Tuesday, 29th April 2014
Of all the countries that have taken an unnecessary and most times odious stand against Sri Lanka, the one with the most strident and shrill noisemaking on this score has been Canada of course.
The Canadians it could be said behaved as if they have a leadership that has fallen from heaven -- one that is whiter than white as to be lily white if not bleached!
It was the Canadians that boycotted CHOGM when most countries even from among the white Anglo Saxon dominated parts of the world had chosen to be present, some even with a few stated misgivings.
It was Canada that recently dragged Sri Lanka needlessly into a decision that was made in the Canadian Treasury Department probably, to withhold funding from the Commonwealth.
As many have said, the Canadians can decide what to do with their dollars, but to drag another country into explaining a decision taken for Canada’s own budgetary purposes was guileless and arrogant to say the very least.
The man from Mars then who is unaccustomed to how international diplomacy works may as well think that the Canadians are made from some special cut of cloth.
They would imagine that even if the country historically does not have much of a human rights record to speak of -- refer the First Nations controversy for instance -- that there must be some sort of effort in earnest there in this North American country to ensure that the Canadian authorities put their money where their mouths are, as far as fealty to the task of upholding of human rights are concerned.
But it seems the Canadians have more than a few problems in the areas of accountability which they seem to be unable to address in the way solutions are prescribed in the ‘ideal liberal democracies’, to these issues.
To take a case in point for instance, the Canadians have had a problem with regard to serious charges of sexual abuse against officers and soldiers in the Canadian armed forces.
The charges have been particularly vexing as army morale was at a low ebb with female officers accusing male colleagues and superiors of sexual misconduct.
By way of a response to this rather unpleasant and alarming situation the Canadians have now prescribed what is called an internal review process -- whereas some of the victims of these crimes would have preferred independent inquiries for obvious reasons.
Independent inquiries are what the Canadians after all prescribed for Sri Lanka for instance taking up the position that internal inquiries held by army tribunals were not credible.
To put it succinctly, what’s sauce for the goose apparently does not appear to be sauce for the gander, and mere linguistic flourish apart, it seems that the hypocrisy and the double standards in this position makes for some hilarious conclusions.
The Canadians it appears have more documented problems that relate to sexual violence issues in the Army than Sri Lanka has ever had.
The fact remains that most of the allegations of sexual abuse directed at Sri Lankan army personnel have been of an apocryphal nature without hard evidence to back them up with no names either of victim or perpetrator being mentioned by and large.
The Canadian case is different. Most of the allegations have been made by military personnel who have come forward with names of the perpetrators, along with locations of the scenes of the crimes.
Judged against this the charges against the Sri Lankan army have been of a chimerical nature but yet the Canadians among others have had the gall to say that if there are no names of known abusers, there should be a probe anyway, which is almost as if to say in the absence of real incidents, some should be invented.
To put things across politely as possible the Canadians in the context of the above should point the finger at themselves as pointing one at us for instance makes for four that points back boomerang style, towards those making the charges!
See more at: http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=editorial/canada-s-lack-accountability
