Sri
Lanka
and the UK:
Too Little,
Too Late,
Between Libya,
the Gulf &
Somalia?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
November 17 --
Certainly the
authoritarian
nature of the
Rajapaksa
government in
Sri Lanka
became
apparent to
more people
during the
Commonwealth
Heads of
Government
Meeting. Click
here for
longer
analysis of
the CHOGM
from this
reporter, on
Beacon Reader,
focused
on the UN
Secretariat's
silence.
But
can it be said
that the UK
government,
for example,
was unaware of
that
government's
slaughtering
of civilians
in 2009? At
the UN in New
York, Inner
City Press repeatedly
asked then
Ambassador
John Sawers,
and when
he came to the
UN, foreign
minister David
Miliband.
Then
as now, the UK
controlled the
Office for the
Coordination
of
Humanitarian
Affairs; Inner
City Press put
the question
to John
Holmes
(who, during
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
"victory
tour" to the
north in May
2009 vowed
to never speak
to Inner
City Press
again due to
it reporting
his on the
record
comments about
deleting
emails from
Tamils.)
And
so now when
David Cameron
and William
Hague say they
are shocked
and
will belatedly
push for an
investigation
of the 40,000
deaths before
March, how
should it be
interpreted?
As a Permanent
Five member of
the UN
Security
Council, the
UK is in the
position to
have done
something -
and didn't --
and to do
something now.
Will it?
The
UK's use of
its P5 seat,
even on agenda
items on which
it "has
the pen,"
seems
politicized.
It has not
drafted or
proposed
press
statements
when
journalists
have been
killed in
Somalia
(compare to
the recent
rapid
statement on
journalists
killed in
Mali). This
has yet to be
explained.
This
weekend,
it has
apparently not
moved for a
statement on
the killing
of civilians
in Libya,
on which it
also has the
pen. This also
has
not been
explained;
it goes
beyond, and is
more recent
then, the
cited Bloody
Sunday.
Cameron
left
Sri Lanka and
went directly
to try to sell
UK attack
aircraft to
the United
Arab Emirates;
some in
Bahrain find
the UK
comments for
human rights
defenders in
Sri Lanka
belied by the
treatment of
similar
defenders in
Bahrain.
Will
Sri Lanka, or
the UK, act on
this
before or
during March?
Watch this
site.
, 
