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Government Gazette

UN, press freedom and expression of Olar Clinton's lack of security

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


Mosquito menace in Colombo

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


Why Holocaust only for Jews?

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


Why not auto gear vehicles?

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

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