Army General-turned-politician Sarath Fonseka : Tell me who your Twitter friends are and I’ll tell you who you are!

“Vishvasaneeya Venasak” or US-backed soft coup d’état?

By Tania Noctiummes
(The views expressed are her own)

( January 10, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) In a New Year Message being circulated on internet in record time on a planetary scale, retired Army General and Presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka, declares his faith in “voluntarism” and calls upon internautes for “their support to reach out to every Sri Lankan, spreading the message of change for our great nation by volunteering with our campaign, recruiting more volunteers to campaign in (their) neighborhoods, signing up for our manifesto updates, Facebook updates, email and mobile alerts, sending out emails to your fellow citizens encouraging them to vote for change and to send us your valuable feed back to make this movement for change a reality.” The retired Army General also appeals to internautes to “join the Fonseka Facebook fan page.”

Curiously, Sarath Fonseka’s campaign for “change” using new technologies, notably Facebook developed with financing by the CIA enterprise In-Q-Tel, is consonant with the new strategy of the US State Department for “regime change” in countries that refuse servility to the US agenda, but without giving the appearance of direct involvement. This “hi-tech” model was first used in the Obama Presidential campaign and developed by architects of « soft coup d’états » - Joe Rospars, director for the new media during the campaign, Scott Goldstein, online director for Obama for America and Sam Graham-Felson, director of blog.

With overt backing of the US State Department, this controversial new strategy known as the Twitter Revolution using among its main weapons Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, has been applied in Venezuela by the US backed students’ movement manos blancas (white hands) and in the last virtual demonstrations against President Chavez; in Moldavia during the anti-communist protests; in Iran by anti-Government protestors and to organise DDoS attacks against Iranian government websites; and in the Honduras, to support the US-backed military coup d’état. Late December 2009 the Ukrainian NGO Interenet-Ukraine launched a project aimed at monitoring 2010 Ukrainian presidential election based on Twitter.

In a recent article, the reputed Venezuelan - US lawyer and analyst Eva Gollinger describes this new strategy that seeks to merge US agencies, new technologies such as internet (specially Facebook, Twitter, MySpace) and youth with a view to mobilising young political leaders and promoters of social movements to serve global US interests.

To implement this strategy, the Alliance of Youth Movements (AYM) was created at a 2008 summit sponsored by the State Department, transnational corporations involved in new technologies (such as FaceBook) and the Law Faculty of Columbia University. Among the participants were members of the Venezuelan opposition organization Súmate (financed by the CIA cover organisation National Endowment for Democracy and USAID) and Colombian initiators of the march No más Chávez (No more Chávez) and Un millón de voces contra Chavez (A million votes against Chávez).

AYM defines itself as an alliance born in response to the appearance “on the world scene, of a series of persons practically unknown, generally young who master the most recent technologies and have done unbelievable things. These persons have provoked great transformations of the real world in countries like Colombia, Iran and Moldavia, using these common techniques to get the young, and this is only the beginning.” Its objective is to create “a mechanism that allows supporting, educating and empowering these leaders whose only office is an electronic address. They also do not have an entity that can teach the traditional movements of the 20th century the efficient use of instruments and medias of the 21st century to reach their objectives.”

From 15 to 16 October 2009, the State Department sponsored yet another AYM summit in Mexico City bringing together young political leaders and founders and representatives of new technologies such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The discussion focussed on how young people could become agents of “regime change” using new technologies.

The summit was addressed via internet by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Speakers included representatives of Freedom House, a notorious CIA cover for the media, International Republican Institute (IRI) presided by Senator John McCain, the State Department and the World Bank, as well as young technology designers such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Gen Next, Meetup and YouTube. Main speakers were the three architects of soft coup d’états: Joe Rospars, Scott Goldstein and Sam Graham-Felson.
The Summit reaffirmed US political and financial support to the student movement of the Venezuelan opposition, demonstrating the sinister alliance between Washington and new technologies.

Among “delegates” invited by the US State Department were persons linked to movements of active destabilisation in Latin America: leaders of the opposition in Venezuela such as Yon Goicochea and Geraldine Álvarez, known for their links with Washington agencies; promoters of the march No Más Chávez (No More Chavez!) convened via Facebook in September 2009; Marc Wachtenheim of the Cuba Development Initiative, a project financed by the State Department and USAID; Aryra Cedeño Proaño of USAID funded Corporación Foro de la Juventud Guayaquil from Ecuador; Eduardo Ávila of Voces Bolivianas, a Bolivian organization supported by the US Embassy and financed by USAID. Also present were Sherif Mansour of Freedom House, Shaarik Zafar of US Homeland Security, and eight other officials of the State Department.

Prashan De Visser was the Sri Lankan “delegate” invited by the US State Department to participate. De Visser is President of Sri Lanka Unites (SLU), an NGO whose goal is to train a new youth leadership and works with IDPs. At a meeting on “Youth Leadership and Reconciliation” organised by the American Centre of the US Embassy in Colombo on 31 November 2009, De Visser talked on the challenges and opportunities for youth in the ongoing reconciliation process in Sri Lanka after three decades of conflict. De Visser and leaders of SLU are all Facebook, Twitter or YouTube fans. Patricia Butenis, current US Ambassador to Sri Lanka infamous for her interference in the internal affairs of states, had only just arrived. She had not wasted her time! Who is Patricia Butenis? As US Ambassador to Bangladesh from March 2006 to June 2007, Butenis provoked general outrage by interfering in that country’s election process almost turning it into a US client state. She was also accused of promoting the Islamist fundamentalist movement Jamaat-e-Islami known for its terrorist activities. Long time protégé of neo conservative stalwarts John Negroponte and Otto Reich, decried in Latin America for their support to Nicaraguan Contras, the Cuban-American mafia in Miami and coup d’états as a means of regime change, and who steered the US into a Middle Eastern war unrelated to any plausible threat to US interests. Negroponte and Butenis both served the Bush Administration in Iraq, the former as Ambassador, the latter as Deputy Ambassador before being posted to Sri Lanka.

It is common knowledge that the retired General Saratha Fonseka is not only owner of a Green Card, but has the green light from Washington for his candidature. Now we also know that during his recent visit to Washington he was converted to the US State Department’s infamous Twitter Revolution!

No wonder the Army General-turned-politician does not speak of the fundamental aspirations of the Sri Lankan people that he has the ambition of leading to live in an independent and sovereign State free of any external interference, free to determine their own social, economic and political system, for food security, job security, humane living and working conditions, improved well-being, equality and justice for all!

His abject failure to address the fundamental challenges of our times, a global capitalist system in the worst crisis the world has ever witnessed, the resettlement and rehabilitation of the hundreds and thousands of people affected by an almost 30 year war that has just ended, a political solution to the national question, and the development of a country that has at last won the peace for which its people have made heavy sacrifices!

The US NGO shopping list style apology for a political programme proposed by the aspiring-to-be-leader of the Sri Lankan people for a “prosperous” nation of ”Sri Lankans working together in unity and harmony” is based on his declared faith in “voluntarism” of the individual, the neo liberal panacea promoted by the US and its European junior partners as a substitute for State responsibility in economic and social development and social well-being, and in its imperialist quest to weaken and dismantle sovereign States! Funds to finance promised salary increases, agricultural subsidies, pensions, and vocational training for youth will come from tax slashes for the private sector, which is already amassing profits on the backs of the working class and the peasantry. Such a vision will only result in further prosperity for an already wealthy elite, increased poverty and exploitation for Sri Lanka’s masses, irrespective of ethnic or religious origins, further polarisation and resumption of a conflict that has destabilised the country since gaining independence.

The one-time Army General advances a programme of destabilisation of the State, a US agenda that will turn the strategically located island nation into a client State.

While such an unpatriotic vision may be coherent with that of the UNP, the JVP’s adherence to it amounts to a betrayal of the Sri Lankan people!

Is it not then fitting and legitimate to pose the question as to the veritable independence of this particular candidate?