Let us keep an eye on Uncle Sam

Anyone who has read Noam Chomsky’s ‘What Uncle Sam really wants’ would not get too excited what a US President, Secretary of State or Ambassador talks about democracy. Neither would they lose any sleep over such worthies speaking in somber tones about individuals, parties or governments they dislike. 

Chomsky’s book, published in 1993, traces four decades of US intervention in all parts of the world.  It is all about the use of subversion and force for economic and political hegemony. To achieve the various ends the USA often supported violent regimes and dictatorships, Chomsky shows. For all the bleeding-heart talk about democracy, good governance and peace, the USA has had no qualms over propping or placing in power tyrants, autocrats, military juntas and brutal monarchies.  

Right here in Sri Lanka, we’ve heard one US Ambassador after another reading that tired script, except they’ve being condescending, unapologetic and downright uncouth at times.  Essentially they played Viceroy rather than Ambassador. 

At times it is about the USA’s economic interests. Teresita Currie Schaffer said at a seminar held at the Agrarian Research and Training Institute in 1993 ‘your food security lies in the wheat fields of North America’. That was a time when USAID was pushing the then government to cripple rice cultivation.  In more recent years Robert O Blake (2006-2009) did his utmost to sabotage the military offensive agains the LTTE, clearly intent on finding ways to ensure that this terrorist organization lives to fight another day.

His successor Patricia Butenis had a sordid track record in Iraq, Colombia, El Salvador and 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.’

That says it all. And that’s why no one should be surprised at outgoing US Ambassador Atul Keshap’s tendentious comments on the Sri Lankan political situation and potential presidential candidate Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. The comments were commented on at length by well-known political commentator D.B.S. Jeyaraj.

Apparently Keshap had told former president Mahinda Rajapaksa that ‘the US and Other western nations do not welcome the prospects of his brother Gotabhaya becoming president and are opposed to such a move.’

That’s speaking his mind, fair enough. He has also threatened, Jeyaraj says, that the US would not permit Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to renounce US citizenship at this juncture, which would make it illegal for him to contest as per the restrictions enshrined in the 19th Amendment. Apparently, Gotabhaya ‘needs to clear himself of allegations against him over war crimes, crimes against humanity and human rights violations before the US would allow him to renounce US citizenship formally.’

That’s rich. Here we have a representative of a country which was build on and sustained by war crimes, crimes against humanity and human rights violations wearing a halo and waving a saint’s wand.

Now it’s true that we have only the word of the person Jeyaraj has quoted, Nadesapillai Vithyatharan, editor of the Jaffna-based ‘Kaalaikkathir’ (Morning Sun). Keshap has not, as of yet, denied the story. 

Two things need to be said, however, given what the USA was and is. Firstly, if the USA supports any individual, party or government in any country, it should be treated as a red light. Secondly, if the USA vilifies anyone, any party or government, there’s a strong likelihood that such entities are likely to have some credence in the eyes of the particular polity, at least to the level that they deserve a consideration.  

Gotabhaya has not been charged by any US court as of now. Not that we trust the US justice system any more than we do ours of course. The issue of citizenship can come into the frame if and only if he is taken to court. If the intention is less about concern over rights violations (and we know the USA is big on talk and lethargic or at best selective on action) than about outcome preferences that are in the interest of the USA, then we need to be concerned.  

Whether Gotabhaya is in fact interested in becoming President, we don’t know. If he is, and if the USA intervenes along the lines that Vithyatharan reports Keshap has outlined, that’s Gotabhaya’s problem first and foremost. The citizens of this country need to have a different take on all this.

First, knowing the pernicious ways of the USA, we would need to revisit the relevant caveats in the 19th Amendment and amend them forthwith purely on the basis of retaining sovereignty and not allowing foreign governments to dictate this country’s political process.  

Secondly, we need to revisit the entire narrative about the money that the USA has spent on certain candidates and political coalitions. Thirdly we need to treat with utmost suspicion and contempt all those who benefitted from the largesse of the US State Department.  Today, it is clearer than it was three years ago, that this regime gives not a hoot about things such as democracy, good governance, transparency and accountability (never mind that it is made up of the most incompetent and confused bunch of leaders to rule this country since Independence). That money, even if it was ‘invested’ for democracy, has delivered crumbs in return. Even if had yielded much more, it’s still interference that is clearly an infringement of established diplomatic protocol.  

Finally, even if Keshap has not said anything of the sort, it is high time that the people of this country pay careful heed to everything that the US Embassy in Colombo says and does, for none of it is about ‘friendship’ but all of it is about serving US interests which, as history has demonstrated amply, do not coincide with the interests of the particular countries and citizens.  

Keshap has had an easy time than did his predecessors because this is a US-friendly regime.  The truth is it is a regime that happily genuflects before Uncle Sam. Even if Vithyatharan was mistaken we need not be mistaken about the thinking of the USA. Given the doldrums that this regime is languishing in right now, there is a palpable possibility of regime-change and in a direction that might not be to the liking of the USA.  Keshap’s successors may have to take on a tougher assignment.  

Perhaps Keshap will give an official farewell speech somewhere. Perhaps he will tell us the truth about this conversation he’s said to have had with Mahinda Rajapaksa. I hope he does. I will be listening and I hope all citizens of this country listens too.  Such statements tell us a lot.  

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer. malindasenevi@gmail.com. Twitter: malindasene.

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Stars of the Geneva Pantomime (Revisited)

[Go through this -- written 3 years ago -- and you will find the guys making noises are the same guys who've always made noises when they batted for the LTTE.  The exception is of course Sunila Abeysekera, now no more.  Oh yes, and Patricia Butenis has a new name: Michele Sison.  More importantly, you will find that this is indeed a pantomime and should be treated as such.  Applaud if you are duly entertained!]  

The US Ambassador, Patricia Butenis is reported to have invited some people to discuss a report submitted to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon by some personal advisors.  Why Ki-moon has to make public a personal communication I do not know.  It does seem odd that he treats the said notes as documents that have official and legal standing within the UN system.  As odd is this meeting called by Butenis ‘to discuss’ we are told, the above personal communication, in order to figure out ‘how to make use of it as a constructive instrument for reconciliation instead of one of division and polarization’.  
 

First of all, if a representative of the United States Government was to use anything to bring about ‘reconciliation’ in another country, then protocol demands that relevant discussions should be held with responsible and appropriate authorities in the Government of the particular country.   While the Embassy has refused to comment on the meeting or what has been discussed, one of the invitees has revealed what it was all about. 

The report (in the Daily Mirror online version) came under the heading ‘Diplomats, NGO talk on report’.  The identities of the party-goers were embedded in the title, at least as far as those who are alert to political machinations in Sri Lanka are concerned.  There was Paikiasothy Saravanamutt (Centre for Policy Alternatives), Jehan Perera (National Peace Council) and J.C. Weliamuna (former head of Transparency International).  All three organizations are under a cloud suspect regarding financial deals and how and on what they spent enormous amounts of money obtained from various donors including the USA.  That Butenis, who came out to publicly defend (to the best of her ability) these three organizations, invites them to a chit-chat about how Sri Lanka should manager her (Sri Lanka’s) affairs does not come as a surprise.   Not surprising either that Perera subsequently underlined the fact that Butenis had come out in his defense.

There had been three other invitees.  Sudarshana Gunawardena (Rights Now) once engaged in shameless chest-beating, claiming ‘The Government’s war balloon will burst in Killinochchi!’ That was wish, not prediction based on sober consideration of ground realities. Sunila Abeysekera has accumulated considerable credentials as a mouthpiece for Eelamists.  She has campaigned tirelessly to conflate the LTTE and the Tamil Community. Her loyalties are well known.  The third, Sherine Xavier (Home for Human Rights) has openly stated that among her role models was Adela Balasingham, widow of the LTTE’s longest serving ideologue, Anton Balasingham. Adela was not an LTTE sympathizer. She was and is an ardent and unrepentant LTTE activist and an apologist for that organization.  Xavier has made her ideological and political loyalties pretty clear.

These individuals have frequently argued for legitimization of the LTTE and granting of status-parity vis-à-vis the Government of Sri Lanka, and demonstrated a consistent determination to turn a blind eye on atrocities perpetrated by that organization.   Wikileaks has revealed that Butenis has been one of the biggest advocates for an international investigation into the manner in which the military offensive was executed.  Saravanamuttu has been a cheerleader for the same and one of the first to applaud the love-notes exchanged between Ki-moon and his ‘advisors’.  There are no prizes for ascertaining the identities of the principal sources tapped by these ‘advisors’.  This post-report tea party therefore was scripted a long time ago, i.e. when Ki-moon was prevailed upon by individuals such as Butenis to circumvent and thereby undermine the UN system and all procedural statutes.  In short, it would not be incorrect to say that Butenis had in fact met with the local branch of the LTTE’s rump.  That she invited other diplomats shows attempts to broaden the political base of this insurgent collective. 

Jehan Perera says that the meeting was about turning the advisory note into a ‘constructive instrument’.  He does not dare question the validity of the document in terms of procedural norms of the UN.  He is blind to the manifest double standards embedded in the very exercise.  He does not dare question the reliability of sources.  He will not dare comment on the neutrality-credentials of Ki-moon’s advisors nor acknowledge their slant towards the LTTE position regarding all things Sri Lankan. 

He will not pick out discrepancy, contradiction, exaggeration, meanness of spirit, LTTE-slant, whitewashing of terrorism, lack of substantiation, malice, selectivity, academic dishonesty etc., all of which jumps out of the text at every turn.  That he (and others, probably) believe that anything ‘constructive’ can be squeezed out of such a woefully compromised document says a lot about his intellectual ability and overall integrity. 

I challenge Jehan Perera, here and now, to an open debate at a forum of his choosing, about how such a document can be used ‘constructively’ for reconciliation.  It would be incumbent upon him to prove its worth as an effective instrument against division and polarization. 

The meeting indicates a need to close ranks.  It is the typical response of those who have nowhere to hide.  Now it is official.  It is now established beyond a shadow of doubt that Ambassador Butenis has entertained the local representatives of the LTTE’s rump.   Jehan Perera has confirmed this.  Full marks for his honesty (but will he tell us if the ‘advisors’ consulted him?).  Zero for his intellectual worth. Zero for his political designs.  Zero for his malice. 

msenevira@gmail.com

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Goodbye Pat, hello Michele!

Michele Sison has not yet been appointed as the next US Ambassador to Sri Lanka.  She’s still ‘Ambassador Designate’, meaning that she has to subject herself to scrutiny by the US Senate before being confirmed.  She’s been asked questions, she’s answered; she’s been required to articulate statements of purpose and she’s done that.  One thing can be concluded: we don’t need to anticipate any surprises from Ms. Sison in the likely event of her being confirmed.

When the outgoing Ambassador, Patricia Butenis, assumed office a couple of years ago, she took the trouble to make a statement to the press of sorts, outlining her position on various issues and giving the impression that she is willing to field any questions on any issue.  She made out that she was for dialogue and openness.  It didn’t fool anyone of course.  The lady chose when and where and on what to speak. She chose her ‘friends’ carefully to.   There were those she listened to of course, but when you are the representative of a nation that has the power to blow up the world several times over, it probably doesn’t matter if you don’t get it right.  You can, simply, write it as you want to and not necessarily as it is.  That she did. 

No, there was no dialogue and there was no openness.  There was malice and unabashed interference in the internal affairs of the country in absolute violation of diplomatic protocol.  The best that can be said of her is that she was no worse that the man she replaced, one Mr. Robert O Blake, a meddler of the first order.  In that sense, and drawing strictly from history, both Blake and Butenis are excellent and representative specimen of US foreign policy.  Good for the USA, bad for US-Sri Lanka relations and terrible for Sri Lanka. 

It would be folly indeed to believe that the USA is lax when it comes to training diplomats.  They get the best men and women available for each and every job at whatever corner of the earth it may be.  There is no reason to believe that Ms. Sison would flip the script of her employer. Indeed, her statement could very well have been cribbed from whatever Butenis and before her Blake uttered when they went before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Not that she had to memorize anything, for the exchange of views was framed by the Acting Chairman of the Committee, Bob Casey, who rattled off the litany of things that bother such people when they talk about Sri Lanka, but about which they really don’t give a damn when it comes to what their own policies produce. 

So Sison wants Sri Lanka to achieve ‘genuine reconciliation’ and she believes that this can only happen if steps are taken to ‘ensure equality and justice for all Sri Lankans, particularly those living in the former conflict areas’.  She even wants elections held in the North.

Why, thank you Ma’am! 

I doubt that when she said ‘equality and justice’ she meant the dismantling of the structures of exploitation that is also called ‘capitalism’.  I wonder, though, what she meant by the word ‘genuine’ because it implies that there is something called ‘bogus reconciliation’.  She believes too, it is clear, that she has some kind of authority to define ‘reconciliation’. 

If any non Sri Lankan mouthed such disingenuous rubbish, I would not hesitate to call that person ‘Nutcase’, but we are talking about the would-be US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Ms. Michele Sison, a woman who in the very least can be expected to do what Butenis did and what Blake did before that. 

One thing is certain, ‘reason’ will not work with her.  ‘Truth’ will not work with her.  Money and guns might, but we really can’t match the USA in a buck-for-buck, bullet-for-bullet manner and anyway, we are not that kind of a nation in the first place. 

So what are the options?   We could smile and tell the truth. We can resolve to whisper to her the truths that ought to bite her ear but may very well go unheard.  There’s not much we can do, really.  Except to keep saying ‘don’t think we don’t know; we do and we are not only horrified but amazed at the idiocy that persuades you to think we don’t’.

Are we being unfair?  Well, Butenis was asked many times to deliver on her promise of ‘openness’, but she remained clammed up throughout her tenure.  There’s no reason to believe that Sison would be different, given what she’s uttered so far.

Come on, Ms Michele Sison, prove us wrong!

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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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The White House preference: ‘Talking for the sake of talking’

The more I listen to Barack Obama the more I get disillusioned about the man.  In the run up to the US Presidential Election informal polls of people from all over the world found him to be way ahead in popularity over his rivals, first Hillary Clinton and then John McCain.  Almost one year into his term, the man sounds more and more like his predecessors. He is redefining his identity and sounds nothing more nothing less than a common thug. 

“Our patience is not unlimited,” Obama told Iran recently, alluding to tougher economic sanctions if Iran does not take the necessary steps. “The United States will not continue to negotiate indefinitely, and we are prepared to move towards increased pressure,” he thundered, reiterating the strong arm foreign policy preference that has made the USA one of the most hated nations in the world.  He was referring to Iran’s nuclear programme.

Acting quite the school principal, Obama has put Iran ‘on notice’.  He charges Iran of ‘breaking rules that all nations must follow’.  The learned President of the USA cannot be ignorant of how his country has broken all rules and norms of decency throughout the long 20^th Century and continues to do so in Iraq and Afghanistan.  But he doesn’t say a word about all this; instead he says ‘we’re committed to serious and meaningful engagement, but not interested in talking for the sake of taking’. 

To me, the bottom line is this: the whole discourse of non-proliferation is wrong.  Obama says that Iran should understand that developing nuclear weapons does not enhance that country’s security but undermines it.  Look who’s ‘talking for the sake of talking’!  No country that has nuclear weapons has a moral right to complain about other countries developing similar capacities. Obama should cut the crap and say it as it is: ‘We are not interested in the idea of a global community, we are only interested in securing resources and markets; we are a selfish people and even as we talk the talk of humanity, community, democracy etc., we do so only insofar as it serves our purposes.’

His predecessor, George W Bush invaded Iraq to look for weapons of mass destruction.  What was that?  Certainly not ‘talking for the sake of talking’.  That was ‘talking for the sake of safeguarding oil interests’.  Is Obama any different? No.  If he was, he would have pulled out from Iraq the day he became President.  

‘Talking for the sake of talking’ quite in contrast to Obama’s claim is in fact the A-Z of US Foreign Policy.  I am thinking right now of Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State and one time opponent of Barack Obama who famously charged the latter of proposing ‘change (one) could Xerox’.  Obama retorted, ‘this is when we enter the season of silliness’.  All that is now in the past.  Clinton does a lot of Xeroxing and Obama is living it up in an unending season of silliness. 

Clinton, a few days ago, as President of the UN Security Council, made some utterly tendentious remarks on the subject of ‘Women, peace and security’.  This woman, who lied to the US voter about having got off a plane in Baghdad ‘under a hail of bullets’ and is blind to the crimes against humanity that her country has committed and continues to do so, flippantly said, ‘Rape has been used as a tactic of war in Sri Lanka’ (she named a couple of other countries too).

‘Tactic of war’ did she say?  Well, the lady is accusing the Government of Sri Lanka of having adopted and implemented a deliberate defence policy of systematically raping people as a key component of its strategy to defeat the LTTE.  Hillary is not saying that the Sri Lankan security forces stole some guavas from a garden in Puthukudiarippu.  He used the word ‘rape’. That’s a serious charge and one which demands elaboration and substantiation.  No one should be allowed to get away with that kind of frivolous charge, least of all a known liar from a country that has brought death and destruction to dozens of countries and is even now displacing innocent civilians by the hundreds on a daily basis and has set in motion processes that cause untold misery to hundreds of thousands of people, in particular women, children, elderly and the sick. 

Who raped whom, Clinton must tell us.  When did it happen?  Why was that charge not made earlier?  Why now? What kind of evidence has surfaced now to warrant this charge?  What is the ‘systematic’ in the alleged incidents that justify the charge, ‘rape as a tactic of war’? 

Patricia Butenis, the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka in a poverty-stricken damage-control exercise, offered that Clinton did not name any person but made a general comment. 

Well, what would Butenis say to a ‘general comment’ about rape and deliberate actions of sexual humiliation committed by US military personnel in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay and who knows where else?  Would she let it pass, if for example, Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to the UN talked of war crimes and inter alia mentioned the United States of America among other ‘rogue states’? 

It’s all talking for the sake of talking, isn’t it?  We are yet to hear the United States of America doing something about having broken and continuing to break rules that most nations follow.  Obama doesn’t want to see photographic evidence of torture and rape perpetrated by his troops. Hillary might want us to believe that the US Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan to dig wells, clean drains and construct toilets.  Butenis will not respond to questions that make her uncomfortable.  None of the three are willing to admit that the Global Thug days of the USA are coming to an end. 

Obama, Clinton and Butenis need to understand that talking the talk but not walking the walk does not win any admirers.  It is even worse to get others to walk one’s talk while one twiddles thumbs and passes judgment. 

Just after 9/11 happened, most Sri Lankans I spoke to expressed shock and sympathy for the victims.  Most of them after doing so, paused for a while, and mouthed the invariable ‘but’, followed by ‘the USA deserved it’.  I am fairly certain that such sentiments were not limited to Sri Lankans.  There is a reason for this and the Obama administration is not doing anything to change the mindset that utters such sentiments.  Indeed people like Robert O Blake have only hardened the genera anti-US sentiment among a lot of people.  Hillary is not helping either and as for Patricia, a willing approver (by designation), there’s very little she can do. 

Few liked George W. Bush.  Obama was supposed to be different.  He is doing his best to prove that he is not.  I feel for all those citizens of the USA who believed in his ‘change’ message.  The truth is, friends, ‘he can’t’.  Sorry, it’s not about ‘yes we can’ any more; it is about ‘no we won’t’ (change). 

That’s of course something the people in that country will have to think about. As for us, in Sri Lanka, we need answers from Hillary. She won’t give any.  We will have to ask her representative in Sri Lanka.  Ms. Patricia Butenis, we need another, more elaborate statement from you.  If you choose silence then we will have no option but to conclude: ‘guilty as charged!’  Sorry.  It’s just us, doing something more than ‘talking for the sake of talking’, I am sure you will understand.

[first published in 'The Nation', October 3, 2009]

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What of Obama now that he lost his word-suit?

[This was written more than a year ago.  Dayan Jayatilleka (quoted here) himself has since lost some of his wide-eyedness about the West, happily.  Unhappily, however, the world has not changed much and hence this re-post]

About a year ago, Dayan Jayatilleka, in an interview with the tv station DERANA, waxed eloquent about Barack Obama.  He insisted that Obama was not George W Bush. He said that Obama was respected the world over and had established friendly relations with China, Russia and India. He said (and this is not surprising) that even Fidel Castro said nice things about the US President.

If there was optimism about Obama being a different kind of US President during his election campaign and in his first days in office, it all evaporated during the sessions of the UN General Assembly in New York last week.  Barack Obama demonstrated that there is only one difference between himself and his predecessor when it comes to US foreign policy: words.  Obama has words, Bush did not; Obama is articulate, Bush was incoherent; Obama could cover his nudity with word-cloth, Bush didn’t have a thread to hang himself with. 

Obama chided Iran about being obstinately secretive about its nuclear programme.  The very next moment, the USA team was lobbying nations to stymie an Arab initiative censuring Israel’s continued secrecy about her nuclear programme.  Obama said he was open to discussions but the moment Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the Iranian President uttered some home truths, called for a zero tolerance of nuclear energy for military purposes, Obama’s team turned heel and left the building. 

When Obama appeared on the US political firmament, he seemed fresh and quite un-Washington like.  This is perhaps why Castro said nice things about him (which sentiments Dayan has to echo, naturally).  Time has passed.  The man was given a Man of the Match before coin-toss and he quickly proved that the people who administer the Nobel were indeed in an indecent hurry when they gave him the Peace Prize. Some people make a lot about his ‘withdrawal’ from Iraq, but say nothing of the fact that he’s run out of options and anyway has essentially endorsed his predecessor’s policy of securing access to oil resources and effected control over that country’s economic and political affairs. You can’t make a virtue out of necessity anyway.

Obama’s policy regarding the excesses of US troops, incidence of torture and covering up of evidence not to mention complete and scandalous silence about the court decision effectively sanctioning the ‘off-shoring’ of torture, has seriously compromised his image as a different face of the USA. 

Dayan paints himself as a ‘realist’ and advocates tip-toe language when criticizing powerful nations and personalities.  He thinks that if India is cautious we ought to be too.  I guess he has the right to define his brand of radicalism in ways he thinks are appropriate. I think it is a bit much to look the other way when a thug wants to be seen as benefactor of victim even as he bludgeons the poor unarmed sot with a club.  Then again, Dayan is a person with some experience in diplomatic circles (beginning with his well-known flirtation with the Indians before, during and after the Indo-Lanka Accord fiasco) and I am not.  Dayan is a kiss-the-hand-you-can’t-bite type and so Obama is hook-off as far as he’s concerned.  Let me for a moment shut up and let someone else speak, someone who has more than Obamaesque credentials (meaning, the Nobel Prize – after the toss and after the match!): Harold Pinter. 

This was in 2005 and it is still very valid and if Obama objects he could at least, in the name of decency acknowledge (or refute) Pinter’s claims.  Pinter, accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature said a lot about the USA.  Here are some choice words.

“As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11th 2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was not true.”

What does Barack Obama have to say to this and what Patricia Butenis?

The United States now occupies 702 military installations throughout the world in 132 countries, with the honourable exception of Sweden, of course. We don’t quite know how they got there but they are there all right. The United States possesses 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. Two thousand are on hair trigger alert, ready to be launched with 15 minutes warning. It is developing new systems of nuclear force, known as bunker busters. The British, ever cooperative, are intending to replace their own nuclear missile, Trident. Who, I wonder, are they aiming at? Osama bin Laden? You? Me? Joe Dokes? China? Paris? Who knows? What we do know is that this infantile insanity – the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons - is at the heart of present American political philosophy. We must remind ourselves that the United States is on a permanent military footing and shows no sign of relaxing it.

What does Barack Obama have to say to this and what Patricia Butenis?

Pinter states that in countries the USA has ‘helped’ out of the alleged goodness of heart, hundreds of thousands died (this is excluding Iraq and Afghanistan by the way).  Pinter has some questions:

“Did they (the deaths) take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn’t know it.  It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”

Pinter was right.  The US was word-smart.  That was in 2005. This is 2010.  We are post-‘Wikileaks’ and finger-doing in Afghanistan, flip-flopping on Guantanamo Bay, shielding tortures and sanctioning torture not mention bailing out crooks back home in the USA. 

Obama wears a word-suit.  Wore.  Past tense.  Not a pretty sight. 

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Patricia Butenis gets an A for ‘Arrogance and Condescension’ but an F overall

Whenever Patricia Butenis deigns to offer opinion she waves a flag with a bold statement: ‘I don’t know what the hell I am talking about’. She doesn’t, but that’s what she should do, I feel. Two years ago, when she became US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Ms. Butenis wrote to the Sunday Times confessing that Uncle Sam is no saint but maintaining that this doesn’t take away the responsibility of the USA to engage with other governments with respect to issues such as democracy, transparency, human rights etc.  She insisted that her office was open to dialogue.  ‘Monologue’, however, has been the name of the badge she’s worn since.
The indefatigable folk mining Wikileaks for statements regarding Sri Lanka (www.colombotelegraph.com) has been giving a lot of tidbits by way of Butenis sound-bytes, many of which reveal her finger-poking ways.  The communications dispatched from her office have provoked much comment.  Butenis ought to hang her head in shame but does not. The lady is thick-skinned, that much we have to grant.  It helps I suppose when you are a representative of a government that has an arsenal capable of blowing up the entire world several times over, never mind the fact that it is groveling at the feet of China and the rest of Asia to secure financial viability as a nation and is besieged by an unprecedented wave of protests at home. 

This busybody has stated, according to www.colombotelegraph.com, that her challenge is to ‘strongly encourage the Sri Lankan government to embrace reconciliation, accountability, and respect for human rights’.  She’s also said that many neutral observers of the conflict have expressed in private that if there was no concern for civilians, the Sri Lankan armed forces could have ended the war long before May 2009.

Now, having full knowledge of this fact, Butenis has continued to work tirelessly, out in the open and behind the scenes, to feed pro-LTTE propaganda and insinuations that the Government didn’t give a damn about civilians, never mind the fact that some 300,000 civilians held hostage by the very same organization were rescued at great cost to military personnel. 

She wants to help Sri Lanka ‘reconcile’.  She wants to help government be more accountable, have greater respect for human rights. She can help by shutting up, not because these things are not useful or cannot be classified as ‘urgent societal needs’, but since she gives a really bad name to the real struggles for justice and democracy.  She has admitted that most media representatives she’s spoken to, especially during a one-week period two years ago (November 2-8, 2009), had objected to US policy (she’s not said which policy or policies, but given that US policy on most issues is toilet wash, this slip is hardly worth the bother). The fact is that people are wary of standing shoulder to shoulder with political nutcases and those with horrendous track records on accountability, transparency and the upholding of human rights, especially in agitation on these very subjects. 

One of the most serious obstacles to action against perceived wrongs is that the loudest among the protestors happen to be people who just cannot be trusted.  When they call for action, others want to run in the opposite direction, so tainted are they in their complicity with the Eelam project, US machinations and other moves to undermine sovereignty and the mindless and uncalled for vilification of all things Sinhala and Buddhist.  The same goes for Butenis.  She given protests and objections a bad name. 

Butenis has stated in a leaked unclassified diplomatic cable (October 30, 2009), ‘Sri Lanka at a pivotal point in its modern history. The end of the long secessionist war with the LTTE opens up opportunities for national reconciliation, political reform, economic renewal, and international re-engagement. The question is whether the Sri Lankan leadership has the vision, determination, and courage to seize the opportunity.’

Vision and courage to do what?  What is this ‘national reconciliation’ she talks of?  What is the ‘political reform’?  And what are the dimensions of ‘economic revival’?  She speaks of ‘international re-engagement’.  What re-engagement and with whom? 

My gut feeling is that the answer to all these questions is reducible to ‘upholding US interests’. 

Look Butenis, we do need to resolve things.  We need political reform.  Our development model is archaic.  We have always engaged with the rest of the world so the issue of ‘re-engagement’ (implying there was some kind of suspension of engagement) does not arise.  These things are important, because you want it and certainly not on your terms or in line with your preferences. 

It’s our business.  The Sri Lankan leadership has its own ideas and there is no lack in vision, determination and courage and certainly no pussy-footing when it comes to opportunity seizing. Whether this is good or bad has to be decided by the people of Sri Lanka, not by you.  Not just because you are a busybody but your country needs to gulp down a barrelful of medicines you yourself prescribe when it comes to vision, courage, determination in sorting out ‘national reconciliation’ (the word’s literally in the streets of every major US city), economic renewal (requiring a hefty kick in the collective corporate behind) and international engagement (requires you to get the f-word out of from all countries). 

This is how things are here, Butenis.  You are not helping.  We have a lot to deal with and can do without the condescension and arrogance.   

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