Happy hunting grounds for hypocrites

'That’s called governance. How hypocritical is it to talk about egregious “LTTE terrorism’’ by making some token noise, without acknowledging the fact that the government cannot fight with its hands tied behind its back?'
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By Rajpal Abeynayake

(September 14, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Is the state supposed to fight terrorism with one hand tied behind its back? What of Claymore mine victims, bus bomb victims, border village victims, all victims of solicitous LTTE terror? Don’t Rice award winners’ hearts bleed for these “people’’?

No, absolutely not. There is no gravy train, for one thing, if one fights for terrorist victims.
The gravy train is flowing thick and gooey out there, for those who scream against rights abuses of the state.

Only a nutcase would believe that the state has not committed any human rights abuses. But indeed, some rights were held in suspension, or in temporary abeyance, because the terrorist LTTE was violating people’s rights at the drop of a hat. Similar reasons prompted Condoleezza Rice’s boss, George. W. Bush to introduce the Homeland Security Act. The Act enabled a secret dossier on every US citizen, and placed serious curbs on political activism —- if such activism was seen to be advancing the cause “terrorism.”

On top of this, the Patriot Act made extremely serious inroads into individual privacy and authorized wiretappings, e-mail snooping and taping of private conversations etc.,
Of course, all of these pales into comparison with what was done in Guantanamo Bay, where persons were detained summarily without recourse to any legal process whatsoever —- and only a person living on another planet will not know of the gross suspension of civil liberties that resulted.

No legal initiatives

To date, there have been no legal initiatives, leave alone prosecutions against the big boys in the US administration, who sanctioned such extra-legal measures.
But yet, when restrictions are placed on normal laws of this country, for the purposes of fighting terrorism, the government should be given no leeway to use any of those laws, if one were to listen to the incessant nattering of civil society nabobs on this subject. There is only one conclusion to be made. Such nattering nabobs do not care for the rights of victims of terrorist bombs, terrorist Claymore attacks, terrorist bayoneting of babies in border villages, of terrorist child solider victims etc,.

It’s why these natterers need to have their hearts examined before they have their heads... and their wallets ... examined? The equation is simple: weighed against what they get on the NGO gravy trains, the filthy lucre they receive for all their rights activism —- the rights of terror victims’ amounts to nothing. They can go to hell, with their torn limbs and bomb mutilated torsos, for all that these “rights’ activists care.

How much do these Rice rights activists and others, get on the gravy train, by holding directorates and other posts in organizations such as Law and Society Trust, funded by foreign donors? Oodles, oodles that bus bomb victims in Kebbilithigolewa would not perhaps set their eyes upon, even after a lifetime’s labour and privation.

So there it is: the depth of intensity of their crocodile tears for your rights and mine. Bottom line: these people are not worried a bit about anybody’s rights. If they were, they would enter into a serious conversation on curbs on civil liberties that are necessary to fight terrorism that respects no law and order whatsoever, and strikes anywhere, on military and civilian targets alike. But how can they have that debate?

Attack on Government

They are paid fat-wads to attack the government for rights abuses that occur fighting terrorism, while making some sniffling token noises about “LTTE terror’’ and such, all the while not saying a word about the fact that every country — yes every country — that has been at the wrong end of virulent terrorist attacks on civilian targets, curbed citizens rights, constitutional rights and civil liberties in order to fight such a menace that resulted almost ritually in civilian victims.

That’s called governance. How hypocritical is it to talk about egregious “LTTE terrorism’’ by making some token noise, without acknowledging the fact that the government cannot fight with its hands tied behind its back? Some NGO hack recently said that he ‘warned’’ of excesses that could ensue from the PTA, at the time it was promulgated.

So what would have been his stand at that time...To fight terrorism without any specific anti-terror legislation in the books?

Or, does he think that extraordinary anti-terrorism legislation is a preserve of “advanced democracies’’ such as the United States and the UK for instance?! Countries of the type that curb civil liberties of their own citizens drastically and encourages torture to fight terrorism, but bestows awards on people who have been tried and convicted under anti-terrorism laws in other countries? (Of course in Sri Lanka, it’s true the war on the LTTE is over; but does that mean the state can get rid of the PTA immediately, or not prosecute those who had been already indicted when the war was on?)

Whichever way one cuts it, the hypocrisy of the Rice award lobby, the nattering NGO hack-lobby that cries “rights’’ each time a man woman or child falls and dies due to a terrorist bomb, is nauseating. I’m not a Christian, but correct me if I’m wrong — Christ had his strongest and most animated contempt not for murderers, or rapists, or rogues, or unbelievers. His strongest contempt was for, you guessed it —- HYPOCRITES.

Extorting money

According to the Gospels, Jesus took offense to the money changers extorting profit from the people to hear the word of God, and so, “creating a whip from some cords, drives out the money changers, and turns over their tables, and those of the people selling doves Matthew [21:13] And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.21:14’’.

In a rare instance in which Jesus is seen to lose his temper, he does so not because he is riled by brigands or murderers, but because he is riled by hypocrites. In other words, there are none so despicable in a given society as its hypocrites.

Take that ye NGO gravy-train hypocrites and gravy-train parasites, who shed copious crocodile tears for “rights’’ victims, as long as pointing the finger at purported rights violations by the state alone, can unload the buckshee — gleaming dollars and Euros - - straight from the NGO gravy train buffet. But the rights of terror bus bomb victims, and babies who get bayoneted?

Are you kidding? These are not PEOPLE. They turn up their noses at the very thought of this rabble getting bombed. Aiyo, how nauseating ane, take those images of those smelly Kebbilithigollewa children with their smelly body parts being torn away by Claymore bombs away from me —- forget it, let’s get to this champagne feast fast, brought in a trolley and all that, all purchased with what I got for my recent NGO paper on “Egregious state abuse of human rights under cover of terrorism.” (Funded for the Sauce and Lottery Trust, I might add, by Ford Foundation, European Union, Condi Rice Endowment, blah, blah, blah, etc etc....)

(The writer, Editor of the Lakbima News, weekly news paper based in Colombo)

-Sri Lanka Guardian