a slave ship and western hypocrisy

this is the plan of 'stowage of the british slave ship 'brookes' under the regulated slave trade, act of 1788'. 

feel free to click on the image and zoom in to observe the horrible conditions under which slaves were transported to america. 

under the named act it could lawfully carry 454 slaves. before that in a 1782 trip it carried 609 slaves(351 men, 127 women, 90 boys, and 41 girls) in the same space.

this continued even as washington, jefferson, adams, franklin, and others(some of them slave owners) were declaring in 1776, "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". 

in 1789, constitution of the united states with similar high sounding phrases went in to effect. slave trade and slave labor continued. 

in other words, usa was founded by hypocrites with hypocrisy as its guiding principle. same can be said of other western states.

usa has not changed, 220+ years on.

usa is invading, occupying, imposing, interfering, in other countries. under mass murdering leaders like obama, bush, clintons, and others, it is looting other people's resources in every possible way to satisfy and keep intact the empty lifestyles and parasitic welfare needs of its increasingly lazy, ignorant, and barbaric, population. to do so they are callously drone killing the innocents, torturing the unarmed, violently suppressing dissent & resistance in occupied countries, and committing all sorts of other atrocities and human rights violations.

usa's brutish slavedog countries, like britain, follow in its wake feeding on mangled corpses of raped innocents.

in spite of all that horror, they shamelessly preach to us, sri lankans, about human rights, democracy, and reconciliation. they, through their tools in united nations and various ngos, try to punish people who by defeating an armed gang of murderers, called tamil tigers, ensured freedom to exercise basic human rights here.

west's real aim is probably establishment of a slavish government here that act in western interests rather than sri lankan interests.    

whether they will succeed is a different question, i will deal with later in detail. for now, i will say they will not, if government here acts shrewdly and with courage. thanks god west is no longer as powerful as it once was.

the point i am making here is that nobody with any brains, in sri lanka or elsewhere, can be under any illusion that usa means what it says about rights, democracy, justice, etc..

when usa's bloody functionaries say those things, they are merely practicing their country's fundamental ingrained hypocrisy. 

we, individual sri lankans, who are not slaves (unlike the filth who work in western funded ngos) should aggressively challenge those statements whenever we can. we can still do that. we are not in a slave ship but a free country. let us keep it that way, by exposing the hypocrisy of americans, and their slaves, local or foreign.

෴

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questions that must be addressed by those who want an 'international war crimes inquiry' in sri lanka

i will highlight some basic questions that must be addressed by anyone who genuinely wants an 'independent international inquiry' into alleged war crimes committed in sri lanka.

all those who fail to address these issues betray their bad faith when they say they want justice and truth to prevail in order to reconcile the nation. many have already revealed bad faith (esp. when they commented on so called un panel/darusman report).

questions-
why only sri lanka is subjected to such an inquiry? are we the only ones that supposedly committed war crimes while fighting against terrorists? to take an example among many, what about the west in iraq, afghanistan, and pakistan? how does one advocate such a double standard inquiry when justice demands one standard for all? bc west is powerful and we, who are not, must obey? bc we, as 'inferiors' (racially or otherwise), must not demand equal treatment?

why is there an attempt (as with so called un/darusman panel) to focus only on suffering and wrongs of a section of sri lankans at one point of time, instead of all? why this separation of victims? is that justice? was sufferings of rest of us (few nauseating proofs here and here) inferior? how? can such arbitrary differentiations lead to reconciliation?

why now, after we defeated terrorists? why the focus only on last days of tamil tiger terrorists? why was our suffering from terrorists not inquired into for 30+ years? why many many crimes against humanity committed by terrorists not worthy of inquiry then? why did self styled humanitarians and human right advocates do nothing then? why same ppl who push for an international inquiry now, pushed us to appease the murderers then? why didn't same ppl and countries help us defeat the terrorists with least human loss, instead of opposing any attempt to defeat terrorists and end their crimes and our suffering? why no inquiry into terrorists collecting funds in west with help of some western politicians?

are some of the things we are accused of really 'war crimes'? are they not accidents, 'collateral damage', use of human shields by terrorists, etc., etc., common in any attempt to defeat terrorists? why these distinctions made for west's defense elsewhere, but in our case all these are 'crimes'? are we not right to suspect that, in western eyes, our main 'war crime' was our disregard for their pressure not to defeat terrorists (hence arbitrary focus of requested 'international' inquiry and illegitimate un/darusman panel, only on events after we disregarded west's call not to defeat ltte)? how is that justice?

shouldn't there be substantiated evidence before accusations are made? shouldn't those accused have a right to examine at first hand, and question (and cross question) the allegations and those who who make them, before such allegations are judged 'credible'? isn't prejudging this, as so called un/darusman panel did, an injustice?

didn't western funded ngos (like human rights watch, amnesty international, and international crisis group,) making the allegations, fail to appear, produce evidence, and face questions, before a legally constituted sri lankan inquiry when requested? wasn't their subsequent demand for an inquiry with 'international standards' that do not exist anywhere else (see above), rather than normal legal standards accepted by all (including sri lankan inquiry) a call for injustice and special treatment (betraying their colonial mindset)?

must be addressed
these are the questions that must be addressed by those who call for an 'independent inquiry with international standards' if they have any pretensions to intellectual honesty and integrity. it is impossible to claim such an inquiry, is independent, maintains legal standards, serves justice and truth, and leads to reconciliation, without answering these questions.

so far almost all those who have called for an 'international' inquiry have failed to address these issues. this is especially noticeable in articles, internet postings, and media interviews, etc., these ppl gave after the publication of so called un panel/darusman report. by not addressing them they betray their bad faith and disregard for justice and equality.

we, sri lankans, should not be afraid to assert ourselves and demand (aggressively if need be) that ppl who call for an 'international' inquiry must address these issues, bc it is we who are being slandered and denied justice and equality. in some cases we would be (and have been) accused for rudeness and subjected to censorship when we demand our basic rights by raising these issues. that is the usual mode of all such oppressors.

by demanding justice and equality, and exposing hypocrisy of those who fail to address these questions, we will overcome.

෴

sri lankans who fail
we should not hesitate to confront with these questions those sri lankans dependent on western funds (esp in ngos) who join with their paymasters in calling for an 'international' inquiry. failure to address or even recognize these issues, by this sort of willing slaves, deserve open contempt. let them go crying to their masters with our spit on their faces.

sidesteps
those who try to sidestep these questions by saying 'we should not be afraid of an inquiry if we have nothing to hide', or 'we should inquire into our actions regardless of whether west will inquire in to theirs in iraq etc.' are missing the point. we, sri lankans, should in fact inquire into our actions in sri lanka under sri lankan law. we should criticize any undue delay or shortcoming in such a sri lankan inquiry.

however shortcomings or not, nothing can justify our submitting to an unjust and unequal inquiry approved and forced upon us by west. anyone honestly addressing the questions above will realize that any 'international' inquiry constituted at present will be unjust, will treat us unfairly, and serve only western interests.

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indi samarajiva's 'truth' and sri lankan truth

indi samarajiva thinks, we, sri lankans, don't acknowledge 'truth ', 'shitt', 'bad stuff' etc., about innocents dying and suffering due to military efforts to defeat murderous tamil tigers. instead we, according to him, engage in what he terms 'bureaucratic niceties','pointless', 'legalistic' 'meta-discussions' about so called 'un panel' report '. by his reading, sri lankans are not 'secure in their identity' to face 'truth'.

as usual he is missing the core.

far from being in denial we, sri lankans, have already acknowledged, and more to the point, experienced, suffering from armed violence. it is he who has not. it is to him, and his ilk, that suffering in sri lanka is at other end of a camera.

similarly, since he cannot feel it, he also dismisses out of hand a very real injustice committed against sri lanka by west, (so called 'un panel' and report is the latest manifestation of this injustice as i said in my last post and other sri lankans have voiced in many fora.)

indi's inability to understand sri lankan reality and mindset is to be expected, since he moves exclusively in english-thinking pseudo elite colombo cocoon (perhaps the only section of sri lankan society that did not experience suffering; these are ppl who thought going through a road block equaled end of the world, while rest of us went through suicide bombs. since they live in fantasy world they get all their predictions about sri lanka wrong, be it defeat of ltte, economy, elections, etc. read what they have written and confirm. lazy foreign journalists who make these their sources make the same mistakes.)

even he seems to be aware of weakness of what he says, so resorts to posting a photo of an injured child to illustrate the so called 'truth' and win sympathy for his argument. in the process he reveals how disconnected he is.

[btw in spite of serious subject matter, it is always funny when a self righteous hypocrite (a paid unp propagandist during elections, willing nepotistic beneficiary of his thoroughly corrupt and nasty political appointee father, a willing columnist at blackmailing sunday leader, owner of scurrilous blogs like padashow.wordpress, etc., etc., ) talks about 'truth'. but lets leave all that aside for this. ]

nobody is denying suffering and deaths of sri lankans due to atrocities of tamil tigers and resulting military operations to defeat them.

we lived among suffering and death. we experienced it; we died, were maimed, were splattered with blood of our own children, friends, relatives, and strangers, first as children and then as adults. all of us remember sound of bombs and ran from gunfire. we saw living hells of mangled bodies and then tried to help with puke filling our mouths (worst among many i saw first hand was the dehiwela train bomb).

but indi thinks we don't 'acknowledge' 'truth'! ha!

and let us not forget lost opportunities of material kind either; property, private and public, destroyed and made useless, businesses and paddy fields blighted, discouraged investments, diversion of resources away from health, education, etc., and even cowardly snubbing of our cricket team by west.

sri lankans suffered in all those ways for 30 long years due to tiger terrorism and gov military efforts aimed at bringing those murderers to 'peace' (read appeasement) talks. west promoted all this. during so called ceasefires sri lankans were handed over to unchecked ltte oppression with western support. west, and likes of indi, ignored our suffering at those times. no photos of dead children appeared in his blog then, though they were here. (maybe likes of indi only experiences 'reality' only in photos, so here are few more horrors we suffered, and more.)

finally, abandoning dehumanizing appeasement of terrorists by blood, we defeated ltte in spite of objections from west (and likes of indi).

we voted in and honored those who help defeat tiger terrorists.

we ended our suffering emanating from armed violence.
its our responsibility not just government's or 'military's as indi implies.

but indi thinks we don't 'acknowledge' that!

-
now we are told by west and their tools we were wrong to end our suffering the way we did, and those who contributed most to end that suffering (sri lankan military and political leadership) are branded war criminals. (note its the same west that is inflicting suffering on others far from their countries. and its the same same western tools who are yet to say anything much on those inflictions of suffering).

we, (just as much as our military and political leadership) accept our responsibility for our actions. but we object to unjust criminalization. we object to west's denial of equality and justice to us.

indi doesn't object to this injustice, he thinks we should accept it, if we are 'secure' in our 'identity'. he thinks our objections are mere 'bureaucratic niceties','pointless', 'legalistic' 'meta-discussions', etc.,etc.!

what can we say! huh?

well indi samarajiva does live in a stinking cocoon, ... by choice.

...

we know who we are.

we suffered and escaped.
we acknowledged, assessed, asserted, and acted.
we and our children will live with our disabilities and sad experiences. but we are also proud and joyful that we are free from armed violence. we are not bringing our future generations to a world of violence. they will have opportunity to live without disabilities and sad experiences.
that is an identity and responsibility we are proud of.

indi who did not experience, disclaims responsibility, photographs us from cocoon, separates us, and puts imagined words in our mouths. in his distorted lens, we insecurely deny our suffering and our actions.

prejudiced west try to criminalize us, and deny justice and equality to us.

we will overcome these new evils too, with our own efforts. we will be proud and joyful then too.

bc we know who we are; once victims, who after experiencing and acknowledging the truth realistically, overcame our suffering through our own non criminal efforts.

෴

ps
yesterday i posted an early version of this as a comment to indi's post. he as usual censored it (as he has a right to do btw). lol
just now i posted a link to this there. wonder whether he will censor that too. lol

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illegitimate "un panel": denial of justice and equality to sri lankans

so called panel advising united nations secretary general ban ki moon has officially presented its report.

murderous tamil tiger sympathizer/propagandist running a so called citizen journalist blog (far from it) leaked parts of it to media few days ago during new year holidays in sri lanka. most media did not want to print before official u.n. release, some did print it, edited. while i have no problem with leaks, calculated attempt to control media narrative before sri lankan government had time even to examine the report indicate the bad faith and secret agendas of those responsible.

lot of ppl have commented on the report and its content. mostly nonsense, though some made sense.

i will comment on content of report in detail another time (if ever). for present, i will point out why everyone who wants justice to prevail should object to both panel and report on principle.

imo, this report symbolize the western governments' and their tools' denial of equality and justice to sri lanka.

very constitution of such a panel to look into alleged war crimes in sri lanka is a blatant instance of injustice.
where are other such panels to look into war crimes committed by usa, uk, and other western countries in iraq, pakistan, and afghanistan? [btw deaths in pakistan due to american bombing implicate obama himself as a bloody war criminal since they cannot be explained away as collateral damage from a legitimate targeting or a case of indiscipline in military; no target in pakistan territory is legal under international law at present and missions were authorized by obama.] unlike allegations against sri lanka these crimes are substantiated with visual and documentary evidence.
why are we treated differently?

it is an ad hoc panel with no judicial capacity but its report pretends to judge events and claims. where is the justice in such vigilantism?

the panel claims there are 'credible' 'allegations' of war crimes sri lanka. that is a ridiculously unjust statement. how does one judge 'credibility'? by what standards? by whom? they would have been more specific on these points if they were treating us with justice and equality. report's extremely shoddy choice of words betray unstated prejudices of its members.

the allegations referred are in fact mere allegations nothing more. they are not subjected to any kind of test and cross examination. no verifiable supporting evidence is presented. no procedure is detailed as to how those who made the allegations were examined by panel. iow, those sri lankans slandered by the allegations (esp. in the sl military) are shabbily treated and denied justice by the panel.

all these injustices against sri lanka are augmented by certain western media institutions (those in uk in particular ) and ngo tools of western governments (amnesty international, human rights watch, etc ). they incorrectly and implicitly refer to this mere ad-hoc advisory panel as a properly constituted 'un panel' established by united nations with powers to investigate. they make 'allegations' into positive facts. in the process they unjustifiably convict innocent sri lankans of war crimes with no indictments or even evidence. [if i have time i will expose some of the most blatantly racist 'journalists' and ngos involved and detail their explicit distortions here. i have protested in their websites whenever possible and so have others. all who want justice to prevail and hate racism should do so whenever they see any, in spite of censorship these hypocrites impose.]

panel calls for an "independent investigation complying with international standards". by all means, let all war crimes world over be subjected to an equal and just investigation. however there is no chance for any such at present.

instead, an investigation that meets western approval, forced only upon sri lanka cannot be an "independent investigation with international standards" by definition. all sri lankans should object to that. so should all who want justice to prevail.


sri lanka should investigate all crimes committed in sri lanka. sri lankans should be free to object to any injustices or lack of standards, if any, in any such investigation. unjust hypocritical westerners and their tools should have no say in it and should stay out it.

෴

not crimes
in addition to above injustices there is a tendency in report and some western media and ngos to criminalize certain actions of ours when they are in fact not crimes (certainly not when westerners commit similar; as they have many times)

• sri lanka had the right to end our 30 year long suffering due to ltte's actions and threats and ensure human rights, freedom, democracy, and justice, for all sri lankans. that is no crime.
• given its bestial atrocities (among others deliberate killing and maiming of our children) sri lanka had the right to consider ltte a mere armed gang of criminals. that is no crime.[btw only racists equate tamils with ltte and think ltte was fighting for tamils using such means with tamil support].
• sri lanka had the right to militarily defeat the tamil tiger murderers. that is no crime.
• sri lanka had the right to ignore western attempts to save our murderers from defeat. that is no crime.
• sri lanka has the right to point out ltte was mainly funded (in later years ) by racists in diaspora seeking asylum in western countries. that is no crime. [btw most western governments (usa exempted) did almost nothing to to stop this funding].
• did some innocents die from accidents or what westerners callously term 'collateral damage', or ltte's use of 'human shields', when military was defeating ltte? yes, but that is no crime.
• did sri lanka restrict media and foreigners' access to military operations? yes, but that is no crime.
• did sri lanka screen for ltte cadres among displaced people escaping from ltte control? yes, but that is no crime.
• did sri lanka keep displaced ppl for few months in camps (where no unusual deaths or epidemics occurred) until they were screened, land mines were cleared, and basic infrastructure (roads,schools, etc.,) were restored? yes, but that is no crime. those camps were partially funded and run by u.n.. vast majority of ppl were resettled within a year. no crime.
• is sri lanka rehabilitating ltte cadres who surrendered after their defeat? yes. large numbers have been released and most are in mild captivity with access to red cross. few leaders are actually out on bail awaiting trail. again no war crime. [btw very existence of those leaders make liars of those who claim that unlamented ltte leadership was killed after surrender.]
• etc., etc..

while i don't approve few of those actions as a libertarian (i have given my views on almost all in these in detail in this blog), they are not war crimes.

to imply any of these are crimes is to deny us justice and equality. we, sri lankans should object and protest all who commit such injustices.

෴

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this blog's twitter - http://twitter.com/llibertarian

world should oppose britain's fishing for oil in troubled libyan waters

it seems that despicable remnant of genocidal british empire wants to keep and expand its libyan oil holdings taking advantage of unrest there. so called united kingdom (which is almost broke) has put its armed forces (renowned for their undisciplined brutish treatment of natives in iraq and afghanistan) on alert. here are some headlines from papers in uk. france seems to be doing the same.

britain and qaddfi in recent past

remember britain in 2009 released the libyan terrorist who bombed an airliner over lockerbie killing hundreds, british ministers (including prime ministers and royals) were regular visitors of crazy dictator qaddafi, english education institutions gave degrees to qaddafi's son, etc., etc..
all this for what? primarily to get oil deals for british oil companies like bp (formerly british petroleum). this blog, among many other commentators, pointed out the 'blood for money' nature of what was going on when the terrorist was released and several wikilaeks documents have tended to confirm it further. don't forget all those british engineers who had to be rescued from libya.

(btw for the record, lots of political leaders from around the world visited quddafi in recent years to get something, but british were very successful in getting concrete results, in contrast to most of others, including sri lankan president)

fishing in troubled waters
now that their chum qaddafi is battling for survival, british leaders have decided, it is a great time to dig their snouts further by employing the time tested imperial technique of exploiting quarrels among natives.

hard pressed anti-qaddafi rebels have an unknown, inexperienced, and disorganized leadership. legitimacy of their claim to represent libyans is doubtful and needs recognition from libyans and foreigners. by mere fact of dealing with them, western countries can and will give part of that recognition to those among rebel leaders who are willing to obey west. in other words, rebels are hardly in a position to safeguard libyan interests in such dealings. at this stage, they will be concerned more with establishing their position against qaddafi and within movement. result - rebels almost certainly will agree to oil agreements that will mostly benefit british. no wonder western eagerness to get involved.

that is why, rest of the world should send a clear message to british and west -

hands off!

let libyans fight it out without foreign help if that is what libyans want.

if world (including west) want to help libyans, they should confine themselves to sending aid (food, medical supplies, etc.,) nothing more.

don't allow united nations to be manipulated in to legitimatizing this oil grab.

if a western "coalition of the willing" go ahead without even u.n. sanction , they should be condemned and exposed as the neo imperialists they are. anyone in non-west who support such an attempt and refuse to condemn it should be branded as a slave of west.

one of the methods by which these western nations will try to legitimize their attempt to devour libayan assets is to exaggerate the alleged violence and resultant chaos in libya. to this end they will use all tools available including western media and western funded ngos. rest of the world should not be fooled. they should check the sources of news reports and follow the money before believing anything.

even if such chaos is true, that does not justify military intervention from west. iraq and afghanistan are suffering from much larger humanitarian disasters as a result of western occupation. given that fact, western military intervention is definitely not the solution to a humanitarian crisis in libya.

if britain and west commence a military intervention in libya, westerners in libya should be and will be legitimate targets, and all honest ppl should support libyans who want westerners out of libya.

෴

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this blog's twitter - http://twitter.com/llibertarian

update: wikileaks on sri lanka - american ambassador's report on 01/15/2010 on alleged war crimes accountability

of the leaked 251,287 american diplomatic "cables " only 553 have been published so far. of that only 4 were on sri lanka (even though there are are reportedly 3,225 on sri lanka in total.) i have posted some thoughts on first 2 published earlier.

i published another post based on the 3rd document earlier today. it is on how british foreign minister miliband was fishing for uk tamil votes when interfering in sri lanka just before the terrorists' defeat.
(curiously even after 3 hours it is not in kottu blog aggregator while it is in feed readers. other posts from other blogspot blogs published later are in kottu. whether intentional or technical it goes to show that blog aggregators are not the best way to get the all view points of sl bloggers. so kindly subscribe to my feed if you have not already done so, many thanks to those who already have ) .

this post will be about the 4th leak on sri lanka that came out last night sri lankan time.

btw wikileaks website was offline most of the evening sl time due to the fact that it was under a unprecedentedly massive (ie probably government sponsored ) cyber attack and its eurapean servers could not handle it. also servers rented from american based amazon were denied to them by that company yesterday due to u.s. government pressure. so much for american freedom of expression.

since it is possible that wikileaks can go offline again, i will soon post the full text of all sl related leaked documents elsewhere and provide links to them too when referring to them in posts. i will of course always link to the wikileaks site

-

now lets looks at the report titled "SRI LANKA WAR-CRIMES ACCOUNTABILITY: THE TAMIL PERSPECTIVE" authored by american ambassador to sri lanka patricia butenis. (new link to same from new wikileak site)

this was written on january 15, 2010. that is during final stages of presidential elections.

here is the summary in full

"There have been a few tentative steps on accountability for crimes allegedly committed by Sri Lankan troops and civilian officials during the war with the LTTE. President Rajapaksa named a committee to make recommendations to him on the U.S. incidents report by April, and candidate Fonseka has discussed privately the formation of some form of “truth and reconciliation” commission. Otherwise, accountability has not been a high-profile issue -- including for Tamils in Sri Lanka. While Tamils have told us they would like to see some form of accountability, they have been pragmatic in what they can expect and have focused instead on securing greater rights and freedoms, resolving the IDP question, and improving economic prospects in the war-ravaged and former LTTE-occupied areas. Indeed, while they wanted to keep the issue alive for possible future action, Tamil politicians with whom we spoke in Colombo, Jaffna, and elsewhere said now was not time and that pushing hard on the issue would make them “vulnerable.”"

its a good summary of the document and cover the main points made in main text of doc.

alleged war crimes
war crimes are correctly prefaced by word 'alleged'. good. because no kind of evidence is presented to say that any war crimes actually were committed by sri lankan government side. nor is there any indication in the document to say amercan diplomats have seen any evidence to that effect.

in fact nobody has seen any verifiable evidence of these alleged war crimes by "sri lankan troops and civilian officials" anywhere. those who continue to speak about them please let us, sri lankans, have the evidence.

ppl who continues to accuse us of war crimes and fails to produce the evidence, are slandering us and depriving us of our rights. such accusers by blindly following unsubstantiated allegations made by tamil tiger terrorist's remaining foreign based supporters have become tools of those murderers .

also if anyone is applying a double standard and is reluctant to use the same words "war crimes" in accusing american and other western governments and military and fail to call obama, bush, blair, etc etc. "war criminals" (in spite mountain of verifiable solid evidence of war crimes by them in iraq, afghanistan, and pakistan) they are also racists.

now there is some confusion with meaning of following para in this document.

"There are no examples we know of a regime undertaking wholesale investigations of its own troops or senior officials for war crimes while that regime or government remained in power. In Sri Lanka this is further complicated by the fact that responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country’s senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa and his brothers and opposition candidate General Fonseka."

is the ambassador saying "sri lankan president responsible for "alleged war crimes"", in the sense they have personally committed war crimes?of course not. it clearly does not say that.

in fact it does not say what these alleged crimes were and their nature so we cannot say how anyone can be held responsible for them.

is it saying that ultimate responsibility for any war crimes even if committed by any military or government officials rest with rajapaksa brothers and fonseka in their then official capacity? maybe, but that would be true of any country. so why then the use of words "In sri lanka this is further complicated ... "

only the ambassador butenis can clarify this and she should.

maybe she is lousy sloppy writer? possible. there is evidence of sloppiness even in this para. she refers to "President Rajapaksa and his brothers (sic)" now only one brother (defense secretary gotabaya rajapaksa in addition to president can be held responsible for any alleged war crimes if they were ever committed. other brothers were not directly involved in defeating terrorists with military means. so clearly a slip of the pen there.

so ms. butenis do explain your words!

it would be unwise to come to unjustified conclusions or second guess such vague and imprecise words.

this is esp vital since certain media organizations have intentionally mis-characterized her words. (more on that in another post)

accountability and reconciliation
what is said in this document about progress in establishing a mechanism for accountability is redundant. president rajapaksa has since then appointed 'the commission on lessons learnt and reconciliation' well past anything mentioned by ambassador butenis on that count.

she was right in her assessment that all these alleged war crimes and accountability not being a main issue of the election apart from president's promise to "personally to stand up to any international power or body that would try to prosecute sri lankan war heroes". which was a popular and morally correct stand to take on his part.

tamil diaspora vs sri lankan tamils
we already know that tamils in sri lanka and racist tamil activists in diaspora have different interests and butenis confirms this in this document..

sri lankan tamils are more focused "on current bread-and-butter issues". and imo government should stick to them too. bc racists in diaspora will not be satisfied until tamil tigers are revived and again start murdering sri lankans so that they can continue to claim asylum in west.

r sampanthan
tna leader r.sampanthan says he "would not discuss “war crimes” per se in parliament for fear of retaliation" !? this from a person who supported tamil tiger terrorist murderers and whose party acted as terrorists' proxies. we sri lankans have forgiven him for that vile crime without any 'retaliation' whatsoever. but he still slanders us. so much for any desire for reconciliation on his part. he is a liar. period.

sarath fonseka
it seems sarath fonseka made private promises to mano ganesan without disclosing them to public to get his support, of course this was suspected at time ( i and others said so. see my election posts) . given that ganesan supported ltte terrorists and is yet to regret that support, these promises could very well be harmful to sri lanka. ganesan and fonseka should explain themselves to sri lankan public .


mano ganesan
"On accountability, Ganesan told us that while the issue was significant XXXXXXXXXXXX accountability was a divisive issue and the focus now had to be on uniting to rid the country of the Rajapaksas."

now Xs seems to indicate a self censorship/redaction on wikileaks part ( they maybe mere noise in document formatting). they do that only if real danger can result from leaving it uncensored in wikileaks editors opinion. what dangerous thing did ganesan have to say on riding the country of the rajapaksas?
ganesan should explain.

international community "push"
[few unnamed tamil politicians] "have suggested to us that while they cannot address the issue[national reconciliation and creating a political system more equitable to all ethnic communities], they would like to see the international community push it. such an approach, however, would seem to play into the super-heated campaign rhetoric of Rajapaksa and his allies that there is an international conspiracy against sri lanka and its “war heroes.”"

ambassador butenis is right that so called "international community" pushing anything on sri lanka will not be welcomed by sri lankans. to call such a natural desire for freedom from interference a mere "super-heated campaign rhetoric" only point to limitations of her mind. maybe she has got used to working with willing slaves in other countries? then she better learn to change her attitude.


in conclusion ambassador butenis and some sri lankan politicians especially ganesan and fonseka should explain themselves.

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wikileaks on sri lanka update - david miliband interfered in sri lanka to get uk tamil votes

of the leaked 251,287 american diplomatic "cables " only 553 have been published so far. of that only 4 were on sri lanka (even though there are reportedly 3,225 on sri lanka in total.) i have posted some thoughts on first 2 published earlier.

this will be on 3rd and i will cover the 4th in another post after this .

this leak made happy reading for me bc it confirms what i ( and others of like mind) have said all along; certain leftish british politicians (esp from labour party then in power) desired to stop and impede sri lanka's fight against terrorist murderers bc they wanted votes of tamil diaspora in uk and they thought pandering to vocal tamil tiger terrorist supporting racists is the way go. (here is just one instance among many where i said this was happening)

the leaked memo is dated 05/07/2009 [new link to same from new wikileak site](11 days before end of tamil tigers) and reports on a meeting american diplomats from us london embassy had with british foreign office sri lanka team leader tim waite and desk officer sharon diaz on same day.

i will quote to the most interesting part first

"8. (C/NF) Waite said that much of HMG and ministerial attention to Sri Lanka is due to the “very vocal” Tamil Diaspora in the UK, numbering over 300,000 and who have been protesting in front of Parliament since April 6. He said that with UK elections on the horizon and many Tamils living in Labour constituencies with slim majorities, the Government is paying particular attention to Sri Lanka, with Miliband recently remarking to Waite that he was spending 60 percent of his time at the moment on Sri Lanka"

i think i don't have to elaborate on this.

remember miliband was uk foregn minister and he was spending 60% of his time on sri lanka. and this was may 2009, and uk elections were held on may 06, 2010, one year later(though they were initially expected earlier).

btw (C/NF) means confidential /no foreigners a level of secrecy higher than (C)-confidential . significantly only this part (8) of the memo and and summary which contain part of this are marked (C/NF) . other sections are marked (C) or lower.

-

"the civilians caught in the conflict zone remain the UK’s primary concern in Sri Lanka, followed by humanitarian access and addressing IDP needs."
this is pure spin for wider consumption. note how baser motives were not referred to in this less secret section. and btw sri lanka hardly got any kind of aid from uk then or now. they pledge, never disburse.

"Waite described Miliband and French Foreign Secretary Kouchner’s April 29 visit as “good,”"
here they were not being honest, and amercans clearly knew that, hence the quotation marks on "good". they and others wanted sri lanka to declare a ceasefire and stop military operations. visit failed.

the 5 public demands made by these politicians from what remains of genocidal british empire indicate their still colonial racist mindset

• "visas to be issued swiftly to international humanitarian staff" [sure we should stop everything and issue visas to westerners so they can come here and judge and control us as they want],
• "travel permits" [ditto],
• "full access to IDPs as soon as they have crossed the front line and the monitoring of all stages of screening" [oh boy they wanted to run their own civil service here to supervise us 'natives', including how we separate those who were killing us and our children from innocent tamils. i have been reluctant to believe that uk directly helped the terrorist murderers but this demand to control screening for terrorists may indicate that they wanted to guard some of their own employees ],
• "commitment to have 80 percent of IDPs resettled by the year’s end" [we and they don't even know how many ppl were displaced at that point and the condition of their homes and infrastructure but our royal master miliband order us to promise him NOW! in fact we did settle 80-90% of those idps(300,000+) within 1 year with the help of real foreign friends with genuine goodwill for our and idp welfare].
• "allow the distribution of sufficient food and medicine to meet the needs of civilians" [ yes these racist scumbags assume that we intentionally starve ppl. in fact for years on end sri lanka sent food and medicine to areas controlled by tigers, most of it was kept by the facist ltte. we paid the teachers and doctors too. and nobody died of starvation, no epidemics took place. we did that without orders from miliband or his majesty vulgar queen ]

"The UK also supports a special Human Rights Council session on Sri Lanka"
we know how that turned out, uk got soundly defeated and sri lanka was commended by human rights council for defeating terrorism and conducting a humanitarian operation to rescue civilians from ltte. fact.

"HMT has decided to support the USG position on delaying Sri Lanka’s proposed Stand-By Arrangement with the IMF"
so much for IMF's economic only conditions and no political interference in its decisions. we got the thing after dealy but no crisis resulted from delay due to prudent management.

anyway that is enough we now know what kind of monsters were dealing such obsessively with sri lanka and with what motives; petty uk politics and ingrained colonial racism.



racist idiot miliband and his party lost the election deservedly. though i suspect he and others in uk will continue to play with lives and blood of innocent sri lankans (to racist like him we are not human) for petty political gains. how many lives were lost while blood suckers like miliband and gordon brown his prime minister spend their time and resources elongating murderous tigers' bloody carnage. how many dead children are cursing miliband the racist now?

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ps
btw this leak also confirms my speculation as to who will be embarrassed by wikileaks
to qoute,

"another group that may be embarrassed are non american western diplomats and their sl tools, the ngos. to give them credit, americans were never much in to interfering in sri lanka's effort to defeat terrorist tamil tiger murderers, but other western countries were. these documents may report on actions of those others during and after the ceasefire."

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what of sri lanka in wikileak's latest doc dump? who will they embarrass in sl?

[this post will be updated at bottom with new items as they are published in wikileaks until i write another post on the same subject. ]

so far wikileaks has published only 278 (243 yesterdays and rest today) out of the 251,287 documents it acquired without authorization from american state department.

they have resulted in severe embarrassment to usa, once again exposing the big disconnect between what americans (from obama down) say and what they do. as usual it appears that american state is run by arrogant hypocrites who care nothing for ethics and morality when they want to dominate others and force them to act in american interest; war, war crimes, crimes, assassination, spying, corruption, deception, etc., etc.. all seem to be fair. what's new? [one has to be a fool not to have realized this already. there are few such fools in sri lanka including in sl blogosphere.]

usa is doing exactly what all other dominant countries have done from beginning of history;

"the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must" - thucydides

hubristic amercans' ultimate fate will be the same too.


sri lanka docs
however what of documents about sri lanka? what do they reveal about american diplomats' view of our country.

the few media outlets that were given pre release access to the documents by wikileaks have not reported on content of any mainly sri lanka related document (as far as i can see).

there is a mention of sri lanka in one document [new link from new wikileak site] that is already notorious for revealing that hillary clinton, u.s. secretary of state, ordered american diplomats at united nations to spy on other un diplomats and gather data including biometric data, "internet and intranet "handles", internet e-mail addresses, web site identification-urls; credit card account numbers; frequent flyer account numbers ....".

in addition to all that illegal stuff, state department wanted info on various things about lots of countries including with regard to sri lanka,

Views and intentions of UNSC, UN human rights entities, and members regarding Sri Lankan government policies on human rights and humanitarian assistance; UN views about appointing a Special Envoy for Sri Lanka.

this was in july 31,2009. of course no envoy was appointed (nor was one needed).

however there are other sri lankan documents in the leak. lots of them.

3,325 in fact.

here (click to enlarge) is the info-graphic in spiegel online (one of the media that got pre-access), as you can see sri lanka has a relatively big dot over it in the map, corresponding to no of documents to be leaked. time line indicate the date of origin of those documents; color the level of secrecy.

leaks also indicate that u.s embassy in sri lanka has been busy. as the following graphic from wikileaks website indicate colombo embassy is the 11th biggest originator of these documents.


it will be interesting to know whether all docs originating from colombo concern sri lanka. esp given certain conspiracy theories that went round when voice of america installed a broadcasting facility here.

anyway we will wait for the publication of documents

who will be embarrassed?
i have a feeling (and i may be wrong ) that those who will be most embarrassed in sri lanka when these 'cables' come to light in full, will be certain opposition figures. given their pronounced tendency to lick western ass, i wont be surprised if they opened their mouths way too much when err.... talking to american diplomats. several blabber mouthed pro americans (esp in arab countries) have already been embarrassed from the few released documents. also most of the docs seems to cover the so called ceasefire period when opposition was in power. there is also sarath fonseka's alleged contacts with americans in 2009 and during election.

in contrast, we already know that present sl government leaders are not given to ass lick west, so no favorites with usa. americans expressing their resulting prejudices will not surprise anyone. revelations will only make it more difficult for individual american diplomats who wrote them to have a working relationship here.

on the other hand, if it is revealed that those american diplomats have been intelligent enough to look past their prejudices and narrow world view to understand sri lankan reality and mindset, and recommended engagement with sri lanka, there will corresponding benefits to all.

another group that may be embarrassed are non american western diplomats and their sl tools, the ngos. to give them credit, americans were never much in to interfering in sri lanka's effort to defeat terrorist tamil tiger murderers, but other western countries were. these documents may report on actions of those others during and after the ceasefire.

whatever they contain, they will be interesting to read. cheers to wikileaks!


updates on 11/30/2010
another doc on sri lanka [new link from new wikileak site] reports on a discussion americans had with with amitav banerji, director, political affairs division of commonwealth secretariat on 06/11/2009.

(C) Banerji said that the human rights situation in Sri Lanka during and after the recent military offensive had been raised “informally and off the record” by the UK during the last CMAG meeting, forcing a difficult conversation with the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, as Sri Lanka is currently a member of CMAG. Banerji said the Commonwealth continues to watch the situation in Sri Lanka and noted that Sri Lanka’s offer to host the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) had been turned down over concerns about lending international credibility to the Government’s actions.

no new revelations there; local media contemporaneously reported pretty much everything there.

btw who cares about the commonwealth? only thing it seems to do is parade the hopelessly vulgar british royals and hold games. (btw at 2010 edition of commonwealth games sri lankan president was the guest of honor at closing ceremony). idea that such a rickety old skeleton of genocidal british empire can lend any kind of credibility can only be entertained by westerners and their paid slaves with mental clocks stopped in 1930s, if not 1800s.

updates on 12/01/2010
nothing so far. altogether 471 out of 251,287 documents released. only 2 (referred above) on sri lanka out of 3,225.


updates on 12/02/2010
two leaks on sri lanka
separate posts on them were published in this blog
wikileaks on sri lanka update - david miliband interfered in sri lanka to get uk tamil votes .
update: wikileaks on sri lanka - american ambassador's report on 01/15/2010 on alleged war crimes accountability

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