Ban Ki-moon report mere eyewash?

West supported war to achieve economic miracle

by Vickramabahu Karunaratne

(April 24, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Mahinda regime claims that the economy is expanding at a rate of 8%. In the context of economies world over struggling to keep even 1 % expansion, Lankan performance is considered to be a miracle. Recent IMF reports claim that they are highly impressed by the performance of Mahinda regime. They have pledged to support the regime continuously. However the plantation workers, who are mostly Tamil, live with a daily wage less than 400 rupees. This has affected the minimum wage of all agricultural workers throughout the country. Even wages of fishers and other rura17-7l workers are affected by this minimum wage.For the entire period of Mahinda regime, the wages of urban proletariat did not increase to compensate for the increase of cost of living.

Chauvinist war

Thus while the so-called economic miracle made the rich prosperous, the poor became poorer. That is also a miracle! Mahinda managed that, with the consolidation of his authority through the chauvinist war against the Tamil people. The war decimated the Tamil society with over one lakh of people killed. With emergency powers there is a virtual dictatorship in the country while there is a military rule in Tamil areas. Entire burden of war expenses were passed on to the shoulders of workers while trade unions and social organizations were made inactive by chauvinist campaigns and state terror. Global powers were aware of all that. In fact they supported the war and the repression and also provided all resources for the war including arms and ammunition. In fact it was global powers including India who insisted that Tamil rebellion should be eliminated totally. However, they never exerted such pressure on the government to grant autonomy to the Tamil people.

Having done all that, now they have come out with a report condemning the war efforts of the government. Have they forgotten that this criminal war brought the political stability to create their “economic miracle”? A chauvinist dictatorial regime is necessary because this ‘economic miracle’ is based on plunder and super exploitation. I find it funny that a pro government paper was first to publish the UN panel executive summery. Obviously they wanted Sinhala chauvinist organizations to start protesting. However paper report said “Panel’s determination of credible allegations reveals a very different version of the final stages of the war than that maintained to this day by the Government of Sri Lanka.

Credible allegations

The Government says it pursued a”humanitarian rescue operation” with a policy of “zero civiliancasualties”. In stark contrast, the Panel found credible allegations,which if proven, indicate that a wide range of serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law were committed both by the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE, some of which would amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Indeed, the conduct of the war represented a grave assault on the entire regime of international law designed to protect individual dignity during both war and peace. Reading the report one has to cry and laugh at the same time. 17-8Yes, many of the crimes of the Sinhala chauvinist war are exposed. This exposure may help the ignorant to understand what we said about the war and what is going on in Lanka to some extent. But it will be ridiculous to expect any justice from the world powers who are involved in crimes committed in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan. In addition they are the masters who guided the war of Mahinda. The report was not officially released by Ban. Instead he got the help of Mahinda to leak the Report! The game of the global masters is very clear. They do not want to take any action, but want Mahinda take action according to their guidelines. What is more important is the fact that the report has refused to accept the liberation struggle of the Tamil people. Instead, the war is depicted as a war between two states equally involved in war crimes. Thus they have washed out the difference between aggressor and the oppressed. This report proves that it is futile for Tamil people to expect any solution from the “liberal democracy” of the global powers. Only way out is a united struggle of oppressed people.