Ms. Pillai, Don’t Scroll Down Your Website, Just Know What You Are Not Doing
September 4, 2013
By Rajpal Abeynayake - The state run Daily News Editorial – On Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Rajpal Abeynayake
The events that are taking place in Syria now show abundantly clearly that the world’s powers that be — and that includes the top civil servants of the U.N — do adopt double standards when it come to human rights issues, and that’s despite the denial by Ms. Navinathem Pillai the U.N High Commissioner for Human Rights at her closing press conference in Colombo, that there is no such thing as ‘oversight by favour.’
She said that if we’d scroll down on her Office’s website highlighting U.N’s human rights enforcement work, we would find that the U.N has initiated investigations into U.S drone attacks — the inference being that the organization is even handed and rigorous in its work!
It does seem odd that there were no resolutions passed against the United States on the UNHRC floor, when the violations by that country have been by any yardstick glaring, compared to alleged rights violations by any other country on earth. Suffice to say that we in this newspaper that asked her the question at the press conference on U.S drone attacks were not in any position to enter into a debate with Ms. Navi Pillai on this issue, and that she had the last word by having a monopoly over the microphone.
Scroll Down Your Website: A free Laptop from President to Daily News Editor Rajpal Abeynayake
Else, we would have had the opportunity to tell Ms. Pillai that the U.S had invaded many countries on the pretext of looking for weapons of mass destruction etc., despite the fact that there were no Security Council approvals for such interventions or any kind of U.N resolutions granting the country the right to invade those countries that were overrun on false pretexts. (Please see article below by Shenali Waduge.) There was nothing substantive that Navinathem Pillai did in terms of censure despite the fact that there were such blatant incursions, and ‘investigating into drone strikes’ or coming up with what are equivalent to U.N term papers do not militate against the UNHRC doing nothing at all in practical terms about the military adventurism of the U.S.A. Read More
Trouble Up Ahead: The TNA’s Election Manifesto
By Dayan Jayatilleka -September 5, 2013
Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka
To go by its election manifesto the TNA seems completely unmindful of the massive effort that had to be made for the Provincial Council system to be set up in 1987-88, for the 13th amendment to be preserved in 2013 and the PC election in the North to be held under the existing amendment. In short it appears to be unconcerned about the fragility of the political space that has been prised open and the need to carry a sizeable segment of Southern opinion with it at all times or at least neutralise Southern opposition to the Council.
The inflated, emotive electoral rhetoric of 1977 played its part in setting theTULF on a confrontation course with Colombo. It is about to happen again and this time the collision is more certain and will perhaps prove more consequential. One miscalculation could lead to protracted deadlock and worse still, a strategic politico-military lockdown.
The TNA’s electoral manifesto shows that the Tamil politicians and perhaps their Northern constituency have learned as little as have their Southern counterparts. Here I do not refer to the call for federalism or the North-East merger, which may be objectionable to many and inadvisable to boot, but can hardly be described as illegitimate. Even if debatable, these are valid political stances and propositions.
I refer instead to other important aspects of the TNA’s manifesto. One is the explicit, uncritical and deceitful references to the LTTE.
Let us however, examine the TNA’s manifesto from the beginning. It says: “At the time of independence from colonial rule in 1948, Ceylon was foisted with a unitary type constitution with simple majoritarian rule.”
