15 December, 2024

Blog

Fight The Power

By Dayan Jayatilleka

Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

“And that’s why it’s so encouraging that, at the same time it’s confronting some of the darkest and most painful chapters in its country’s past, the Sirisena administration is also pursuing initiatives…” – US Ambassador Samantha Power

The Ambassador/Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations in New York and the UN Security Council, Samantha Power, holds cabinet rank. She was formerly the National Security Advisor to President Obama. Though her influence has waxed and waned, she is a leading policy intellectual and the closest that the Obama foreign policy team came to an ideologue (of “humanitarian interventionism” one might add). She was also the highest ranking US official to interface with the Rajapaksa administration and is regarded as the one who drove the most hawkish anti-Rajapaksa “regime change” line within the Obama administration; a line, which, it must be added has achieved success, however transitory that may turn out to be.

Despite her formidable credentials, Ambassador Power suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of a relatively small developing country just this week. When the annual Cuban resolution against the US embargo came up for a vote in New York, there were zero abstentions and of the 193 member states of the UN, only two voted with the US: Israel and the US itself. All others, 191 to be exact, voted with Cuba against the US (and Israel). That’s how a Third World country with a highly intelligent, principled foreign policy and diplomacy can beat the US. Except for a brief moment, Sri Lanka isn’t such a country, either under the previous administration or most certainly under the present one.

An evaluation of the recent remarks on Sri Lanka made by Samantha Power in Mexico tells us about the failure of the Rajapaksa administration’s foreign policy and diplomacy, the even more abject performance of the UNF government and perhaps most importantly, why there is a wide gulf between the national interest of Sri Lanka on the one hand and the policy and perception of the US on the other, as well as the reasons why US policy towards Sri Lanka, if unaltered, will fail—leaving Sri Lanka to return to its more natural, compatible allies.

Samantha Power was a journalist, author and teacher at Harvard. The Rajapaksa administration’s frontline team pitted against this highly intelligent, opinionated and articulate woman was the troika of SL’s ambassador to the US, Jaliya Wickremasuriya, utterly unimpressive and inadequate for the task, the unlettered, thuggish Sajin de Vaas Gunawardena, and the scheming, shrewish Kshenuka Seneviratne. This was the period of Sri Lanka’s Diplomacy of the Absurd. The encounters that Samantha Power had with the Sri Lankan leadership were not only those with the pragmatic and affable President, but also with powerful insiders who were still living in the era of George W Bush and the Global War on Terror, hoping for Benyamin Netanyahu to effect electoral ‘regime change’ in Washington DC, and working with a motley crew of ‘Tea Party Movement’ type desiccated Sinhala expat activists with tenuous contacts to the Jewish lobby.

Samantha Power has said at a conference in Mexico that the Sirisena administration is confronting some of “the darkest and most painful chapters in the country’s past”. Now, what is she referring to? Could it be the entirety of the Rajapaksa presidency? That is hardly likely because (a) that could hardly be one of the darkest and most painful chapters of the past of a country that was ravaged by thirty years of suicide bombing terrorism and (b) the Sirisena administration is undertaking no such “confrontation”. Could it be the episodes of bad governance in the Rajapaksa second term? It is doubtful, since these too pale into relative insignificance when viewed against the backdrop of decades of war and terrorism.

The closest then that one can come to is the Wickremesinghe-Samaraweera commitment made at the UNHRC in Geneva, in the form of co-sponsorship of the US resolution, to ‘confront’, and welcome external participation in the ‘confronting’ of, the “closing stages of the war’. So it is logical to assume that Ambassador Power is referring to the closing stages of the war when she talks of one of the darkest and most painful chapters of the country’s past. Now what were the closing stages of the war? Precisely that: the closing stages of a thirty year war; the ending of it. Therefore the closing stages of the war were not the darkest and most painful chapters of our country’s history, it was the ending of a dark and painful volume in our history during which a suicide bombing, secessionist, terrorist army ran amuck throughout the island.

Certainly the closing stage of the war saw massive bloodshed and even crimes. But in comparison to what: World War II, which ended with the needless atomic bombing of civilian population centers? Would Samantha Power define the end of WW II as one of the darkest and most painful chapters of Western history or the bringing to an end, precisely such a chapter, characterized by the rise of fascism, fascist aggression and occupation? Just as the liberation from fascism cannot be considered the darkest and most painful chapter of world history and indeed is regarded as a victory to be commemorated; just as the closing stage of the US Civil War, with its used of scorched earth tactics, to defeat the secessionist Confederacy cannot be regarded as a dark and painful chapter but precisely as a progressive outcome, so too must the closing stage of Sri Lanka’s war be seen as a glorious chapter of liberation and national reunification, marred as it may have been by certain excesses.

One notes that in her remarks, Ambassador Power does not have a word of denunciation of Tiger terrorism. She does not commend the previous (elected) administration for having prevailed over it. By contrast to her implicit characterization of the war on Mahinda Rajapaksa’s watch, has no negative characterization of the period in which the Tamil Tigers terrorized our country.

One further notes that in the days preceding the Geneva Resolution, Ambassador Power granted an appointment to MA Sumanthiran, the TNA MP. It is not usual that the US Ambassador to the UN Security Council meets, not with a representative of the Government of Sri Lanka, but with an Opposition representative of the country’s main minority, at the time that the US is moving a resolution on a given country. Media reports tell us that Mr. Sumanthiran stressed the need for international participation in any Sri Lankan war crimes inquiry. His effort to leverage the Zeid report seems to have had a sympathetic hearing from Ambassador Power, because the agreement that Asst. Secretary Nisha Biswal and Ambassador Athul Keshap had arrived at with Colombo, namely that of a “credible domestic mechanism” was qualitatively sharpened and ratcheted upwards when the US resolution was drafted, to include the language of the Zeid report with regard to foreign judges, prosecutors, counsel and investigators.

Samantha Power’s interpretation of our country’s contemporary history would be applauded by those who mourn the defeat of the Tigers. Her verdict would correspond with the sentiments of all those who march under the Tiger flag in demonstrations throughout the world. Her views would have resonance among Sri Lanka’s Tamil community, the citizens of Tamil Nadu and the Tamil Diaspora. There would be hurrahs in the ranks of the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, the Global Tamil Forum and the British Tamil Forum. However, the majority of this country’s citizens would vehemently disagree with her. Indeed her notion of one of the darkest and most painful chapters of our country’s history is precisely the closing chapter of a saga in which the good guys won and the light finally broke in after decades of Black Tiger over-lordship.

This is not just a matter of competing ethnic or ethnocentric narratives, though it is inescapably that as well, because Ambassador Power has taken sides with one of the contending discourses. This is symptomatic of a pronounced Western tilt towards the Tamils and against the Sinhalese.

There is another, wider, more universal dimension. In his expert opinion which forms Annexure 1 of the Paranagama report, Sir John Holmes, OBE, a former commander of the British SAS and former Director of UK Special Operations, says that the Tigers were the leading users of suicide bombers in the post WW2 era; were the most formidable asymmetric warfare entity in the world because it had mastered three forms of warfare which it used simultaneously– terrorism, guerrilla war and semi-conventional war; that the challenge facing the Sri Lankan military in 2009 would have been daunting for the best trained and equipped military machines in the world and that the SLA could have looked around and found no precedent for that challenge.

How can Ambassador Power, a leading personality of the West, regard as one of the darkest and most painful chapters, the defeat of so formidable a terrorist enemy by the legitimate armed forces of a democratic state? Can the authoritarian excesses and gross governance practices of an elected government of a democratic state, overshadow the decade’s long depredations of a formidable terrorist force, to such an extent that either such flawed governance or the concluding offensive which finally defeated that evil force is considered a “darker”, more “painful” chapter than the long period of terrorist dominance?

This then is the challenging question that Russia’s President Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov posed the West’s leaders and diplomats at the UNGA this year: where do you stand in the battle between legitimate, established states and their armed forces on the one hand, and fanatical terrorist armies on the other?

Latest comments

  • 15
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    I think Samantha Power is directly responsible for the escalation of the situation in Ukraine and Syria. Her condescending behavior towards the Russian delegate only aggravated the situation.

    I think however her idealism and Tamil lobby moral bankruptcy only helped Sri Lanka get her act together with governance. For example I did not ever imagine things like Bribery Commission and FOI would ever be taken seriously in SL.

    Thanks to the Geneva process all the good stuff we appreciate as “good governance” are being introduced slowly.

    • 17
      10

      Where had the writer been all these weeks ? DJ – is shamless bugger of all times

      I thought he had been abducted by aligns.

      HIs men that support to NFF were proactive also in the protests made by students yesterday

      • 11
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        @Sama

        you are attacking the messenger simply because you dont like him.

        you and other like you, who doubtless will emerge from the woodwork in this thread soon enough, have NO RESPONSE to the message .. and I seriously doubt you even understand what he is writing about.

        • 7
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          We the ones belong to overread what the writer is going to say – that is all because we have been alert on his way of inconsistencies for the last two years. I ll bet you – you will change your mind if you could check the archives of his articles – say during the last 6 months.
          You are trying to paint an image for him. But we the ones who have been commentingon this and other forums are well aware who DJ has been for the last few years. Eating more malumiris have made you guys so gulliable. THat is it.

          • 6
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            Dayan can understand what went wrong was losing India’s political support,

            US never loved Tamils or Sinhalese, what they want is to promote ,protect their own national interest , even MIA the singer found it difficult to get a Visa to USA , because of her alleged remote connections to LTTE or so.

            Dayan knows very well support given by US to SL to crush LTTE was as decisive as the support received from India, Pakistan & China for the same.

            May 29th Geneva victory was due to something else ,i.e. US resolutions raised eyebrows of whole world, barely a week after 19th May war victory it wanted to condemn SL , so India, Japan & all others stood by Lanka & US was defeated.

            But SL failed to keep India on board , thereafter 2010-2014 SL lost in Geneva.
            Who is responsible for ditching India ? & losing political battle ?

        • 9
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          Is he not the shameless bugger known to anyone ? Can you imagine him or any guy to have got on to the stage Nugegoda with street thugs such as Buruwanse ?

          • 0
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            I think to this date, he might have changed his stance. But no sure – anyways, every right thinking normal men and women would do so normally.
            Man had been hidden behind his shadow over the few weeks. Frequency of his articles has now fallen 1 /6-weeks or so.. immediately after MY3-Ranil take over was reported that the frequency of DJ articles alone to this platform was atleast 3 /2-days – some questioned whether the boy had only been writing to that time. THere, people were made clear that his hatred could not be calmed down easily – but with the time, DJ seems to have learnt malice and hatred and harbourdness of his kind of personal attacks cant bring him or other never forward. Now the guy is said to be put in a mental asylum not receving any kind of media attraction as had been the case prior to Jan 8th. DJ s fate is comparable to that of Royal AStrologer the man on whom MR kept more trust than on his wife- risking his office calling election two years before the official period of his regime.

        • 0
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          Malumiris is making every effort to show that he knows good English .. h a ha .. but to bet the same horse not thinking twice proves everything.

    • 6
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      Now the boy is singing a new song

      “Samantha Power was a journalist, author and teacher at Harvard. The Rajapaksa administration’s frontline team pitted against this highly intelligent, opinionated and articulate woman was the troika of SL’s ambassador to the US, Jaliya Wickremasuriya, utterly unimpressive and inadequate for the task, the unlettered, thuggish Sajin de Vaas Gunawardena, and the scheming, shrewish Kshenuka Seneviratne. This was the period of Sri Lanka’s Diplomacy of the Absurd. The encounters that Samantha Power had with the Sri Lankan leadership were not only those with the pragmatic and affable President, but also with powerful insiders who were still living in the era of George W Bush and the Global War on Terror, hoping for Benyamin Netanyahu to effect electoral ‘regime change’ in Washington DC, and working with a motley crew of ‘Tea Party Movement’ type desiccated Sinhala expat activists with tenuous contacts to the Jewish lobby”

      I thought this man was supportive in previous settings he stayed in the same mode ( kirimati gilapu kimbula) at the time, MR was attacking him calling him as a NUMBER 01 NGO worker – remember DJ ?

      Now you seem to turn your voice somewhat impartical – becuase yo have been searching for a new post. People of this country is well aware of the fact that you are shameless by every means. Even during Premadasa era you did the same as you did it with MR.

      • 4
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        I also noticed that comment from DJ.

        He playing a selfish game. DJ is trying to say since MR kicked him out this issue came. But he is still betting his horse on MR.

        • 2
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          Sumith@, this man is unique to his nature ( super selfish). He is ready to fish on muddy states if it is going ot be advantageoius to his plans. Is he the only carrier diplomat (senior level) to know all these better ? Why has he got this KNOW ALL nature (mama thamai miniha, if i were not there, nothing would have been etc). Danno danithi, nodanno nodanithi -those who are alert on his articles even if they are mostly filled with incohrent views- but more about being connected to his paranoid theories, know very well what this creature is upto. I have heard from many that today have no faith in DJ raise the same question -as to why as you say, he bet his horse on MR ? If anybody with a bird brain would further stay supportive to MR et al, their brains should be pathologically investigated. This country could have been marched to prospher to this date, all the harm and high profile wastes could have properly been managed by previous govt. We have no other choice than taking loans if the country to be developed, proper managment is a must – Angela Merkel set all rigorous rules and regulations at the time, German govt pumped billions of euros to fallen Greece. Greeks are subjected to all asterity measures when it goes for fund handlings. Any good leader on the earth would make it like the way Dr Merkel is upto. We need to learn from the west – instead go on adding criticisms on them cant help us further. nobody is perfect- india would not criticse west to the very same degree the 21mio populated lanka would do. Indians achieve things pragmatically. Their leaders or any party heads would behave like some idiotic fanatic party front men like Wimal Buruwanse or Gonwahanse would do. We need to learn it from them rather than trying to learn things from far communities.

  • 18
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    DJ,
    SINHALA BUDHISM created this LTTE.
    Start practising real BUDDHISM.

    • 13
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      Buddhism and politics should not be mixed up.

      Politics is about conquering other’s minds.

      Buddhism is about conquering ones own mind.

      • 5
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        Religion and Politics should not be mixed period.

      • 4
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        EDWIN RODRIGO

        “Buddhism and politics should not be mixed up.”

        When mixed it produces lethal cocktail, Sinhala/Buddhism.

        Therefore Sinhalese and Buddhists should liberate language and Buddhism from Sinhala/Buddhism.

        I am working on it albeit at slow pace.

        • 1
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          [Edited out]

    • 5
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      Most simple solution.

  • 1
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    [Edited out]

  • 14
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    The actions of UN is the direct result of “Puss” diplomats like you who lied to the international body. Rajapakse and his team of politicians and diplomats like you who can be purchased with benefits and money have ruined the reputation and standing of Sri Lanka.

  • 11
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    World war 2, Cuba , Putin all coming into DJ’s analysis but not the Banda-Chelva pact, the assassination of SWRD Banda, 2 JVP uprisings , series of state sponsored riots since independence,
    non implementation of JR-RAJIV pact , SL state giving arms to LTTE to fight the IPKF, State using terror groups to assasinate democratically elected MPs and more intelligent journalists and political analysts, white van abductions to exort money by the armed forces . Why ? .

    DJ is defending the incompetency of MR and his regime from 2005 to 2014 at the expense of the future of SL.

    Anbu,
    DJ is not a born Buddhist. Even if he is now a Buddhist he does not practice the real Buddhism. Soon you may see DJ joining MaRa’s propaganda at the Buddhist temples.
    DJ too will not hesitate to use Buddhism to bring back MaRa to power.

  • 6
    9

    Samantha Powers is a liberal apologist and will be held in contempt by conservatives. Having said that when you have an OLevel failed gamarala ethically challenged Tea trader who stole and borrowed money from Sri Lankan expats, and who barely can speak good English, as Ambassador to US and thugs directing confrontational foreign policy what did you expect? There were no intellectuals in MR’s foreign policy team working in the US. This was a geo political game and we lost.

    I pity these mislead youth of my time.

    As the American Missionary schools were situated Jaffna, they were the ones who were English, science & commerce educated, even the Catholic and Christian schools elsewhere in the country were mostly catering to the Jaffna civil servants children.

    While in the South the Sinhalese were mostly educated in Buddhist missionary Schools in which most of them concentrated only in teaching Sinhala, Tamil, Pali & Sanskrit with other Arts Subjects and were boycotting English.

    In the 1950s the government servants who were almost totally English educated Jaffna Tamils as they were the ones recruited by the Britishers.

    Jaffna people boycotted Sinhala while they were serving in the Sinhala areas like Colombo, Kandy and the suburbs.

    These Jaffna people boycotting Sinhala were serving the Sinhala common man who knew nothing but Sinhalese. They were also reluctant to serve in the Tamil areas as they were under developed.

    Sri Lanka being a small country and the North East being Native to the Tamils is comparatively very small compared to the Sinhala south, so even Tamils recruited in the north east have to serve in the Sinhala south when they are transferable.

    As this became a dilemma to the government they had to introduce basic Sinhala as compulsory.

    As this country was based on Buddhist concepts social services were free for every citizen. So free education, health and other services were provided for every citizen of this country, unlike the Hindu caste based structure where only certain elite castes enjoy such privileges.

    So the widespread free school education had to be based on the vernacular languages (Sinhala, Tamil) instead of English, because the poor masses didn’t have the required family & external environment to practice English.

    The university environment too had to change vernacular to suit the school output. This lead to media wise allocations. Whereas earlier it was English and it was the missionary school Jaffna students who were almost totally occupying the seats.

    Fearing competition from the estate Tamils of the upcountry for university seats the Jaffna Tamil Politicians stripped the estate Tamils of their Citizenship rights so that they won’t be eligible for free elementary education. They didn’t care that the free education, health and other benefits the citizens were enjoying was from the sweat and blood of the estate tamils, as tea was and is the largest foreign exchange earner of Sri Lanka. It was in the 1990’s that President Premadasa who gave back the Citizenship rights to the estate Tamils.

    Because of the English educated Jaffna diaspora which settled in the imperialist countries since independence, the guerilla warfare of the youth turned into a full blooded conventional warfare, with their funds.

    This resulted in mayhem and total devastation & destruction not only in the warfront (north & east) but to the total economy of Sri Lanka which every citizen has to bear.

    If they say the government is hellbent in ethnic cleansing how come Tamils are living lavishly not only in the north & east but also living harmoniously among the Sinhalese. How come the Tamil stream exists in every school.

  • 11
    4

    Dr Dayan Jeyatilake,

    We are not bothered about US or Samantha power. Our worry is about this small island where Buddhist Sinhala Fundamentalism sponsored by a small group of criminals like you is a threat to peace and love among people of this island. It is the threat to security of this people and Nation. You are part of this Fundamentalism which focus on human destruction and blood bath creating racial and religious venom in this soil. Enough is enough. Let the people to live peacefully!

    • 6
      3

      Dayan the Mr. Bumwhite is not Buddhist. He has no reason to sideby anyone. Most malicious person in lanken lime light right these days. JuST because he had sorta vendetta against Ranil and CBK. That was the single reason him to lie down with dogs in that Nugegoda stage. Now the bugger has to be cornered in his 4 walls not having a proper fortpolio. Nor has he chance at the Uni colombo. Students may have more questions as to why he further supported MR in the last election.

  • 1
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    [Edited out]

  • 10
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    What would Buddha have done if he were living in these times? Would he have taken the side of the Sinhala Buddhists or the Tamils? The US or China? MR or MS?

    Sorry, wrong question. Buddha does not take sides. He would just analyze the problem as seen by the Laws of nature as given in his teachings. Not only that, he would also give his solution.

    What would have people like DJ done in the meantime? Would he have accused Buddha for interfering in the internal affairs of another country? Or for being an agent of India? Or for trying to destroy the Sinhala Buddhists?

  • 6
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    Dayan the Dickhead,[Edited out]

  • 1
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    [Edited out]

  • 1
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    [Edited out]

  • 3
    1

    Who cares for DJ says. He can his leader in the temples and do his preaching.

  • 6
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    It is not surprising that Samantha Power possesses those sentiments: American mindset about Sri Lanka issues had developed during the 1980s and 1990s. Please go to Dr. Mike Roberts Web Site THUPPAHI and read my article ‘American Perspective on Sri Lanka Issues; 1980 through 2014’. I am not surprised at all of the American attitude toward Sri Lanka as I saw it developing up close and personal when I worked in the US State Department since 1970s through mid-1990s.

    • 4
      1

      Mr. Gamage,

      If you served with the State Dept. and became a US citizen, shouldn’t your allegiance be to your adopted country? But whatever I have seen from you has been about whitewashing the Rajapaksa regime.

      And why would you write to a news site owned by K.T. Rajasingham, a man who was the SLFP organizer for Jaffna in the 1970’s/80s and known for his corruption and shady connections to the Rajapaksas? I visit that site very rarely but just had a look and it shows a funny article by you–revealing how little you know about Tamils and Canada–on Gary Anandasangaree.

  • 2
    5

    Samantha Power is probably the most blood thirsty member among the top rung in the US administration. It was she who dragged both Hillary C. and Susan Rice, to persuade a reluctant Obama to bomb and destroy Libya as a functioning state, and murder it’s head. It was this that led to her popularity among the Neocons and her quick elevation to higher office. This does not imply that she is well versed in or has a balanced view on matters political. However she could easily wipe the floor with the likes of Vas Goonewardene, the ‘best’ Sri Lanka could send to the UN.

  • 6
    0

    Now so called Ambassador Prasad Kariyawasam is claiming that he has ” single handedly ” turned around SL- US relations to the benefit of the latter.He has said that he did it it without any assistance of Mangala S or Ranil W..What calibre of diplomats has Colombo sent to this important capital city? First of all Kariyawasam must polish up his English pronunciation. Second he should in vest in some good suits.But all these accoutrements will NEVER NEVER make him a Jayantha Dhanapala or Neville Kanakaratne.

    Kariyawasam is nevertheless a master survivor.Having sat right next to Nonis at that infamous New York dinner, he promptly denied seeing or hearing the infamous Sajin Vass slap that sent Nonis crashing to the ground!!!!!After all Kariyawasam was and secretly now is still a Mahinda Rajapaksa man.Does not Ranil need competent diplomats in the US?

  • 1
    4

    IN what ever the way, Powers are working for US domination.

    I all explained when she said, with regard to Ukraine, FK with the EU.

    Sri lanka can not make it. Mahinda Rajapakse did not like educated people and he did not know and di dnot want to delegate power except for people kneeling in front of him. He did not like capable people at all.

    Ranil Wickramsinghe also doe snot seem to be a leader at all.

    He is just one man army, doing every thing on his own.

  • 2
    3

    Susan Rice, Samantha Power are both utter failures like Hillary. They started the instability process in Ukraine. They sent Asst-Secy of State Victoria Nuland to side with violent protestors in Kiev. It was strategic. She went there and handed out bread to the Anti Russian protestors. They lied to everyone claiming these were spontaneous protests. They were well organized Anti Russian US backed protestors who burnt state buildings etc to provoke a counter action. Rest as we know is history: Putin lost his patience and took back what was until 1950s part of Soviet Union: Crimea and gave it back.

    In Egypt these Harvard Educated type pathetic arrogant Liberals made a mess. Democracy and free elections brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power angering the Army. The only thing positive in Egypt is that the Army leadership bought for and paid for by 3BILLION USD aid, secret payments etc are secular and pro US. So then they engineered a coup and created counter violent “spontaneous” demonstrations like in Ukraine. End result ?Military take over and a fake election where General Sisi won 97% of the vote except he is Secular and not Anti Israeli.

    As for Libya : Hillary said “We came, we saw, he died,” with her ugly cackling laughter.

    They did not have UN authorization to bomb. Obama-Cameron-Sarkozy and Berlusconi got together and engineered that disaster. End result? ISIS and other Islamic JIHADI Sunni Wahabi terrorists dominating lots of of it.

    Look at Syria too. Samantha Power is a repugnant liberal academic &*(%. Susan Rice LIED about the Benghazi attack and claimed it was done over a video after they bungled. HILLARY LIED too. Their have made mess as bad if not worse than that of born again christian whacko Bush.

    • 1
      3

      There is more to this story.

      Recently, when they are circling Iran, a Chinese general warned, if you attack Iran, it will be nuclear war.

      a Russian General had been worse in Syria. He asked them to remove the fighter jets in one hour.

  • 1
    6

    Dayan Jyayathilake is right.

    Only problem is when he had all the power he was either catering to Varada Rajaperiumal or to, as some people suspected, to the Indian govt or to RAW.

    Sri lanka is caught in international politics.

    Any way Sri lanka lost the game, because the elected leaders were idiots. Their only qualifications were their fathers were politicians who could not achieve or they were ambitious but they did not have that opportunity.

  • 5
    1

    Oh no this apologist for death & destruction is at it again, constantly referring to history for his defence of his messiah.

    Certainly the closing stage of the war saw massive bloodshed and even crimes. But in comparison to what: World War II, which ended with the needless atomic bombing of civilian population centers?

    This is a quote from thew theatre of the absurd.

    To try and compare the most destructive period in mankind’s history to our own civil war is patently ridiculous.

    (A) The second world war,like the first world war involved individual nations fighting each other on an industrial scale. However at no time did the British or Americans openly massacre their own people. What they did do however was Kill the enemies citizens. Just like the Enemy killed US and British citizens.

    ( Dr DJ in previous postings has argued that the British were never prosecuted for the bombing of Dresden. But never mentions the Nazi bombing of Coventry,Liverpool, London, or Southampton.)

    He further uses historical precedent when he says

    ” just as the closing stage of the US Civil War, with its used of scorched earth tactics, to defeat the secessionist Confederacy cannot be regarded as a dark and painful chapter but precisely as a progressive outcome, so too must the closing stage of Sri Lanka’s war be seen as a glorious chapter of liberation and national reunification, marred as it may have been by certain excesses.”

    So now we use a civil war that occurred between 1861-1865 as the benchmark for the justification that happened at the end of our civil war. How pathetic so Sri Lanka is using this period in history as a moral and legal defence of Sri Lankan operations in 2009.

    Never mind being an ex diplomat I firmly believe that you should be the foremost person in the defence at the forthcoming war crimes trial.
    I’m sure you will have the international war crimes lawyers trembling in their boots with this defence through historical precedence. And their straightforward reply will be (after they stop laughing) can you provide the relevant international laws that were applicable during the above quoted conflicts? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Doh!!!!!!!

    Or perhaps we can use Pol Pot and Rawanda as our defence. After all we can claim that we massacred less Tamils than died under Pol Pot and Rawanda. In fact we can also throw in the massacre of the Armenians by the Ottomans for good measure (an Estimated 1,000,000 compared to our paltry 40,000. Or perhaps our good and loyal friends China 150, million and Russia 100, milliom Estimated massacres of their own people.

    And then we come to this mans absolute utter hubris

    “Samantha Power was a journalist, author and teacher at Harvard. The Rajapaksa administration’s frontline team pitted against this highly intelligent, opinionated and articulate woman was the troika of SL’s ambassador to the US, Jaliya Wickremasuriya, utterly unimpressive and inadequate for the task, the unlettered, thuggish Sajin de Vaas Gunawardena, and the scheming, shrewish Kshenuka Seneviratne. This was the period of Sri Lanka’s Diplomacy of the Absurd.”

    Oh yes Dr DJ you wouldn’t have just run rings around this Harvard intellectual Powers (albeit a stupid colonialist) but all the other Western dimwit Diplomats educated at the finest Universities in the Western World. God how we needed your erudite Razor intellect in Geneva.
    Alas it is not 2009 when you were making Pyrrhic promises of full reconciliation withe Tamils and that there had been no civilian deaths at the end of the war. No sirree it is now 2015 and the evidence of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity keeps growing and growing.

    So Dr Dayan please step up to the plate, for as that iconic General Kitchener poster from WW1 states `Your Country Needs You`! For you are truly the only Sri Lankan intellectual heavyweight who can take on these Imperialist dummy Diplomats and Lawyers who are once again forming yet another (Yawn) Western Conspiracy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Evidenced through this incredibly cogent essay.

  • 3
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    Samantha Power and Susan Rice should have been more assertive, not less, in using the power of the US to prevent the mass atrocities in the Vanni and to pursue charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity against the previous regime.

    Before they joined the Obama administration, they had spoken eloquently about the responsibility to protect, and that what happened in Ruwanda should never be allowed to happen again. But that is precisely what happened again in SL while they were very much part of the administration.

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    RoyalKadaley seems to have a good grasp of the US Foreign Policy scene.
    One thing the Power/Rice team seems to have understood is that the current Sri Lankan political leadership is very prone to flattery and can be thus manipulated.

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    Even if one can understand Powers critizism of Rajapakse administration,how can one understand her position on Sirisena government? Sirisena so far hasn’t achieved or seem to be in line to achieve anything!
    All what we hear day in an day out is “we are going to do this in three months and that in the next year”in long boring speaches which I doubt even the speakers himself believes!

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    It was a dirty war , but all wars are dirty. DJ is not a HR man, to tell the least. I think JR period was the darkest, because DJ supposedly took arms against it.

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    Dear Dr. Dayan, thank you for clarifying matters, especially regarding the “Powers that Be” (pun intended).

    No use preaching to the converted, this can only be settled by a vote. Let’s vote on the current regime, I use the word pejoratively, at the next election.

    Your good friend President Maithripala has promised a ‘SLFP win’. Nothing to worry. We all Sri Lanka.

    The US seems to be shamelessly taking sides, I think their time is running out as a superpower.

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