It appears that the UN office in Sri Lanka is on a witch-hunt and
that the target is Mohan Samaranayake. Mohan as I know is a person who
uses his pen with responsibility.
He knows his subject well; otherwise he could not have been in the UN
for so long as a national officer. He is more literate on the issues
related to Sri Lanka than any international press officer. For that
matter many of the international staff from developed countries in the
UN are basically people who cannot find a job in their own countries.
Otherwise why should they come to these difficult countries rather
than spend luxurious lives in their own lands. This is true not only for
petty press officers but also for doctors and other experts.
For example a doctor in the USA or Europe would at least earn US $
150,000 per year. A US or an European doctor coming to work for the UN
in Sri Lanka for US $ 80,000 therefore is usually among the lowest in
intelligence.
That is one reason that the UN has not been able to do any
development in any country since its inception. The purpose of the UN
has now become one of giving jobs to non-competent people. It's becoming
an 'International Government Office'.
Therefore, countries like Sri Lanka that have a very high literacy
rate should depend on their own experts and not the UN experts who
cannot find a job in their own countries.
It is also unfortunate that the authorities are tolerating such
humiliation by incompetent persons merely because they are from the UN.
During a time we had a strong Foreign Minister such as Lakshman
Kadirgamar such behaviour was not heard of.
The first thing he would have done would have been to show the
Government's prerogative of making any UN officer acting in a clumsy
manner like this a 'persona non grata'. It should be remembered that two
Heads of the UN in Sri Lanka were virtually asked to leave and they had
to.
It's about time that all internationals of the UN start reading their
own documents related to human rights and the right one has to express
oneself freely as Mohan Samaranayake has done.
I would also like to challenge the UN in Sri Lanka and see whether
every thing it is doing is so clean as they profess to be doing. Just as
a case in point, I would ask the Head of the UN how the wife of the
former World Bank Representative was appointed as the UNAIDS Country Co-ordinator
in Sri Lanka without any advertisement.
Normally, UNAIDS Country Co-ordinators are recruited after global
advertisement as they are paid over US $ 60,000 per year. Generally,
relatives of one UN agency are not recruited by another, especially in
the same country. That is a basic rule of good governance.
World Bank is a co-sponsor of UNAIDS, which makes this irregularity
even more poignant. It seems like the husband has paid the wife's salary
on Sri Lanka's account.
I would also like to suggest that the UN conducts an internal inquiry
into its recruitment of minor staff. How come that a large proportions
of those recruited happens to be from certain specific communities and
religions.
Is the allegation that the best secretarial candidates are excluded
by getting them to fail a typing test, which is essential for
secretarial recruitment? Is it true that the candidate has to be in the
same religion as the person giving the test to pass!
If the Head of the UN in Sri Lanka cannot answer these questions,
this letter is for you sir, the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki
Moon.
KANCHANA PADMASIRI, via email
The carefree attitude of the Colombo Municipal Health Department in
responding to public complaints is disgusting.
I have repeatedly complained to the municipal authorities regarding
the mosquito nuisance originating from an abondoned land at Balapokuna
Road, Kirullapone, where a mineral water factory operated sometime ago.
The wild vegetation grown up to the roof level of the old buildings
in that premises shelters mosquito nurseries. There have been several
cases of Chickungunya in the neighbourhood.
The lament of the municipal authorities is the lack of public
cooperation to combat the growing mosquito menace in the city. The
apathy of the citizens is understandable when the municipal authorities
pay no attention to public complaints.
U. D. J. Jinadasa, Colombo
January 27 has been designated as the International Holocaust Day by
the United Nations Organisation. So on January 27, U.N.O. will sponsor
remembrance ceremonies to remind and keep alive the claim of the death
of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.
It is now being questioned how and why only the Jews obtained
Holocaust status when the people of many other nations have in their
history suffered terrible holocausts.
One of the biggest holocausts in human history was the killing of 10
million Congolese by King Leopold of Belgium.
An area of land in the Congo 75 times the size of Belgium was carved
out of a rubber plantation belonging to Leopold. The resident Congolese
were forced to tap the trees and any worker who did not produce
sufficient latex was liable to have his hands amputated.
This was company policy in King Leopold's brutal assault on the
Congolese people - 10 million died. With his ill - gotten gains Leopold
built grand palaces in and around Brussels and Ostend. Joseph Conrad the
world renowned author called it "the vilest scramble for loot that ever
disfigured the history of human conscience."
In world war II, 60 million non Jews died to defeat Hitler. Those who
work hard to keep the memory of the Jewish Holocaust alive do not
mention the Congo carnage, Stalin's gulags and the "American massacre;
the virtual extermination of American's native Red Indian population of
25 million in the early 19th century.
In the Congo, human beings were slaughtered for labour in America for
land. In Japan countless numbers were killed by atomic bombs dropped by
the US in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The non-Jewish victims of the Soviet
Union's dictator Joseph Stalin, greatly outnumbered the Jews who
perished as a result of Hitler's policies.
Authoritative estimates of the number of Chinese who perished as
victims of repression, famine and forced labour under Mao - Tsetung
range from 30 million to 60 million. In Cambodia, Pol-Pot was
instrumental in murdering several million of his countrymen amounting to
a third of the population of the country.
More recently in Ruwanda, almost one million Tutsis were massacred by
Hutu militia. The Jewish Holocaust is kept alive in a number of ways. In
many US and European schools, as in Israel schools focus on the war time
suffering of Europe's Jews is an obligatory part of the curriculum.
Britain, Germany and Italy officially observe Holocaust Remembrance
Day. There are 250 Holocaust museums and memorials worldwide, most of
them in the US and Europe.
The largest is the official US Holocaust Memorial Museum in
Washington DC, which draws some 2 million visitors annually. In the year
2000, Norman G. Finkelstein a Jewish Professor at the City University of
New York published a book.
'The Holocaust Industry' exposing reparation frauds and shocking
details of organised money grabbing rackets of rich Jews. Finkelstein
writes that "one of the world's most formidable military powers, with a
horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a 'victim' state and
the Jews the most successful ethnic groups in the US has likewise
acquired 'victim' status. Considerable dividends comes from this
specious victim - hood, in particular immunity to criticism, however
justified."
It is of utmost importance for Israel to keep alive their version of
the Holocaust story in order to forestall political criticism and
suppress debate of her cruel policies in Palestine in addition to
getting sympathy and funds from the US and Europe.
What has caused vexation among many people is how the UN has been
involved in declaring January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance
Day. What about the holocausts inflicted in the Congo, America, China,
Cambodia and Ruwanda.
Why is it only that the alleged killing of 6 million Jews given
Holocaust status?
Why can't the UN declare one Holocaust Day for all the other nations
where real true holocausts occurred. Is it because the Jews are a
superior race ? In reforming the UN the new Secretary General Ban - Ki -
Moon should pay attention to this matter otherwise the charge of racism
will leveled against the UN?
Apart from all this, there is currently an on - going murderous
Holocaust going on in Palestine for the last 60 years.
The occupying Israel Zionists have displaced more than 3 million
Palestinians, impose collective punishment, assassinates and abducts
Palestinians leaders, imprisons many, expands settlements, indulges in
target killings, kills children and innocent civilians builds walls on
Palestinian lands, bombs electrical power houses, bull-dozes homes and
denies tax revenues due to Palestinians.
This is literally a cruel Holocaust which the UN ignores but gladly
declares January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. If the
UN continues this policy there is every likelihood that this august body
will disintegrate soon.
It may be that there may be regional UN bodies like the Asian United
Nations, the Middle - Eastern United Nations, the Latin American United
Nations, the African United Nations, the American United Nations and the
European United Nations. Already many people are aware that the UN has
lost its credibility.
SAYBHAN SAMAT, Rajagiriya
The criterion to obtain a driving licence is to drive a vehicle which
is operated with manual gears, whereas auto gear vehicles are not
permitted at the test? Today except for heavy vehicles, ninety per cent
of the vehicles imported are auto driven.
If this is the reason, why do we import auto driven vehicles, and if
they are allowed to be imported freely, why aren't these vehicles not
allowed to be driven at the test?
Isn't it ridiculous? The Commissioner of Motor Traffic should ratify
that auto driven vehicles too should be permitted at the test or else it
is somewhat like the famous saying 'Koheda yanne malle pol?'
LI KUANG SHU, Kandy |