International Bullshit

Dear Amnesty, thanks for making it hard to be a moderate 

Parts of the SL Blogosphere reject anything ‘international’ out of pure insecurity, when I think a lot of it has merit. International generally means ‘other people’ and I think they can be judged on what they say. Sometimes, however, they just talk cock. Two examples are Amnesty International’s poor sportsmanship in the Cricket World Cup and Simon Robinson’s poorly researched article in Time magazine. For the first, Cricket is the last vestige of national unity we have. The team is composed of a Tamil Hindu (Murali), Tamil Christian (Arnold), Sinhala Christian (Vaas), a Muslim and numerous Sinhala Buddhists. These people play together, they win together, and the nation cheers them together. It is something leading us forward, and Amnesty’s comments only strengthen chauvinists here. Second, the Time article is general, but full of such simple errors that it corrupts whatever analysis it supplies.

Cricket

Amnesty International is handing out cricket balls for people to sign, urging Sri Lanka to ‘play by the rules’ in terms of human rights. There are human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, the worst by Karuna and the LTTE, but I fail to see how the Cricket World Cup is the time or place. It’s the one thing we as a nation all cheer for, and where Sri Lankan johnnies will get really pumped for the players to work together and win, Tamil, Muslim or whatever. As covered on Groundviews, it makes people who defend and try to learn from the international community look like idiots. Basically, as a moderate this bullshit is making me look stupid.

Cricket is like a religion here and you are basically walking into Temple with your shoes on and acting like dickheads. This is the one place where we have peace. Please let us have at least a few hours of reconciliation.

Time

A friend sent me a link to the Time article, which I thought was general and OK, except for a glaring error. Then I looked and found more. It is just poorly researched by Mr. Robinson. This is the email letter I sent Time:

…

Mr. Robinson’s article is a bit thin and has numerous errors. This is understandable for a foreign correspondent, but when trying to give a definitive view of a complex conflict, these things matter. The factual errors are compounded by a clumsy analysis which doesn’t really portray the situation (or more accurately, the perspectives) in Sri Lanka. For example,

1. ‘One Country. One People’ isn’t a Sinhala chauvinist campaign, it’s actually a reconciliation movement showing Sinhala, Tamils, and Muslims living together. There is a lot of chauvinism, but this particular movement is the exact opposite.

2. LTTE cadres don’t wear arsenic [as mentioned in the article], of which Wikipedia says the lethal dose is about 53 grams [about a 1/4 cup]. They wear cyanide.

…

Those are simple errors but shows that he hasn’t done the research or attempted to understand the situation in much detail, or generalities. He talks to a few sources and travels, but his analysis of one of the core problems (Sinhala chauvinism is based on a few random conversations and a falsehood:

Sri Lanka’s Tamils have some valid grievances: Sinhalese chauvinism is evident in everything from innocuous conversations with money changers to the billboards that dot Colombo stating “One Country. One People.”

So you talked to somebody in Pettah and drove around. Even looking at the billboards, however, might have let the writer know that it was a reconciliation campaign, showing all the races living together. Whether there’s Eelam or not, the majority of Tamils live in government areas, and we do have to live together. The One Country One People campaign actually shows the Sinhala Chauvinism has seen a remarkable decline and that people will no longer be quoted saying racist things. Not that the ideas and chauvinism isn’t there – I spend a lot of my time online fighting it – but things have gotten a whole lot better and the nation has matured. There are real examples of dickishness, but this is just sloppy journalism.

Finally, as an aside, I was looking up a rumor that fighting in the North used to stop during cricket matches, and I came across this extremely chilling Prabhakaran quote at eelam.com.

We also claimed responsibility when we shot Anandarajah (principal of St. John’s School in Jaffna). When the Sri Lanka government announced a reward of Rs. five lakhs for information leading to the arrest of his killers, the people of Jaffna came to know the basis of his relationship with the Sri Lanka government. They kept quiet fully understanding why we had killed him.

Anandarajah was planning to hold a cricket match with the armed forces at a time when they were killing our people, arresting young Tamil boys indiscriminately, burning Tamil property and raping Tamil women. We had to do away with him because the government was using the impending cricket match as propaganda to give the impression to the world that the Tamil civilians have very cordial relations with the Sri Lanka armed forces and that the ethnic problem is something created by a handful of militants.

So, he’s talking about cricket as a uniting force, and how they killed a principal for trying to harness it. Which is scary and wrong and bad, echhh. But that’s an aside. The main point is that I believe Sri Lanka needs the involvement of the international community, including our significant expat community. However, all inputs foreign and domestic should be criticized, and Amnesty and Time both get a rating of ‘poop sandwich’ from me.

127 Comments

  1. gg,

    Those working and living in the combat zones know things can’t get worse than this. Something has to be done.

    People outside these areas have a lot more and hence have someting to lose; not wanting to know that whatever modicum of stability they have is at the expense of a large section of the population living in the North and East.

    I also think living overseas, we need to be sensitive to the possible consequences for people like Indi if they start thinking differently. I see many holes in his argument and in some ways I envy him for being able to rationalise things this way….ignorance is bliss. I have a feeling if like the oft maligned NGOs, he was exposed to some of the realities of people living in these areas, his views will change, and I hope for the sake of people like him, when this happens, the whole country would have changed by then.

  3. Well at least AI’s campaign has caused some to have this debate online. Improving awareness among the population is the key, so that they can take steps themselves. It’s a good thing for those who live in Sri Lanka. Maybe the HR situation might improve through more people taking action on the ground. AI however must continue with similar campaigns because the South frequently has bouts of voluntary insomnia.

    Independence however is the only solution for the North and East, that can stop the gross Human Rights violations occuring there. The Tamil Diaspora have already been mobilised to boycott Sri Lankan food and textile products, to make Mahinda listen by affecting the economy.

  4. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
    PRESS RELEASE

    AI Index: ASA 37/010/2007 (Public)
    News Service No: 070
    12 April 2007

    Sri Lanka: Human rights is the issue, not cricket

    The distortion in Sri Lanka of Amnesty International’s campaign “Play by the Rules” is a ploy to distract attention from the increasingly desperate plight of hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankan people.

    “We are concerned at abuses by all parties to the conflict — civilians are killed, abducted and forcibly disappeared every day at the hands of government forces, Tamil Tigers, the Karuna faction and other armed groups,” said Purna Sen, Asia Pacific Director at Amnesty International. “Let us be clear — no side in this conflict has anything to be complacent about. On the contrary, all parties are breaching international law by failing to protect civilians.”

    Increasing abductions, illegal killings and child recruitment in Sri Lanka are all going on unchecked and victims do not receive justice. The intensified fighting over the last year has forced over 300,000 people to flee their homes. At least 1000 people have been forcibly disappeared since the beginning of 2006.

    “The situation in Sri Lanka has become so desperate for local people that urgent action is needed. Civilians desperately need better protection and a key goal of our campaign is to press for independent human rights monitors to investigate human rights abuses and identify the perpetrators, so they can be brought to justice,” said Purna Sen.

    “Through our campaign we are drawing attention to the increasing human rights abuses committed against civilians by the Sri Lankan government, the Tamil Tigers, the Karuna faction and other armed groups. The lives of hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans are being affected — our campaign is about these people, not the Sri Lankan cricket team.”

    “The Sri Lankan government is failing in its responsibility to protect civilians; there have been over 4000 deaths since early 2006 while this government has been in power. Reported accusations that Amnesty International has ‘tarnished the country’s image’ do not bear scrutiny — the authorities need to look closer to home,” continued Purna Sen.

    “The Tamil Tigers have killed hundreds of civilians in summary executions and indiscriminate bomb attacks. They are continuing to forcibly recruit child soldiers and have even prevented civilians from fleeing the fighting in the North and East.”

    “It is a small step for all parties to the conflict to agree to allow access to independent human rights monitors but it would make a huge difference to the lives of ordinary Sri Lankans.”

    “Cricket is a great game and the Sri Lankan people are rightly proud of their ethnically diverse national cricket team, which symbolises the best of Sri Lanka,” said Purna Sen. “But hundreds of thousands of people have had to flee the fighting to live in temporary shelter — and so are not able to live in safety let alone watch cricket.”

    Amnesty International emphasised that it was not calling for a boycott of the Sri Lankan cricket team or Sri Lankan sports overall and is not campaigning in any stadiums in the West Indies.

    Public Document
    ****************************************
    For more information please call Amnesty International’s press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566
    Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW. web: http://www.amnesty.org

    For latest human rights news view http://news.amnesty.org

  7. Just one important point of clarification for the casual observer. The hundreds of thousands of civilians that Amnesty International claim to have been displaced in recent fighting are all Tamils. They were displaced by the Sri Lankan armies offensives since July 2006 in which they have captured large areas of the east from the LTTE in violation of the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement.

    It must also be noted that throughout the 30 year war, the LTTE have not caused such mass exodus of Sinhala people from other parts of Sri Lanka in revenge, even though they have the artillery, aircraft and military ability to do so.

  8. i too received that pathetic press release of ai yesterday. and sent a reply condemning the campaign roughly like the one below yesterday.
    btw as everyone here knows by now ltte terrorists endorsed this campaign and called for a sports boycott of sri lanka. no doubt that would energize paeceniks of all kinds into supporting the ai campaign more openly and to call for a boycott, as can be seen here.

    reply to press release:
    >
    as a sri lankan i strongly condemn amnesty international’s disgusting campaign without any reserve. the lame excuses you offer below in the press release are pathetic in the extreme.

    1/
    if you are really concerned about human rights here, why are you holding this publicity stunt in the other side of the world, where just about only sri lankans are the cricket team? why are you not holding it here asking sri lankan to sign silly balls? to say you are not targeting the team is disingenuous. you are in fact targeting the sri lankan cricket team. it is a disgusting and nauseating tactic.

    2/
    you are also applying double standards. you already have campaigns protesting the human rights abuses by england and australia in various places including iraq, using less disgusting methods. so if you think this campaign is not disgusting why did you not target the england and australia at the cricket world cup? are they too white skinned for you ? did you leave them out because your donors in those countries will find this kind campaign targeting sports disgusting as we do and prefer not to donate ? do explain the double standards.

    3/
    this campaign will be futile and counter productive. if you are really concerned about human rights here and want to do something about it, the correct method is to give moral support to the sri lankan government’s efforts to crack down and bring to justice the convicted violators of rights; ltte terrorists and their leader the convicted mass murderer prabhakan .

    if you want to bring pressure on government for some reason, canvas the sri lankan public. this is a democracy and the only legitimate way to pressure the government is through the sri lankan public. this kind of disgusting campaign will only antagonize the public against such organizations like yours, rightly so in my own and others opinion.

    4/
    this is also hypocritical because it is in fact not concerned about human rights in sri lanka but a publicity stunt aimed at raising money. that also explains the double standards, and futile and disgusting methods ( see above) adopted. you seem to consider that as long as you get the money you do not care that sri lankan team is disgraced, you let england etc off the hook, and this is counter productive, shame

    some of the statements you make in your press release are without foundation.
    for instance you say “At least 1000 people have been forcibly disappeared since the beginning of 2006. ” in the press release below. from where do you get this information ? do you have evidence for this? or did purna sen your asia pacific director just invent the that 1000 ? or did you believe ltte terrorist propaganda without evidence? pl give a clear answer with evidence not unsubstantiated allegations.

    if you have any self respect you would stop this campaign . but i think you would rather be disgusting, double standard applying, intentionally impotent , money grubbing , racist hypocrites . then wallow in all that.

    quite sincerely,
    [my real name, address and tel no]

  9. hahahah,
    you really are a nut…

    sri lankan logic is incrdeble…
    are you guys really so blind to how the international community views you?

    the sinhala mentality is crazy…

  10. ai is not international community.
    what ic thinks of sri lankan conflict is clear from their actions not empty publicity stunts like this from ai. those actions are more in the line of supporting the government’s to crack down on human right violators the ltte terrorists. in fact they don’t have any other choice if they are rational.

    you and ai are free to be blind and irrational on your own choice, as well as being disgusting, hypocritical etc. :-)

  11. i missed this earlier
    howard wrote:
    the sinhala mentality is crazy…

    regardless of my own mentality a person who generalizes like that is a racist of the first order . that a person like that quotes from amnesty says a thing or two about how low the ai has fallen.

  12. ….And the international community wants us Tamils to find a negotiated settlement with these nuts and the even thicker nuts they have elected into parliament. (Consider the Defense Secretaries interview with AP yesterday 12 April 2007 – hahaha what a clown!).

    There is only one langauge they understand in the South and the LTTE is best tutor for them. The lessons will be commencing soon.

    You said it right Howard. “the sinhala mentality is cray”. It’s all to do with them teaching the crapy Mahavamsa (which itself has no logic as it states Sinhala were born from a lion) at the Sri Lankan schools from a young age. It messes up the brain there. Sinhala people born and brought up abroad don’t seem to suffer from this crazy mentality unless the madness is induced from racist parents who grew up there.

  13. Well then, your criticism against amnesty is that its campaign will make it harder for the “moderates” to convince the “chauvinists” that the tamils deserve some form of autonomy, right? But that again rests on the ASSUMPTION that the so called moderates have the (any?) ability to influence the mindset of the “chauvinists”. I would doubt that. In my view, it would be more effective to embarrass (isolate) the sri lankan state internationally as long as it does not conform to international democratic standards. Amnesty’s campaign can be seen as a step in this direction. They have done it with south africa and it worked. Pressure and talks, that would be the way to go. That was, actually, what worked with North Korea. Or do you believe that the north koreans agreed (?) to stop their nuclear program because they suddenly came to understand the wisdom in the american negotiation position. On the other hand, there is only pressure on the tigers, but no talks. .. and you can see the results with your own eyes.

  14. jay and howard (their racism so clearly exposed above from their own comments ) are the type of person that, peaceniks and ai, champion and find credible. peaceniks following such racist opinions ( and disregarding the actual reality ) subscribe to the racist notions that all tamils have the same opinions about democracy, sinhalese, and ltte methods of giving ‘lessons’, when all evidence indicates otherwise. they also propagate the unsubstantiated allegations and ‘white van conspiracy theories’ of such terrorist supporters .

    is it any wonder that peaceniks, believing such absurd nonsense, have become increasingly marginalized, and their morale has come to depend wholly on ltte exploding a bomb killing civilians once in while (as jey so clearly expects).

    and no wonder that international community has not and will not act on the advice of such fools. quite the contrary in fact, they have cracked down on terror support networks in their countries and are helping the military here to crack down.on the terrorists here.

    in spite of all too clear actions of international community pecaeniks seem to believe (with howard ) that ic will interfere here ( as if they care or can ) to stop government’s action against terrorists. well even fools are free to dream and fantasize.:-)

  15. sitting nut
    that a person like that quotes from amnesty says a thing or two about how low the ai has fallen.
    —————————————
    An association fallacy is a type of logical fallacy which asserts that qualities of one are inherently qualities of another, merely by association. The two types are sometimes referred to as “guilt by association” and “honor by association.” Association fallacies are a special case of red herring, and are often based in an appeal to emotion.

    Examples:
    Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian. Adolf Hitler was evil. Therefore vegetarianism must be evil.
    My lawyer lied to me. Therefore all lawyers are liars.
    The Ku Klux Klan supports this initiative. The Ku Klux Klan is wrong on other issues. Therefore the public must vote against this initiative.

    The LTTE support amnesty’s campaign, they have commited human rights violations and are against the Sri Lankan government, therefore Sri Lankans must not support Amnesty’s campaign.

    A person making a racial statement supports Amnesty, therefore Amnesty’s ethics are questionable.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt_by_association

  16. Sorry…should have put quotation marks…it is a direct quote from the source.

  17. A person making a racial statement supports Amnesty, therefore Amnesty’s ethics are questionable.
    no. you are drawing the wrong conclusion. mistake is partly mine. i should have been more clear
    i should have said –
    howard the racist quotes amnesty to back his arguments that shows a thing or two about low the amnesty has fallen.

    it is not merely association but utilization.

  18. “Validity would only come into it if it were a justification
    that is not correct. :-)”

    How is it incorrect, Snutty?

  19. you may shout as much as you like, that only justifications can be invalidated.
    but that is simply not correct.
    if you want a detailed explanation why that is so, comment here may provide one with links to wikepedia, if he or she wants to. i don’t. :-)

  20. Stingingnut(case) said “depend wholly on ltte exploding a bomb killing civilians once in while (as jey so clearly expects). ”

    Stop distorting the truth nutcase.

    I never expect that and my arguments have always implied that such actions, against civilains of any ethnic background, are dastardly and unacceptable no matter what the political motivation is.

    From my point of view peace, human rights and economic prosperity for all ethnic groups on the island can only come about with the recognition of Eelam and the first step towards that means there can be no SLA, SLN or SLAF on the island. Thats where the LTTE come in.

    I hope I have made myself clear.

  21. “From my point of view peace, human rights and economic prosperity for all ethnic groups on the island can only come about”

    When you use the word “only” in the context of the Only Way, Jey, you’ve already lost the battle for “peace, human rights and economic prosperity”. When you say “only”, there’ll always be someone who says “No, my way’s better”. Recognising the problem is the first step. And the problem is not the military arms of either side (GoSL or LTTE), they are merely arms of the central policy. It is the continuing racism of both the Sinhalese & Tamils that is the problem. Sort that out, and you won’t need the SLAF or the suicide bombers.

  22. Got some interesting snippets:

    “The masses throughout the world, from the Andes in South America to Himalayas in Asia, are craving for a new journey. They have chosen the new path to liberate their lands from the re-colonization that had suppressed them for decades. The earnest message for the New Year would be that we should make it an opportunity to incorporate such a novel concept into our lives.”
    Mr. Somawansa Amarasinghe, Leader of the JVP, April 2007
    http://www.lankatruth.com/

    Cyprus and Sudan Two Examples of their peace
    http://www.jvpsrilanka.com/e_books_page.htm
    (Unfortunately this is in Sinhalese…but would be interesting to know what it contains-also has some other
    policy documents and ebooks in English)

    Sri Lanka: JVP grovels to the Bush administration
    By Nanda Wickremasinghe
    9 May 2005
    http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/may2005/jvp-m09.shtml

  23. This should not be under this section. It should be under millitary theatre.

  24. Stop the Bombs, Thambi’s Bowling (The View From Victory Blvd)
    http://www.passtheroti.com/?p=459

    “In South Asia, it seems, cricket can do what the tattered remains of a five year old ceasefire cannot.

    But like Sri Lanka’s now-defunct 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA), without a consistent political process, it’s a stop-gap measure. And as we should be well-aware by now, the island doesn’t take too kindly to damming.

    On Tuesday, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, otherwise known as Tamil Tigers) carried out a second air attack against a Sri Lankan military installation in Palaly, Jaffna, following last month’s bombing of Katunayake military airport. The bombing, 16 km from the country’s only International airport, was claimed to be a “preemptive” strike, and unprecedented in the ongoing conflict, although rumors persisted throughout the CFA period that the Tigers were building up these capabilities. Unsurprising, given that both parties to the agreement showed little commitment, saving face with donor countries and the international community in periodic talks while stockpiling arms in the meantime………………….”
    ——————-
    Just read this. Worth reading the rest of the article.

  25. As David Blacker pointed out, Palay airport is not 16 kms from Katunayake. But the article is not about strategy and millitary power. Its about the issue of cricket, Sri Lankans and Amnesty.

    Provides food for thought.

  26. Just to clarify here: As I noted in the other thread, the reference is to the distance of Katunayake from BIA. Am editing the post to make this clearer.

    Thanks for the nice words, comment. In this ongoing insanity, it helps to find another person who cares to think through the complexities of being committed to Sri Lanka and all of its people.

  27. I have noticed you don’t monetize your blog, don’t waste your traffic, you can earn additional cash every month because you’ve got hi quality content.
    If you want to know how to make extra $$$, search for: Boorfe’s tips best adsense alternative

Comments are closed.