Full story – http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101218/ap_on_re_as/as_sri_lanka_un
]]>You did not answer my all-important question: where is the investigation into Boosa prison abuses? You accuse the West of human rights abuses – I have no issue with that, except that you don’t offer any conclusive evidence. On the other hand, you seem to ignore that SL is the real criminal – not only does the crime occur, but the investigation is blocked. Do you know that Mahinda told Wimal, no SL soldier will be brought before a war crimes tribunal? If a Western politician tried to shield members of the military like that, he would lose his job.
]]>Show me instances where SL soldiers have been punished for human rights violations. The only instance I know of was in the Krishanthy K. case, but none of the commanders or higher-ups were punished. Janaka Perera, a war criminal, was given an ambassadorial position in Australia! What about Sarath Fonseka? Why was he put in prison for claiming Gothabaya gave orders to shoot surrendering rebels?
I agree that the USA should not have invaded Iraq. Although, to be fair, 99% of the daily killings you see there are done by Muslim militant groups, not the well-trained US Army. There is a simple reason for this: when someone joins the US Army, its a stepping stone to a future civilian career. The US Government subsidizes (pays all of their college expenses) and gives a housing allowance, once a soldier has served 5 years in the Army. So these guys have no incentive to kill, kidnap, and steal like you know who. There is no “Api Wenuwen Api” fund for these guys – the USA is a rich country that rewards its soldiers well.
On the other hand, why did China invade Tibet? Why did Russia invade Chechnya? If the UN was biased, it should be investigating these East Asian and Eastern European countries as well? I agree that the UN is weak, but there is no Western conspiracy like you claim. China and Russia are on the Security Council and they can veto any resolution. And once again, the UN is very very wealthy. I don’t see any reason for them to go after a dirt poor nation like SL. Whom will it benefit economically? Politically? SL does not have a strong military worth speaking, neither does it possess Islamic terrorists, nor does it contain that all important resource called “oil”… SL is just a speck in the ocean. Most people in the world have probably not even heard the name of it.
]]>The ones you just mentioned were for unacceptable conduct done by a few American soldiers while fighting a war that had already been initiated. Such incidences by the lower rank and file of an army are common regardless of the country. Similarly, soldiers have been investigated and punished even in the SL armed forces. I am not talking about such isolated cases.
I am talking about the overarching unacceptable actions taken by the heads of states of US and UK. US and UK had no right to invade Iraq. Period. Dropping of atomic and chemical bombs over civilian settlements were given the green light not by lower order army personnel but by their respective Commanders-in-Chief. UN has not taken ANY punitive action for such horrendous crimes. None, whatsoever.
]]>Abu Ghraib was bad, but Boosa is much much worse. Where is the investigation into prisoner abuse at Boosa?
I think the point is pretty clear: you accuse the West of crimes that have already been dealt with in Western courts, and the perpetrators convicted. In SL, the Courts are not independent… in fact, the Defense Ministry is more powerful than the Supreme Court, and so anyone expecting justice from a lower court can expect the verdict to be influenced by the Defense Ministry. Since the Sri Lankan Military is closely associated with the Defense Ministry, victims of SLA crimes cannot logically expect an unbiased judiciary to remedy their grievances. I hope you see what I am saying: the separation of powers is so vaguely defined in the SL context, that the whole judicial process is really a farce, since it can be easily influenced by those occupying high seats of power.
]]>Your accusations are totally baseless. Many, many US soldiers have been convicted of crimes in Iraq and other places:
The United States Department of Defense removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and eleven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery. Between May 2004 and March 2006, eleven soldiers were convicted in courts martial, sentenced to military prison, and dishonorably discharged from service. Two soldiers, Specialist Charles Graner, and his former fiancée, Specialist Lynndie England, were sentenced to ten years and three years in prison, respectively, in trials ending on January 14, 2005 and September 26, 2005. The commanding officer of all Iraq detention facilities, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, was reprimanded for dereliction of duty and then demoted to the rank of Colonel on May 5, 2005 for a pending misdemeanor shoplifting charge years earlier. Col. Karpinski has denied knowledge of the abuses, claiming that the interrogations were authorized by her superiors and performed by subcontractors, and that she was not even allowed entry into the interrogation rooms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
Steven Dale Green
Green in Iraq
Green was arrested in North Carolina while traveling home from Arlington, Virginia, where he had attended the funeral of a soldier. On June 30, 2006, the FBI arrested Green, who was held without bond and transferred to Louisville, Kentucky. On July 3, 2006, United States Federal Court prosecutors formally charged him with raping and killing Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, a 14-year-old girl, and with killing her six-year-old sister Hadeel, her father, Qassim Hamza Rasheed, and her mother, Fakhriya Taha Muhasen in Mahmoudiyah, on March 12, 2006. On July 10, the U.S. Army charged four other active duty soldiers with the same crime. A sixth soldier, Sgt. Anthony Yribe, was charged with failing to report the attack, but not with having participated in the rape and the murders. On May 7, 2009, Pfc. Green was found guilty by the federal court in Kentucky of rape and multiple counts of murder.[2] While prosecutors sought the death penalty in this case, jurors failed to agree unanimously on that outcome.[32] On September 4, 2009, Green was formally sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.[33] He is held in the United States Penitentiary, Tucson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Dale_Green#Steven_Dale_Green
]]>Regardless of the debatable values of civillians who had been killed by the US and UK, neither of them has been tried, EVER, for the war crimes committed by them. This is a fact! Even if I am drunk, and even if SL is not US, they do NOT nullify the fact that US and UK have committed many war crimes for which UN has taken absolutely no action whatsoever.
Of course Japan committed far greater crimes. Never denied it. But I don’t see Japan going around pushing other countries now, appearing as do-gooders and champions of human rights unlike the US and UK administrations. After all, US could not even see through the differences in skin colour until a few decades ago.
I am NOT, I repeat, I am NOT in favour of the Mahinda govt and how they run SL. Never voted for them either. Injustices committed and those that continue to occur in Sri Lanka must be investigated as much as possible and I am all for pushing whoever is in power in SL by the POEPLE of SL to carry them out. What I am against is, UN, who overlook the war crimes committed by the US and UK going around showing an increased sensitivity for the violence that took place in SL.
]]>US was never brought to justice for dropping atomic bombs not once but TWICE on civilian settlements and killing millions.
That is a gross distortion of the facts. 105000 people died from the combined atomic bomb attacks on the two Japanese cities. I refer you to this website:
http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/MED/med_chp10.shtml
On the other hand, your pals the Japanese killed 30 million civilians during WWII:
It may be pointless to try to establish which World War Two Axis aggressor, Germany or Japan, was the more brutal to the peoples it victimised. The Germans killed six million Jews and 20 million Russians [i.e. Soviet citizens]; the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese. Both nations looted the countries they conquered on a monumental scale, though Japan plundered more, over a longer period, than the Nazis. Both conquerors enslaved millions and exploited them as forced labourers—and, in the case of the Japanese, as [forced] prostitutes for front-line troops. If you were a Nazi prisoner of war from Britain, America, Australia, New Zealand or Canada (but not Russia) you faced a 4% chance of not surviving the war; [by comparison] the death rate for Allied POWs held by the Japanese was nearly 30%.[23]
- Chalmers Johnson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes
US was never brought to justice for using chemical weapons (Agent Orange, Napalm) in Viet Nam and killing millions.
War crimes were committed by the USA during the Vietnam War, but nothing on the scale of what the Japanese did during WWII. In any event, these war crimes were discussed in the US Senate; there was no attempt at a cover-up.
US was not brought to justice for invading Iraq and killing more than a hundred thousand civilians despite UN investigation and reports concluding that Iraq did not have WoMD.
The hundred thousand figure is no doubt yet another gross miscalculation.
I am glad a responsible nation like the USA with a proven track record of efficiency is in charge of the UN, and not some 3rd world c–p country like SL; we know what would happen if that were not the case – the UN would become one corrupt mess and cease to exist in a few years.
]]>I have only ever come across Sri Lankans who wear their 3rd World status like a badge of honour, and use it too to excuse all their primitive behaviour.
“But please remember this in mind: it DOES NOT put UN and the aid doners on a moral high horse. It DOES NOT give the UN and the aid doner countries to tell us what to do! Suggestions and comments are welcome but don’t tell us what to do!”
How about the fact that you are signatory to the UN Charter and the Human Rights Convention? Does that oblige you to honour the values of that charter and convention?
On the whole, it might be more sensible not to do things that dishonour the pinciples of international organizations of which you are a member, to dishonour principles that you pledged to uphold. Then you don’t need to be in the position of others telling you what to do.
I guess you believe in freebies, in getting something for nothing. There’s no moral high ground you can occupy there!
]]>If anybody thinks that a 30 year war with more than 150.000 dead and missing persons will escape an investigation he is totally wrong ! Even Pol Pot and its gang were finally brougth to justice .
Your assertion has been proven wrong before. Because….
US was never brought to justice for dropping atomic bombs not once but TWICE on civilian settlements and killing millions.
US was never brought to justice for using chemical weapons (Agent Orange, Napalm) in Viet Nam and killing millions.
US was not brought to justice for invading Iraq and killing more than a hundred thousand civilians despite UN investigation and reports concluding that Iraq did not have WoMD.
]]>TOP 10 Financial Contributors to UN:
1. –U S
2 Japan
3 UK
4 Germany
5 Netherlands
6 Italy
7 Noway
8 France
9 Sweden
10 Canada
It DOES NOT give the UN and the aid doner countries to tell us what to do!
Don’t take the cake and then refuse the knife, if you know what I mean. If SL wants to do everything its own way, it should leave the United Nations , in which case it will have no international obligations and no one will complain about “human rights violations”, even if Gothabaya lines up every traitor and executes them in broad daylight. Nothing is preventing SL from leaving the UN, but all of us know that if it did so, the development of the country would go back a few centuries…. as long as SL is part of the UN, it has to follow its obligations.
]]>” Its nice to see that there is people with an objective reasoning in the middle of school boys ”
Ahaha…now we talking! I love it when it boils down to person attacks. Those are the last defences when one does not have anything meaningful to say.
@ Belle,
” Well, then, again, if you think the UN is biased and you don’t trust it, then why remain as a member? And willingly accept its aid? ”
UN is larger than its Secretary General (SG) Mr. Moon or any leadership that may come along in the future or has ever held office in the past. Just because a country does not agree with its SG and a few bully nations that inhabit and pull the strings of SG, it does not mean that that country should not cooperate with the 190-odd countries that engage in it.
Sri lanka is a financially 3rd world country and therefore Sri lanka needs financial assitance. We are appreciative of the financial and humanitarin aid offered to Sri lankans on more than one occasion and especially thankful for their warm help extended to us during the aftermath of the Tsunami. But please remember this in mind: it DOES NOT put UN and the aid doners on a moral high horse. It DOES NOT give the UN and the aid doner countries to tell us what to do! Suggestions and comments are welcome but don’t tell us what to do!
]]>But US didn’t attack Iraq on UN auspices. It tried for a General Assembly resolution but had to back off. It went in on its own, with some other countries.
“John Adams, a past UN rep of the US was against many actions of the UN yet US still remains in the UN. Russia, Israel, Cuba, Venezuela are but a few examples of nations that had raised many objections against the stance of UN over a wide range of issues yet they continue to remain in the UN.”
Of course there will be differences with UN stance on issues, and resolutions are debated and voted on. But could you give me examples of these countries refusing to comply with UN requests of them?
“Ability to manoeuvre and come to the top says nothing about the a person’s fairness or wisdom. Bush, Hitler, Saddam all rose to the top but were not men of integrity and honesty were they?”
I wasn’t discussing Ban’s fairness or wisdom. Somebody said that the panel he appointed would be useless because two permanent members of the Security Council would protect SL against war crimes investigation. I’m saying that he may have a few tricks up his sleeve.
“But hey, the last thing I want is investigations done by UN whose accusations of warcrimes go only in one direction and one direction only and i.e. from West to East while turning a blind eye to all the war crimes committed by US and UK.”
Well, then, again, if you think the UN is biased and you don’t trust it, then why remain as a member? And willingly accept its aid?
How is it that you know US and UK have committed war crimes, but don’t know whether SL has committed war crimes? UN doesn’t need to determine whether UK and US have committed war crimes–the information on this is available. This is not the case for SL. Hence the need for an investigation. Prosecution for war crimes is a different matter–and it can be easily evaded too. All the UN wants to do is determine whether there were war crimes in SL last year. Should SL be allowed to boast to the world at large about its being the first country to destroy a terrorist organization without allowing the world to inspect whether it did so in a legitimate manner?
]]>LONG LIVE MOTHER LANKA!!!
]]>[quote]Either Sri Lanka supports the UN, or it leaves the UN. You can’t have it both ways.[/unquote]
Your assertion is wrong. Classic example was when the US invaded Iraq despite UN warnings and investigations proving that Iraq did not have WoMD. John Adams, a past UN rep of the US was against many actions of the UN yet US still remains in the UN. Russia, Israel, Cuba, Venezuela are but a few examples of nations that had raised many objections against the stance of UN over a wide range of issues yet they continue to remain in the UN.
[quote]I wouldn’t underestimate Ban. It’s not easy to be appointed UN Sec-Gen. Needs a lot of manoeuvering. He seems to know how to do that, beating many others who were more obvious choices.[unquote]
Ability to manoeuvre and come to the top says nothing about the a person’s fairness or wisdom. Bush, Hitler, Saddam all rose to the top but were not men of integrity and honesty were they?
[quote]Patriotism to a country doesn’t entail covering up the truth. There are a lot of war victims who want to know what happened. After what they’ve been through, surely the country owes them an honest answer[unquote]
Totally agree with you here and I do NOT trust Mahinda to ever to do justice to the dead civilians. But hey, the last thing I want is investigations done by UN whose accusations of warcrimes go only in one direction and one direction only and i.e. from West to East while turning a blind eye to all the war crimes committed by US and UK.