Enough is enough. Stephen Rapp the
prosecutor came to Sri Lanka as an official of the USA. He visited the Northern
Province with the ambassador in Sri Lanka for USA and gave a judgment. It was a
case of the prosecutor becoming the judge, aptly described by the Sinhala
saying “naduth hamuduruvange baduth hamuduruvange”. The embassy of USA in Sri
Lanka tweeted that Sri Lanka forces had used cluster bombs and also engaged in
chemical warfare. In fact they had identified St. Anthony’s ground in
Pudumathalan, as the place where people had died as a result of shelling by the
Sri Lankan armed forces in January 2009. The Bishops Rayappu Joseph of Mannar
and Saundranayagam of Jaffna had told the Americans of chemical warfare and
cluster bombings. This reminds one of allegations of chemical warfare by the
Americans and the English before they attacked Iraq. The governments of England
and USA lied to their own people in order to attack the civilians in Iraq.
The USA and England have lied to the
world throughout history in order to attack other countries and maintain their
Anglo Saxon Christian hegemony for centuries. Thus the charges of chemical
warfare, cluster bombings, shelling of civilians against Sri Lanka does not
come as a surprise and the only question that has to be answered is why it took
so many years for the Americans and the Bishops to come out with the charges.
If somebody had thought about it before May 2009 the USA could have attacked
Sri Lanka on the pretext of the armed forces engaging in chemical warfare. If
Sri Lanka had resorted to chemical warfare, cluster bombings etc., surely the
Catholic Bishops would have come to know of it then, and they would not have
refrained informing the west of these horrendous acts of Sri Lanka. Then why
did the LTTE keep silent during that period? It is clearly a fabrication and it
is known that the Sri Lankan armed forces were not in the vicinity of St.
Anthony’s ground area during that particular time in January 2009.
All knowledge is created by people and
in the case of charges against Sri Lanka there is a further dimension. We have
been saying for years that the west is determined to take revenge against the
President and the Defense secretary for defeating their ally and pet LTTE. They
wanted the President to stop the operations and applied pressure to the
government. The president was not in the country during the last few days of
the operations, and it was known that the west wanted to send a ship to rescue
Prabhakaran and his cohorts. Now more than four years after the event, the
minister DEW Gunasekera has come with the information on how USA, England had
given telephone calls to the government to stop the humanitarian operations,
and how the President resisted all those demands. The interesting fact is that
all these charges on violation of human rights of the civilians began after the
defeat of the LTTE.
It is clear that these stories on human
rights have only one objective. That is to remove the “Rajapakse Regime” in the
words of the pundits and Ranil Wickremesinghe, and send the Rajapakse brothers
Mahinda and Gotabhaya to the guillotine. We have been telling this from 2009
and by the time of the Presidential elections in 2010 we had suggested that
Sarath Fonseka in spite of his services rendered to the Sri Lanka Army, should
be arrested for his “sudu kodi kathava” (white flag story), the first step in
war crime charges. Though Sarath Fonseka was the commander of the Army towards
the end of the humanitarian operations his name is never mentioned in
connection with “war crimes” by the west.
The west never thought that the LTTE
would be defeated, and they had thought by applying pressure to the government,
they could rescue Prabhakaran, and work towards establishing an Eelam in exile during
the last week of the operations. Had they knew that the LTTE would be defeated,
the west would have brought charges on “war crimes” during the operations, and
as in Iraq would have attacked Sri Lanka on bogus charges. The war experts
never thought that the LTTE would be defeated and we were spared of drones
without pilots. The pundits never believed us when we said that the LTTE could
be defeated by the Sri Lankan armed forces, and what they lacked was a
determined political leadership, which was finally provided by the President
Rajapkse.
Now the story tellers are working
overtime to avenge the Sri Lankan government with the objective of a “regime
change” and sending the two Rajapakses to the guillotine. The visits by Navi Pillais,
Stephen Rapps and others are for reciting stories with the assistance of some
clergy from the Catholic and Christian churches. We could expect economic
sanctions and other “punishments” for keeping the SLFP led UPFA in power, but
unlike few “educated” ignoramus in Colombo, Kandy and few other towns who are
grouped into various “enlightened” fora, the vast majority of the Sinhalas do
not consider these threats of punishment for worth of two cents, and would not
allow a “regime change” to the dismay of the England led west, Ranil
Wickremesinghe and the educated ignoramus. We should expect more stories in
time to come and should not be much concerned with what England and USA are up
to in Geneva. All that we have to do is to defeat their resolutions if possible
with the assistance of non western countries and pave the way for a strong
organization of non western countries. We should never try to appease the west
or India by promising to implement the thirteenth amendment or inquiring into
the so called violations of human rights of the civilians during the
humanitarian operations. Rapp has now extended these “violations” to January
2009 and soon they would be talking of the entire period of operations against
the LTTE not confining themselves to the last two weeks. They are so desperate
for a “regime change”, which Ranil Wicktemesinghe with his dry English humor
finds it difficult to deliver, and the west would be directly involved in
achieving their objective. Rapp is only the forerunner of the change of policy
by the west.
Though we should never agree to any
investigation internal or external (so called international) investigation on
“violation of human rights” we need some other investigation by a committee
consisting mainly of Sinhala educated people including Maha Sangha. The
educated ignoramus should be shunned out from this committee as they would be
only the mouthpieces of the western theorists. (Incidentally a seminar on
“western science is pattapal boru – blatant lies” will be held on 23rd
January in Kandy where leading members of some enlightened fora reside) . The
committee should come out with a report on what action should be taken
regarding the story tellers on human rights violations. The two Bishops, Rapps
and others should not be allowed to escape with these “war crime” stories without
providing evidence. They hide behind anonymous eye witnesses, and the
prosecutors take the easy path of becoming the judges themselves. We know that
one of the Bishops gave the statue of Holy Mary in Madhu to the terrorists
depriving the Sinhala Catholics the opportunity of going on pilgrimage to Madhu
and praying there. Defamation of individuals is a punishable offense even under
the Roman Dutch Law, and when it comes to the defamation of a country, a nation
and the leader of state, the law as handed over to us by the colonials seems to
be silent. The prosecutors should be forced to come out with a list of so
called eye witnesses and they should not be able to say that the information
would be provided after twenty years. What is at stake is the honour of the
nation, the state, the armed forces and the Commander in Chief, and if the law
lags behind in these matters, it is necessary to bring in legislation to punish
the self appointed punishers. Let us prosecute the prosecutors.
Nalin De Silva
15-01-2014
