Sunday Times 2
Donald Trump – a safe bet for Sri Lanka
View(s):By Jayantha Gunasekera
Donald J Trump, president elect of the United States has categorically stated that he is against all forms of terrorism, and has vowed to hound the terrorists that are threatening the security of his country. His views will presumably be the same for all countries threatened by terrorists.
Donald Trump: Against global terrorism.
The present administration of Barak Obama of which Hilary Clinton is a key figure, was for a regime change in 2015, not on the grounds of human rights violations, but because Sri Lanka was getting closer to China. Despite the regime change in Sri Lanka on 8 January 2015, the US still persists in their resolution before the UN Human Rights Commission, in order to hold Sri Lanka in a clasp.
Going back to May 2009 when the LTTE was eliminated, Hilary Clinton was very much in cahoots with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and French Foreign Minister Kouchner to arrive in Sri Lanka to save Prabhakaran’s life! Through Prabha, Hilary Clinton (who was then Obama’s Secretary of State) was hoping to fragment Sri Lanka, to get a foothold. India too adopted a lukewarm attitude in our war against the LTTE, because they themselves felt threatened by the presence of China and Pakistan who helped Sri Lanka to crush the terrorists. If not for their assistance we would still be grappling with the LTTE, and thousands more of our civilians both Tamil and Sinhala, and thousands more of our soldiers would have died.
Before Hilary Clinton contested Obama for the Democratic Party nomination in 1988, she was very much in contact with Prabhakaran and the LTTE. That connection with the LTTE has not waned. The present resolution in Geneva against Sri Lanka is partly her’s and Navi Pillay’s work. She lost in 1988 to Obama, and now, lost to Donald Trump. This was her last chance. This is the price she had to pay for hobnobbing with terrorists. This is a good lesson for the Tamil leaders as well. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
India’s former National Security Advisor Shivashankar Menon has said that the US and Norway wished to rescue Prabhakaran, so that his LTTE would live to fight another day. He also said that the Tamil Nadu leaders knew Prabhakaran would kill them to rule Eelam. During this period, Hilary Clinton was Secretary of State of the US.
To further quote Menon, “the way the Sri Lankans fought the war, though criticized for its brutality in the final stages might have taken a higher toll if delay and stalemate were brought about”. This is what Menon feels in his assessment of the war. He further says, “it is arguable that some brutality was inevitable in a war of this kind against a violent terrorist group that had shown no qualms about terrorising its own people and physically eliminating all its potential adversaries, Tamil or Sinhalese” (New India Express).
It was discussed in international circles that our government was indirectly backing Hilary Clinton against Donald Trump, because Clinton and Obama helped to achieve a regime change in Sri Lanka in January 2015.
The government should depend on highly intelligent advisors, not those who cringe but look the politicians in the eye, and give them proper advise. What has to be kept in mind is the successor of a leader in the US, who will benefit the whole of Sri Lanka, and not a particular government. The advisors should have advised our government that it would be disastrous to back Hilary Clinton, directly or indirectly. We must hope that Donald Trump will not hold it against us. At best we should have been neutral. It is no secret that the LTTE supporters in the North (dancing to the dictates of the LTTE diaspora) lit candles and engaged in religious observances to enlist the help of the gods to have Hilary Clinton elected. Did the LTTE diaspora have a secret understanding with Clinton to fragment Sri Lanka, if she was elected the President of the United States?
The LTTE diaspora fabricated the canard that 40,000 Tamil civilians were brutally and intentionally done to death in the last stages of the war. This fanciful figure of 40,000 civilians was thought of when Navi Pillay was UN’s Human Rights Chief. The present UN Human Rights Chief is now blindly following the same pattern, without any justification. The new chief is Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, a Jordanian Prince and a muslim who has repeatedly excoriated Trump, saying his threat to ban muslims travelling to the US is grossly irresponsible. He included Trump and Le Pen of France as populist demagogues and political fantasists. Zeid will naturally be mindful of what happened to Boutros-Boutros Ghali who clashed with the US and therefore was denied a second term as UN’s Secretary General.
Whether Zeid will have the guts to put his wild threats to practice is yet to be seen. Or will he gradually wilt, for the greed of staying in office for another term? Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin himself stated that Zeid is overstepping his limits, from time to time. It is left to be seen if Zeid is getting too big for his boots.
Quoting the Sunday Times of 25.12.2016, the Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte heaped scorn on Prince Zeid thus, “you are just an employee of an office there, whose subsidy comes from the pockets of the member states. You strut around as if you are a sovereign idiot. Go back to school. You do not know diplomacy. You do not know how to behave to be an employee of the United Nations. You do not talk to me like that, you son of a bitch. I am a member sovereign state. Please shut up because you lack brains. You are just an employee there by appointment. Tell him if he wants to come here, I will slap him, you devil” (Courtesy – ibtimes.co.uk)
As regards the charge by the US (while Hilary Clinton was the Secretary of State) that Sri Lanka had intentionally killed 40,000 innocent Tamils in the final stages of the war, Zeid should pose the question to the accusers:
Can the Sri Lankan forces kill 40,000 Tamils and make their bodies disappear into thin air?
Where are the bodies?
Where are the graves?
Where are the incinerators, if the bodies were destroyed?
There was no denying even by the accusers (the western countries) that Sri Lankan Forces had saved the lives of 300,000 innocent Tamil civilians who were being kept as human shields for the protection of the LTTE, from the advancing forces. There was no denying even by the accusers that these human shields were kept like cattle, moved from place to place without food and water. Zeid and the US must now consider whether 300,000 of the self same refugees would have run for protection to the side of the army, if the same army had killed 40,000 of their own herd.
Not a word of praise from the west for saving the lives of 300,000 Tamils by the Sri Lankan forces, who put their own lives in harm’s way to protect these Tamils, during the last days of the war, when these Tamils were running away to escape being killed by the LTTE.
After the death of Prabhakaran and his cohorts, we fed the refugees, clothed them, medicated them and sheltered them. Every conceivable precaution was taken for their well-being, while the Tamil diaspora contributed nothing to look after their own displaced people. Yet, the Sri Lankan forces are being accused of killing innocent civilians.
This is why it is often said that friendship with the west can be revoltingly rewarding, while enmity can be revealingly reviling.
As regards violation of human rights by the US (our accusers), targeting and killing hordes of civilians by unmanned drones in Afghanistan, this is what a US Federal Judge had to say while delivering a judgement, “there is a painful conflict between human rights and national security. Fundamental human rights have to be sacrificed at theh altar of national security”. This shows that there is one law for the US, and another for their adversaries.
It is hoped that the US under Donald Trump will exonerate the Sri Lankan forces of all charges that have been foisted by the previous US administration, and it is also hoped that Zeid, the UN Human Rights Chief will have the guts to tell the US to drop all their false human rights violation charges against Sri Lanka.
(The writer is a President’s Counsel)