China Card Becomes ‘License’ for Genocidal Order

With the seemingly blackmailing speech of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, reported in Colombo media on Friday that if the USA withdraws its military training programmes to Sri Lanka, China would replace them, it becomes very explicit that the China card [i.e. point of leverage] is now openly used for justifying a genocidal State order in the world, Tamil political analysts in the island said.  Gotabhaya’s stand reported in Colombo media as “We don’t need you, we got China, Gotabhaya tells US,” is not taken seriously by Tamil political analysts, since Gotabhaya would have thrown away his US passport if he was that ‘Sri Lankan’ and the US policy analysts and groups would not have been engaged in ‘reaching out’ Sri Lanka and engineering the integrity of the genocidal State, if Gota’s speech really means anything, the analysts said.

Both the USA and India follow only a policy of ‘reaching out’ to Sri Lanka, however genocidal it is. Sections of the US and Indian analysts go to the extent of blaming the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu for being an impediment in the process, Tamil political analysts said.

If a card is repeatedly misused by a State, that too to the extent of committing and sustaining genocide and defying all norms of civilised humanity, then citing the card and advocating for ‘reaching out’to  the State is only a criminal approach to international relations that will have a domino effect.  The suspicion increasingly falls on those who cite the card rather than the one in whose name the card is used, the analysts said.

Geopolitical preoccupations may come and go.  But credibility lost will not come back and will take its toll on the blunderers.  If geopolitics is the problem, change the geopolitics, bring in new equations, but abetting genocide is not the answer, according to responses by the Tamil political analysts to the current media deliberations in the West and in South Asia that blow geopolitical sirens to push the question of the right to liberation of genocide-facing Eezham Tamils to the margin.

Speaking at a ceremony of Sri Lanka’s National Chamber of Commerce held at Hotel Hilton in Colombo, the SL Defence Secretary and presidential sibling, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was cited as saying, “The biggest threat the US can pose to Sri Lanka’s military is to take away their defence scholarships”

“We can send our soldiers to China for training,” Gotabhaya added.

This is the same thing Colombo told India too, when Tamil Nadu protested over India training Sri Lanka’s military, and now it is well known that New Delhi uses that to justify its continued complicity in Colombo’s genocide of Eezham Tamils.

The Maldivian media was equally sceptical about the West practically acting against the Rajapaksa regime.

“His sacking of Sri Lanka’s chief justice may have prompted new international condemnation, but analysts say President Mahinda Rajapakse is not merely impervious to foreign criticism — he thrives off it,” The Maldivian media ‘Haveeru’ said on Thursday.

“Given that Western criticism of the army’s actions at the end of the civil war had little impact on the government, it is unlikely to worry about the response to the impeachment,” ‘Haveeru’ cited Chatham House think-tank’s Gareth Price telling AFP.

According to news reports, Gotabhaya speaking at the Hilton has also claimed that Sri Lanka had not received any weapons assistance from the US during the war.

Was he was subtly shielding the USA from its architecture cum gang-up contribution to the genocidal war, Tamil political observers in the island ask?

Meanwhile, elements close to Gotabhaya, who cast saner images in New Delhi and Washington, are actively engaged in campaigning in the US, defending the Rajapaksa regime on the SL Chief Justice impeachment case, informed circles said.

China’s continued silence over a paradigmatic misuse of its card in the genocidal context of the island is not going to help its image in the region in the long run, if it really cares for long-term achievements in the region, commented Tamil political analysts in the island.

DAWN, January 20. 2013 Lanka warns US it may turn to China for military training