Douched By Reality

Monday, February 20, 2012  

“It is not the politicians who are suffering, it’s the people”.
A Greek demonstrator (The Guardian  –13.2.2012)

By Tisaranee Gunasekara

This is how braggarts end, with egg on their faces and blood on their hands.
Last week, at a press conference in Colombo, US Under-Secretary of State Maria Otero announced Washington’s decision to support a resolution on Sri Lanka, at the February-March UN Human Rights Council sessions. This stunning pronouncement was greeted with an eerie quiet; there were no outraged shrieks by Buddhist monks, no effigy-burning demonstrations by the JHU and no ‘fasts unto death’ by Minister Weerawansa. The puppet-masters seem to have realised that the usual melodramas would not suffice and that the crisis required a different sort of thespian exercise, even if it meant swallowing one’s pride together with the shibboleths about national sovereignty.
So during the Geneva Season, ‘Outraged Patriots’ is to be replaced with ‘Sincere Reformers’. The Army Commander commenced the new phantasmagoria by announcing the appointment of a ‘court of inquiry’ to investigate the observations made by the LLRC. Whether this ruse will satisfy the West or whether the regime will be compelled to implement a few more deceptive measures remains to be seen. In the meantime rights-violations continue unabated. Even as the Rajapaksas were confabulating with Secretaries Otero and Blake, a Tamil businessman was abducted from his home in Wellawatta and a handcuffed detainee was abducted from the Hulftsdorf courts complex; both crimes were committed in broad daylight by armed groups in white vans. On Tuesday a partially burnt corpse was discovered in a Colombo suburb. On Wednesday night another businessman was abducted from the Dehiwala Railway Station.  
Read More »