Sri Lanka’s North and East Are Not The Panama Canal, Madam Ambassador
By Hela Puwath
WHY IS US EMBASSY (USAID) BUTTING IN TO TAMIL LAND OWNERSHIP ISSUES?
Rebecca Cohn and Ambassador Butenis, why is the US Embassy (USAID) involved in Tamil land ownership issues?
What business has the US in Sri Lanka’s land issues? And why is the Sri Lanka government allowing the US to interfere in the internal affairs of our country? Isn’t Sri Lanka a sovereign nation?
THE US IS NOT SURE ABOUT OUR AUTHORITY AND ABILITY TO SOLVE LAND ISSUES – “occupation of land by non-original owners”
The US embassy says, “This study tour will focus on land tenure issues in a post-conflict environment and highlight issues of ownership security and occupation of land by non-original owners.”
Is this not the signal to claim that the Sinhalese in the East and North are ‘non-original owners’ of a Tamil homeland? Further, there is little doubt the LTTE “land registry” in Killinochchi printed their own land deeds out of Crown Land and lands they drove out the Sinhalese and Muslims from.
Calling it “aid” (USAID), the US is interfering in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka; they are trying to subvert the authority of Sri Lanka government. If this is not interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, what is?
The legitimate government of a sovereign nation should not look on and let a foreign government subvert/undermine its authority.
This is not “aid;” we think this is “subversion.” Doesn’t Sri Lanka have a functioning legal system to solve land disputes? Is this not an attempt by the American embassy to create the impression that we don’t have the wherewithal to govern ourselves? In other words, they are implying that we are like their “Western Puppet” planted in East Timor.
What business has the US embassy to go to solve Tamil land ownership issues bypassing the Sri Lanka government? Sri Lanka is not the Panama Canal Zone.
THE U.S. EMBASSY IS BYPASSING THE SRI LANKA GOVERNMENT IN DEALING WITH EX-REBELS
We submitted to Lankaweb, “Smells Like Norway Trojan Horse – US Embassy to Rehabilitate Former Rebels” on October 30, 2009, where we highlighted how the US embassy is “fishing in troubled waters.” There, bypassing the Sri Lanka government, the US embassy (USAID) was (is) directly re-training/rehabilitating ex-LTTE terrorists. There, the Embassy statement said the former “rebel” Pillaiyan too was rehabilitated by this USAID program. The US Embassy in Colombo, in a press release, said, “The Chief Minister of the Eastern Province, Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan [former LTTE commander], alias Pillaiyan, has already participated in an event in Batticaloa.”
We wrote, “…now comes another US aid project directly to the East, bypassing the government of Sri Lanka …”
Click here to read the referenced article.
AID THAT BYPASSED THE GOVERNMENT
Sri Lanka must not forget what happened to the “aid that bypassed the government.” We now know what happened to all that “aid,” including some of the “tsunami aid,” and the “Wickremasinghe/Prabakaran aid,” that bypassed the government’s oversight. Most Western governments and international aid agencies now demand that their aid be distributed through Western-paid NGOs and agents, bypassing the legitimate democratically elected government of Sri Lanka. We now know where the “aid” ended up!
Judging from the massive hauls of arms and other enormous machinery that are being discovered daily, even now, it is inconceivable that these international agencies and those foreign embassies – through whose agents they funneled their “aid” – did not know where their “aid” was going.
Therefore, now Sri Lanka must ensure that this project, USAID, and others like it, coming from some foreign governments and aid agencies are not more of those “Trojan Horses” by other “Peace Facilitators” and “Good Samaritans.”
As we said then: Paranoid, Cynic?
Yes – given the Sri Lanka assault by the American Ambassador Robert Blake and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – and given the pair’s close association with the likes of financier Raj Rajaratnam and lobbyist/ lawyer Visuvanadan Rudrakumaran!
Not to forget, General Fonseka’s campaign funds – half million (or more) US dollar bills!
Originally published on March 3, 2010 on LankaWeb.
Click here to access the original article.