Sing along – Commons liars in rhythm

By Lucien Rajakarunanayake

(October 31, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The "International Community" has every reason to be proud just now. They must be so thrilled they may use the coming Guy Fawke’s Day to have special bonfires to celebrate their victory.

They will be celebrating the arrest of Heinrich Boere, 88, a former member of Hitler’s SS, whose trial in a German court, charged with murdering three Dutch citizens during World War II, began this week. It will be one of the last Nazi war crimes prosecutions, along with next month’s trial of John Demjanjuk 89.

We can’t deny the IC its joy. Punishing the Nazis for the War Crimes they committed follows in the tradition of the Nuremberg Trials. Such events taking place today, after the Allies celebrated the 60th anniversary of the end of World War 2, help to turn the focus away from what the IC is doing just now to helpless people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Somalia.

Let the IC have its great day of joy. Yet, why is it that those who sanction and applaud manhunts for war criminals that can last for more than sixty years, are so angry at a small, democratic nation that is not in the charmed circle of the IC trying to prevent having to carry manhunts, for those who carried out crimes that are often much more heinous than what Nazi criminals had done?

I was watching a live webcast of a House of Commons Committee debate two days ago, when so many British MPs, were castigating Sri Lanka, and demanding the most severe sanctions and punishments on the country for the manner in which the IDPs in the North of our country are being treated. A key item in the list of charges against Sri Lanka is the time taken to screen the IDPs, and the lack of freedom for them.

The barrage of largely false and ill-informed charges made against Sri Lanka by those who were setting themselves up as the paragons of virtue on human rights, gave me the impression that what they would like to see is Sri Lanka, carrying out a manhunt for LTTE war criminals that would drag on for even a century, given the increasing life expectancy of people in the West today.

It was obvious that the Pied Piper who prepared their common "Bash Sri Lanka" hymn sheet and paid for their singing was listening well to how they were performing, by the many assertions made my one member after another that there were no Sri Lankan Tamils voters in their constituencies. Stressing they had no Tamils voters, many of them admitted to having friends among expatriate Sri Lankan Tamils, and also knew others who knew members of such families from Sri Lanka, and were, therefore, well informed of the day to day functioning of the relief centres at Menik Farm.

These elected representatives of the British people, while making passing references to the terrible violence carried out by the LTTE, were appalled in unison at the conditions at Menik Farm, and very particularly about the screening of IDPs — why it was taking so long, and the absence of international observers at such screenings.

It is interesting to know whether there were any international observers trailing the Nazi hunter Ulrich Maass, who is reported to be a satisfied man today, having hunted down Heinrich Boere, 88, for what will probably be the last trial against a Dutch war criminal from World War II, and one of the last Nazi war crimes trials. By calling for quick and reduced screening for those who may have carried out or were closely associated with the many acts of savage brutality carried out by the LTTE seem keen to see war criminals of Tamil Eelam escape the law in Sri Lanka.

The people they want to be screened in a jiffy and sent out to the safety of the West, or, much worse plot more violence and crime in Sri Lanka, are those who carried out the massacre of more than a hundred Muslim worshippers while at prayer in a mosque at Kattankudy, the slaying of so many pilgrims at the Sri Maha Bodhi, the slaughter of Buddhist monks and young samaneras at Arantalawa, the massacre of more than 600 policemen who had surrendered to the LTTE in the East, the bus bombs that caused so much carnage at Kebitigollawa, Dambulla, Moratuwa and several other places, the attack on the Central Bank, the Pettah Bus Stand and CTO bombs —- the litany or terror and crime goes on and on.

The vote hungry members of the House of Commons cannot be bothered by what they believe are apparent footnotes in the trail of terror in Sri Lanka that lasted three decades, and not just the five plus years of World War 2 or the entire period of Nazi rule in Germany, which is much less that 30 years..

Those who carry out crimes of war are known to conceal themselves very well, as good or even model citizens, in the places to which they have fled, or in some instances gone to with help and connivance of some sections of the allied forces or its intelligence network. While the vast majority of Tamil IDPs does not comprise not gun carrying, grenade throwing or cyanide adorned LTTE cadres, there must be such types among them, who can very well blend with the Tamil expatiate communities abroad, and live as exemplary citizens in the countries of the West. All that is needed is some cunning and plenty of help from the so-called Tamil Diaspora. What Sri Lanka is trying to do, if these block heads in the Commons do not know it or see it, is to prevent having to launch lengthy manhunts for war criminals of the Tiger stripe, as Israel had to hunt for the fugitive Nazis.

But it is not possible to reason with those who sing for their supper. What I saw during that debate on what they said was the current situation in Sri Lanka, was how easy it is for a liar to be a Member of House of Commons. What most of them said there were utter lies extending from deliberate fabrications to drivel and balderdash. It was so full of the tripe and garbage of cheap and vulgar parliamentary debate, that one wondered if it was a Standing Order of the Commons that its members had to leave their brains outside when coming for a debate in the Chamber or Committee Room.

One women member, who interrupted another of her lying colleagues, to add a new note and lyric to the hymn of hatred against Sri Lanka they were singing, said the latest information she had was that the North East Monsoon had already struck in the Vanni, and that Menik Farm was badly flooded and the people there suffering every hardship of a massive inundation.. All she had to do if interested in being accurate was to check with the British Met Dept. to know about the NE monsoon in Si Lanka, and she would have learnt that its onset is in early December. That was typical of the type of lying that went on, to justify the demands being made for Sri Lanka to be denied GSP plus, suspended from the Commonwealth, and for an international probe on War Crimes in Sri Lanka’s battle to end the terror of the LTTE. There were many others who also feared the onset of the monsoon, that it reconfirmed by belief that there is a rapid spread of monsoon madness among members of the International Community, having almost reached epidemic proportions in the House of Commons.

It is obvious that members of the Commons who have been exposed on their false claims on personal expenses and the new rules that will make it harder for them to make such claims, which the cost of trimming lawns, maintaining second homes and possibly keeping the toilets clean too, have now got on to a new source of income, that does not come through claimed expenses that are vetted by any ethics committee, but is easily got through the brown paper envelopes that must be available in plenty among the so-called Tamil Diaspora. Singing the ballads of untruth, scripted by those who funded terror can certainly help the Commoners to enjoy the creature comforts they yearn for at no cost to the British taxpayer. It’s Sing along time for the Choir of Hatred and Untruth in the Commons.

-Sri Lanka Guardian