Human Rights as a weapon

The nations of the world that assembled at the founding of the United Nations proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on noble intentions and desire for world peace. The shock and grief over the loss of millions of lives during the Second World War shook the collective conscience of mankind. Hence their urgent appeal for peace on earth and respect for human dignity.

Since the UDHR has found universal acceptance and acclaim one would have expected that human rights would not be a bone of contention within states and among states. However, it has not been so. The Western powers and the civil society in the West have always upheld civil and political rights over economic, social and cultural rights of people. The developing countries have, on the other hand, advocated the primacy of the latter over the former. Before everything else man must have food, clothing and shelter. If these are not guaranteed the right to life itself is threatened. The Western nations who are largely responsible for the poverty and underdevelopment of the Third World always refrained from recognizing economic, social and political rights as they found them responsible for the deprivation of those rights to a majority of the earth's population through colonial plunder and neo-colonial exploitation.

While giving primacy to civil and political rights the West continued to define them in their terms based on a false premise that Western states practise the most advanced form of democracy known to society. In fact, much advanced forms of democracy have prevailed in Asia and the rest of the world before these societies were polluted by contact with the Capitalist West.

The entire post World War II history shows that the Western nations have used human rights as a weapon to politically strangle Third World countries that are at variance with them on economic and political policies. In this connection they have consistently used double standards and have been selective in raising issues of human rights.

At the moment these powers are attacking Sri Lanka over alleged violations of human rights during the latter part of the armed conflict in Sri Lanka. A big media campaign has been launched together with diplomatic moves to isolate the country and censure it in world bodies in order to institute criminal proceedings against its leaders. Of course, they have no evidence. The biggest piece of video evidence they harp on is an alleged incident of a soldier shooting a civilian used by Channel Four television. Many diplomats from David Miliband of the United Kingdom to Philip Alston of the United Nations are striving hard to put Sri Lanka in the dock. Yet all these gentlemen and ladies such as Hilary Clinton were playing the role of proverbial monkeys who saw no evil, heard no evil and said no evil when thousands were murdered by Israel in Palestine, particularly in the Gaza Strip, by the United States Security Forces in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The United Nations has also done nothing even after its own investigators found volumes of evidence of genocide by Israel in Palestine and by the US led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Actually none of these states and their leaders has any moral right to point an accusing finger at Sri Lanka.

The issue is not human rights. It is a question of defending the sovereignty of the country and hence its very existence.

It is not possible to overcome this assault on our sovereignty by appeasing the aggressors or kneeling down before him. As la passionaria said during the legendary Spanish civil war defending the Republic, it is better to die standing on your feet than living kneeling down.