Rethink CHOGM : UNP

FRIDAY, 07 JUNE 2013 

The UNP said today it would request the Commonwealth heads to reconsider the participation at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in November had the government failed to fulfill its promises to the Commonwealth before the Northern Provincial Council elections.

UNP MP Mangala Samaraweera told a news conference the government had given numerous promises to the Commonwealth stating that it would take steps to protect Human Rights and also to establish independent commissions prior to the Northern Provincial Council elections.

He urged the government to establish independent commissions that were in the 17 Amendment to the Constitution and to take steps to hold a free and fair election in the Northern Province.

Mr. Samaraweera also said if the State heads participated at the CHOGM in a situation where the governments failed to fulfill its promises it would indicate that CHOGM approve of a governance of a dictatorship. 

Spectators to Sri Lanka genocide ascend in Obama's inner circle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 June 2013, 11:25 GMT]
President Barack Obama Wednesday announced that he is reshuffling the US national security team by appointing the current United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice to the White House and nominated Samantha Power to take Rice's place in the UN. Sri Lanka observers point out to the ineffective role played by the two appointees during the Sri Lanka conflict, and despite the high flown rhetoric of the author of the acclaimed "A Problem from Hell" author, Samantha Power, who met with Sri Lanka's alleged genocidaire Rajapakse after the Mu'l'l'vaaykaal massacres, Rice and Power have been noted silent spectators to the Sri Lanka genocide. 

"Everyone knew that Tom Donilon would be leaving and that Susan Rice would be arriving. He's [Obama] now got another very close confidante - Samantha Power - going to the United Nations. This was the team that he envisioned for his second term," Inderfurth told CBSNews.com. a longtime diplomat told CBS. "He's now got his dream team."

Inner City Press (ICP) that covers United Nations in New York, said of the appointments: "Power wrote the book on genocide -- but some wonder what she DID about it, for example the 2009 slaughter of 40,000 Tamils in Northern Sri Lanka. Inner City Press covered that mass killing, and was present when anguished diaspora Tamil denounced, among others, Samantha Power for inaction. Would she have tried to at least get it onto the Security Council's agenda?," ICP questioned.

Ms. Power won a Pulitzer for "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," her book about America's response to genocide. In the book she argues that American foreign policy in this area has failed; we promised "never again" after the Holocaust but willfully ignored genocides in Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia, and Rwanda, she had earlier said, before she was invited to join the Obama's first campaign.