The UN is dishing out lunacy, idiocy and knee-slapping humour!

AND A NECESSARY AFTERWORD :)

I thought it was just Ban Ki-moon and the chief of the panel he’s appointed recently, one Marzuki Darusman, who didn’t know if they are coming or going.   Ki-moon said it was just a committee tasked to advice him on things pertaining to Sri Lanka. He said, through his representative, that there would be no investigation. Darusman says (magnanimously) that the panel will ‘also’ investigate the LTTE, as though he would be doing us some big favour.  LTTE is past tense and we don’t need some ill-advised dabblers to tell us the ‘truth’ about the LTTE. We already know.

Ki-moon’s representative, when announcing the panel and in response to questions from the media, has categorically stated that the panel does not have the authority to investigate or even visit Sri Lanka.  Darusman on the other hand clearly uses the word ‘investigate’.  Someone’s very confused here.  One of the two, i.e. Ki-moon or Darusman is so dumb that he ought to resign immediately or else be kicked out unceremoniously. 

On the other hand, we have that ace trouble-maker and Tiger-lover, Eric Solheim, trying to tell us that ‘thousands of lives could have been saved if the LTTE agreed to surrender’ before the leadership was finally eliminated.  Solheim says that had the LTTE been agreeable, the surrender would have been overseen by a special UN force.  Well, first of all, Solheim’s opinion constitutes toilet wash, given his considerable history as a promoter of terrorism.  Secondly, given that the Secretary General of the UN is now a confirmed imbecile, muddle-headed in thinking, moronic in appointment and given to act like executive and not the administrator that he is, I dread to think what such a mechanism would have entailed. 

Just imagine Ki-moon and Solheim overseeing surrender by the latter’s pals!  Solheim, even as the LTTE killed ‘thousands’ did nothing to ‘save lives’. Instead he rewarded the killers through his Government, the KINGDOM (yes, not democracy) of Norway.  At the end of the day killers such as Pulidevan, Nadesan, Prabhakaran, Pottu Amman and Charles Anthony would have been roaming around plotting to set off bombs and kill thousands of innocent people and when that day dawned guess who will be left carrying the baby.  Solheim? Ki-moon? No, the near and dear of the dead! 

Solheim is Solheim. Tiger-lover to the end, we can’t expect any logic to come from this individual’s mouth.  Sri Lanka was his toy. The key word is ‘was’.  He was Chandrika Kumaratunga’s favourite and later Ranil Wickremesinghe’s bosom buddy. He’s lost his toy and therefore his whines are quite understandable, poor boy. 

The world, however, is full of Solheims and Ki-moons, it seems.  Another ‘wise guy’, Mark Toner, the Deputy Spokesman (we are told) of the US State Department, has expressed the support of the USA for this panel.  Ever since Robert Blake started partying with apologists for the LTTE in Colombo, Uncle Sam’s position on Sri Lanka has been one of doing whatever possible to undermine the effort to vanquish terrorism. We’ve had Barack Obama sound like the idiot that he is not and Hillary Clinton being, well, Hillary Clinton quite thick and happy in what her President once said was ‘the season of silliness’.  Coming from a country whose leaders have perfected the art of genocide, double standards, myopia and selective amnesia, I suppose Toner could do no better.  Still, his ignorance stands out too starkly to escape comment.

Toner urges Sri Lanka to ‘take advantage of this team…take advantage of their offer.’ The fool has not been briefed and doesn’t seem to understand the importance of doing the basics in terms of getting facts straight.  There is nothing on offer here, Toner and therefore nothing to ‘take advantage’ of.  Quite apart from the fact that the head of the panel is a blundering jackass who hasn’t read his job description and who was part of a team of ‘experts’ who proved they were easily purchased by the pro-LTTE lobby in Colombo, Toner doesn’t understand that the panel’s mandate is to brief Ki-moon and not make a list of goodies for the people of Sri Lanka.

However, since Toner represents a powerful country with considerable arm-twisting ability, he could get Ki-moon to actually offer some goodies to Sri Lanka.  Got me thinking.

Toner can tell Ki-moon that Sri Lanka could do with a lot of help. We really need a lot of disinfectant, mops, detergents, deodorizers and other equipment and accessories pertaining to clean floors, bathrooms, sinks etc., because every two weeks or so we have a bunch of idiots who can’t hold their liquor vomiting it all out all over the place.

We need to be offered some moron-testing devices that we can use to filter out idiots who are frequently sent to Sri Lanka to look around with half-closed eyes and then to talk through their what-not as though they have a clue about what’s happening, what happened and what might happen. 

One more offer, please, Toner.  Can you ask Obama to start moving things so that his pals can come up with a brand new award, a Nobel or an equivalent, to celebrate and honour humour?  We really need a Nobel Prize for Clowning.  If Obama could get a Nobel Prize for Peace for doing jack-all, then he might as well get one for being a joker, except that we have someone who is far more worthy of award, recognition and many pats on the back and slaps on the thighs.  Toner, do the honours.  Offer us the (comic) relief of having our friend and benefactor, Ban Ki-moon being given the Nobel Prize for Clowning.  He deserves it.

The above was published in the Daily News of June 29, 2010.  The following was published the next day.

THE MORNING INSPECTION

My heartfelt apologies to some lovely people I may have offended

(mannikkavum ban ki-moon) 

There is a plus side to inserting an email address at the bottom of a newspaper article.  One gets a lot of feedback. I like reading comments, suggestions, answering questions, clarifying when clarification is sought etc.  Not all comments are in agreement of course.  Some take issue with assertion, some point out flaw.  All in all, it’s ‘engagement’ and therefore stimulating and welcome.  There is of course the occasional stinker and these I tend to ignore because it takes all kinds after all to make the world.  

I got one of these latter type emails a short while ago.  The author, let me call him Roshan, was apparently ‘extremely disappointed’ and ‘quite shocked’ to read what I had written for the Daily News on Monday (The UN dishing out lunacy, idiocy and knee slapping humour).  Roshan chides me for what he claims is illogical and irrational expression of criticism.  He doesn’t want me to use phrases like ‘Tiger-lover’ or words like ‘idiot’.  These, he says, had made him feel ashamed.   

Now I don’t think I was being irrational or illogical.  I do agree that it is nice if we can be nice and if niceties got things done but then again we are not talking to ‘nice’ people, are we?  I mean, could we describe Ban Ki-moon, Solheim and others as intellectual giants or saints?  It is not that I have not been ‘kind’ and ‘decent’ and ‘nice’ and ‘sugary’.  The world is not a pretty place and sometimes when one is ‘nice’ it is taken as ‘weakness’.  There is not fool-proof method of engagement. We try one thing. It doesn’t work. We try another.  And sometimes we just wait and what we wish for transpires for reasons we were not able to predict.  Anyway, I thought it would ‘nice’ to be ‘nice’ to Roshan, to alleviate his suffering and cure him of the shame that I’m accused of causing him.  So here goes.

I address this to Ban, Eric, Navi and other honourable ladies and gentlemen. 

Dearest(s),

I am amazed and utterly in awe of the great sense of responsibility and justice that touch all your actions and statements.  I am amazed and am in utterly in awe of how fair you have been, how balanced in judgment and even-handed you’ve been in viewing the world.  I believe that as a citizen of a member state of the United Nations, I am indeed privileged to have people like you to define for me the realities I inhabit. 

I am thrilled beyond words that you have treated Sri Lanka in exactly the same manner that you have treated the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Israel.  Your integrity shines so brightly that even from this corner of Planet Earth I am able to tell that you have had the eyes to view places like Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and other places, especially in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, ‘Palestine’ and Pakistan and have been beyond reproach in your assessment of events that have taken place. I am given to believe that NOTHING has taken place in such places to warrant censure of any kind, the appointment of an advisory panel or commissioning of investigation. 

I want to tell you that I have wronged you and a person called Roshan by saying nasty things about you a couple of days ago.  I regret using words such as ‘idiot’ and implying that you were moronic and partial to terrorists and their allies.  I now believe that you are utterly, utterly, absolutely blameless of any wrong-doing.  I am convinced that you are not petty-minded, do not know the meaning of the term ‘double-standards’ and have never acted in a high-handed manner.  Let it not be said also that any of you, especially Mr. Ki-moon, have operated outside the ambit of your job description. 

Darlings, you are lovely, lovely, saintly, wondrous individuals.  Indeed it is people like you who give us hope that the world can be a better place, that justice and fair play will someday triumph over malice, vindictiveness, deceit and other things that none of you will ever be found guilty of. 

I am full of remorse for having engaged in name-calling.  It was, believe me, done in a weak moment, in a fit of anger.  I should have been more circumspect.  Please, please forgive me, my dearest(s).  Please, also, be assured of my undying and eternal love and affection and loyalty from now until forever and two days more thereafter (for good measure). 

I am copying this to Roshan, who, dear friends, doesn’t seem to have the time to read newspapers. I am going to email to him.  He is, I am sure, a darling little boy, a staunch supporter of our beloved Secy Gen Ban, well Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (Roshan might be a tad peeved for abbreviating the name and title of such a saintly personality).  I urge you lovelies to consider writing to him.  Email me and I will get back to you with his email address.  

Roshan is convinced that the ‘invective’ of a ‘misled’ columnist (myself) has ‘reduced the respect that he thinks Sri Lanka has/had in the global context.  I did not know I was so influential, but anyway, I trust this missive would restore Sri Lanka’s status to its former glory. 

Dear all, I trust, now that I have showed what I believed is sufficient penitence, that you will forgive me.  I am hopeful, also that you will now further honour me by reiterating your commitment to fair play and to upholding the norms and protocols pertaining to your respective offices and to continue to treat (as you always have) all member states as equals in the family of nations.

Much love. Always and forever and two days more.

Me.