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US-Sri Lanka Relations: Power’s Power

By Nilantha Ilangamuwa

25 November, 2015
Countercurrents.org

“Everything is vague to a degree you do not realise until you have tried to make it precise,” is what we taught by reading the works of Bertrand Russel. In her recent visit in Sri Lanka, Samantha Power, a journalist turned diplomat, sparked optimistic bilateral relations between the two nations. As she correctly pointed out, the ‘dark conspiracy’ behind her visit is to inform the President Barack Obama, who is, as she revealed, expressing daily concerns about the situation in the island nation. The country must be proud about their daily concern of affairs.

“… this is true especially in the United States: President Obama asks every day, How is it going in Sri Lanka, how are they doing? What’s going on with that prevention of terrorism act? What’s going on with that land reclamation,” Samantha Power elaborated the political tendency in the oval room of the White House Complex.

“What’s happening in Sri Lanka? People want to know, and we want to be by your side as you undertake what I know feels some days like monumental challenges,” she further added when she was addressing the group of well-selective youth who gathered in the capital yesterday (November 23, 2015).

She used the big stick to punish the previous government of Sri Lanka, at the United Nations, the world body which she earlier described, “staffers walked around in a daze of disbelief,” when she was an outspoken journalist during the Bush administration.

Samantha Power, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations played a chilling role against the previous government of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. She has run almost every corner of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva to get support for the hypocritical approach against the situation in the country. She succeeds by adopting a couple of resolutions against what went on in Sri Lanka during the last phase of the civil war, urging for accountability and reconciliation.

“I describe my own journey from being outside the government for being in it. It’s not that much fun when you’re in government, getting criticized. It’s not my favourite thing, is to read how I’m selling out my principles and – I have other things I like more than that. But that’s the job of people outside, is to tell us where we’re not measuring up,” Samantha Power realised.

Her words were carefully selected. The common words she used yesterday to describe the situation in Sri Lanka no longer exist. Popular jargon such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, racial discrimination has been replaced by realistic words based on the ground reality.

We appreciate her commitment to Sri Lanka to establish political freedom. We believe every living being in the world deserve to true freedom and personal liberty designed by themselves, not by outsiders. As she said, “don’t let fear be your bad advisor. And let empathy help you see the dignity of others. Follow that, and there is no limit to what you and your country can achieve.”

What we need in this country is to establish the true principles of good governance by annulling the culture of “monkey justice” which gives nothing but the exact opposite of justice. As the story goes, when two cats were fighting, an opportunist monkey ‘intervene’ for the justice and peace, but at least neither justice nor peace is deserved by the cats. This is indicative of the culture inbuilt in this country for a long time.

Would Ambassador Power stands on what the ordinary person in this country is asking for? Or otherwise, is Ambassador Power is also going re-write the folk tale of Cats and the Monkey as we could see mockery as the common diplomatic phenomenal.

As she correctly quoted when she was in the largest democracy in the World, India, “hell is empty and all the devils are here.” True, we have changed the government, but the bad smell is remaining as the deteriorated system controlled by devils continues.

Let’s recall sage words of Russel again, “What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.”

Isn’t that true Madame Ambassador?

Nilantha Ilangamuwa edits the Sri Lanka Guardian, an online daily newspaper, and he also an editor of the Torture: Asian and Global Perspectives, bi-monthly print magazine. He is the author of the just released non-fictions, “Nagna Balaya” (The Naked Power), in Sinhalese and “The Conflation”, in English. He can be reached at [email protected]


 



 

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