Yearly Archive: 2015

Former Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Mr Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, addressing the media, has expressed  his regret for finishing the war on terror when he came to the so-called Presidential Commission of Inquiry appointed to investigate serious acts of fraud, corruption and abuse of power, state resources, and privileges (PRECIFAC) few days ago, to give a statement over the Rakna Lanka armoury.
“Today I feel sad to have finished the war. I have had to report to all these commissions just because I finished the war. None of these commissions would be there, if I had not finished the war,” he has said.

Mr Gotbhaya Rajapaksa,  rightly guiding the country’s security forces,  under the  political leadership of  Mahinda Rajapaksa managed to crush the decades long terrorist movement within three and a half years and removed the threat to lives of all the citizens including those of the ungrateful politicians ruling the country today and their supporters. As Mr. Rajapaksa has quite rightly revealed, he had to report to all these commissions as a result of ending the war.

It’s been over a week since the report of the OHCHR investigation on Sri Lanka (OISL) was released to the public, but, to the best of my knowledge, not even a single evaluation of the report, in terms of whether the evidence in the report establishes to any reasonable degree of certainty that the Government in fact committed the various violations alleged, has appeared in any Sri Lankan newspaper, journal or magazine.

This is both unfortunate and surprising.  The Human Rights Council is set to consider a resolution against Sri Lanka on the 30^th of September, based on the conclusions and recommendations of the OISL report, or using it as a backdrop.   Obviously, a rudimentary assessment of the substance of the report is needed before one can decide if further action on the report is justified.

A US-sponsored draft resolution against Sri Lanka is back on the Human Rights Council agenda, this time with a vengeance and despite the Ranil-Sirisena government’s conciliatory and obsequious pro-Washington, pro-Western stance!

There is no more Mahinda Rajapaksa to blame, no more pro-Beijing foreign policy, no more Non-Alignment, no more ‘megaphone diplomacy’ or ‘megaphone diplomats’, no more corruption. History dawned in Sri Lanka only on 8 January, before that, there was only darkness, violence and obscurantism. Today, enlightened leaders have flooded the land with newness, goodness, transparency, and unity, along with privileged relations with a much-maligned West.

So, what went wrong? A generous response would be our new, enlightened leaders read all the signs wrong. An accurate response would be they have something to gain from subservience to Washington’s interests.