Give Ambassador Teplitz a dictionary, please!

It is not hard to understand US Ambassador Alaiana B Teplitz’ angst. China, along with Japan, owns the debt of her country, the United States of America. China, according the US narrative, has re-colonized Africa without a single shot being fired. China, again according to pro-USA narrators, created the deadly Covid19 and controlled it while the USA is being strangled by it.  The USA was essentially sleeping while China laid out its Belt and Road Initiative. When the USA (and India) got wise to the ‘String of Pearls’ things had moved so far that only damage-control was possible; hence the hastily put together ‘Quad’ comprising the USA, India, Japan and Australia with the objective of ‘stopping China’ in the Into-Pacific region.

No wonder Teplitz is upset!

It can’t be just nationalist ill-will that made Teplitz rant and rave against China in an interview with the Daily Mirror recently. She’s the local representative of the US government, a citizen of a country that operates like a global thug but is in reduced and declining circumstances, articulating country-interest. She could have been more diplomatic but sometimes when reason is trumped by emotion niceties are forgotten. She’s also upset that she hasn’t been able to get her pet project, the MCC Compact, off the ground, possibly compromising career advancement prospects). However, more than all this, what’s probably most bothersome is the fact that China’s footprint in Sri Lanka is way larger than that of the USA.

Yes, the USA itself is upset. So much so that it openly violated WTO rules (which was pushed mainly by the USA in efforts that included arm-twisting representations of countries like Sri Lanka in the infamous ‘green rooms’ way back in 1993 when the GATT was buried and the WTO birthed in its place), in imposing sanctions on Chinese companies. If Washington is pained, it is not surprising that Washington’s official mouthpiece has an articulation problem.

‘Sri Lanka should engage with China in ways that protect its sovereignty,’ she’s said. Now this is an OMG-moment. The condescension! The sheer arrogance! How viceroy-like! And to talk of sovereignty, of all things!

First of all, what Sri Lanka does with any country is Sri Lanka’s business. Many Sri Lankan governments have danced to Washington-tune and this has not pleased other countries (India for example during the J.R. Jayewardene regime), but their representatives didn’t say ‘hey, your sovereignty is at stake, dude!’ Countries do business. It’s bucks or politics or both. Profits and strategic edge. The world is not flat and it is not easy for a country like Sri Lanka to walk the slant. There’s give and take and typically more give than take. True in the case of China, true for other countries too, India and the USA included. Not a happy situation but then again we don’t live in a convenient world.  

The USA does business. Just like the British in another era. The Accelerated Mahaweli Development Project saw many Western countries offering financial assistance. The main contractors in all these projects were companies based in the relevant donor nation. Well, that’s what China is doing in Sri Lanka. Aid, whether it is a loan or called a gift, comes with conditions. The political economy of development assistance benefits donors more than the beneficiaries.

It’s like a corporate giving an unemployed person a choice: ‘you could go without an income or work for peanuts and help me make bucks; it’s a gift, dude, and I am not forcing you to take it.’  

She admits that conditions exist and defends them too, even as she cries ‘foul’ over conditions she claims have been imposed by China. ‘Preconditions are not bad things, if they secure the integrity of the transaction for all parties involved. If the lack of such preconditions creates potential infringement on Sri Lanka’s sovereignty, or otherwise mortgages its future, would it not be in the country’s best interest to ensure preconditions exist?’

Well, there are conditions that come in black and white and conditions that are whispered or interjected parenthetically. Reference to machinations internationally are not uncommon in the USA’s diplomatic moves in Sri Lanka. Reference to trade-relations is also common. It’s saying-without-saying: ‘do this or else.’ Of course mindless or sycophantic politicians and officials don’t really help Sri Lanka’s cause. Sometimes, the USA openly helps ‘friendly’ groups to power (ref: the elections in 2015). So then we would see ‘independent leaders of a sovereign nation freely contracting with the USA.’

And then we have the sovereignty-loving USA bombing sovereign countries to the middle ages. We have sovereignty-fixated USA funding, arming and training terrorists. We have democracy-drugged USA supporting monarchs, tyrants and military juntas violently and brutally suppress pro-democracy movements in countries all over the world. It’s pick and choose foreign policy where the pickings overwhelming trump the lovely rhetoric. 

The Chinese Embassy has responded, gloves off, with some unsolicited advice:

‘While it’s always not surprising to see the US interfere into a sovereign country’s internal affairs, the general public is still astonished to witness [the] despicable attempt to manipulate others’ diplomatic relations.’

China couldn’t let her rant go unanswered, obviously, and yet, China fell short in the trite response. Perhaps if the Daily Mirror interviews Teplitz’ Chinese counterpart, a more comprehensive answer could be obtained.  Perhaps Ambassador Cheng Xueyuan could tell Teplitz and the people of Sri Lanka about loans/grants offered and the relevant terms including interest rates. Perhaps he could compare and contrast.

Teplitz talks about transparency and accountability, although the USA is certainly far from transparent (remember non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq) and hasn’t accounted for all the destruction wrecked on the planet through wars and business. Cheng Xueyuan can do better, can’t he? He could call out Teplitz and explain ‘China’ to her (and to Sri Lankans who may have doubts about Sino-Lanka relations).

Meanwhile Alaiana B Teplitz could check the American Heritage Dictionary (the American Center should have one) and check the meaning of ‘Sovereignty.’. And while at it, check diplomacy and duplicity, complicity, arrogance and bewilderment. ‘Angst’ too.

malindasenevi@gmail.com

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Speak John (Kerry), like Cochise

First of all, welcome to Sri Lanka.  Don’t worry, it’s all heart and not courtesy.  This country has embraced one and all.  Invader, interferer, brigand, smuggler, embezzler, immigrant, condescending missionary determined to ‘save’ the heathen, marauder, city-sacker, control-freak, you name it, we got them all. 

This you must know: when we say ‘friend’ we mean it.  It is not diplo-speak.  We don’t refer to ‘long standing friendly relations’ even as we plot control and extraction.   We don’t advocate, insist and enforce with or without the stated or unsaid ‘this is for your own good’.  We recognize all this, though.  We know that power lies in the ability to make others inhibit our version of their reality as Philip Gourevitch observed in his collection of essays on Rwanda, ‘We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families’. 

So, dear John, let us be honest with one another. 

Your country hasn’t exactly been friendly to Sri Lanka in recent times.  You’ve used friendship-rhetoric of course in Geneva and elsewhere but it is pretty clear that when you say you are prompted by friendly concerns to take up positions that are opposed by the said ‘friend’ it amounts to being presumptuous if not downright arrogant.  Your country has been friend to other countries.  The good intentions are not limited to Sri Lanka.  These are documented.  They are known.  They are not pretty. 

Now John, you cannot blame us for finding it difficult to blank out such things.  Histories matter.  They are remembered.  Past actions help understand present words and possible futures, pretty or otherwise.  Nevertheless it would be foolish to think that people cannot change.  People do acquire new knowledge, they can learn, they can change.  We can hope.  We will. 

Since we are friends, John, we will not insist that you retract your perhaps ill-informed statement on Sri Lanka which, if it was deliberate distortion amounts to pernicious uttering typical (sadly) of much that issues from the State Department.

Since we are friends, John, we would ask if you characterize your involvement in Afghanistan as a ‘war with Afghans’.  We would ask if you are at war with Iraqis, with those of the Islamic faith (in all countries  where the ISIS, Al Qaeda and other such groups operate).  We could ask if you are at war with African Americans in your own country.  You get the drift, right? 

So we won’t ask you to apologize for describing Sri Lanka’s long struggle against terrorism as a ’30 year war with Tamils’.  We have already asked our Foreign Minister why on earth he didn’t educate you on this when you described it in those terms.  We would just remind you on how your President, Barack Obama, spoke of the engagement with the ISIS, ‘a war on a terrorist group, not on the people it claimed to represent’.   Again, we note that given histories the jury is out on the question of which side the USA is really on.  We say this in friendship and because friends should be open with one another.

So if you want to be friends, John, you should not hold your cards close to your chest.  If you don’t know, it is no shame to admit the fact.  You can ask about terrorism and you can ask about Tamils.  You can compare and contrast.  You can study demographic realities and you can peruse history.  You can conclude about the legitimacies of contradictory claims.  All this only if there’s humility.  Take that our and the word ‘friendship’ has to be followed by a question mark, you will no doubt agree. 

You may have heard, dear John, of a Native American leader by the name of Cochise.  He was an Apache.  He once said ‘you must speak straight so that your words may go as sunlight into our hearts’.  He added, ‘Speak Americans…I will not lie to you; do not lie to me.’

Speak, John.  Like Cochise.  

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The soft and hard of diplomacy

It was reported that the United States of America had softened its stand on Sri Lanka.  This was after President Mahinda Rajapaksa met US Secretary of State John Kerry on the margins of the UN General Assembly.  Jen Psaki, spokesperson for Kerry and the US State Department has since said that the US position on Sri Lanka had not changed. 

So it’s still hard.   Not news, though. 

Psaki elaborates thus: ‘We would like our relationship with Sri Lanka to achieve its full potential. That will only happen if Sri Lanka builds enduing peace and prosperity for all of its diverse ethnic and religious communities. That’s why the Secretary made clear to the President that Sri Lanka needed to take meaningful steps to act like a country that is no longer at war but instead is now building a future that includes all of its citizens.’

Perhaps Psaki hasn’t heard the adage ‘charity begins at home’ for if he did he would be agitating for an end to structured racism in the USA which results among other things in racial profiling and the regular pumping of bullets into the bodies of Blacks and Latinos by white police officers who are subsequently absolved of any wrongdoing.  

But if indeed he hasn’t heard of home-charity, it might have something to do with the fact that his office is not about ‘home’ but about ‘abroad’ even though all interventions and engagements are predicated with the now tired and meaningless caveat ‘to ensure the security of our country’.  What does one say to a country that is perpetually at war and yet preaches peace to the rest of the world?  What does one say to a country that destroys other countries and robs the yesterday, today and tomorrow of millions of people and yet talks of ‘building futures for all citizens’?  

The point is that softness and hardness are just carelessly and illogically used descriptive of US policy towards this or that country.   The only way to win the friendship of the USA (and thereby obtain softness-degree desired) is to play ball.  In other words, do Washington’s bidding; in a word, enslavement. 

This simple truth, clearly, has not been understood by whoever interpreted what transpired at the Rajapaksa-Kerry meeting.  There’s nothing to gain by misinterpretation.  Indeed, there’s no practical value in any kind of interpretation without concrete evidence with which the claim can be anchored.  Another important element in this game is to understand that there’s absolutely nothing to gain by playing word games with those who have the power to write and re-write script and even deny authorship. 

It is far more profitable to listen, nod, smile, shake-hands, pose for photograph and leave.  Whatever is said and even what’s not said will be read and transmitted as per Washington-requirement.  Indeed, in situations such as the one which prompted this soft-hard talk, the more sensible diplo-speak would have President Mahinda Rajapaksa asking Kerry about Seed Global Health founded by his daughter Vanessa Bradfor Kerry, a physician and healthcare administrator.  He could have also asked if his other daughter Alexandra has made any new films after ‘The Last Full Measure’. 

This is easier than talking politics with the powerful.  Unless you want to submit or making an offer that is impossible to refuse but one which plays Russia, China and India against the USA with respect to overall strategic interests and comparative advantages.  This side of that kind of give-take proposal, it is patently silly to say, hear and then indulge in sophomoric interpretation games. 

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Peace: whose business is it anyway?

It has been reported that US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh have ‘agreed to work closely in expediting the Sri Lankan peace process (sic)’.  That ‘decision’ had been taken when the former visited the latter in New Delhi on Tuesday.

Interesting.

First of all, neither Clinton nor Singh are representatives elected by the people of Sri Lanka.  Nor were these individuals mandated to ‘expedite’ any process that concerns Sri Lanka.  Neither of them have bothered to explain what ‘peace process’ means.  Most importantly, neither of them has the moral authority to pass judgment, forward proposal or even comment on things Sri Lankan.  Let us explain.

In March this year, the USA sponsored a resolution on Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council.  It was a resolution that Sri Lanka objected to, vehemently, and perforce was one roundly seen as an unfriendly move on the part of the USA.  It was a resolution that India supported, thereby dispelling all illusions about that country’s friendship claims. 

If one were to go back further in history, then we can talk of how India ‘expedited’ the ‘peace process’ in Sri Lanka by funding, arming, training and giving refuge to terrorists.  We can talk of how India PREVENTED the vanquishing of the fascist LTTE organization in 1987, postponing that eventuality by 22 years and thereby facilitating that many years worth of carnage. That act of thuggery also helped unleash an insurrection that left 60,000 dead in less than 2 years. 

The USA, for all its anti-terrorist rhetoric, actively sought (through its local representative, Robert O Blake) to throw a lifeline to the fascists in the last days of the conflict, showing generosity of a kind that was and is patently absent in how that country dealt with its armed detractors in Afghanistan, most notably al Qaeda and Taliban operatives including Osama bin Laden.    

Both countries were very active in supporting a largely pro-terrorist Ceasefire Agreement signed in 2002.  There was no ‘expediting’ of anything other than destabilization, chaos, anarchy and separatist drives. 

Despite all these spokes in the wheels, Sri Lanka did defeat fascism.  Sri Lanka opened the doors that the LTTE had closed to peace, normalcy and reconciliation.  Singh and Clinton may have their own definitions of ‘peace’, and they are more than welcome to apply them to themselves, Singh in Kashmir and Clinton in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and other places where massive crimes against humanity are perpetrated in the name of democracy. 

Sri Lanka, however, is not another state of either India or the USA. Guns, bucks and inflated egos do prompt people to be presumptuous, that’s human of course.  But this without-any-by-your-leave attitude will not help heal strained relations between these countries and Sri Lanka.        

There is reference to a ‘stalled peace process’.  The wording is telling.  There was a stumbling block to peace in Sri Lanka: the LTTE fascists.  That obstacle was removed.  There are unresolved grievances, yes.  Not all of them are Tamil-specific.  Not all of the articulated ‘grievances’ are myth-free.  Neither are they un-tainted by ‘aspiration’.  There’s nothing among these ‘grievances’ that come even close to the suffering of certain communities in India and the USA.  Indeed if there has been ‘stalling’ it is because of the TNA’s intransigence, its long history of supporting LTTE fascism and its absolute reluctance to come to terms with political realities and historical facts.   

In May 2009, Sri Lanka closed a chapter, the long and bloody story of fascism, spawned by chauvinism of all kinds but especially that of the likes of Ponnambalam Ramanathan, S.J.V. Chelvanayakam and G.G. Ponnambalam, and nurtured by the evil designs of Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv.  The meddling of the likes of Blake didn’t help at all.  Singh and Clinton can walk that path.  They have the power to push Sri Lanka back into those terrible times.  That’s not helping ‘peace’. 

Given their histories and their abilities to rupture old wounds, if they really want to help, it’s best they keep their distance.  Rebuilding is easy and is happening. Curing a nation of old suspicions and animosities that are naturally birthed by conflict takes longer.  If Singh and Clinton are impatient, hard luck! They can look at their own examples if they really want to know about ‘inability to resolve’ and ‘insufferable delays’.  This is Sri Lanka.  It is a country that has its own pace.  Own way.  Those who prescribed, dished out bad medicine.  When that happens, such physicians are not re-visited.    

Dr. Singh and Ms. Clinton are not citizens of ‘peaceful’ countries.  They are both leaders of countries at war; at war with other countries and peoples and at war with their own people.  They are hardly in a position to prescribe solutions to others. 

Peace in Sri Lanka is the business of people who live in Sri Lanka.  They can’t find fault with anyone who says ‘Thank you, but no!’  

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Patricia Butenis needs to sleep (so she can wake up)

Patricia Butenis, in an interview where she was offered a lot of full tosses, has waxed eloquent about US-Sri Lanka relations.  I thought this piece, written a year and a half ago might make interesting reading.
The 4th article of the Dasa Raja Dharma, Lord Buddha's incomparable treatise on good governance is about Ajjava, i.e. honesty and integrity. The ruler, the Buddha said must be absolutely straightforward and must never employ any crooked means to achieve ends. This week I planned to dwell on this particular aspect of good governance but am compelled to employ the idea to dissect something more specific. I write about honesty and integrity but only in terms of how they relate to the month of September.

I am writing this on September 22, 2010. September 22 is significant for a specific and personal reason. It marks an anniversary. On this day, exactly one year ago, the Daily Mirror published an article by me titled ‘Welcome to Sri Lanka Ms. Patricia Butenis'. Ms. Butenis had just assumed duties as the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka. My comment followed a statement she issued to the press subsequent to presenting credentials to President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

She said in that note, ‘No country, including the United States, has a perfect record in safeguarding human rights' but said that even while addressing its own shortcomings, the USA has a responsibility to advocate for the rights and freedoms of people worldwide. Ms. Butenis is aware, I am sure, of the adage that charity begins at home. I expressed in my response to her ‘note' the hope that once she recovers from jet-leg, Ms. Butenis would write a lengthy piece informing Sri Lankans about what exactly the USA has been doing by way of addressing shortcomings.

A lot has happened since September 22, 2010. We've had Nick Clegg of Britain's Liberal Democratic Party confessing while acting as Prime Minister that the invasion of Iraq was illegal. We've had ‘Wikileaks' telling us of the horrendous and systemic perpetration of atrocities by US troops in Afghanistan. We've had the US justice system virtually giving a green light to torture of prisoners as long as it happens outside the borders of that country. We've had President Barack Obama wanting photographic evidence of excesses perpetrated by US troops in Iraq suppressed in the name of ‘national security'. We've not had Ms. Butenis saying a word about these things.

Here are some sobering numbers. The number of Iraqis slaughtered since the US invaded Iraq stands at 1,366,360. That's close to 1.4 million people. The USA has lost 4,739 military personnel. This means that roughly 288 Iraqis have died for each US soldier. Ms. Butenis knows of all this because she tried to buy the silence of one Mohammed Hafidh after trigger-happy security personnel deployed to protect a US diplomat belonging to the contractor Blackwater opened fire on a group of civilians killing his 10 year old son Ali. Ms. Butenis was at the time the Deputy Chief of Mission in Baghdad and had offered the boy's father US$ 12,500. He had refused. She must know these numbers. She must know what that invasion was about. She must know that the US invaded that unhappy country in order to eliminate non-existent weapons of mass destruction. She must know that in addition to the 1.4 million Iraqis killed after the invasion, half a million Iraqi children died courtesy of the US-led economic sanctions imposed on that country. I am yet to hear Ms. Butenis talk of ‘shortcomings'. Her country has already spent US $ 1,083,252,716,408 in executing the wars on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and I refuse to believe that these adventures did not generate returns that justified investment.

There are 30 days in September. On the 24th day of this month in the year 2009, it was revealed that declassified documents of the US embassy in Bogota showed that US authorities had been aware since 1990 that the Colombian military had been murdering civilians and dressing them up as guerrillas to increase body counts. Colombia is the largest recipient of US military aid in the Western hemisphere. Ms. Butenis knows. She was Consul (1990-1993) and Consul General (2001-2004) in the US Embassy in Bogota. She could not have been ignorant of these matters.

Ms. Butenis also served as the US Political Officer in El Salvador (1982-1985) and as El Salvador Desk Officer (1988-1990). This was when that country was in the middle of a civil war where US-backed dirty tactics (developed using CIA experience from ‘Operation Phoenix' in Vietnam) caused over 75,000 deaths. And this lady had the audacity to tell the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that ‘the Lankan government must seriously address precious human rights abuses, including establishing accountability and rule of law by bringing to justice those responsible for extrajudicial killings, disappearances and numerous attacks against press freedom that have occurred in the last several years'. Ms Butenis could tell us what kind of bringing-to-justice was facilitated by her Government of murders her Government has supported and continues to support in Latin America. Given the posts she has held, Washington's policy directives she had to execute as part of her JD and her sanctimonious posturing, it is indeed surprising that she's in Colombo and not in the Hague.

My ‘welcome note' to Ms. Butenis is no longer available on the internet. I saw it a few days ago, posted the link on facebook, but it's since disappeared. I am not surprised. I have a copy saved though. Here's a quote referring to her meddling stink in Bangladesh:

‘At a farewell speech at the Gulshan Club, Dhaka, she had said that although some Bangladeshis believed she was sometimes too outspoken, this was because Ambassadors must be clear about their country's interests and viewpoints to avoid misunderstanding. I was told that Dr. Abdullah Dewan, Professor of Economics at Eastern Michigan University and a Bangladeshi American had observed: There was no "misunderstanding" on our part; she was not just "outspoken", but openly meddled, apparently beyond her mandated duty, in the internal affairs of a sovereign country and made it look like a client state of America.'

Last September I made a list and shook it twice at Ms. Butenis, in lieu of an official red-carpet welcome. This is the list.

US troops massacred 300 Lakotas in 1890. The USA has sent troops abroad or carried out military strikes against other countries on 216 occasions since independence from Britain. Since 1945, the USA has intervened in more than 20 countries throughout the world. People are aware of ‘Vietnam of course, where over 3 million people were killed before the then US President decided to withdraw. There are other unhappy countries. These include China (1945-46), Korea (1950-53), Guatemala (1954), Indonesia (1958), Cuba (1959-60), Guatemala (1960), Congo (1964), Peru (1965), Laos (1964-73), Vietnam (1961-73), Cambodia (1969-70), Guatemala (1967-69), Grenada (1983), Lebanon (1984), Libya (1986), El Salvador and Nicaragua (throughout the 1980s), Panama (1989), Iraq (ongoing), Sudan (1998), Afghanistan (ongoing) and Yugoslavia (1999). After World War II, the USA has assisted in over 20 different coups throughout the world and the CIA orchestrated countless assassinations and attempted-assassinations of dozens of political heads of state.

I also pointed out that Ms Butenis does not have to read Noam Chomsky to understand that Uncle Sam will support democratic regimes, dictatorships, monarchies, military juntas and all manner of totalitarian regimes guilty of horrendous crimes against humanity as long as US interests are served. That is the bottom line and I was sure Ms. Butenis must have been briefed on this when she was inducted into the US Foreign Service.

The USA has on numerous occasions deployed military police overseas, mobilized the National Guard, sent her Navy to patrol seas off the coast of numerous countries to show strength, carried out covert actions where US forces were not under direct US command, deployed US pilots to fly foreign planes, trained and advised military hierarchies in unpopular and tyrannical regimes and of course assassinated heads of state and other ‘undesirables'.

I strongly recommended that Ms. Butenis read Willian Blum's ‘Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since World War II'. I said that if the US throws the book at us, we can drown them with a hundred books, such is the magnitude of that country's crimes against humanity.

Ms. Butenis' contention that it is good not to have misunderstanding was taken in that spirit. I asked her to comment. I hoped there wouldn't be selective amnesia. One year later, I can report that we didn't get ‘selective amnesia' from Ms. Butenis. We got blanket silence. In Sinhala we would say ‘kata uththara nehe' (silence on account of being tongue-tied).

Ms. Butenis might not have heard of the Dasa Raja Dharma. A year ago I might have though that she would know the words ‘honesty' and ‘integrity'. Today, the 22nd day of September, 2010, one year after Mr. Butenis received that open welcome note I am saddened to observe that this lady doesn't seem to have a clue and this because those are the two most inconvenient concepts for a diplomat from her country.

I finished that note with the following:

‘Don't underestimate us. Don't misread ‘smile' for ‘pliant'. We will be watching your every move, trust us.'

I wished her an enjoyable tenure in Sri Lanka. I take this opportunity to tell her that we haven't dropped our guard or blinked even once.

You are being watched Ms. Butenis. With greater suspicion in fact. You can thank your silence, double-standards, deceit and continued meddling for this.

Cheers.

[This was first published on September 22, 2010 and was edited by Wendell Solomons and posted at http://www.articlesbase.com/international-studies-articles/september-22-is-for-remembering-3333150.html]

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Prasad Edirisooriya says 'Thank you Mr. Robert O. Blake'

There was something called 9/11 which is supposed to have changed the world.  Changed the world yet once again, I should add, for before that there was the world-changing moment of some wall in some place in Europe being brought down. Berlin, if memory serves.  There was a thing called the New World Odour. Sorry, ‘Order’.  ‘9/11’ was a tragedy that called a nation to take stock, take aim and discharge at will its frustrations, anger and the instruments made for robbing the world.  Sorry, ‘making the world safe’. 

I’ve heard the name Katrina.  That was some time ago.  I hear she huffed and puffed and blew away tall stories of invincibility and disaster-readiness.  I hear she’s left quite a few scars and that some wounds are of the slow-to-heal kind.   I’ve heard of a woman called Irene too.  She is supposed to have caused several cities in several states of the United States of America to weep copious tears.  Caused quite a flooding, she has. 

‘Hollywoodness’ might fool you, but I hear that it is possible for a third world to exist within the belly of a first world.  I’ve already heard that democracy is hypocrisy, dream actually nightmare and that for all talk of equality before the law and flatness in opportunity, the political economy of that landscape is not only skewed on class lines but is patently and potently racist too.  I’ve heard that troops are regularly dispatched to ‘see the world, land on territories with fairytale names and ravage them, and encounter exotic people and kill them’.  I’ve heard that when they return shell shocked (sorry, suffering from PCTS – Post Conflict Trauma Syndrome), they are handed a sexy name-tag (‘Veteran’), praised to heaven on every 11^th day of November (Veterans’ Day) and duly forgotten on the other 364 days of the year (and 365 each Leap Year) as they wallow in their personal and collective hells. 

I’ve heard of terrible histories and somber future that can be reasonably extrapolated from sick presents.  I’ve heard of some 25,000 people being killed in shootings every year including kids killing kids, a woman being raped every so many seconds, rampant substance abuse, a prison-industrial complex that is an affront to humanity where slavery thrives (legally, once again), a system that cannot educate the nation’s children, cure the sick or take care of the elderly.  It’s a country where supposedly educated and intellectually sharp leaders mimic their dumb and moronic predecessors and where the poor are kicked in their teeth and the thieving rich bailed out when they trip over their own greed and fall on their sorry behinds. 

From that terrible and unhappy planet (shall we say?) an emissary has arrived.  A noble man and one so large-hearted that he made a life-project of boldly going forth to make pure a corrupt world, sort out the little bruises and scratches of each and every society he wanders into and so on.  Robert Blake, ladies and gentleman, is a rare kind of hero.  The whole of Sri Lanka know him. And owe him too, shall we add?  I really don’t have the words to say ‘thank you’ in ways that do justice to the largeness of his heart, but my friend Prasad Edirisooriya clearly has.  Here’s the English translation of a song he composed just for our hero, Robert Blake, who loves the world so much and is so giving that he would put any country before his own:

Hail O Robert O. Blake (Hon)!

Like an Eastern rising he arrived

On our blessed land

from a Western horizon

this noble and generous man –

All hail! All hail!

Floods, hurricanes

Unemployment and other grief

Uncountable, indescribable

And tears for these and other back-home tragedies

He brushed aside to be with us

To bring gift and friendship –

All hail! All hail!

And he came to walk among us,

Visit our villages, our homes

Our lives and hearts,

Extended a hand, gave year to heartbeat

Brought relief too,

He did, he did,

This generous, noble man –

All hail! All hail!

With unstinted affection

Eyes pinched by tear-need,

He came, he saw, he gave:

Relief, victory, joy,

This son of another land

To us a shining, life-giving sun –

All hail! All hail!

Yes, a crude translation.  Prasad will forgive, I am sure.  He had a footnote: ‘This is a welcome song, penned to mark the arrival of US Deputy Secretary of State, Robert O. Blake (on September 12, 2011), who accorded us with the rare privilege of his presence despite his many duties and obviously busy timetable just so he could educate himself about Sri Lanka’s problems and offer practical solutions.’

I heard yesterday that this gentlemen has been strolling around up-market department stores ‘touristing’ in a terrorist-free country that must have been a kind of dreamspace for him back when he was the US Ambassador.  He must have been taking a pulse.  So kind.  So erudite.  We are not worthy, I am forced to conclude.  As I said, I don’t have the words, but I believe despite my translation-butchering, Prasad’s words express the nation’s sentiments.  I hope it is thanks enough, Robert. 

[The Daily News, for reasons best known to them, did not carry this article]

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Slumber-fake doesn't fool everyone

A few days ago approximately 500 ex-LTTE cadres spent five days visiting Colombo, Kalutara and Galle, travelling from Vavuniya by train and bus and stopping in Galle, Matara and Embilipitiya.  Given that almost 70% of LTTE cadres who had surrendered or had been captured have been rehabilitated and reintegrated into society with marketable skills and/or having completed courses of study, this doesn’t come as a surprise.  What made me mention the fact is a comment by a US citizen: ‘Can you imagine a group of hardcore ex Al-Qaeda members who had been ‘rehabilitated’ visiting Washington DC?’   My tongue-in-cheek response was, ‘they do, they do.....and have, have...virtually’.

Washington DC was never anti-terrorism.   It was and is terrorist-friendly. Selectively.  Some might even argue that Terrorism Incorporated is headquarted in Washinton DC or that terrorism is another name for ‘Washington DC’, considering that the name is associated with implemented US policy, stated or otherwise.  On the other hand, even if we believed the glossy version of the world regularly dished out by the more or less kept media, the notion of ex terrorists (bearded and turbaned as per popular caricature) visiting the capital of the USA is impossible to visualize.  This is the difference between that country and this, and perhaps explains certain moves against Sri Lanka from that part of the world, i.e. those generated by righteous entities rather than the self-righteous.  They just can’t believe that things can happen in a different way.  And, if you still believe what outfits such as the BBC dishes out, then consider the fact that they had to apologize for using blatantly fake footage from a demonstration in India claiming it was in Tripoli’s ‘Green Square’ to ‘show’ that the city had fallen.  We’ve had enough reports of Gaddafi’s forces bombing civilians from similar organizations without a shred of evidence.

The point is that even those who are ignorant and/or innocent, unlike the movers and shakers in Washington DC, just can’t imagine a world where things get sorted out outside of the guns-in-booty-out logic.  If wars end, they must, they probably believe, involve mass slaughter (planned and executed) and follow with total humiliation of the defeated.  That’s the history that they’ve read and benefitted from.  I am sympathetic. 

There’s no point preaching to the converted.  There’s no point in believing that the truth would help change perceptions that are born out of malice and disseminated as fact even though they are laced with conjecture, wild extrapolation of dubious claims by dubious sources.  One cannot wake up someone who is pretending to sleep, as they say.  Still, it is important to let the sleeping know that it is known that slumber is being feigned.  This is why my thoughts go to visiting US Deputy Secretary of State, Robert Blake, former US Ambassador to Sri Lanka.

The USA recently ‘remembered’ the 9/11 attacks.  It was the 10^th anniversary.   Ten years after the attack, there’s a thing called ‘Ground Zero’ and a piece of paper called the ‘Patriotic Act’, draconian and racist.  There’s also the fact that the ‘9/11 Commission’ was arranged to fail; the Chairman, Vice Chairman and Senior Legal Counsel of the body have all disassociated themselves from the report and have charged that their work was deliberately blocked by Washington.  ‘This investigation is compromised,’ one member of the Commission, former Senator Max Cleland said.  Nothing adds up and we don’t need conspiracy theorists to say this, noting also that there are enough Washington-made conspiracies that require far more urgent attention than the 9/11 cover-ups.  ‘Conspiracy’: that’s another possible ‘aka’ for Washington DC, come to think of it.

For all these reasons, when Blake, according to Wikileaks, shows interest in blueprinting Sri Lanka’s post-terrorist future, there’s lots to tell.  ‘Interest’ is diplo-speak, just so we are clear on this.  The man wants investigation into so-called crimes against humanity.  He knows about Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan.  He’s feigning sleep after all.  We need to tell him we are aware though.  Here’s some you-are-not-asleep-Blake pills that Blake will not swallow but whose existence the world knows of.

NATO and the Transitional National Council (Libya) gave the people of Sirte ten days to surrender or face a massacre.  Food, water and electricity were cut off and they were subjected to shelling by artillery and British warships and NATO bombing.  This is another ‘October 14, 2004’, i.e. the day when water and electricity were cut off to Falluja, one day before the start of Ramadan, and when the starvation of the population and a 3-week long bombing spree began before the final assault by US Marines killing 3,000-4,000 civilians.  Blake knows Article 14 of the second Protocol to the Geneva Convention.  We know he knows.

An investigation by the New Statesman and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has revealed that NATO wants to formalize the process of handing over prisoners to parties who are known to use torture, a procedure that violates international law, according to Dr. Juan Mendez, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.

If Robert Blake actually falls asleep, he might wake up and admit that US troops have summarily executed civilians in their hundreds and that there is evidence (not allegations) that people were handcuffed and shot dead.  He might admit that the man the US claimed to have been Osama bin Laden (captured a few months ago in Pakistan) was summarily executed in gross violation of all norms and laws of civilized military conduct.  He might shut up about Sri Lanka and all the cooked up allegations of misconduct by security forces in the island nation’s struggle to rid itself of the menace of terrorism. 

He would preface every statement he makes with the infamous Madeline Albright quote ‘[The USA will] behave with others multilaterally when [it] can and unilaterally as [they] must’ and spare the world and especially Sri Lanka the rank nonsense about democracy, humanity, civilization, conflict-resolution, reconciliation and whatnot that he dishes out regularly. 

As for his fascination with ‘devolution’, let him come out and match ‘Tamil grievance’ to devolution-resolution, without fudging the numbers pertaining to demography and evidence regarding historical claims and with due reference to theories of democracy and development.  

Robert Blake is visiting Sri Lanka.  I wish him one thing: good, long, restful slumber.   I doubt he will want to sleep, however.  He may or may not be planning a Libya in Sri Lanka (or a Sri Lankan version of ‘Iran 1953’), and who knows, he might even succeed.  He can count on one thing, though.  Yes, we know he’s feigning sleep. 

[Courtesy, Daily Mirror, September 13, 2011] 

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Let’s talk about innovation and creativity Ms. Clinton

US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has voiced concern over the plight of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sri Lanka and said that the United States was looking at some innovative and creative ideas to break the impasse over the Sri Lankan Tamils issues.  This was in Tamil Nadu, where she was being hosted by Chief Minister, Jayalalitha, once an LTTE sympathizer and a willing approver of Delhi’s policy of arming, funding and training Tiger terrorists.   Clinton, for the record, received campaign funds from a pro-LTTE group in the USA, let us not forget.

These are lovely and thought-provoking words and sentiments, though.  It is good when anyone expresses concern about fellow creatures; ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’, ‘may all beings be happy’ and all that comes to mind.  Let’s start with the IDPs.

When it became clear that the LTTE would be militarily crushed and that the hundreds of thousands held hostage by that terrorist organization, the Government of Sri Lanka knew there would be an ‘IDP-situation’. This is long before anyone in the West thought ‘IDPs’ or had their hearts bleeding on account of the same.   Not only were facilities to accommodate them constructed, it was done with the input of available expertise and maximum deployment of resources.  True, the numbers exceeded expectation but adjustments were made to make sure that things were manageable.  

The security forces at great human and material cost rescued some 295,000 from the clutches of the LTTE in what is clearly the greatest hostage-rescue operation in recorded history (and this number does not include the millions rescued from the fear psychosis that the LTTE had produced over thirty long years).   From the moment people started fleeing LTTE terrorism, the Sri Lankan authorities worked closely with UN agencies and key INGOs in the matter of making sure that relief facilities were adequate and all needs were met to the extent possible.  The whole of Sri Lanka contributed.  The voluntarism evident was nothing less than magnificent.    

The Consultative Committee on Humanitarian Assistance (CCHA) was set up in September 2006 to provide assistance to the conflict-affected population on lines suggested by the co-chairs of the so-called ‘peace process’ (Japan, USA, Norway and the European Union).   Chaired by the Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights, this committee included representatives of all relevant line ministries, the Commissioner General of Essential Services, Divisional Secretaries of the Northern Province, the US Ambassador (Robert O. Blake), representatives of the EU Presidency, Ambassador of Japan, UN Resident Coordinator, all heads of UN Agencies and the heads of ICRC and ECHO.  The CCHA was fully aware of the ground situation and provided relevant guidelines for the provision of immediate, medium term and long term relief, right up to war-end and thereafter.   If Hillary really wants to know, she can ask her Deputy Secretary for the South Asian region.  In fact, she can compare and contrast the Sri Lankan case with the situation following Hurricane Katrina and of course the endless miseries that those displaced by US adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to suffer.  Now if Hillary has some excess creativity and innovation, that’s the geography she should be looking at.  I must caution, though.  US ‘creativity’ and ‘innovation’ included the illegal invasion of Iraq over non-existent weapons of mass destruction (ref: confession by Deputy Prime Minister of UK), crimes against humanity in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and a Mother of All Mess-Ups in Libya. 

For the record, only 3% of the hostages rescued by the Sri Lankan security forces remain in IDP facilities or welfare villages, and this out of choice.  They are free to leave, but have no place to go to until all demining operations are completed.  Hillary and Jayalalitha can thank the LTTE for their extended IDP status and while they are at it, can pass a thank-you note to Father (sic) S.J. Emmanuel of the Global Tamil Forum and other LTTE-backers, fund-raisers, propagandists and facilitators of gun-running, human-smuggling, drug-trafficking, extortion and money laundering who are offered tea and cookies or wine and cheese in Washington by the likes of Blake.

Hillary has said there’s an ‘impasse’ regarding ‘Tamil issues’.  She doesn’t spell it out.  If she’s talking about citizenship anomalies, then she might be talking about constitutional reform to enhance the worth of citizen vis-à-vis the politician.  If she’s thinking ‘devolution’, she probably needs to take lessons in demography and history. 

If ‘creativity’ and ‘innovation’ is Hillary-speak for a re-enactment of ‘Libya’, ‘Grenada’, ‘Haiti’, ‘Panama’, ‘Iraq’, ‘El Salvador’, ‘Nicaragua’, ‘Afghanisatan’ etc etc (I pity these recipients of US largesse, by the way), not to mention poetic silence about Gaza,  then she might as well spell it out.  We are used to threat and are not unaware of global power imbalances. We know what we can do and what we need to resist.  We know that nations get bulldozed by the powerful and that it is often done in the name of things like democracy and civilization.  Hillary need not be cute about it, not least of all because we know how ‘creative’ and ‘innovative’ she was during her campaign for the US Presidency, when she talked of disembarking from a plane and having had to run for cover dodging a hail of bullets, her gaffes in Russia and about change one can Xerox (photocopy). 

Come visit, Hillary.  This is a wonderful country, doing its best to recover from a 30 year long engagement with the world’s most ruthless terrorist.  I heard you say that Sri Lanka ought to take a leaf off India’s book with respect to multi-ethnic democracy.  I think you should ask the Muslims and Sikhs in that country and while you are at it, the Dalits, the tribals, the people of Kashmir, the Christians persecuted by ‘Hindus’ and Hindus persecuted by ‘Christians’ (quotes deliberate).  So, thank you, but no.

Yes, come visit.  There’s a lot to see here that you won’t see in India, Hillary.  You might even pick up something useful about civilization, come to think of it.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who can be reached at msenevira@gmail.com

[Courtesy 'Daily Mirror', Sri Lanka, July 26, 2011]

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