[TamilNet, Friday, 28 June 2013, 13:44 GMT]US media reported on Wednesday that the CIA has begun shipping of
arms to Syrian rebels to counter Bashar al-Assad’s forces. This move
comes in spite of strong opposition from UNSC member Russia and warnings
by a UN expert that increase in flow of weapons into Syria would only
escalate the conflict. Likewise, American diplomat Susan Rice termed
UNSC’s inaction on Syria a “stain” on the body. The hypocrisy of
assisting Sri Lanka in its genocidal war on the Tamil nation while
crying foul over al-Assad’s operations apart, the US through its actions
on Syria makes it clear once again that the UNHRC, UNSC are of least
concern should the US decide to intervene in a conflict. Given this
nature of US foreign policy, till how long then will the Tamil Geneva
pundits continue to believe in the impotent resolutions on Sri Lanka in
the UNHRC, questions a political analyst in Colombo.
On Wednesday, British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights alleged
that over a 100000 people had been killed since the beginning of the
Syrian conflict in 2011.
Prior to this on Tuesday, addressing a
press conference with US Secretary of State John Kerry, Saudi Arabia’s
foreign minister Saud al-Faisal accused that Syria’s offensives against
the rebels constituted “genocide”, blaming Iran, Russia and the Lebanese
Hezbollah for their support to Syrian President al-Assad.
Saudi
Arabia, a key ally of the US in the middle-east, also called for
military support to the Syrian rebels. This is in the wake of the Syrian
regime securing several strategic victories over the rebels despite
opinions in the beginning of the conflict that al-Assad could not hold
on to power for long.
Citing US diplomats and officials, the Wall
Street Journal reported on Wednesday that “The Central Intelligence
Agency has begun moving weapons to Jordan from a network of secret
warehouses and plans to start arming small groups of vetted Syrian
rebels within a month, expanding U.S. support of moderate forces
battling President Bashar al-Assad”. The weapons are believed to include
both light ones like small arms and heavy types like anti-aircraft
missiles.
However, other media organizations and activist
networks claim that US aid to rebels will ultimately strengthen the
hands of Islamist forces in Syria, which would only create great social
and political instability in the country even if al-Assad regime is
toppled.
The al-Assad regime receives military support from the
Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran, and political support from Russia. Recent
US-Russian talks on creating a peace agreement between the Syrian
government and the rebels in Geneva failed. The US is going ahead with
its decision to give legitimacy to the Syrian rebels despite opposition
from Russia, a UNSC member, and other countries.
Ms Susan Rice,
American diplomat who is leaving her post as the US ambassador to the
UNSC, said in her departing remarks that she regrets that the UNSC
failed to act decisively on Syria “as more than 90,000 Syrians have been
killed and millions more displaced,” the BBC reported on Wednesday.
"The
council's inaction on Syria is a moral and strategic disgrace that
history will judge harshly," Ms Rice, soon to be national security
advisor to American President Barack Obama, further said, opining that
UNSC’s inaction on Syria was a “stain” on it.
Recently, the US had also condemned Syria for allegedly using chemical weapons against the rebels.
That Sri Lanka used chemical weapons during its war against the Eezham Tamils has been established.
That
the US gave Sri Lanka the advice to use cluster bombs on the Tamil
people has been noted by British author Paul Moorcraft in his book
“Total Destruction of the Tamil Tigers”.
The usage of such
brutal measures, which for the US is a crime worthy of intervening in
the case of Syria, is a COIN operation to be studied in the case of Sri
Lanka.
The US also doesn’t seem to apply the argument of ‘war
crimes of both sides’ extensively used to discredit the LTTE, in the
case of Syria.
A greater number of Tamil civilians were killed
between January and May 2009 than the people allegedly killed since the
beginning of the Syrian conflict. Indiscriminate bombing, shelling of
hospitals and civilian ‘safe zones’, systematic torture and rape were
all used by the Sri Lankan military as weapons against the Tamils.
Structural
violence against the Tamils continues unabated against the Tamils in
their occupied homeland as a protracted genocide even after the
so-called ‘post-conflict’ situation. While the US State Department only
counts trees of ‘human rights violations’ missing the context of
genocide, the military minds in Pentagon have still not offered one
serious negative criticism of the ‘Sri Lankan model’.
And while
the US, its politicians and its diplomats are screaming bloody murder at
al-Assad now, the United States Pacific Command together with Sri
Lanka’s Ministry of Defence co-hosted a five-day workshop of the 17th
Multi National Force Standing Operating Procedures in Colombo from 17th
to 21st of June.
So while the US gives arms to the Syrian
rebels to overthrow the “oppressive” al-Assad regime, to the Tamils
living under genocidal oppression in Sri Lanka, it gives reconciliation.
Some pro-US elements in the Tamil society believe that the US
will work against Sri Lanka as in the case of the various ‘Arab Springs’
that have happened in the recent past.
While the obvious fact
of these ‘springs’ being little for than shoddy regime changes is
missed, the other detail that is overlooked is that American
interventions in these areas was not a result of resolutions in Geneva.
It was a grand strategic manoeuvre designed by Pentagon to strengthen
its sphere of influence in that region.
Given this nature of US
foreign policy, till how long then will the Tamil Geneva pundits
continue to believe in the impotent resolutions on Sri Lanka in the
UNHRC, questions the political analyst in Colombo, considering that
these have no bearing on America’s will to intervene in the favour of
the Tamils in the island, if it wills it in the first place that is.
Given
that the Pentagon has not given any indication whatsoever of any such
strategic plans in the region that will benefit the Eezham Tamil nation,
it is hard not to think of the US foreign policy as being against the
interests of a permanent and just resolution of the Tamil national
question.
In his article ‘The Folly of Eelam Punditry’ written
in 2003 in the context of the peace-process, late TamilNet senior editor
and analyst ‘Taraki’ Sivaram commented on the US bloc’s role that “The
obfuscators, both professional and casual, in the media, academia and
the diplomatic corps are active again with greater vigour and
sophistication, aided in no small measure by the continuing folly and
intellectual shallowness of the Eelam punditry, inducing widespread
political dullness and apathy among the Tamil masses.”
This
danger has amplified many times over after the internationally-abetted
war on the de-facto state of Tamil Eelam. The biggest folly among the
‘Eelam punditry’ of the present being the blind approval of any report
or resolution churned out by the West just because it is critical of the
Rajapaksa regime – even if it denies the sovereignty of the Eezham
Tamil nation or covers up the genocide.
The Eelam Punditry
thronging the corridors of Geneva can pat themselves on the back if, and
only if, they manage to convince the Pentagon to review its
military-strategic approach towards Sri Lanka and if they get the US to
haul Sri Lanka at the UNSC.
Anything short of that is deception of the worst kind, namely self-deception.
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