{"id":4471,"date":"2012-02-11T19:48:48","date_gmt":"2012-02-11T19:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/colombotelegraph.com\/?p=4471"},"modified":"2014-06-30T17:17:08","modified_gmt":"2014-06-30T11:47:08","slug":"mr-blake-do-you-want-mercenaries-or-to-twist-the-arms-of-us-citizens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mr-blake-do-you-want-mercenaries-or-to-twist-the-arms-of-us-citizens\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Blake Do You Want Mercenaries Or To Twist The Arms Of US Citizens?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Uvindu Kurukulasuriya<\/a><\/span><\/strong> –<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Uvindu Kurukulasuriya<\/p><\/div>\n

Blake is in Sri Lanka again. This time with US Under Secretary of State Maria Otero.\u00a0 Are they in Sri Lanka to inform the Rajapaksa brothers that their US citizenship was revoked or to ask for mercenaries to fight the Afghan war?<\/p>\n

I am curious, because one can see the US hypocrisy regarding war crimes accountability issues through their own reports. If you read leaked US diplomatic cables together with other US official documents related to Sri Lanka you can clearly see that the US is changing their policy towards Sri Lanka from time to time. For instance from November 2 to 8, 2009, Senate Foreign Relations staff members Nilmini Gunaratne Rubin and Fatema Sumar visited Sri Lanka and held meetings with senior government officials, international organisations, political leaders, civil-society activists and journalists to discuss post war reconciliation, resettlement of internally displaced persons (IDPs), the humanitarian situation and media freedom. They also visited the South, East and the IDP camp at Manik Farm. Once they left the country the US Ambassador to Colombo Patricia A. Butenis wrote; \u201cThe StaffDel noted in their out brief with the Ambassador that the current SL environment was post-war and not post-conflict, with reconciliation still a challenging issue. They found ground reality in Sri Lanka \u201cmore nuanced\u201d and \u201cmore complicated\u201d than expected. They recommended that the U.S. think strategically and long-term and take a holistic approach in determining U.S. specific levers on key issues, and commented that by focusing only on human rights, we shoot ourselves in the foot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

So why do they not implement the Senate recommendation and revoke US citizenships? Instead of doing just that, without any shame one day after the publication of the Senate report, December 8, 2009 during a meeting with Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Assistant Secretary Robert Blake raised the possibility of Sri Lanka contributing to US \u2013 led coalition operations in Afghanistan, noting that it would be a significant step in support of improving military\u2013to\u2013military engagement<\/p><\/div>\n

After the Senate Foreign Relations staff members\u2019 visit the \u201cCommittee on Foreign Relations United States Senate\u201d published a report on December 7, 2009 called \u201cSri Lanka: Reaching U.S. Strategy After The War\u201d dated December 7, 2009 for their one hundred and eleventh Congress first session.Under the subject \u201cRecommendations on Sri Lanka\u201d, with some other recommendations, it said that the Obama administration should;\u00a0 tighten visa restrictions and revoke US citizenship of any persons who are shown to have committed war crimes in Sri Lanka, whether they acted on behalf of the LTTE or the Government of Sri Lanka (Recommendation 6).<\/p>\n

Now the question is what have they done to implement that recommendation? Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, his brothers and opposition candidate General Fonseka are responsible for alleged war crimes against the Tamils, according to a cable sent by US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Patricia Butenis. The cable, dated January 15, 2010, updated the Secretary of State on war crimes accountability following the end of the country\u2019s long and bloody conflict.<\/p>\n

These brothers Gotabhaya and Basil are US Citizens. Sarath Fonseka is a US Green Card holder.\u00a0 So why do they not implement the Senate recommendations. Have they taken any steps to implement that recommendation?
\nBoth Rajapaksa brothers have already accepted that the war had not been clean. Ambassador Butenis wrote; In response to the \u201cincident\u2019s report,\u201d Basil Rajapaksa candidly remarked, \u201cI am not saying we are clean; we could not abide by international law \u2013 this would have gone on for centuries, an additional 60 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Gotabaya Rajapaksa\u2019s meeting with Senate Foreign Relations staff members, the US Ambassador wrote; \u201cGotabhaya Rajapaksa noted that in defeating the LTTE terrorists the war had \u201cnot been clean,\u201d but was still a success.\u201d<\/p>\n

SLFP Treasurer and\u00a0 District Organiser for the Matara District former foreign minister Mangala Samaraweera while serving as a ruling party member of Parliament on February 26, 2007 told US Ambassador Blake that the Government uses a group called the \u201cLion Cubs\u201d to engage in these extrajudicial activities. Blake wrote; \u201cSamaraweera confirmed that the Government uses a group called the \u2018Lion Cubs\u2019 to engage in these extrajudicial activities. It is widely rumored in Sri Lanka that Ex-Army Commander Fonseka, with the knowledge and approval of Defense Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa, has set up special cells within military intelligence to go after suspected LTTE cadres and sympathisers in Colombo, Jaffna and other places. We have also heard reports of a similar shadowy group called the \u2018Hambantota Cats.\u2019 The recently-appointed Cabinet Minister for Environment has publicly called for the use of extra legal means to root out LTTE sympathisers. Samaraweera lent credibility to these reports by relating grisly details about the methods these groups use to dispose of the bodies of their victims at sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

On December 14, 2009 Fonseka had accused Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa of ordering at the end of the war the shooting of any LTTE leaders who might try to surrender under flags of truce, to US Ambassador Butenis (See colombotelegraph.com for full cable). In another cable on November 2, 2009, the US Ambassador told Foreign Minister Bogollagama of developments regarding Fonseka, including cancellation of his invitation to attend the recent Chief of Defence conference in Hawaii due to US concerns about his involvement in human-rights violations during the conflict with the LTTE.<\/p>\n

So why do they not implement the Senate recommendation and revoke US citizenships? Instead of doing just that, without any shame one day after the publication of the Senate report, December 8, 2009 during a meeting with Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Assistant Secretary Robert Blake raised the possibility of Sri Lanka contributing to US \u2013 led coalition operations in Afghanistan<\/a><\/span>, noting that it would be a significant step in support of improving military\u2013to\u2013military engagement. Are they really concerned or do they want to play with human rights?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":64312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,8,63,26,27],"tags":[1938,1143,1939,1139,1161,1134,6983],"class_list":["post-4471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-politics","category-editorial","category-politics-2","category-war-crimes","category-wikileaks","tag-afghan-war-and-mercenaries","tag-authoritarianism","tag-blake-visit-sri-lanka","tag-democracy","tag-foreign-affairs","tag-human-rights","tag-war-crimes"],"yoast_head":"\nMr. Blake Do You Want Mercenaries Or To Twist The Arms Of US Citizens? - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/mr-blake-do-you-want-mercenaries-or-to-twist-the-arms-of-us-citizens\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mr. Blake Do You Want Mercenaries Or To Twist The Arms Of US Citizens? 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