Gajalakshmi Paramasivam – 17 October  2015

Et Tu UN?

About the UN Resolution - [The resolution doesn't appear to have recognized the serious nature of the violations detailed in the U.N. human rights office's report. It has "balanced" its findings and recommendations to accommodate political and ideological considerations of the Sri Lankan government that co-sponsored the resolution.

An example of a glaring omission in the resolution is justice for those detained for up to 19 years under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act, without having their cases concluded.

A few days before the resolution, a local court declared a Tamil mother "not guilty" after being in detention for more than 15 years. There has been no apology or redress for her. Some detainees of the Prevention of Terrorism Act recently began a hunger strike calling on authorities to expedite their cases. But nothing has happened.]  Ruki Fernando in the article ‘The challenge of doing what is right in Sri Lanka’

If the UN had felt for the victims of war as if the ‘injustice’ had been caused to the UN – they would have recognized the dire need to recommend the repeal of any law that has contributed to abuse of power by the government. The UN failed due to its own weaknesses – as highlighted through the recent Report on Sri Lanka:

[On "Allegations of extrajudicial executions in the final phase of armed conflict," the new report says

"Between 16 and 18 May, a number of foreign intermediaries were involved in facilitating communication with senior representatives of the Government, primarily Permanent Secretary Ministry of Foreign Affairs Palitha Kohona, Senior Adviser to the President Basil Rajapaksa, Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Communications at this stage also included others, such as senior UN officials and foreign journalists."

  One (UNnamed here) senior UN official was Mr. Nambiar. Were there others? Who were they? This is the UN, "reporting" on itself, as it sloppily did on Haiti cholera, and stands ready to try to do on rapes in the Central African Republic. We'll have more on this.]  Matthew Russell Lee, - Sri Lanka Sends War Crimes Denier Medawela to UN, UNCA "Lies Agreed To" – Inner City Press

I learnt about the Australian Government through my own painful experiences here in Australia, measured through Racial Discrimination Act 1975. Actions that cause us pain happen due to many forces including ours. If we identify with our Truth – we can identify with the Truth of others. If I kept expecting through the above law – I could not have identified with my own Truth. The Truth is that I myself was guilty of Racial Discrimination in favor of those whom I  started ‘liking’ and limited myself to what they allocated as per their assessment of my merit. That was my heritage from my Subjective Hindu system – which promotes respect for elders and therefore accepting their judgments as ‘right’ without questioning. That was right conduct as per the Truth of the Australian system but the wrong conduct as per the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. The main Section is Section 9 which states:

[(1)  It is unlawful for a person to do any act involving a distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of any human right or fundamental freedom in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.]

Most of us – Australian migrants of Asian origin - act in breach of the above section when we act to give preference to the interpretation of laws and policies to White Australians in senior positions. If we did not – it was highly likely that we would not have been  employed at higher levels and often not entered  at lower levels – as we would be considered to be ‘over-qualified’.

Applying that to Sri Lanka, one who does not tow the line with the Government is not likely to be employed in senior positions. At the social level – one would not be accepted as a law abiding citizen if one criticized the Government on the basis of Independent interpretation of the law. Whilst this is true of  relationships in any part of the Nation, it is more pronounced where other cultures are involved. Marriage is a good example in this regard. Cross cultural marriages have this higher challenge to develop a harmonious family. Tamils continue to practice caste system in marriage, due to this difficulty in ‘forgetting’ the hierarchy we have invested in. The mind-order of the Vallala / farmer caste is expected to be the parallel of UN while the mind order of Karaiyar / Fisher caste that Velupillai Prabhakaran was born into would be the parallel of Sri Lankan Government’s led by Mr. Rajapaksa. The mind orders are determined by the stronger force – between Truth and our investment in a particular Code/Law. The UN, if it had known its Truth before the ‘Sri Lankan experience’ would have identified with the Truth of other countries using its name to list local groups as ‘Terrorists’ at global level. The mind-order of the person assessing is the source of the credibility of their interpretation. One with low mind-order has no authority to judge one with higher-mind order. The two can run parallel and the leaders need to be accepted by each other as Equals once cultural diversity is known to be stronger than cultural commonness and there is no other institutional relationship to determine the position hierarchy.

Some examples of where the Australian Government failed to take its Equal position with the Sri Lankan government are:

[Foreign Minister calls for UN listing of LTTE as an international terrorist group

Full text of the Speech by Hon. Rohitha Bogollagama, M.P.,
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka
at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Canberra on 13 October 2008]

[Dr Rohan Gunaratna has emerged as the go-to guy for media outlets wanting to get an academic spin on terrorism. Feted as an expert on terror, he has traveled the world, speaking to governments, think tanks and appearing on television from the BBC to O'Reilly. CNN described him on August 19, 2002 as, "Rohan Gunaratna, an expert on al Qaeda who was called on to address Congress, the United Nations and the Australian Parliament following the September 11 attacks". He even recently appeared in the middle of the John Walker Lindh trial as an expert for the defence. He then went on a tour of the world's media making claims based on his private "interviews" with Lindh. Gunaratna's work was also used to smear the Islamic party in Malaysia (PAS) as being linked to the al-Qaeda organisation. Given this relatively high profile and status as an authority on Islamic terror, it is surprising to know that this man who was, until recently, listed as a Research Assistant from St Andrew's University in Scotland had never produced a single publication dealing with Arab or Muslim terrorism prior to September 11. On the contrary, Gunaratna's experience and prior work has been entirely in Sri Lankan separatism, particularly the Tamil Tigers.] Amir Butler writes about Gunaratna through Wikipedia

Academics have the moral authority to stay within their own Discoveries to claim higher status than the ordinary citizen who has had the experience. Likewise the UN. Neither has published such papers on the LTTE nor the Sri Lankan Government. Hence they got infected with the words from the mouths of ‘cows with bells’ – the Sri Lankan Government which abused Australian facilities to promote its own agenda. Truth protects our idle minds from such infections.

Given that neither of the above two personalities was Australian, and given that by then I had already established my credibility as an Australian of Sri Lankan origin – the Australian Government had the RESPONSIBILITY – to seek and include my assessment above those of foreigners. A true Australian would have, in the best interests of Australia.

An Equal position gives us the ability to Observe rather than participate actively. Observation makes the other side attractive or repulsive. This helps us stay close or distance ourselves accordingly. When we stay close we become creative and hence children through marriage. When we stay away whatever happens within that ‘other’ group is no concern of ours. It is when we have the desire to order/instruct/tell – that we fail to move away, despite knowing that the cultural differences are greater than the commonness. If we do decide to stay close – we need institutional authority – through laws common to both sides.

The Prevention of Terrorism Act 1978 includes punishment for  the following:

A Person  who: (a) causes the death of any specified person, or kidnaps or abducts a specified person, or commits any other attack upon any such person, which act would, under the provisions of the Penal Code, be punishable with death or a term of imprisonment of not less than seven years; or

(b) causes the death of any person who is a witness to any offence under this Act, or kidnaps or abducts or commits any other attack upon any such person, which act would, under the provisions of the Penal Code, be punishable with death or a term of imprisonment of not less than seven years;or

(c) commits criminal intimidation of any special person or a witness referred to in paragraph (b); or

(d) commits the offence of robbery of the property of the Government, any department, statutory board, public corporation, bank, co-operative union or co-operative society; or

(e) commits the offence of mischief to the property of the Government, any department, statutory board, public corporation, bank, cooperative union or co-operative society or to any other public property; or …………….

                                     

According to the latest reports – high officials within the former Government are indicated to guilty of  (d) above.  Would this then mean that if found guilty they would be listed as Terrorists? Once a citizen is so listed under this law – members of the Government are liable to be so listed if they meet the criteria. I expected our former Prime Minister Mr. Howard to hear me on the same basis as he heard the Vice Chancellor of the University of NSW. The two Chancellors of my time – by acknowledging my pain – certified my complaint and this made it fit to be taken to the Government. But the Courts did not apply the law on Equal platform. They used Administrative technicalities presented by Barristers – to dismiss me. They had their fees; the Prime Minister had his job – and I had the Truth. This Truth naturally connects to all other victims of Racial Discrimination who usually suffer loss of status due to English Australians and European Australians – getting natural priority over Asians. That connection must happen before Natural Forces would lead the manifestation of our Truth. Gandhi sacrificed the benefits of the ‘system’ that did not recognize him on Equal footing. The Hindu example is Lord Muruga Himself. This Truth invoked by me laterally through other migrants and indigenous Australians and vertically through my faith in Lord Muruga and Gandhi – resulted in the Energy that added Itself to defeat Mr. Howard at the elections when he lost his seat. Every victim who does not retaliate but submits to her/his source of genuine belief – contributes to the strength of the Natural Energy – which like the Sun never fails to do Its duty. This happened also to Mr. Rajapaksa former President of Sri Lanka – the stronger pain being those of Tamils who were ‘not on the Government’s payroll’ nor favored by the Government. This includes members of the LTTE.

We talk so much about the White-flag incident that happened in 2009. But during Army occupation – this was not unusual. One such widow and her family are close to me and even now I feel her pain and mine. Her husband – the principal of a small school in Northern Sri Lanka went to his school to retrieve the files thrown out by the Armed Force. This gentleman went to the Department of Education and obtained approval and the assurance that the Army Commander would be informed. But when he went with his hands raised he was shot down and he died later in hospital. The officers concerned said that the Army Commander did not inform those on duty. The strength of sadness one feels for this family that lost their father – due to not knowing the weaknesses of the Sri Lankan Government system – is the real empowerment for the White-flag system that is now at the center of the UN’s failures. The reasons I identify with could be explained through the saying -  ‘birds of a feather flock together’.

UN ought to have been an Observer and not a participant in this war.  It would have been had it done its job as per the values of the 1969  International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.  The Constitution of Sri Lanka itself facilitates discrimination directly on the basis of Buddhism and indirectly through Sinhalese. An Observer status would have facilitated victims to use the UN’s Resources  instead of  Governments to using the UN status to ‘tell’ their People. Idle status becomes the tool of governments that desire quick wins. As stated previously – the first mistake of the UN was to  allow its name to be used by the Sri Lankan Government to list the LTTE as Terrorists at global level. If genuine – then that very law must now be applied – on the Government by the UN.  Until then there can be no compromise on who the Judge is going to be. It cannot be any country that failed to list the Sri Lankan Government as per the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1978 – Measure for Measure.