Rajiva Wijesinha

“ The Sri Lankan government recently invited the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Sri Lanka. The poor lady is now here, and has found herself the focus of a series of articles in which she is presented as the potential saviour of the Sri Lankan people. ”

“ There is reason to suppose that he did this because of the constructive engagement pursued by the model Sri Lanka Mission in Geneva. That indeed is the policy of the government, to discuss issues openly, weigh up advice, and respond constructively. After all, we have a democratic government, elected twice as it were, in elections that have been universally accepted as fair, except for the plaintive cry of the UNP that they were deprived of the mass vote they were anticipating. ”

“ This had clearly not occurred to the Portuguese ambassador to the UN in New York, when, talking on behalf of the United Nations, he clustered together Sri Lanka and the Sudan and Somalia and Iraq and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Portuguese ambassador in Geneva, who had engaged with the Sri Lankan Mission there along with his colleagues, was much more circumspect and laid aside the resolution he had originally indicated he had been instructed to put forward. ”

“ The adjective political is applied to lunacy, realism, intellect and disasters, plus another half dozen or so words. Dr Saravanamuttu has now decided to dwell on words such as apparatchiks and fellow travelers, and accuse the targets of his criticism of abuse and invective, whilst relishing his own use of words such as silly, myopic, callous, antediluvian, obsolete and obsession. ”