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Hallelujah! The British government is ready to stand steadfastly by Sri Lanka’s side as Colombo adopts and proceeds with the implementation of the recent Geneva resolution that it acceded to, readily co-sponsoring it. Not to be outdone, the US which has actively pursued the chastisement of Sri Lanka for several years at successive Geneva confabs and elsewhere joined in the commendation. Sri Lanka, said the US ambassador Keith Harper, was taking “courageous steps to strengthen democracy and restore civil liberties.”

Besides showering praise for adopting this “historic resolution” the British Minister of State for Asia Hugo Swire said that for Sri Lanka to “fulfill its enormous potential it must address the legacy of its past.” The pontifical Swire’s reference to past legacies might be more meaningful and less hypocritical had the country he represents done so over its inglorious history of empire.

I’ve just been reading a book by Kwasi Kwarteng, called “Ghosts of Empire” and subtitled “Britain’s Legacies in the Modern World”. Mr Kwarteng, whose parents were from Ghana, has a PhD in History from Cambridge University and was recently elected an MP.

In his well researched and enlightening book he identifies Iraq, Kashmir, Burma, Sudan, Nigeria and Hong Kong as some where new difficulties have arisen as a result of British imperialism and continue to baffle both politicians and diplomats.
While these present- day champions of civil liberties and human rights were spewing forth their honeyed words marinated for days in a mix of hypocrisy and bovine waste, our resplendent isle was all agog over the Geneva genuflection that it missed a revealing news story.

While western pressure to throttle Sri Lanka continued in Geneva in the latter half of September, a charade was being played out in New York.

That news report proves, if proof was at all necessary after decades of sanctimonious humbug emanating from London and Washington, how committed these purveyors of piffle in the two capitals really are to civil liberties in their own territory.
The story is important because it involves the two principal players-Washington and London-that were instrumental in pushing Sri Lanka to the dock in Geneva after continuous castigation for alleged war crimes and human rights abuses as though they were whiter than the whitest lilies and smelled like an attar of roses.

Among the many news reports that appeared in the British media one headlined the story “‘Tortured’ Briton leaves Guantanamo after 13 years.” Though that headline seems somewhat premature – the release has still to be cleared by Congress- it captures the essence of a story that tells how the US treats the detained with the complicity of their transatlantic cousins.

Shaker Aamer, a Saudi Arabian who is resident in England with his English wife and children, was seized by bounty hunters in Afghanistan and handed over to US forces for allegedly working for al Qaeda. He was transferred to the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba in 2002.

“By any standards he is the victim of a grotesque perversion of justice at the hands of America with the shameful complicity of British intelligence agencies and politicians,” wrote journalist Peter Oborne in the Daily Mail. Referring to Aamer’s 13 year detention without charges and without trial, Oborne went on to say: “He has endured, in all truth, more than any human being should be asked to endure. His impending return to Britain raises profound questions about the conduct of British intelligence agencies in the aftermath of 9/11. Questions do not stop with MI5 and MI6. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and ex-prime minister Blair must be held to account for their wider role in the Shaker Aamer affairs.”

It might be recalled that Barack Obama when he first campaigned for the presidency pledged to close down the Guantanamo detention centre. It still functions. David Cameron promised an investigation into Britain’s intelligence agencies. But very much like Guantanamo nothing has happened here. Even the Chilcott report is in a chill box probably frozen forever.

Referring to the Shaker Aamer case a British Government spokesman was quoted as saying that the government “has regularly raised Mr Aamer’s case with the US authorities..” If so what have such interventions produced? Zilch as they say.

If this is the treatment accorded to one of Washington’s strongest allies when it questions the position of a British resident held uncharged and untried for so many years, what is the treatment that puny Sri Lanka would receive even if we are ready to lick Uncle Sam’s contaminated boots?

Not only must we endure the pompous preachings about western values, western leaders labour under the delusion that they have a mandate from the all mighty to rule the world. Surely it was sheer impudence of British Prime Minister Cameron to say the other day that they could allow Syrian President Assad to continue in power a while longer.

While western pressure to throttle Sri Lanka continued in Geneva in the latter half of September, a charade was being played out in New York. Pictures of Daham Sirisena, son of President Sirisena seated with the Sri Lanka delegation to the UN and meeting some leaders of member- states appeared in websites and apparently in Sirisena junior’s Facebook site.

Shortly after the pictures became public some overzealous type cropped the pictures in which the delegation was first seen seated inside the UN chamber, resulting in the two Sirisena’s being eliminated from them. As though this hurried attempt to bury the truth (attn. Media Minister who wants the media to report the truth) did not add to the mystery of Sirisena junior’s presence in the Sri Lanka delegation, the young man instead of keeping mum (mum was anyway in Sri Lanka) tried naively to defend himself.

He was in New York because his mother could not make the trip he said having first turned to the dictionary to explain to the uninitiated the meeting of nepotism. I wonder whether he showed his response to a more mature and decidedly knowledgeable person because he made a glaring mistake. If his mother did actually make the visit, she would have been in the public gallery in the UN assembly chamber and not seated with the delegation. To be inside the chamber and under the Sri Lanka country name one needs to be an accredited delegate.

The foreign ministry was cited as saying that Daham Sirisena was not in the delegation. Then how did he creep in? Did somebody have to drop out for him to be accredited and given a seat?

Sirisena (the son not the father) says that he attended some event held at the UN concerning youth. Fine, did he make any contribution or just sit there admiring the scenery. Would he be submitting a report on this event, if public funds were spent on his travel and stay in New York?

If media reports are correct this is not the first time young Sirisena has been in the news. There are at least two incidents mentioned long before the father became president. One apparently involved the waving of gun and hordes of security men descending on some Colombo club.

It is unfortunate the children of politicians behave as though they are the salt of the earth. If President Sirisena does not want to be tarnished with the same brush used against other prominent politicians and their progeny he should tighten the reins on his family members and turn pawulpalanaya into yahapalanaya.