Obama,Clinton, Power accountable for protracted genocide haunting Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 10 November 2018, 21:24 GMT]
From Hillary Clinton to Samantha Power, the principal actors of Barak Obama's administration knowingly abetted the Sri Lankan State, which was committing genocide and paved the way for the post-2009 paradigm of structural genocide by swapping international investigations with incompatible transitional justice for the sake of their geopolitical access. Particularly after 2015, the Obama administration promoted the cosmetic changes to the unitary constitution of genocidal Sri Lanka and wanted Tamils to adopt collaboration politics with Sinhala rulers, which is interpreted as Quisling Politics by the grassroots of Eezham Tamils. Samantha Power, who was the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations (August 2013 – January 2017), is now escaping with soft Tweets while Clinton is silent.

US President Donal Trump, who is well known for hard-hitting tweets on international policy matters, is dead silent on the current crisis engulfing the strategically located island.

However, the US State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert issued a statement within a few hours after SL President Maithiripala Sirisena sacked Ranil Wickramasinghe and installed the former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa as the new prime minister.

The statement issued on October 28, read as follows: “The United States continues to follow developments in Sri Lanka with concern. We urge all sides to refrain from intimidation and violence. We call on the President, in consultation with the Speaker, to immediately reconvene parliament and allow the democratically elected representatives of the Sri Lankan people to fulfil their responsibility to affirm who will lead their government.”

Since then, the US Embassy in Colombo has been issuing security alerts urging US citizens to avoid areas of demonstrations as the protests could turn confrontational and escalate into violence.

Amidst the current turmoil, new US Ambassador to the island Ms Alaina B. Teplitz presented her credentials to SL President Mr Sirisena on 01 November.

The new US Ambassador said she wanted to seize the opportunities that “lay ahead to ensure a safe and thriving Indo-Pacific region”.

On Friday, Mr Sirisena dissolved the parliament all-together and fixed elections on 05 January 2019 while being blamed of violating the SL Constitution, which has been amended by the US-led discourse in recent years, particularly during the times of Obama administration.

The ‘diplomatically’ laid-out statements coming from the West have no say at all as far as the Sinhala southern polity is concerned. The Western diplomatic community is also aware of that fact.

Eezham Tamils have witnessed a number of statements from the same establishments that said in words “military solution is not possible” and urged "peaceful resolution” while the US-led West was tilting the military and diplomatic balance of power to the favour of genocidal State.

Eventually, the UN, its humanitarian agencies and the NGOs pulled out from Vanni allowing the SL State to wage a genocidal onslaught.

After the genocidal onslaught, the same Establishments came with meaningless statements on ‘transitional justice’ knowing that the only transition that took place in the island was completion of physical genocide.

Eezham Tamils should know how to interpret the diplomatic statements that uphold the unitary state and its so-called democracy.

As far as Eezham Tamils are concerned, there is no democracy in the genocidal system, as long as its upholds the 6th Amendment, unitary form and the foremost place to constitutionalised Mahawamsa mindset.

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After allowing the genocide to be committed against Eezham Tamils and relieving the SL State of international investigations on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, the Obama Administration brought the so-called ‘US-Sri Lanka consensus resolution’ (A/HRC/30/1) at the UN Human Rights Council giving an escape-route to it in September 2015.

The resolution 30/1 was fundamentally flawed as it failed to demand investigations on genocide and allowed the SL State to evade international investigation.

The ‘consensus’ resolution didn't recognise Tamils right of self-determination. On the contrary, it was ‘reaffirming’ a ‘unified land’ and the so-called Sri Lankan identity.

The UNHRC resolution from 2015 has only contributed to safeguarding the ‘reputation’ of the genocidal State.

The cosmetic changes, which were recognised by the 30/1 resolution as the bedrock of the future ‘Sri Lanka’, have already been proved as deceptive as far as the Eezham Tamils are concerned.

The continuous protests in the North-East, numerous statements from the former Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister Justice C.V. Wigneswaran as well as the hostile acts of structural- and heritage-genocide in the North-East bear testimony to the deception.

However, even the cosmetics and associated illusions of the SL Constitution concerning the Sinhala nation have also been nakedly exposed as subjects of autocracy.

It is under these circumstances, one needs to have a clear idea on who should be held accountable for the wrong paradigm of ‘transitional justice,’ which was applied without a transition of resolving the underlying conflict.

The Human rights discourse on the SL State in the UN Human Rights Council was profoundly influenced by the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and by the U.S. Mission in Geneva that functioned under them during the Obama administration.



On 28th April 2016, Samantha Power, the former U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, spoke at the U.S. — Sri Lanka Trade and Investment Framework (TIFA) Council meeting, which was held in Washington, D.C.

In that meeting, she praised the ‘Sri Lanka’ as a global champion of human rights.

“You also don’t have to even go all the way to Sri Lanka to know how much has changed. I see it every day in New York. After becoming a sad example of creeping authoritarianism very recently, Sri Lanka has, since January 2015, emerged as a global champion of human rights and democratic accountability,” she said.

Now, she has issued a series of soft tweets to comfort those who were deceived by the Obama administration and her previous position.

Hillary Clinton is entirely silent. She is yet to admit failure, or how she was misled, of her judgement in May 2009 when Eezham Tamils were subjected to a physical genocide in Vanni.

The Hillary Clinton emails released by the US State Department on June 30, 2015, reveal that Burn Strider, a former senior advisor to Ms Hillary Clinton when she was US Secretary of State in 2009, as stating the following to her: "My take is that the people on the ground both with World Bank and IMF believe the Tigers need to be completely defeated and any collateral damage inflicted on private people by SL govt in process is ok..." [Source: UNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05758456 Date: 06/30/2015]

SL President Maithiripala Sirisena and Rajapaksa brothers seem to act with the confidence that Donald Trump's administration would be poised to take advantage of the status quo that the new status quo, which they have created by exploiting the avenues offered during the presidency of Barak Obama.

Recently, Donald Trump's administration has been focusing on two key areas at a bilateral level, while accessing the Trincomalee Harbour through a top-level security-cooperation with India.

The Trump administration has also built the genocidal State's capabilities and information-sharing networks through the Bay of Bengal Initiative and is set to provide USD 39 million for a coastal maritime radar system.

The USA has also transferred a high endurance naval cutter to SL Navy claiming to improve its maritime capabilities.

The Trump administration has pulled out the USA from the UN Human Rights Council in June 2018. It is also opposed to the International Criminal Court.

The Obama administration was responsible for derailing the already ineffective human rights discourse in the UN Human Rights Council into a total disaster.

The Tamil diaspora cannot remain dormant forever without demanding accountability from the individual actors who were responsible for the current plight of their genocide-affected nation in the North-East of the island.

Chronology: