Unwrapping Moon

by Rajpal Abeynayake

(July 18, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Last week’s stand-off at the Colombo UN compound was generally seen as a playing into the hands of the anti-Sri Lankan forces in the UN and elsewhere, and the best evidence of this was that Russia, a staunch ally of Sri Lanka’s war against terrorism, for instance, insisted on playing no part in supporting the Sri Lankan minister who was at the centre of this drama, either by issuing a statement, or otherwise.

Playing into the hands it really seemed to be.

In that context, the record would have it that Wimal Weerawansa was condemned to varying degree by various persons, some of them being consistently pro-government commentators.

In the melee, the distinction between no support for Weerawansa and no support for the Ban Ki-moon UN panel was not properly made.

This is natural. The issue of the week was Weerawansa, and what was seen as his ‘playing into the hands’ of the UN and supportive diasporic and allied forces ....

The rest — which is that the UN’s tactics in appointing a Sri Lanka panel are condemned - - went by default.

One plays into the hands of an enemy, one cannot ‘play into the hands’ of a friend.
The UN was no doubt the adversary and almost everybody — except of course the regular rabidly anti-Sri Lankan elements — knew that this goes without saying, in any condemnation of Weerawansa’s actions for playing into the hands of our adversaries.

Therefore, this week most requires that matters be put back into perspective.
It appears that Weerawansa has gone the way of the news cycle.
This is the unwavering way of the news cycle.

The people create their own drama.

They need the diversion and the theatre, and when somebody offers them drama - - full-blown organic theatre, they take it without tickets.

But last week’s tele-drama episode is not even this week’s wrapping paper. The Weerawansa episode is forgotten, but the UN and what was said about the UN lingers in the collective memory.

Some things must be stated for the record.

It is silly to say that the UN secretary general is an instrument of US hegemony, because he is. There is hardly any need to re-state the obvious, which is why when a cabinet minister - - not the worthy who was fasting — said that we should get the UN secretary generalship back into the hands of the progressive global forces, it was laughable. He made it sound as if the UN secretary general being an instrument of the UN —- (what was left unsaid being ‘this time around’!...) —- was an aberration.

It is settled fact in international affairs that the UN secretary general has been and will be in the foreseeable future a puppet of the US.

One simply cannot be the secretary general of the UN without kowtowing to the US, and hailing from an essentially pro-US enclave, period.

Ban Ki-moon’s appointment

This is why this writer always held that Dhanapala’s candidacy for UN secretary general was doomed before it began.

Shashi Tharoor had no chance as India was too big and there was no chance the US would tolerate a secretary general from another major power.

This writer was in another newspaper when Ban Ki-moon’s appointment was in the offing. When the editorial department met with the management of this newspaper to decide on the coverage of the selection of the new UN secretary general, I said that its clear that nobody but Ban Ki-moon would be the next man in the job.

Hilariously, this was seen as ‘unpatriotic’’ or some such thing —- and not adequately supportive of our man, Jayantha Dhanapala.

If I knew Dhanapala had even a ghost of a chance, I would not have desisted from ‘supporting’ him - - - even if the notion that ‘supporting’ a UN secretary general candidate in a local newspaper somehow enhances his chances as a job aspirant for that post boggles my mind.(!)

Therefore I do not know why cabinet ministers and some newspapers pundits as well, do not gen-up on world affairs; that would make them less prone to making silly statements about matters that are so obvious and self-evident that they do not have to be stated.

If it has to be stated and reiterated for the benefit of the perfect tyro that the UN secretary general is indeed a UN puppet, let it be said along with the corollary statements that this has always been the case, and that reversing that reality cannot be done just because Sri Lanka suddenly discovered the truth.

The UN secretary general has never been from a major power or a strategically important nation such as Sri Lanka which is not within the range of the US political radar.

Besides, it is very clear that the UN secretary general needs express clearance from the US, as any UN secretary general who is willing to take Israeli related issues to the UN security council would be upsetting unstinted unabated US support for Israel.

US risking a secretary general

There is no question under these circumstances of the US risking a secretary general who could suddenly turn out to be of an independent mindset.

All this makes me wonder why people such as Tharoor and Dahanapala entertain the silly notion that they can ever land the job; I suppose it’s not the job they are after but the kudos of having run for it.

The UN secretary general is not appointed with the express intention of sabotaging Sri Lanka - - who knows with the depth of knowledge we have at ministerial level about these matters somebody is bound to say that next - - but it certainly helps to have a UN secretary general who is always firmly and comfortably in the US pocket, when it comes to a small trifling matter such as putting a country such as Sri Lanka “in its place.’’

All you have to do is, give your man a call and say “they are getting too big for their boots.’’

Of course we do not agree we are getting too big for our boots, but this explains the way the biscuit has broken in international relations so far.

The purpose of this article is merely to say that the sooner all concerned, especially in government and in media have an elementary knowledge of these elementary matters, it is the easier for us all to comprehend the unrelenting international reality that surrounds us.