Recently the British High Commission in Colombo announced Britain is withholding financial assistance to Sri Lanka until the government meets what they called "agreed human rights and defense spending conditions."Heh...heh... if the British High Commissioner in Colombo, Dominick John Chilcot or the Tony Blair wants us to dance to their beat, better they change their ‘wet’ pajamas first and wake up from the deadly dream. Both…! Better you know Sri Lanka is no further a British colony.
Britain and Australia are two countries which funded LTTE for years. Blair was a baby in the cot till the 7th July incident where for the first time in the modern history English men took off by death fear. The Blair who talks about human rights in Sri Lanka shot dead an innocent German, while he was in a train, suspecting as a terrorist. Oops… we never heard Amnesty International activists shouting then as they did in 2007 Cricket world cup. Also, for any idiot with little brain can understand how Blair’s BBC was biased to LTTE during last few years.
Mahinda’s government day before yesterday blocked a visit to the rebel-held north of the island by a group of British diplomats, led by Colombo’s Deputy British High Commissioner Lesley Craig who wanted to discuss the future of the troubled peace process with the Tigers. Memory Bank appreciates this move by the government and wants to let know all the English men, this is our mother land and we have our own beats, if want to dance.
I think the events which lead upto this was a general concern over human rights, precipitated by Gota's "chat" with the High Commissioner here.
ReplyDeleteHe probably told the HC off, and he's probably got this rolling in return.
How far the two sides want to play this game depends on relative strength and skill. currently SL does not have a lot going for it. The foreign service is being stuffed with loyalists to MR, not competent people and with a deteriorating HR record, attacks on the media, growing levels of corruption, fiscal mismanagement, there is not a lot going for SL's case.
In the meantime the government is picking fights with the German ambassador and the Norwegian ambassador as well as vilifying foreign NGO's all of which are annoying the international community.
Without skilled diplomacy and awareness of how power flows on the international stage SL risks diplomatic isolation. North Korea, here we come...
U r being totally dumb here. Keep aside the fact whether u r an extremist on any of the sides and think of the impact it can have on our country.
ReplyDeleteJack Point : "Without skilled diplomacy and awareness of how power flows on the international stage SL risks diplomatic isolation."
ReplyDeleteThis is where we feel the value of late FM Mr. Kadiragamar. We miss him a lot...
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ReplyDeleteBible said.. The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.
ReplyDeleteSo if the lender wanted us to dance to their beat, we have to do so.
It is very expensive to be poor!
yeah that's the best we can do in SL sit and point fingers at other countries and talk rubbish abt our 'national security' which is rather ironic i find give the recent events :)
ReplyDeleteCan't we get the help of US to tame Britain?
ReplyDeleteThis is the left faction of the labour party led by the Indian MP Keith Vaz. It's not the view of the conservative British establishment. Don't even bother worrying about this.
ReplyDeletein fact british bilateral aid consists about 1 % of all aid to sri lanka. the package withheld ( which was actually done in february refer british high commission press release on 18 feb), 41m pounds spread over 10 years, is just about the only british aid we receive. even that was due to the tsunami, they do not normally give anything actually.
ReplyDeletein any case if we go by actual numbers sri lanka is not all that dependent on aid ( more correctly loans )as some believe. we use only about 20% of the annually pledged aid (due to inefficiency )
even if british are delusional about their ability to twist sri lankan arms they should not know that it is unlikely that while we give in to them on small things we would not give into them on bigger things come what may. this sort of thing can backfire on them and their supporters here badly
reality is that british governments ability to act against sri lankan government even if they really wanted to ( as against giving empty sops to labour mps in with tamil constituents as this clearly was ) is very limited unless they want to lift the ltte ban and support them which is unlikely. ltte is after all is not comparable to darfur rebels nobody wishing to go anywhere in politics will be caught dead with public statements supporting ltte and its suicide bombers .
Let them stop aid if they need to its their decision to do so. I do not think we should compromise anything because of this threat such as allowing Keith Vazz & Co to visit Sri Lanka. I am also positive that the ban will not be lifted. It is also good that the Sri Lankan government is pressured to keep a good HR record, if governments can easily get away with HR violations (you will say "our mother country and our own tunes") those at the top will make their own tunes and make us (citizens) dance to that.
ReplyDeleteHaving power (executive presidency) corrupts people, we have seen that happen to Premadasa and CBK :)
In the time of a war HR violations are unavoidable. No one shouted when US military made Afghans to eat grass. Very few shouted when US violated the rights of prisoners in Iraq. I think MR government doing a good job…
ReplyDeleteThey did the same thing to Sudan's crisis, threatened them that until the Sudanese govt got their act together and stop the genocide they will cut off funding.
ReplyDeleteWhich is really pathetic, this sort of approach is only going to make things worse. Nobody in this country wants this war to go on and putting sanctions is only going to make things worse.
It's like telling a depressed child to get straightened up by locking him up and not providing him with food. And expect him to work things out and be good!
Guys, most of you got the point incorrect.
ReplyDeleteThey, British, Americans, Aussies, Germans doing the right thing.
I just want to ask one question from you all.
Do you or any of you allow somebody to spent money for liquor, drugs which was originally borrowed from you.
First time you might do that. Second time (sometimes). But for the third time you won't. (if he is not repaying it).
Sri lanka also doing a similar stuff. They borrow money from the developed countries telling that they want this much of sum for humanitarian needs and spending them for HR violations. They buy weapons and used against LTTE but ultimately hitting civilian targets.
You will argue that they do have smart weapons and utilizing them to neutralize the enemy targets. But not. They proved that they do not have smart weapons but items to kill civilians in mass.
when they continuously doing that, will anybody (any donor) is there to accept that?
Tell it honestly.
Most of the MP's that spoke in the Parliament last wednesday were people who had loads of tamil constituents and need their votes that is why they were playing to the gallery. Dr Kim Howells and Garath Thomas of the British Govt said the ban wil not be lifted until the LTTE renounce terrorism in word and deed. as for the aid. this was aid supposed to have been part of the tsunami package we never asked for it they said they would give it and they reneged.
ReplyDelete