If there was ever a clear indication that the future of the new world risks either a world war or destruction of the planet, it was in the majority vote handed down by the United Nations human rights council.
We have emerging and emerged powers and super-powers coming out of the developing world that will create a new global landscape in the 21st century. A combination of these new players secured a majority vote to not only reject a call for an independent investigation into the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil war, but also to endorse a resolution praising the Sri Lankan government.
I am not here taking a position against the Sri Lankan government. The simple fact of the matter is that the truth of the situation is not known, and further that there is a reasonable possibility of civilian deaths on a massive scale, and of serious crimes by both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tiger rebels.
The United Nations was the only independent authority to have collected information (not only anecdotal, but also satellite imagery of craters emerging in civilian safe zones) to get closest to the truth. The United Nations accepts that it does not have sufficient evidence to draw conclusions, but has made it clear that there are sufficient grounds for an investigation. In fact the news accounts that have managed to flow out from the war-zone makes a prima facie case for investigation obvious to any rational person.
How is it then that delegates from a majority of countries managed to conclude that there was no case to answer to (from either side), and that situation was an internal matter? As I said previously, the United Nations had much more information than any other independent organisation. On what grounds did delegates reach their conclusions? Where did they get there factual information as a basis for their decisions?
Adolf Hitler, perhaps the world’s worst known tyrant, was elected into power by the people. The UN Human Rights Council operates under basic democratic principals, and concluded against the evidence. To be sure, the evidence was not sufficient to draw concrete conclusions, but it was certainly sufficient to necessarily warrant investigation into the possibility of serious humanitarian and war crimes.
Conceive if you will a scenario where planet Earth has a democratically elected global government. The democratic vote of the UN HRC is testimony to the logical possibility of this planet being headed by an oppressive and criminal government. If you think I am crazy, consider a super-power like China. China has of course its own internal matter of Tibet, not to mention the Tiananmen Square atrocity, its allies in Burma and Sudan - and the list goes on. The negative influence throughout the world of China’s totalitarian political party is significant, and may therefore continue to do so. If China continues to grow as a super-power, and continues to be run as a dictatorship, it is not very difficult to imagine very grave scenarios some decades down the road - whereby a majority of oppressive states create a scary new world.
A little note here on torture. Sure some of the so-called enhanced interrogation methods used by the United States have occupied the grey area between right and wrong. However even the slightest reading into the torture methods used by the Chinese against the Tibetans leaves no shades of grey for quandary. The level of interrogation used by the United States against indeed the shadiest of characters cannot be compared with state sponsored torture that has occurred in recent times in innumerable countries.
The majority ruling of the UN HRC was indeed a watershed moment in the divining of future global possibilities. It is the clearest warning yet to Western powers such as the United States and various countries in the European Union that they indeed need to take defence and national security as a fundamental necessity for the foreseeable long-term future. A few decades from now, the idea of lending a hand to oppressed minorities in other parts of the world may give way to national defence and national allegiances.
That there is a reasonable possibility of civilian Tamil deaths in Sri Lanka to the level of not just thousands, but tens of thousands in the last weeks and months of battle, and that that goes unquestioned by the international community leaves me with a feeling of utter disgust. I am sure that many countries that voted in accord with the head of the United Nations and the chief of the UN HRC, will indeed take very serious note of the very grave outcome.
The outcome, just like democratically elected Hitler, Hamas, and the new Israeli government, is democracy at its worst. Democracy is a principal that offers hope for a humanity that has since the dawn of time fought against the will to power of tyrants. Democracy is however a principal conditioned by the principal that the majority of civilians are in fact civil: are in fact sane. The barbarian in man has yet to emerge fully from the jungle. The tiger may well be in the Tamil militant group. However it is lurking live and well in other places as well. May this planet prosper and not be consumed by darkness.
We have emerging and emerged powers and super-powers coming out of the developing world that will create a new global landscape in the 21st century. A combination of these new players secured a majority vote to not only reject a call for an independent investigation into the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil war, but also to endorse a resolution praising the Sri Lankan government.
I am not here taking a position against the Sri Lankan government. The simple fact of the matter is that the truth of the situation is not known, and further that there is a reasonable possibility of civilian deaths on a massive scale, and of serious crimes by both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tiger rebels.
The United Nations was the only independent authority to have collected information (not only anecdotal, but also satellite imagery of craters emerging in civilian safe zones) to get closest to the truth. The United Nations accepts that it does not have sufficient evidence to draw conclusions, but has made it clear that there are sufficient grounds for an investigation. In fact the news accounts that have managed to flow out from the war-zone makes a prima facie case for investigation obvious to any rational person.
How is it then that delegates from a majority of countries managed to conclude that there was no case to answer to (from either side), and that situation was an internal matter? As I said previously, the United Nations had much more information than any other independent organisation. On what grounds did delegates reach their conclusions? Where did they get there factual information as a basis for their decisions?
Adolf Hitler, perhaps the world’s worst known tyrant, was elected into power by the people. The UN Human Rights Council operates under basic democratic principals, and concluded against the evidence. To be sure, the evidence was not sufficient to draw concrete conclusions, but it was certainly sufficient to necessarily warrant investigation into the possibility of serious humanitarian and war crimes.
Conceive if you will a scenario where planet Earth has a democratically elected global government. The democratic vote of the UN HRC is testimony to the logical possibility of this planet being headed by an oppressive and criminal government. If you think I am crazy, consider a super-power like China. China has of course its own internal matter of Tibet, not to mention the Tiananmen Square atrocity, its allies in Burma and Sudan - and the list goes on. The negative influence throughout the world of China’s totalitarian political party is significant, and may therefore continue to do so. If China continues to grow as a super-power, and continues to be run as a dictatorship, it is not very difficult to imagine very grave scenarios some decades down the road - whereby a majority of oppressive states create a scary new world.
A little note here on torture. Sure some of the so-called enhanced interrogation methods used by the United States have occupied the grey area between right and wrong. However even the slightest reading into the torture methods used by the Chinese against the Tibetans leaves no shades of grey for quandary. The level of interrogation used by the United States against indeed the shadiest of characters cannot be compared with state sponsored torture that has occurred in recent times in innumerable countries.
The majority ruling of the UN HRC was indeed a watershed moment in the divining of future global possibilities. It is the clearest warning yet to Western powers such as the United States and various countries in the European Union that they indeed need to take defence and national security as a fundamental necessity for the foreseeable long-term future. A few decades from now, the idea of lending a hand to oppressed minorities in other parts of the world may give way to national defence and national allegiances.
That there is a reasonable possibility of civilian Tamil deaths in Sri Lanka to the level of not just thousands, but tens of thousands in the last weeks and months of battle, and that that goes unquestioned by the international community leaves me with a feeling of utter disgust. I am sure that many countries that voted in accord with the head of the United Nations and the chief of the UN HRC, will indeed take very serious note of the very grave outcome.
The outcome, just like democratically elected Hitler, Hamas, and the new Israeli government, is democracy at its worst. Democracy is a principal that offers hope for a humanity that has since the dawn of time fought against the will to power of tyrants. Democracy is however a principal conditioned by the principal that the majority of civilians are in fact civil: are in fact sane. The barbarian in man has yet to emerge fully from the jungle. The tiger may well be in the Tamil militant group. However it is lurking live and well in other places as well. May this planet prosper and not be consumed by darkness.
English to Chinese BETA
English to French
English to German
English to Italian
English to Japanese BETA
English to Korean BETA
English to Russian BETA 
English to Spanish
No comments:
Post a Comment