| by Victor Cherubim
( February 21, 2013, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Every time the UNHRC meets in Geneva, Human Rights commentators proclaim that Sri Lanka is going to be taken to the cleaners, simultaneously putting us in a jittery frame of mind. There is a growing sense of expectation that we have to be chastised, castigated, and criminalised for our wrong doings. We need to be punished in one way or another for being who we have been in the recent past, who we are now and who we want to be. There is some form of urgency to severely reprimand us for crimes purported to have been committed by us.
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But the world knows full well that miracles take a little longer, when the pride of our nation is more important than the passing clouds on the horizon at Geneva. Who can we count on this time?
We have noticed since the end of the near 30 year war, that year on year, the screw has been slowly but surely tightened to drive Sri Lanka to the wall and make us subservient. We are told in no uncertain terms to make reparations for our past, the folly of our ways in buying weapons from the very nations who now threaten us and thwart our livelihood. It appears that having sold us the armaments to fight the war, having literally encouraged us with military intelligence and assistance, and having allegedly manoeuvred and manipulated us in a variety of ways that war was to eradicate terrorism, now demand from us policies to undermine our national sovereignty and our freedom to do what we think is in the best interest of our nation. That is the yardstick how we measure ourselves.
The recent Sunday Times editorial succinctly stated:
“We have no oil for starters. Much of what we require in a modern world from modern transport to consumer items, including foodstuffs has to be imported. We need to pay for these and therefore we must rely on foreign trade, foreign investments, foreign tourists and the foreign exchange.”.............“We are not short of gratuitous advice all the time, but the Government has been given some little space, something it has been long asking for, to deliver, to put the house in order.”
Regrettably, the world thinks that everything can be put right in a matter of months. And so it shall be, if we also fall into the traps laid out cleverly for us.
Sri Lanka delegation for the 22nd session of the UN Human Rights Council sessions will leave for Geneva next weekend. Of course, there is a cloud hanging over us in the US sponsored procedural resolution to be brought against Sri Lanka.
We are all the time put on the back foot whether at the UNHRC or at the so proposed Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Colombo. We need to take these encounters as part of our stride, to understand the strength of feeling within our nation for our steadfast approach to prove our worth as a respected and dignified nation in the community of nations, without being foolhardy or presumptuous.
India may vote against us, Canada may boycott us; Bangladesh may have one up on us.
But the world knows full well that miracles take a little longer, when the pride of our nation is more important than the passing clouds on the horizon at Geneva. Who can we count on this time?
 Every time the UNHRC meets in Geneva, Human Rights commentato...){kind=link}