called the Tigers to release the hostages held as a human shield.

Then there were the TULF/TNA MPs who were the political arm of the Tigers, Why do commentators conveniently forget what Mr. Veerasingham Anandasangaree, the then General Secy of the TULF, told the world at the Annual Meeting in December 2008? Sangaree mentioned how the LTTE was killing its own injured, including civilians in cold blood, as they were regarded as a liability. Reports of the LTTE loading its injured into buses that were too damaged for use and setting them on fire exist. The pro-LTTE TULF member from Mulaitive (Mooladoova) who was present at the Dec. 2008 meeting is said to have retorted that such things are necessary in the fight to achieve Eelam! But such dead are also conveniently attributed against the armed forces.

Furthermore, there were “student volunteers” from some Canadian Universities who had been brainwashed by the Canadian Diaspora to work in the Vanni. They came to “help” the Tigers imbued with notions of romantic adventure of creating an exclusive Tamil homeland that would herald a great Tamil nation stretching from South Africa to Indonesia. Their ethnic Tamil academic peers were in touch with these student volunteers.

So, there is enough hard evidence from a variety of independent sources. The UN has the capacity and diplomatic clout to access information available only to governments, and to hire competent investigators and research analysts to dig out the information. But the UNHRC effort is not a fact-finding exercise. Yasmin Sooka was a Mère Fondatrice of the NGO entitled “Justice for Sri Lanka”. Its mission statement in 2009 was to bring Sri Lanka before the International court of Justice for war crimes. It worked closely with a prominent Colombo NGO that proposed “policy alternatives” and with another Hong Kong based “human rights” NGO. Even the prospective names of what finally came out as the “Darusman committee” were submitted to the office of Mr. Ban-ki-Moon by individuals connected with the JSL, So, it is not surprising that Yasmin Sooka was shooed in.

Therefore, the UN exercise is an exercise directed by political agendas. Thus the claim that the GOSL carried out a massacre of not 40,000, but 170,000 as recently stated by Navi Pillai after her retirement from the UNHCR is the narrative best suited for (a) the local politics of the Western Politicians who depend on Tamil Diaspora-controlled votes in their electorates, (b) the Indian government’s need to be au fait with Tamil Nadu politicians, and (c) the geopolitical needs of the West in punishing the Rajapaksa government for not cooperating with the West with its MCC package etc., and in being increasingly pro-Chinese.

All the Sri Lankans, i.e., even the Tamils and Moors (Muslims), and not just the Sinhala Buddhists who have been presented as the devil incarnate, are going to be punished by the West for putting back the regime headed by the Rajapaksas who depend on the votes of the Devil Incarnate. That was the war-winning regime that the West successfully conspired to dethrone in 2015. They put in the Sirisena-Wickermeasinghe-Samaraweera-Sampathan government that allowed Washington to even oversee the writing of a new constitution for the country, while Jayasuriya, the Speaker of the Parliament had a US-funded “advisor” to guide him in running the parliament and linking with Western lobby groups!

So, given the political, rather than factual basis of the UNHRC actions, what is the strategy that exists for Sri Lanka to close the UNHRC file and terminate Western antagonism?

Sri Lanka has been attacked by Islamist Jihadist elements even though it had stayed away from engaging with the US and Pakistani efforts against the Taliban. There are unconfirmed reports that the UN had indeed approached the SL government in 2011 for possible use of a Sri Lanka contingent in Afghanistan. The Taliban had destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2003, and Sri Lanka could have justified to its majority that such intervention was consistent with its role in defending Buddhist culture, and deploying some of its forces given that the Eelam wars are over. Unlike the Trump administration that hoped to bring all US forces in Afghanistan back to the US by 1st April 2021, the Biden administration is inclined to keep a continued presence. If Sri Lanka opts to work with the US, but with the accord of Islamic nations like Pakistan, one can predict that the behaviour of the US in Geneva in 2022 will be a complete about turn! However, engaging in any war has its own unpredictable consequences.

So, Sri Lanka’s future lies in its capacity to fly with the Eagle without being singed by the Dragon. That is a matter for cautious diplomacy that may be well beyond the capacity of the diplomatic corps of Sri Lanka that has been corroded and diluted by the appointment of political henchmen and family members of politicians to diplomatic positions.

Flashback: Navy Pillai in Geneva in 2013

END NOTES

[1] See Roberts, “A Bout at Chandrikawewa……, ” , in Colombo Telegraph, 5 April 2016, https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/a-bout-at-chandrikawewa-29th-april-2009-miliband-kouchner-vs-mahinda-rajapaksa/

[2] See Naseby, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, London, 2020, chapter …  and Roberts, “Reflections: Interpreting the Gash Files IV,” 29 April 2018,https://thuppahis.com/2018/04/29/reflections-interpreting-the-gash-files-iv/#more-30031

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