Double standards of the West

Mano RATWATTE

I totally agree with President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s comments about the Uva Rebellion and how the Christian Colonial British committed genocide by killing every able bodied man over 18 years of age, razing crops and even taking away the salt from villages in Uva.

World history is replete with incidents where Western nations including the US, Britain, France and Belgium (two leading EU nations) committed crimes against humanity without ever having been called to account for their sins. We all know about how Germany and Japan behaved during World War-II but less is said about the victorious powers, their excesses and the crimes in the Colonies because they won the war; hence their excesses were never brought to light or mentioned at the Hague. No one talks about winners in the same light as the vanquished. That is because the way global media channels are controlled.

For starters, during the D-Day landing at Normandy, Allied bombers totally wiped out the French Coastal city of Caen even though they knew there were thousands of civilians inside the city along with German Forces. Thousands of French civilians died. Was it necessary?

The bombing of Dresden by the British (RAF) and US Air Force (USAAF) occurred in February 1945 even though it was not a justifiable military target. Nearly 50,000 German civilians perished in what is viewed as a revenge attack for the bombing raids against London earlier in the war. It is reported that 1,300 heavy bombers dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city. Was it militarily necessary or punitive action?

And amongst the least talked and least acknowledged crimes against humanity was the genocide in Belgian Congo in the early 1900s. Anywhere between three million to eight million Congolese were raped, mutilated and massacred as a direct result of orders by Catholic King Leopold-II of Belgium. Was he ever brought up on war crimes charges? No his actions were condoned by the Belgian Catholic church and news of these atrocities were hidden from the world for a long time. Was it necessary?

These are just a few facts of history. We can examine the excesses by US Forces in Vietnam (MyLai was just one of the few that were exposed thanks to journalists). For example, former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska acknowledged massacring 25 innocent Vietnamese civilians in a US Navy Seal attack. Senator Bob Kerrey led a seven-member team of Navy Seals into Thanh Phong village in February 1969, and murdered in cold blood more than a dozen women and children. What hardly anyone knows, and what no one in the press is talking about, is that Senator Kerrey was on a CIA mission, and its specific purpose was to kill those women and children. It was illegal, premeditated mass murder and it was a war crime. He had to wait nearly 30 years to admit this crime. Why has no one brought charges against him? Was it a necessary mission? I have never heard Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing ‘disappointment’ at her friend.

In addition, millions of tons of munitions were unloaded over Cambodia and Vietnam causing millions of civilian deaths. To this date, unsuspecting village people are dying and getting maimed when they step on US ordnance from that ugly war.

Who is to take these crimes to court? Who has even accepted responsibility for such crimes?

Thank you President of Sri Lanka for exposing some of the amazing ways of the Colonial Christian masters of yore. History tells us a lot but the West only selectively uses what is convenient for them. There are so many incidents like that in S.Asia. For example the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in India in April 1919.

Does anyone talk about the displacement of people in the Kandyan provinces that is documented by the Kandyan Peasantry Commission? Which nation permanently altered the demographics of Sri Lanka by bringing in indentured labour from S.India? Has anyone done an analysis of the impact of that massive change on Sri Lanka’s landscape even though it is history now?

Who has ever said Mea Culpa Mea Culpa Mea Maxima Culpa?

Thank you Mister President for challenging those haughty Colonials and neo Colonials. No elected leader before you ever had the courage to call a spade a spade.