Finding paths to being enslaved by the USA

The USA is in the news. Exposed. Exposed to those who believed the balderdash about that country being the greatest success story of democracy, freedom and the good life, to be more precise. The USA markets lies very well. Whereas other nations as bad or worse are crude the USA is cute in sweetening the bitter, perfuming the foul-smelling and wall-papering over the grotesque. Used to be. That would be more correct.

The protests are ongoing. Significant numbers want that country to come to terms with its sordid history and violent present. Let there be no illusions though. The racist, violent military-industrial complex that is the United States of America is resilient. Is fighting back. Will continue to fight.

Last week we had the US Ambassador in Sri Lanka, Aliana B Teplitz saying that George Floyd’s death (yes, DEATH and not COLD-BLOODED MURDER BY RACIST POLICEMEN) would be investigated. On Tuesday, she issued a statement in which she bests her own standards of convolution. It was regarding a protest again the USA organized by the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP).

‘We welcome discussion on minority rights, equal protection under law, and security service accountability. But let’s do so in safe ways until there’s less to worry about from COVID-19.’

It takes some gall for a representative of the USA to talk about minority rights, equal protection under law and security service accountability, considering that ‘discussion’ of such things pale in relation to the stark and brutal articulation in their breach. Responsible protests is what she is calling for. That’s echoing what the UN chief on human rights said about protests in the USA where riots broke out after extreme and violent police provocation. It’s easy to indulge in equivalency-speak after the villains have done their work.

Safe ways, she said. Condescending isn’t she? And it’s not as though safety was ever a cardinal principle for the USA, domestically or internationally. Safety was not an issue in dealing with COVID-19 either. Profit was. Keeping businesses viable was. And is, even now. Not with respect to COVID-19, not with protests, not in ousting governments and leaders positioned against US interests, and not in supporting the brutal repression unleashed on peoples by governments and leaders allied with the USA.

But let’s talk ‘safety.’ In the midst of all this, an embassy employee created a fuss at the airport, refusing to take a PCR test. Diplomatic immunity was cited. The Government was caught wrong-footed, gave in and (to its credit) subsequently revised protocols for testing of diplomats. The man,  Wayne Hamrick according to reports, is apparently a part of the Embassy’s ‘Planning and Action Training Team’ which is attached, interestingly, to the office of the Defense Attaché. Nothing ‘diplomatic’ in either of these entities of course, but this is the USA, remember? A violent, war-like, liking-war nation whose governments talk down to other nations about human rights but have essentially burnt that book a long time ago.

So, Teplitz’ safety-talk and moralistic grandstanding is for those who protest against her Government but not for employees who could theoretically be a grave threat to the safety of all, COVID-19 and all that which she, not I, brought up.

It raises interesting questions. Now what if this ‘diplomat’ is in fact infected with COVID-19? What if he were to succumb to the deadly virus? What if he happened to be a Muslim? How would the US Embassy deal with death-rites? If buried, how would Muslims whose loved ones died of the virus and were duly cremated feel?  [For the record, I hope he is uninfected and if indeed he is infected I wish him speedy recovery.]

COVID-19 was not anticipated. The world is being recreated as I write on account of the pandemic. Surely Teplitz has heard of the Vienna Convention and knows that its authors and signatories did not anticipate and indeed could not have anticipated a pandemic such as this when crafting articles on diplomatic immunity? No one is immune. That’s the bottom line.

Let’s visit the protests. The police obtained a court order to stop the FSP protesting outside the embassy. The FSP shifted venue to De Soysa (Lipton) Circus, Colombo. Social distancing was maintained. It was a low-key protest. Understandable, given circumstances. A few had been near the embassy. The police intimidated these persons. That’s when things got hot. The protestors were provoked. Some fifty of them were arrested.
 

Tiplitz cites COVID-19 protocols. So does the Government. Indeed, if that was the issue a lot more people in all parts of the country should have been arrested for violating social-distance recommendations. Moreover, there are no laws as of yet regarding such issues. Then there’s also the case of crowds at Armugam Thondaman’s funeral. What happened to COVID-19 protocols? Of course if the 5-mourners rule was imposed it is likely that the champions of human rights, Teplitz included, would have cried out in horror about the government being insensitive to minorities, but that’s beside the point here.

I would love to hear the rights-brigade take issue with the government for the way in which the protestors were handled. Funded-voices, rent-a-signature petitioners, candle-light ladies, born-again-democrats and other Colombots aren’t exactly berating either the government or the US Ambassador. One wonders, indeed, what the lately retired-from-politics Mangala Samaraweera have to say?

Samaraweera has been vocal about one thing. The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact.

‘Sri Lanka must fast-track the MCC grant. Worth $500 million (which is roughly equal to a 20,000 rupee grant to every household in Sri Lanka), it can kick-start the relief and recovery program,’ he says. ‘Selling or leasing these State-owned Enterprises and using the money for relief, or for settling public debt, will be an asset transfer from the state to the citizen,’ he adds.

Essentially asset-transfer to the USA is being named ‘asset transfer to citizen!’ How cute is that? Samaraweera knows that the MCC essentially ties the hand of the Sri Lankan judiciary with respect to the operations of the MCC. If the government had to navel-gaze over an arrogant US Embassy official at the airport just imagine what it would have to do if the MCC Compact was in operation!

FOR THE RECORD: As presidential candidate of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), Gotabaya Rajapaksa, on Tuesday the 5th of November 2019, requested Venerable Ududumbara Kasyapa Thero to stop the fast launched over the MCC Compact. All agreements signed by the then  government would be reviewed and revoked if they are not in the national interest, he pledged. The candidate of the United National Party, Sajith Premadasa repeated these sentiments almost immediately. Samaraweera kept mum, for the record.

So has this Government ‘reviewed’? What’s the status of that process? Who is advising this government? Viyath Maga? The Pathfinder Foundation? What’s their agenda? What’s their ideological position with respect to the US, neoliberal economic myths and so on? When is this government going to come clean on all this?

Let’s suspend illusions. The USA is on its knees domestically. The USA, nevertheless, is not going to roll over and surrender to reason and civilization. Teplitz and the US Embassy in Sri Lanka have tasks to accomplish. Getting the MCC Compact off the ground is on top of the agenda.

This is what we have: The refusal of the US ‘diplomat’ to take a PCR test and the government agreeing to waive the requirement + government response to projects + the from-retirement please issued by Samaraweera (a US agent if ever there was one) over the MCC Compact. Need we insist, ‘do the math!’?  

This article was first published in the Daily Mirror (June 11, 2020)

 

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malindasenevi@gmail.com

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Yahapalanaya: congenital flaws and their discontents

The burning political question of the day appears to be who and how many Parliamentarians received money from Perpetual Treasuries Ltd (PTL) for their respective election campaigns. In a political season marked by scandalous memory-loss some have claimed that they didn’t always know who was depositing money in their accounts. Meanwhile full list of beneficiaries is proving to be elusive; first it was said that PTL had funded the campaigns of 116 politicians, later the number was upped to 166 and now it stands at 186.  

What is interesting, as Shamindra Ferdinando of ‘The Island’ recently pointed out in a television discussion, is that no one is talking about the money that the Government of the United States of America has pumped into certain political campaigns here in Sri Lanka. The then US Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged that his Government had spent US $ 582 million ‘to strengthen democracy’ in Sri Lanka, Burma and Nigeria. The Sri Lankan chunk was ‘invested’ in the run up to the change-of-government in January 2015.  The US Embassy in Colombo has not responded to a request by Ferdinando to reveal the amount relevant to Sri Lanka.

Now ‘democracy’ is a good word and sounds decent too, but it has been prostituted so much and by no country as much as the USA, that it’s become a global joke whenever the USA is involved: ‘Do as we say!’ says Uncle Sam, ‘or else we will bring democracy to you!’ That could mean anything from drone attacks, a civil war, an devastated economy and misery lasting years.  

What is relevant however is that even if those political friends of Uncle Sam got just 10% of this democracy-fund it is still about 7000 times more than what any of the politicians that PTL helped out during that election.  PTL is under a cloud, sure, but then again the sky above Washington DC, metaphorically speaking, has been jet black for centuries. Sorry, that’s been overly generous. Washington DC is not under a cloud, because that indicates the possibility of innocence.  The point need not be elaborated.  The question that Shamindra raises is pertinent: if these politicians erred in receiving bucks from PTL, what of the parties (and individuals) that were bucked by the State Department? 

Given all this, maybe someone can argue that Russia, if that country got involved in the first place in the US Presidential Election, ‘was only strengthening democracy’ since the giver can use the word regardless of intention and regardless of the color of the particular currency (robbed, plundered, swindled or printed).  

Let’s get to the burning political question of the past three years: Yahapalanaya or lack thereof.  What we are seeing almost on a daily basis is a scenario  akin to thieves falling out. It’s now a blame game about inefficiency, incompetence, wrongdoing and rank stupidity. The problem is that separate entities though they may believe themselves to be, while the Yahapalana knot stands, praise and blame accrue to all constituent elements of the coalition.  

The problem about taking pot shots at one another in this case is that the assailants happen to be twins, joined at their political hips.  It is too late in the day to breakaway because any surgery will result in both being wounded and will leave both with a limp that will be a decisive handicap in any political race.  

Yes, we are talking about Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe. Yes, we are talking about the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the United National Party. Yes, we are talking about the entire Yahapalana Government.  Whether or not reduced circumstances and fear of sojourn in a political wilderness will force these twins to recognize the reality of their congenital fate we do not know.  What we do know is that they are sorely lacking in political choices at this point.  

Things are so bad that quite contrary to Wickremesinghe’s message to the UNP, ‘focus on solving the problems of the people’ all constituent parties of this government and their backers are betting on distractions. 

The issue of PTL funding politicians is a good example. The focus of a true yahapanalist (yes, the lot swearing by that term are patently fake) should be the issue of transparency and accountability in campaign finance. An individual yahapalanist politician, even at this late date, would say something like this: ‘from this day forth I shall accept donations only on the condition that the name of the donor and the amount will be immediately made public’.  

If any Yahapalanist was truly concerned about politicians being funded by a company that was accused of benefitting from as scandalous a scam as the one associated with Central Bank bonds, then such a person would also take issue with the interference in domestic affairs by the USA.  But no, they never had issues with such things back in 2015.  

Therein lies the problem. Wrongdoing is not an issue. Wrongdoing by those who are not with them can be an issue whereas wrongdoing by someone in the family becomes a problem only when the integrity and political future of the clan could come under threat. 

That’s Yahapalanaya in a nutshell, folks; rather the UNP-SLFP version of it.

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

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The costs of pleading the fifth

Michele Sison can be loquacious

 

Americans of the United States are familiar with the term ‘Pleading the fifth’.  It refers to the 5^th Amendment to the Constitution which, in popular understanding, gives witnesses the right to desist responding to questions if it was felt that the answer would contribute to self-incrimination.  It has been used so often, in and out of court, that ‘pleading the fifth’ in common understanding in fact yields what it was designed to hide: incrimination. 

Now in US courts it is standard practice for witnesses  to place hand on Bible or whatever religious text that goes with the individual’s faith and pledge to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth (“So help me God!”).  That said, the ‘fifth’ really doesn’t make any sense for its reference clearly wrecks the ‘whole truth’ part of the pledge.  For whatever reason, US courts (and of course constitution and amendment architects) don’t seem to mind. 

Sison can be as tight-lipped as Obama

Practice, however, has made that plea meaningless for juries do take note of that which is said and do reflect on reluctance to respond.  People take note too. 

Perhaps it’s a cultural thing.  Perhaps it is habit, having used ‘the fifth’ to get away with anything (should we say ‘to get away with murder’?) that prompts its ready use by citizens of that country who are stationed as diplomats in other parts of the world when tough questions are thrown at them. Perhaps it is nothing more than taking a leaf out of the President’s handbook for dealing with the uncomfortable (Barack Obama once said, ‘Please don’t ask us about that’).  Whatever it is ‘No comment’ seems to be the top response scripted for whoever has to answer the phone at the US Embassy in Colombo (and elsewhere too). 

It is strange indeed that the loudest mouth, so to speak, in the international community, that not only spits out threats and indulges in nauseating justification for countless crimes against humanity, cannot respond to a simple question for which the answer could be an equally simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. 

Last week it was alleged that an USAID official had promised to fund an opposition election campaign.  This was after the organization took an ad calling ‘civil society organizations’ to submit proposals for a voter education project.  The United States has support various election-related projects over the years.  Voter education is a patently joke-subject in a country that has enjoyed universal adult franchise for over 80 years, much longer than the USA which, even today, selects and does not elect its president and which on one occasion experienced a hilarious situation where the president was selected by a vote by a panel of judges!  What these voter education projects seek to obtain is therefore matter for suspicion, not least of all given the credentials of the outfits that have benefited from US largesse (see 'Is an election a "village tank" to monitors and donors' and 'On making valid points and fudging critical issues' for details of how the US was either swindled by prominent NGOs or else knowingly propped up dodgy outfits engaged in equally dodgy projects). 

That project has since been canceled and that is telling!  But never mind all that.  When the question is put, ‘was such an offer made?’ or if clarification is sought on the allegation, the US Embassy says ‘no comment’.  Pleading the fifth, essentially. 

As of now, to be fair to the opposition, no one has come up with any solid proof to substantiate the contention that such a meeting did take place and such an offer was indeed made.  The US does not help the opposition by pleading the fifth because conclusions can and will be drawn.  Given the long history of political interference outside stated mandate by USAID (the outfit was hoofed out of Russia), the Government has every right to summon officials for explanation.  Saying ‘I will come only if my momma accompanies me’ (momma being US Ambassador Michele Sison of course) doesn’t help un-cloud the picture.  It only gives credence to allegation. 

The Loudest Mouth in the World can do better than plead the fifth.  And if it fears conversation then it is laughable that it wants to educate voters because democracy is about debate and discussion, not silence and shy-making.  

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Let’s all tweet now

The US Embassy has tweeted.  Tweeted a pic.  This is the line:’ St. Anthany's Ground - site of Jan 2009 killing of hundreds of families by army shelling.’ Thanks for the information. 

Information?  Is that what I said?  Sorry.  The word is ‘claim’.  Not the same as ‘fact’.  Claim is vague and has connotations of conjecture.  Information implies things known, definite, verified.  But then again there is only so much one can do with 140 characters, except of course that there’s no upper limit on the number of tweets allowed.  Michele Sison could have sent more tweets in order to elaborate, substantiate etc.  Didn’t happen.

So we have this claim.  There’s a date: January 2009.  US Ambassador at Large for Global Criminal Justice Steven R Rapp (that’s almost half a tweet length btw) has figured that the place was shelled, shelled in January 2009, shelled by the Army and that this shelling had killed hundreds of families.  Just by talking to some people who sided with the LTTE.  Wow! 

Now we can ask him what he’s done in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.  We can ask if he’s gone to other countries democratized (that US-speak for ‘destabilized’) by the USA to check what’s happened and what’s happening.  Libya and Egypt come to mind.  We can ask if he’s gone to Saudi Arabia and Yemen.  We can ask what the liberty-bringers in Syria have done.  We can ask if he’s investigated and concluded.   We can ask Sison if her counterparts in these countries invited Rapp and if indeed they have, whether Rapp stood on similar sites.  We can ask Sison if her counterparts tweeted similarly, if they said for example ‘X [Type in location] – site of Y [Type in Month and Year] killing of hundreds of families by US [or ‘us’]’.  There’s enough characters left to script in method; drones, bombs etc.   

Did any US diplomat say anything about the Highway of Death in Iraq (google that!)?  What was the tweet equivalent of the diplomatic equivalent of Sison way back when the US bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki or sprayed Napalm in Vietnam?  Was there some pithy one liner about the scorched earth policy of the USA?  We don’t know.

But since this is tweeting time, let’s play. The following are some possible tweets which you can take as ‘information’.  Here goes:

George W Bush begged Barack Obama do something, anything, from being accused of committing crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan!!

Guantanamo Bay is just a holding facility for pigs, mosquitoes, centipedes, gila monsters and ostriches who have cut school more than once!!

Michele Sison has a fixation: she has to watch at least one episode of Star Trek (first three series) every night after 11 so she can sleep

Apollo 11 never went to the moon and Neil Armstrong's recorded speech was 'Buzz dude, I really, really, really, really, really, need to pee'

George W Bush's election campaigns were funded by very rich Arabs who he kept away from other backers, the Ku Klux Klan and Kermit the Frog

Ok.  We can go on and on and on with 140-character tweets. 

It’s time for Charlie Chaplin to be reborn.  Maybe he’ll be called the Savior.  At least he was honest.  

msenevira@gmail.com

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What next from the US Embassy, toilet training?

The US Embassy in Colombo has called for applications.  Applications are to be reviewed on a first-apply basis.  This is a program, so a missive from the Embassy says, ‘designed to promote greater understanding of social media.  It’s called ‘Social Media Lab’.  The Embassy clearly understands that there are different levels of ‘understanding’; there will be beginner, intermediate and advanced modules, therefore. Kind.

Christopher Teal, Director of the American Center brags: ‘We have done a number of social media trainings over the past few years, and want to formalize these trainings thorough a system of educating the public on social media best practices.’ Generous. 

He even has an ‘ultimate goal’: ‘to foster a greater understanding among Sri Lankans about social media and to inspire people to engage more effectively online.’ Wow!

The last time I heard, Sri Lankans didn’t have problems communicating with one another. They knew where to gather and how.  They knew how to speak their minds, share information and so on.  They were tweeting, texting, emailing and blogging for centuries, only they didn’t call it that and were using different templates.  Literacy came to them more than a millennium before Teal’s ancestors knew the concept. 

The USA knows about virtual communities but is essentially home to a culture that places little value on collectives and solidarities.  Indeed, it has used its clout in multilateral outfits such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization to arm-twist governments in countries like Sri Lanka to adopt policies and implement strategies that wreck these things.  If they haven’t really succeeded it is not for lack of effort or ingenuity.  It has something to do with resilience, civilizational length and depth, and foundational philosophies that are hard to destroy. 

So why this sudden need to educate Sri Lankans about communication?  Philanthrophy?  Nah! Perhaps it is the mistaken belief that social media had something to do with the so-called Arab Spring – misnamed of course, for what it produced in the end was an Arab Fall.  Is it then about putting in place mechanisms that could be ‘worked’ to advantage if regime-change need crops up at some point? 

Well, if Sri Lankans want regime change and if regime change is to result in system-change and not an occupant-change, they’ll find their own way and even use social media to get there.  It is however unlikely that social media will play any critical role and this is not for lack of ‘operational knowledge’.  Social media is a convenient displacer of rebellion. In short it takes the rebel out of the street and into cyber space. The power equation is not resolve in those ethereal territories.  Not right now and not in the near future, going by trends.  Perhaps it is about covering bases, to use a baseball metaphor that Teal probably is familiar with.   That’s ok.  Teal should know, however, that Sri Lankans know that Americans of the United States don’t believe there are free lunches.  There’s investment and return on the same.  Just saying.

But there’s another pertinent element here.  Has the US Government done the same for US citizens? Has it set up ‘Social Media Labs’ in every state, every county and every township?  Has it tried to ‘promote greater understanding of social media’ among its citizens?  Has it been determined ‘to foster a greater understanding among its citizen about social media and inspire people to engage more effectively online’?  If not, why not? 

There’s condescension here folks.  It’s an insult.  Next they’ll set up a ‘Defecating and Urinating Lab’ and implement a toilet-training program to ‘foster greater understanding among Sri Lankans about evacuating bodily waste! 

[For the record, just to show we are not as uncivilized or similarly condescending or more importantly, savvy enough about these things, this piece will be shared on fb, posted on multiple news websites and personal blogs, emailed and tweeted.] 

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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